"You could help, you know," I said.

"I just like watching you work," she said. "Or maybe I just like the thought of you all sweaty."

"Oh good," I said. "I knew there had to be a reason. Want me to build you a snowman, when I'm done here?"

"Did you bring any carrots?"

"Damn," I said, clearing the last of the snow away. "Knew I forgot something."

"Why did they bury the entrance so deep?" said Molly, coming in close for a better look. "It's like no one's used it for years."

"From the look of it, this was never intended for use as an entrance," I said. "This has all the appearances of an emergency exit. For getting out of Area 52 in a hurry, when the brown stuff is hitting the revolving blades."

I crouched down in the hole I'd made, and studied the steel door carefully. Molly pressed in close, peering over my shoulder. The door was solid steel, inches thick, with a really complicated locking system. Reminded me very much of an airlock.

"I could probably smash through this," I said finally. "It's only steel. But given the sophistication of the locking systems, I'd bet good money that any break in the door's integrity would result in a complete shutdown of the access systems. Not to mention setting off all sorts of alarms and security systems. Which means… either we figure out how to open all those locks, or we don't get in."

"When in doubt, cheat," Molly said cheerfully. "Lend me that Chameleon Codex thing of yours, for a minute."

I reached through my golden armour at the wrist, carefully undid one of my cuff links by touch, brought it out and handed it to Molly. I watched interestedly as she pressed the cuff link carefully against the various sensors, picking up the latent DNA traces left by whoever touched them last, preserved, hopefully, by the snow and the cold. She then held the cuff link up, muttered over it for a while, and suddenly a small cloud of dust motes was flying around her hand. They leapt up and coalesced into a vaguely human shape, becoming gradually clearer and more distinct as Molly shaped them with her muttered Words. She was putting together what we in the trade call a smoke ghost: a mindless, soulless re-creation of a human body, made from discarded DNA, skin flakes and other human remnants, mixed with whatever happened to be floating about in the air at the time. Not real, not even the memory of a person, just a flimsy spectre created from what men leave behind them. They don't tend to last long, but you can do all kinds of interesting things with them.

Molly's first few attempts at smoke ghost sculpting weren't too successful-deformed and misshapen, bits missing or wildly out of proportion… but eventually she put together something that would pass. It crouched in the hole with us, bent over the steel door, made of shades of grey so fine it was hardly there. It had no sense of presence, of anyone actually being there with us, which was actually quite disturbing. I gestured sharply for Molly to get a move on, and the smoke ghost moved jerkily as Molly moved it with her mind. It presented its grey eye to the retina scanner, touched the fingerprint lock with a grey fingertip, and even managed a few words for the voice recognition circuits. And then it collapsed, returning to the dust from which it was made.

"Freaky," I said.

"Lot you know," said Molly. "I knew this guy who used to put together smoke ghosts just so he could have sex with them…"

"Far too much information," I said.

The steel door revolved slowly beneath us, making low grinding noises, and then fell away, revealing a bleak steel chamber below. A light snapped on, illuminating the chamber. It had no details, no controls, just a single red button on one wall. Molly drew back, shaking her head.

"No way. There is no way on this good earth that I am trusting myself to that. I mean, come on; it looks like a coffin!"

"Emergency escape capsules are not usually noted for their frills and fancies," I said patiently. "It's the only way in, Molly."

She scowled. "Damn thing hasn't been used for years. Suppose it gets stuck halfway down? Or we can't open the door at the other end?"

"Then you'll just have to teleport us the rest of the way."

"Jump blind? In a base crawling with all kinds of shields and protections? Are you crazy?"

"I was hoping for a rather different response," I said. "Look-this is the only way into Area 52 that we know of. And time, as you have already pointed out, is getting tight."

"I really don't want to get into that thing," muttered Molly.

"I'll hold your hand," I said. "You'll be fine. Come on, be a brave little soldier and you can have a sweetie afterwards."

"You want a slap?"

We helped each other down into the steel chamber. It was big enough to hold maybe half a dozen people, if they were all on really friendly terms. It was the lack of details that made it so claustrophobic; this wasn't a place people were supposed to be in, unless they absolutely had to. I pressed the red button firmly, and the heavy steel door lifted back up into place, revolved a few times, and was still. For a worryingly long moment nothing happened, and then the chamber descended slowly into the depths. There was no sound of any motor, no sense of speed, only the sense of falling into an unknowable pit.

The descent went on for rather longer than was comfortable, and I had to wonder just how deep they'd buried Area 52, under the concealing snow and ice of the Antarctic. Just what were they hiding here, that needed to be imprisoned so deep in the earth? Were they worried about something getting in, or something getting out?

"They built this place deep," said Molly, echoing my thoughts.

"Well, wouldn't you?" I said reasonably. "Given some of the truly dangerous things they're supposed to have stored away here?"

"Like what?" Molly said immediately. "Come on; you're the one who's read all your family's files on this place; what exactly are they sitting on here?"

"Ah," I said. "Nothing too important or frightening, of course, because we always get to those first. But they are supposed to have squirreled away a fair collection of very interesting pieces…"

"You don't know!" said Molly. "You haven't got a clue what's down here, have you?"

"Be fair," I said. "No one in my family has even been to Area 52 before. Never felt the need, until now. We've always relied on reports from people on the inside. But don't worry, sweetie, I'm sure we'll find something nice you can take home as a souvenir."

The steel chamber finally came to a halt deep underground, and a door opened that I would have sworn wasn't there a moment before. I stepped quickly out and looked around, ready for any response. Molly was right there with me; but the shining steel corridor was completely empty. The door slid shut behind us, and then the corridor was utterly still and silent. Fierce electric light meant there were no shadows, and there wasn't even a whisper of air-conditioning. Nothing moved. The steel corridor stretched away in both directions, empty and deserted.

"You know, I thought for sure someone would be expecting us," said Molly. "I had some really unpleasant transformation spells lined up, just waiting to be unleashed on the wicked and deserving."

"I thought those took a lot out of you," I said.

Molly smiled. "The look on people's faces makes it all worthwhile. Your trouble is, you just don't know how to have fun."

"I have a really bad feeling about this," I said.

"You always have a really bad feeling," said Molly.

"And I'm usually right."

Molly looked up and down the long steel corridor. "So, which way do we go?"

"I don't know," I said. "Your guess is as good as mine. I told you-no one in my family has ever seen the inside of this place. Even the floor plans in our files are years out of date. And the regular reports we get usually just consist of Everything's fine, nobody panic. I have to say, I'm not entirely sure we're getting value for money there."