Sierra’s lips curled upward. “That’s the order. It’s tied to the experiments on this list. Adi, write this down.” She read through the list of colors in the experiment results. Carter found each one on the chart, and Adi put the numbers into their new order.
14-20-8-3-47-13-10
“But if those twelve digits correspond to our locks,” said Beck, “how do we know which one to start with?”
“Guess and check,” said Adi. “I’ll go first. 142 . . .”
“No, the quote,” said Sierra. “We put them in order of the quote. “Who had ‘no one nor’?”
“Me!” said Beck.
“And I had ‘anything can,’” said Carter.
Adi read off the numbers so everyone could input them. One by one, the locks clicked.
Sierra pulled off the padlock. She hesitated, knowing that as soon as her teammates laid eyes on her, everything would change. They’d be distracted. Confused. Curious. And she didn’t have time for any of that. They needed to win those snags.
She pushed open the door, entering a large central room that was severe in its cleanliness. A metal table held an assortment of chemistry equipment—Bunsen burners and test tubes—like something from the lab of a mad scientist. Seven large beakers were suspended over a series of twisty tubes that fed into one central glass pot. Each beaker was filled with a liquid, making up the colors of the rainbow. They were stoppered with individual wheels that would let the liquids flow down to the pot.
A gasp drew her attention to her left, where a Black girl with bright red curls, round glasses, and a green lab coat was staring at Sierra, a hand to her mouth. This must be Carter.
“Itisyou,” the girl whispered.
Beyond her was a boy—Adi?—in a yellow lab coat that stood out against his brown skin. He was obnoxiously good-looking, though his astonished expression marred the effect.
A door clicked and Sierra turned to their fourth teammate. Beck. Their gazes met. He had a swoop of brown hair, moussed into perfection. His blue lab coat highlighted his bright blue eyes, but the most striking thing about him was that he didn’t act surprised to see Sierra. In fact, he seemed grimly resigned.
It was Beck, not her, who said, “Process later. We’re almost through this.”
Well. Proof he had his head in the game, at least.
He approached the table full of lab equipment. “Let’s assume we need to turn some of these wheels and combine certain chemicals. Sierra, think there could be a clue in those lab notes?”
It took her a moment to recalibrate. Adi and Carter were still gawking at her, so she studied the suspended beakers and said, “The colors don’t match up with the ones on the clipboard. And I don’t see anything to indicate which experiment we’d want to replicate. But if we get it wrong, then . . . that’s it. We can’t take it back. We’d fail.”
She paced in front of the table. There had never been an automatic fail option on the show before.
“Well then,” said Beck, “let’s get it right.”
He started turning one of the wheels.
Sierra’s pulse jumped. “What are you doing?” she shouted as blue liquid coursed through the tubes.
Beck turned the next wheel. Red flowed into the pot, mixing with the blue.
“Stop!” said Sierra. “You can’t do this without consulting me! Us. Without consultingus.”
“It’s okay. I have a theory,” he said.
Another wheel. Green combined with the liquids.
“Beck! You’ve—ugh!” Sierra threaded her fingers into her hair, nails digging into her scalp, as Beck tuned a fourth wheel, adding yellow to the mix. “If you ruin this for me, I will murder you in your sleep!”
Beck spun to her, andnowshe had his attention, but from his horrified expression she realized it wasn’t the sort of attention she wanted.
She had to stop saying stuff like that.
Carter gasped again, even louder than when she’d recognized Sierra.
