Shadow Unit 15 by Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear Page B

you've got.
    "Duct tape."
    The shoes aren't half bad. She wishes she had socks; Chucks give you blisters without them, and she's only wearing stockings. "Perfect. Don't let him see you."
    Leon smiles. "I'll watch your purse."
    Hafs pulls the extinction-threatened brownies out before she hands it over. "And the video if it comes back on. But Leon. I took your gun. Stay in this room. Stay on comm. Don't move. I need you. And keep calling those ACTF numbers. The landlines might come back first. You need to get my team. Don't let anybody in here."
    "Except the—"
    "No." Hafs bit out. "No one. Do you hear me? Bloody Larry didn't pick the lock with a hangnail. We don't know who let him out, and you are going home today. You are going home today. So don't you let anybody in here. Not even me."
    "But—"
    "Whoever let him out might be a monster, too." Hafs jerks her thumb at the open locker. She puts her hand on the knob.
    "Wait," Leon says. "You're gonna be working hard out there." He slides the box of strudels over, still three left. "Take those. And my Gatorade."
    "Leon, you know how to take care of a lady. Get under cover and hide."
     
    *
     
    "What's happening?" Natalie asks. "Did the power go out?"
    "The emergency lights should have kicked in," Susanna says. "They'll kick in any minute, right?"
    "One moment." That's Dr. Ramachandran, and he walks over to the wall-mounted Bakelite phone. He picks it up, listen, and puts it back on the hook. "The internal telephone system is down. This is a full power outage. The phone system should work if the generators are operating."
    "Doc? Do you have a cell phone?" Dice asks.
    Dr. Ramachandran shakes his head. "Phones demand attention. I left it in the office when I came in here to talk to you."
    Dice holds up his Nokia. "Mine's not smart." He powers it on anyway. "I have signal."
    "Do me a favor, Mr. Cieslewicz, and turn your phone to silent," Dr. Ramachandran says.
    Dice was already cycling through the menu to do just that.
    "I've got a bad feeling about this," Eddie says. "Real bad, Doc."
    "I'm worried, too," Dr. Ramachandran says. "What will help you, Eddie?"
    "If everyone would get under cover, I mean out of line of sight from the door, and away from the windows," Eddie says. "On this side of the door, at least, so the room looks empty—"
    "Shh," Dice says, straining to hear. "That's screaming."
    It was.
    "That's close by. Get cover, now. Please." Eddie moves over and stands to the right of the door.
    "Who the hell do I call? 911? They'll be lunch," Dice whispers. "Danny Brady and Hafidha Gates are in the building, do I call them?"
    "Try a text message," Natalie says. She's got a liter sport bottle of water and she's squeezing it like a baby doll.
    Dice runs his thumbs over the keys, typing as fast as he can:
    Tank sos no power 4th flr TV rm
    The screen lights up when Daniel Brady replies with only one word:
    Hide.
     
    *
     
    Hafidha found Sam on the way to the interview room where Brady should be with Saito. He's beyond help—beyond even comfort. Now his blood dries on her hands, too, black in the glow of the emergency lights. She moves fast, Leon's pistol at low safe. A ricochet in these old brick corridors could have disastrous results.
    The door to the interview room stands open. There's Rufus, sitting against the wall with his knees drawn to his chest. Incapacitated, though Hafidha can't say for now just how. He's alive, though, and when he sees Hafidha backlit by the exit sign his eyes go wide. She starts to come to him, but he shakes his head and jerks a thumb down the corridor. They went thataway.
    And not long ago, either, if Rufus pressing his finger to his lips is anything to go on.
    At least he's not curled in a puddle of his own red.
    She catfoots around the corner in Emily Partridge's shoes and sees two men at the far end of the hall, just coming up on the fire doors. The smaller walks ahead of the larger, in that duck-walk shuffle of the shackled, and Hafidha's heart