Shadow Unit 15 by Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear Page A

hand trembles, squeezes once. Yes . But then she lets go, and Hafidha feels through the already thickening blood for a pulse.
    Don't be an idiot, you're kneeling in her blood.
    Reyes and Todd had taken Hakes down in a funhouse. Reyes nearly died anyway. She didn't have a funhouse. She didn't have Solomon Todd and his peculiar luck. But Brady is—
    Shit.
    Brady's with Saito.
    Hafidha needs to fetch him. With any luck, Saito will want to take his time.
    She can drop Hakes if she can get the shot before he sees her. She doesn't miss. She might even be able to drop him if he does see her, as long as she does it fast enough that she can still aim.
    She needs a weapon, first of all. Fortunately, the cafeteria's near the front desk.
    She pats Katharine Allison's warm cheek, checks the pockets of her bloodstained lab coat, finds keys, a keycard, a runner's can of pepper spray. She stands up. Weapon. Brady. Hakes. Whoever the hell started this. In that order, and spaced out neatly, please.
    Hafidha Gates slips through the crimson shadows, keeping her head low, clearing each corridor before she steps into it. Leaving a trail of blood.
     
    *
     
    Hafidha knocks on the locked door of the video room and makes sure to stand in plain sight of the reinforced window. She sighs in relief when the door opens and she sees who's on duty.
    "Leon," Hafidha says, tone low, hands open. "I know you know me. You know I'm one of them. But I have to ask you to believe me right now."
    He doesn't have a weapon out. But he's halfway to reaching for it. He says, very calmly, "Whose blood is that, Agent Gates?"
    "Larry's out," she answers. "This—" Her voice catches. She scrubs her hands down the sides of her suit coat. "Kat," she says, miserably, because one syllable is all she can squeeze out through her tightening throat.
    "Jesus fucking Christmas," Leon says. "Anyone else hurt? Loose?"
    "Clark," she says, getting herself back. "Kat was taking him for a walk when... I don't know if he'll be a threat. Maybe more in danger himself. But Leon, somebody turned off the power, and somebody sprang Bloody Larry, and that somebody is still a threat."
    "Right," he said.
    "Lend me your tablet and your sidearm, and I will go in there and hunt the monsters. I promise I will tell people I took the gun from you and you couldn't stop me."
    "Why the tablet?" But he's already handing it over, Bloody Larry's name like a passkey. He slides his gun along the surface of the desk, and he's trying the bottom right drawer with the toe of his boot.
    "Sometimes it helps to have a focus even if you don't need it," Hafs says. She passes her fingers over it, frowning, and then hands it back. "That's a chat window. You can type to me and I can type to you."
    "This is the only extra clip," Leon says, and Hafs tucks it up her sleeve for want of a better place.
    He pauses. "Wait, those shoes—"
    "It is what it is," she says, hearing Brady and Falkner in her own tones. The Army mantra.
    "Partridge keeps a pair of Chucks in her locker. They might be big on you, but they have rubber soles." He produces a pair of dikes from his desk drawer and snips the master lock—Hafidha has to help, both of them leaning on the handles to cut the tempered steel. They clear the lock and yank the locker open.
    "Shit," Hafidha says.
    There are the Chuck Taylors, front and center, on the little top shelf. They're bright green and look nearly new. But other than that, the locker is full of cloth shopping bags, hanging on the hooks where you'd keep your purse, and your coat and scarf in wintertime. And those bags are full of cheap candy: Easter markdowns, the Russell Stover shit.
    "You don't know she let Hakes out," Leon said.
    "I don't know she didn't, either." Hafidha plunges both hands into a bag and fills a pocket of her bloody velvet suit jacket with Creme Eggs and Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. Every little bit counts. "Lock the door behind me. Bar it with a chair. Cover the damned window with anything