THE STEPS.

As Ivan's momentum carried him forward, Ruth let out a piercing scream and Jordan dove forward. He missed Ivan's arm, but his fingers snagged his jacket collar.

It wasn't much ...

But it was enough.

Ivan twisted around to face Jordan. His arms shot up and out as his hands and forearms slapped the top edge of the cave floor. Grit from the cave floor rained down into his face.

For a few seconds-seconds that seemed like minutes-he dangled with his legs kicking freely in empty space.

He grunted, looking up at Jordan and Ruth and the others.

"Uh ... a little help here'd be nice?" he said, his breath puffing hard with the effort of hanging on.

Jordan held the flare high so Annie and Rodriguez could see what they were doing as they knelt down on either side of Ivan and got a good grip on him. Hands wedged under his armpits, they lifted him up, dragging him slowly until his knees scraped against the cave floor.

"Thanks," he said, panting from the effort as he straightened up and brushed himself off.

He noticed the blood still leaking from Ruth's ear and reached out to touch her on the shoulder.

"You all right?" he asked.

A quick nod. Ivan turned to face the others.

"Okay. Want my guess about what's going on here?"

For a moment, they stood there quiet. Stumped. Then: "It's another part of the defense system."

"Defense system?" Annie echoed, moving close.

"I mean, this is all a deadly game for someone."

"Your brother, you mean," Jordan said.

"No doubt he's enjoying it. But I don't think he had anything to do with making any of this. It's too ingenious. And my guess-probably alien."

Ivan looked around.

"Kyros must have found this place and now he's using it against us. And whoever made these traps was sure as hell protecting something pretty damn important."

"And each part of it," Annie said, "is luring us deeper in-"

"If it doesn't kill us first," Jordan said.

"Yeah," Ivan said. "Designed to kill any interlopers. Like us. That is, unless we can figure out the traps."

"So it's like a test?" Ruth said quietly.

The flare sputtering in Jordan's hand tossed red sparks onto the dirt floor.

"Pass the tests, and it drives us deeper and deeper into the cave," Ivan said. "And I suspect whatever's down here that's valuable my brother has already found."

He looked at Annie. She'd been unshakeable as far as he had seen so far.

Now? Her face was set, grim.

Stay with me, he thought.

"W-we should stop then," Rodriguez said. "I am not going to be herded like an animal to the slaughter. I say we go back."

Ivan turned on him, hoping to make it perfectly clear.

There is no going back. No turning around.

"I say we get out of here while we can," Rodriguez continued. "We can find some other way to deal with your brother if he's even down here."

Ivan tensed, resisting the temptation to punch him.

"Oh, he's down here all right," he said.

Will the doc get the hint to shut the fuck up before he freaks everyone out?

"You think you get to call the shots, Doc?" Ivan kept his voice low, commanding. And Rodriguez took a quick step back. His expression froze as he looked around searching for support from someone ... anyone.

"What?" he said. "You all want to die down here?" He pointed at the stairway. "If we had panicked and been running away from that UHF, not being careful, not looking where we were going, we would all have gone off the edge when we reached these steps."

"Are you about done?" Ivan said, taking a step closer.

"Easy there, Ivan," Jordan said.

"That room back there." Rodriguez's face flushed. "That stuff that was stuck on the walls? You know what it was, right?"

Before anyone could answer, he finished it for them.

"It's whatever was left of whoever came down here. That high sonic frequency shattered their skulls. And it would have done the same to us if we hadn't run."

"No one's dead," Ivan said.

He looked around, taking the temperature of the group.

"Not yet!"

"It's talk like that that'll get us killed. Fear, Doctor. Trust me. Fear kills."

And Rodriguez definitely looked afraid when Ivan stepped closer.

Rodriguez looked at Annie, as if expecting her to back him up, protect him.

"I say we put it to a vote," he said.

Before he could finish, Ivan backhanded him across the mouth, a hard, loud smack that drew blood.

"Leave if you want, Doc," Ivan said softly, evenly. "But I say we're safer if we stick together."

Wiping blood away with the back of his hand, Rodriguez looked at Annie.

"And you're going to just stand there and let him treat one of your passengers like this?"

Annie glanced at Ivan. Then shook her head.

"You're not my responsibility anymore, so"-a shrug-"I'm fine with letting Ivan and Jordan take command."

Ivan cocked an eyebrow at her.

Jordan, too? When did I say anything about Jordan being in charge? he wanted to ask but didn't.

"Okay," Ivan said. "It's decided, then. We have to calm the fuck down and figure this out."

In the sputtering red light of the flare, he looked down the long flight of stairs. They took a long, sweeping curve around to the right and disappeared down into darkness.

Who knew how far down they went ... or if they were even really there?

Are all of the steps an illusion or just some of them?

Ivan dropped onto his hands and knees and waved his hand in the empty space where the step had been. He leaned out, feeling around the edges.

"This step's definitely not there." He leaned out even farther, looking left and right, but it was impossible to see into the deep shadows. "There's no indication it was some kind of projection, so my guess is, the step was real-just not supported."

"We never heard it hit the floor down below," Ruth said.

Ivan nodded. "True. But we were so surprised, we weren't really listening for it, either."

He leaned as far forward as he could go and slapped the second step in front of him.

His hand hit hard stone. This one was solid.

"Okay," he said, easing back onto the platform.

"It won't be if it drops away as soon as you stand on it," Ruth said, sounding worried.

Ivan sat back on his heels and ran his fingers through his hair.

"I'm thinking the first step was a holographic projection. Never really there. No one would create a trap where a real stone would fall and have to be reset every time someone tripped it."

"Maybe," Jordan said, "but how do we know which steps are real ... or if any of them will support us?"

Ivan stared down the long, winding stairway, thinking.

"That flare about done?" he asked Jordan.

He held out his hand.

Jordan studied the flare for a moment and then gave it to him.

Ivan gripped it loosely, feeling the heat of the burning metal tube. Then he leaned over the gap and gently tossed it onto the second step.

It hit the wide stone block with a loud, metallic ringing sound.

The stone step didn't disappear. Then the flare rolled and dropped onto the next level.

Same thing.

The stair remained where it was.

The fourth step didn't fall or disappear, either.

But when the flare rolled onto the fifth step, that one winked out of existence with a faint electronic hum.

And the flare dropped, spinning end over end until it disappeared into the dark abyss.

"Long way down," Jordan said once the light was gone.

Ivan nodded. "Hate to fall."

He took a breath. "Okay, then" he said. "The first step and the fifth step weren't real. If this is some kind of puzzle, it'd be too easy for every other step to be the fake one, right? So"-he shook his head-"the only way to find out is to go down them ... step by step."

"You're out of your mind," Rodriguez said. He was daubing at his split lip, licking the blood off his fingertips. "You'll get us all killed."

Ivan stood up and brushed his hands on his jacket.

"You know, Doc, I was kinda thinking of asking you to lead the way."

Rodriguez backed away.

Ivan smiled and, turning to the others, said, "So who has the fiber cable?"

Jordan stepped forward, unzipped his backpack, and took out a length of thickly coiled cable.

Ivan held the man's gaze as they each held the cable tightly.

"You want to play hero?" Ivan asked.

Jordan smiled and let go of the cable.

"All right, then. We loop this around ourselves and start down one at a time, single file, giving plenty of slack. I'll take the lead."