Shadow Unit 15 by Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear Page B
Authors: Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear
Tags: a.!.Loaded
Ads: Link
tomorrow.
Falkner forwarded him Hafidha's text. He knows Falkner, Chaz, Lau, and Tan are running close behind him. He knows that they're coming in force, and that Falkner's made the decision not to involve the local sheriff's department. He thinks that that turned out to be a good call.
The relief lasts until he answers the phone and hears a tight, controlled voice on the other end of the line, faint Puerto Rican accent, crispness of a professional in an emergency. "Mr. Todd?"
"Speaking."
"This is Leon Garcia at Idlewood. Hafidha Gates asked me to call you. We have a big, big problem here."
"Leon," Sol says. "Is Rupert Beale there?"
"He was," Leon says. "He was the last sign-out before the power went down."
*
Daniel Brady has probably felt this useless once or twice before in his life, but just right now he is hard pressed to think of when. He stands in the doorway of the minimum security rec room and counts bodies. Only two, and it could have been worse. And one of those is the right one, the best of all possible worlds if there has to be a casualty.
But then there's Eddie, and—
Not now, Danny Brady, he tells himself. He looks around at the survivors. At Dice with Eddie's head cradled in his lap. At Natalie stuffing a handful of Cheetos into her mouth, and Henry Clark— what the hell —pouring cream into a steaming mug of coffee. At Susanna, huddled over beside Ramachandran and two staffers whose names Brady doesn't know, offhand, though Hafidha would. And that flicker of movement in the corner of his eye is probably Renee.
He had come into the room at high ready, and now they are all staring at him. Sheepishly, he lowers the muzzle. Stopping Hakes was only half his job.
"Come on," he says. "We're evacuating. There's at least one more on the loose."
The awful fluorescent lights overhead pick that instant to hum violently and buzz back into life.
*
Somebody was in for a hiding if Sol ever found them. It had taken him a good three minutes to hotwire a switch to replace the smashed controls on the emergency generators, and he'd jammed a wire right up under his thumbnail, deep enough to make it bleed. The good news is, they are humming now. And as he is clearing the area outside before stepping from the shelter of the generator shed, his phone buzzes against his hip.
He glances at it. It's Brady.
He slides a thumb across the glass. "Talk to me," he says.
*
The lights flicker. Stutter. Go back on and burn steady, and Hafidha pulls the gas mask down over her face and walks a little slower, a little more carefully, now. She's coming up on the doorway to the wing of Idlewood where the old monsters live, and she's wondering just what exactly she, gunless, is going to do if she opens up that door with Allison's passcard and discovers Mrs. Chow crouched in the corridor, chewing on somebody's thighbone like the law of conservation of mass and energy doesn't apply.
Throw the last pocketful of Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs at her and run.
Then there's a crackle in her head, and a few hundred yards away, Leon types on a tablet with his thumbs.
EMILY IS ON CAMERA. HEADED TO YOUR OLD ROOM.
Suze Zettler's room. There's probably a more politic way for Leon to have put it, but Hafs isn't about to pick nits with the man whose pastry is keeping her from fainting.
She types back, STAY FROSTY.
Brady, on the headset. "Hakes is neutralized. Evacuating the minimum security residents. I have Henry, and I think maybe I have Renee, too. One casualty."
She doesn't ask who. If it weren't going to upset her, he would have said already.
She breathes a sigh of relief. "Good work."
Brady says, "Duke says the cavalry is ETA five minutes."
Hafidha says, "Partridge is going after Suze."
There's a pause. Then, "Godspeed," he tells her. Which is fine. If she's going to put up with anybody's God, Daniel G. Brady's is high on the list. And his secret middle name is safe with her.
"Radio silence," she
Falkner forwarded him Hafidha's text. He knows Falkner, Chaz, Lau, and Tan are running close behind him. He knows that they're coming in force, and that Falkner's made the decision not to involve the local sheriff's department. He thinks that that turned out to be a good call.
The relief lasts until he answers the phone and hears a tight, controlled voice on the other end of the line, faint Puerto Rican accent, crispness of a professional in an emergency. "Mr. Todd?"
"Speaking."
"This is Leon Garcia at Idlewood. Hafidha Gates asked me to call you. We have a big, big problem here."
"Leon," Sol says. "Is Rupert Beale there?"
"He was," Leon says. "He was the last sign-out before the power went down."
*
Daniel Brady has probably felt this useless once or twice before in his life, but just right now he is hard pressed to think of when. He stands in the doorway of the minimum security rec room and counts bodies. Only two, and it could have been worse. And one of those is the right one, the best of all possible worlds if there has to be a casualty.
But then there's Eddie, and—
Not now, Danny Brady, he tells himself. He looks around at the survivors. At Dice with Eddie's head cradled in his lap. At Natalie stuffing a handful of Cheetos into her mouth, and Henry Clark— what the hell —pouring cream into a steaming mug of coffee. At Susanna, huddled over beside Ramachandran and two staffers whose names Brady doesn't know, offhand, though Hafidha would. And that flicker of movement in the corner of his eye is probably Renee.
He had come into the room at high ready, and now they are all staring at him. Sheepishly, he lowers the muzzle. Stopping Hakes was only half his job.
"Come on," he says. "We're evacuating. There's at least one more on the loose."
The awful fluorescent lights overhead pick that instant to hum violently and buzz back into life.
*
Somebody was in for a hiding if Sol ever found them. It had taken him a good three minutes to hotwire a switch to replace the smashed controls on the emergency generators, and he'd jammed a wire right up under his thumbnail, deep enough to make it bleed. The good news is, they are humming now. And as he is clearing the area outside before stepping from the shelter of the generator shed, his phone buzzes against his hip.
He glances at it. It's Brady.
He slides a thumb across the glass. "Talk to me," he says.
*
The lights flicker. Stutter. Go back on and burn steady, and Hafidha pulls the gas mask down over her face and walks a little slower, a little more carefully, now. She's coming up on the doorway to the wing of Idlewood where the old monsters live, and she's wondering just what exactly she, gunless, is going to do if she opens up that door with Allison's passcard and discovers Mrs. Chow crouched in the corridor, chewing on somebody's thighbone like the law of conservation of mass and energy doesn't apply.
Throw the last pocketful of Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs at her and run.
Then there's a crackle in her head, and a few hundred yards away, Leon types on a tablet with his thumbs.
EMILY IS ON CAMERA. HEADED TO YOUR OLD ROOM.
Suze Zettler's room. There's probably a more politic way for Leon to have put it, but Hafs isn't about to pick nits with the man whose pastry is keeping her from fainting.
She types back, STAY FROSTY.
Brady, on the headset. "Hakes is neutralized. Evacuating the minimum security residents. I have Henry, and I think maybe I have Renee, too. One casualty."
She doesn't ask who. If it weren't going to upset her, he would have said already.
She breathes a sigh of relief. "Good work."
Brady says, "Duke says the cavalry is ETA five minutes."
Hafidha says, "Partridge is going after Suze."
There's a pause. Then, "Godspeed," he tells her. Which is fine. If she's going to put up with anybody's God, Daniel G. Brady's is high on the list. And his secret middle name is safe with her.
"Radio silence," she
Similar Books
