“No, I did it,” Jenna said. “She told me what she did to my Robert, so I shot her.”
I glanced at Jenna, recalling the fierce, determined rage I’d seen in her the night I’d met her in the casino. I reminded myself never to get onto this woman’s bad side. She looked cute and sounded innocent, but she was a killer.
“You don’t understand what you’ve done,” Miranda said. She walked closer, peering into the office. “Where is the doctor?”
“On the floor behind her desk,” I said.
“Will you allow me to help her?” she asked.
I nodded and backed up two more steps.
“Go get the emergency cart,” the nurse told the orderly.
He hastened to obey, disappearing for a moment. He came back at a run, wheeling a white-clothed cart full of medical supplies. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. If they succeeded in reviving the good doctor, would that mean she would again hold sway over me and all the others in this building?
The howling had subsided. We could still hear the noise coming from the upper floors, but the nearest inmates were watching us. In a dozen dimly lit little windows, faces and staring eyes were pressed hard, straining to see. They fogged the windows with their panting breaths and their cheeks left residues of sweat and blood. Why were they quiet now? What were they thinking, this audience of crazies? I had no idea, but their scrutiny was unnerving.
“Let’s get out of here,” Jenna whispered to me, tugging on my arm. “This is her place. If she awakens, she might be able to turn us against each other.”
I thought about her words, and I also thought of giving her the gun to shoot Dr. Meng again—just to make sure. If I left now and the doctor recovered, would I regret it?
In the end, it was the crazies who decided matters for us. They’d been waiting for something and we learned what it was very suddenly. An alarm went off, a keening sound. It was a smoke alarm. I knew that annoying, piercing blast well.
Then I heard another sound—a much more frightening one. The doors all clicked open. When the fire alarm went off, the doors were built to automatically unlock themselves to allow the inmates to escape.
A dozen doors opened; many were thrown wide with a bang. From each dim room came a shambling person with slack lips and haunted eyes. Old women, teenage boys, balding men in glasses. There were fat ones, but most I would describe as thin, even gaunt. They all came out of their rooms, where they’d been held for so long.
I aimed my gun at them, but they took no notice. They didn’t even look at me or my weapon. Ignoring us, they surged forward and caught the orderly. They knew him well, it seemed, and they clearly did not have a favorable opinion of him. He managed to stay on his feet at first, shoving them back, shouting and threatening. But more came. He bashed two to the floor, where they bled and crawled. He broke free and reached the door of Meng’s office. Inside, nurse Miranda worked to save Meng’s life.
Somehow, the door had swung closed and locked. This lock, among all of them, seemed immune to the fire system. Perhaps Meng had had the wisdom and foresight to disable the unlocking mechanism on her own office door. Whatever the case, Miranda had locked the orderly out.
The inmates rushed close. He used his stun gun liberally. It crackled and flashed while the reaching inmates shrieked. But in the end, they took the man down. I backed away from them down the hallway with Jenna doing her best to drag me. I was left with a choice: I could shoot the enraged inmates, or I could run.
I decided to run. What right did I have to kill these people? Who was I to say his life was more valuable than theirs? He had most assuredly abused them. He was part of this place—part of an institution meant to help people, but which had gone bad and stolen what little they had left of their own minds.
We reached the emergency exit at the far end of the building. I recognized it once I was inside the concrete stairway. A few people wandered the steps above us, lost. I hit the panic bar on the outside door and threw it open.
Fresh, cool air washed over me. Holding Jenna’s hand, I led her outside into the streets. I had escaped the sanatorium again. Part of me wondered just how many times I’d done so before. Would this be the last time? I hoped so.
We hustled to the car, trying to cover our faces from security cameras. We were two fugitives on the run now, it seemed. If Meng lived, she’d probably send the police after us. If she didn’t, the Community might send their minions. I didn’t like my odds in either case. I probably didn’t have much freedom left.
I took out my cheap cell and tapped in McKesson’s number. He answered, yawning. I nodded to myself—an afternoon sleeper. Like me, he seemed to be on the go all night. I supposed that when you were dealing with aliens and rips in space, you had to expect to work nights.