Broken Pixels (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 4) by D.W. Moneypenny

lofts.
    “Well, this looks like the part of town where you would want to keep something called a repository,” Mara said. “We should be getting there pretty soon.”
    The van followed Highway 30 signs through the maze of industrial buildings, railroad cars and parked semitrucks for the next twenty minutes, only stopping occasionally to allow cross-traffic to pass when indicated by what Mara thought of as invisible traffic lights. After another five minutes, industrial buildings on the left side of the road gave way to steep hills covered with lush trees, while the right side remained flat and urbanized with squat boxy offices, gravelly parking lots and railroad tracks.
    Sam exhaled loudly. “How much longer will this take? We’ll end up in the Pacific Ocean soon if we don’t turn or stop.”
    The van slowed and turned left onto an unmarked road leading into the hills and trees. The rough road climbed for several hundred yards and then leveled out just before entering a dense grove of trees that blocked almost all sunlight. Muted lights illuminated the van inside, and its headlights cut through the darkness outside.
    “It feels like we are in a tunnel,” Sam said.
    Mara nodded ahead and said, “No, that’s going to feel like a tunnel.”
    A concrete wall with a wide opening to accommodate the road loomed ahead. The van continued into the tunnel but decelerated to a crawl for fifty feet and came to a stop in front of a large corrugated aluminum door that blocked their path. The number 97210 was spray-painted in stenciled letters on the door. With a sudden rattle, the door lifted and disappeared into the curved ceiling of the tunnel.
    “This reminds me of one of those underground military installations like NORAD or something,” Mara said. “Except there doesn’t appear to be any kind of security around.”
    “No security that we can see, at any rate,” Ping said. “Perhaps Cam or someone at the hospital notified them that we were on our way. If they arranged for the transportation, it seems reasonable that they would have contacted whoever administers this facility.”
    The rising door revealed a wire-framed compartment as wide as the road and deep enough to accommodate the van, above which was mounted a tight cluster of machinery—a collection of wheels, pulleys and cables. The front wall of the compartment slid to the right, revealing a steel-plated floor with noticeable tire tracks. The van inched forward until it was inside the compartment. The front wall slid closed behind them, blocking them in.
    Mara pointed to the concrete walls through the wire mesh and said, “We’ve just entered an elevator shaft or a cargo lift of some kind.”
    Something clattered against the undercarriage of the van, sending vibrations through their seats.
    Sam locked stares with his sister. “That felt like something just attached itself to the bottom of the van.”
    Mara raised an eyebrow. “Some kind of clamp to keep us from rolling around while the elevator is moving?”
    The van’s engine cut off, and the interior lights went out.
    They plunged into the ground. As Mara felt her body lift off her seat and press against the seat belt running across her torso, she tried to cry out but could not inhale enough air to make a sound. Bands of light, apparently built into the shaft through which they fell, whipped by so quickly they almost blurred together. Just when she thought she might pass out, the elevator felt as if it had slammed into a cushion of air, and the descent slowed. Mara heard Sam rustling about in the passenger seat.
    “Are you guys okay?” she asked.
    “My stomach feels like it is about to come out my throat,” Sam said.
    As the elevator came to a stop, Ping said, “I’m fine, especially now that it appears we have arrived.”
    Through the windshield of the van and the wire mesh sides of the elevator compartment, another corrugated aluminum door lifted, opening to an asphalt-covered platform sitting in