Hyperthought by M. M. Buckner

kept going up and down ramps. I wanted to look in every room, but there were so many, squeezed one on top of another in uneven layers. What kind of insane plan was this for a clinic? As we moved farther in, the air grew so stale, it made me cough. All I could see was the blue-white beam of Vincente’s torch playing over vacant cots and empty toilet stalls. We found rotting food in the pantry. I almost gagged.
    “Let me hold the light,” I said, but Vincente stubbornly lifted it beyond my reach. Annoyed, I unclipped a lightcube from my belt and squeezed it. The cube glowed pale green in my palm. I kept stepping on Vincente’s heels because I was following too close. Finally, I grabbed his arm and just hung on.
    He used a metal key to unlock a door. “The record office,” he said. “You’ll find information here.”
    The door opened, and before I knew what was happening, Vincente spun me off balance. I dropped my lightcube and fell through the doorway. He tried to push me inside, but my leg was caught, and he couldn’t get the door shut Pain shot up my side as he slammed the door on my ankle. When I started kicking at him, he took off.
    I wedged the door open with a dented aluminum biowaste can, then belly-crawled to my lightcube and grabbed it to my chest as if the little thing would save me. Slowly I sat up and looked around the dim, shadowy room. It was just another clinic ward, not a record office. I moved out into the pitch-black hall and tried to remember the way back—but to where?
    My Net node activated at my touch. Its screen glowed like a friendly face.
    “Jollers, are you safe?” “What’s happening?” “Where are you, love?”
    My friends’ voices rushed at me like a warm wind. “Relax, I’m blissin’. Thank the Laws of Physics for GPSNS.”
    “You’re lost,” Adrienne scolded.
    I called up the clinic floorplan, and my location flashed clearly onscreen. “I am not lost, Adrienne. I’m looking for Jin.”
    A muffled noise sounded in the corridor behind me. A soft drop. Someone was there. I muted the Net node. Now I heard footsteps in front of me, too. And to the right, I saw torch beams dancing against a distant wall. Many footsteps. And voices.
    Just then, someone leaped out of a doorway and seized me from behind. My attacker was too strong for me. He covered my mouth, pinned my arms to my sides, and dragged me backward through the doorway. I heard his heavy breathing and recognized Vincente. I struggled and bit his hand, but he wouldn’t let go.
    “Quiet. You’ve drawn the troopers, foolish whore. Be quiet or we’re dead.”
    I settled down fast when he said that. Nome.Com troopers. They must have been tracking me all along. So much for my no-brainer. Vincente dragged me awkwardly across the dark room and pressed me against the wall with his body while he used his free hand to open some kind of bin.
    “Through here, chica, and be quick!” He sniffed me into the chute, and I crawled forward blindly until he grabbed my ankle and stopped me. “Lie still.”
    His hand gripped my leg like a vise. I could hear his breathing, and my own. I had clipped my helmet to my belt, and now it wedged uncomfortably under my hip. The steel chute in which we lay felt gritty, and when I shifted to move the helmet, my nostrils filled with an odd-flavored dust. Like charcoal. “Where are we?” I whispered.
    “Quiet. Better you don’t know.”
    We lay there for only a few minutes. Then we heard a terrible clatter. Laser blasts. The troopers were shooting their way into our chute. They’d located us, probably by GPSNS.
    “Move!” Vincente shoved me forward.
    I scrambled ahead in the darkness, kicking my way along the gritty chute. A couple of meters along, I came to the lip of a downshaft and slid my hand downward, trying to gauge its depth. Vincente pushed me from behind, but I resisted.
    “Jump!” he said.
    “How deep is this thing?” When I heard the first bullet ricochet past my ear, I put