"Shit!"

Dinah shoved the metal headset up over her head as its earpieces hissed a loud, angry static. All around her, the test suite's systems shut down in a series of heavy, concussive thuds.

A moment later, all the lights went out.

"No," she muttered. "No-no-no-no-no." Dinah fumbled in the darkness for something underneath the chair. After a moment, she produced a small, plastic flashlight. She thumbed it on. Its thin, green light was dim, only reaching a few feet in any direction. Haltingly, Dinah came to her feet and began to make her way down the pitch-black corridor, back toward the clinic.

As she moved down the corridor, she kept one hand pressed against the marble wall. Short steps. Quick breaths. Cold, ragged exhalations. Then, in the darkness, she heard an ear-piercing bang - followed by the unmistakable sound of a man's scream.

Dinah froze. The scream didn't recur, but in its wake there was something more familiar - more sinister. The sound of young men shouting. Cursing. Laughing.

She thumbed the flashlight back off. For a moment, she waited in the frigid darkness.

The sounds were fainter now. Whoever made them was behind her, some ways away, back near the residences and the stairwell. Dinah pressed her hand more firmly against the wall, and hurried toward the clinic.

When Dinah arrived, she found the room empty. A single, tiny, plug-in light in one corner threw long shadows across the abandoned examination table and medical equipment. Dinah closed the door shut behind her and slumped against it, letting her body slide down to the floor. Her heartbeat hammered in her chest.

"Are you there? Dinah, is that you?" The voice was quiet, almost inaudible, and grainy.

Dinah cast her eyes around, until she saw something - a tiny green LED, shining from underneath a towel. When she lifted the towel she found a small metal button: Ione's intercom.

She grabbed it.

"Ione!" Her voice was a savage, desperate whisper. "Jesus. Where are you?"

"We're in the stairwell, between B-1 and B-2. The doors between each floor locked down when the power went out. We're trapped."

"Shit. Shit. Where's James?"

"He's here, but they - they shot him in the shoulder, Di. They definitely came back with guns."

Dinah shook her head. "They? They who?"

"Anti-AI protesters," Ione whispered back. "I recognized one of the guys that went after me earlier."

"Where's Isaac?"

"I don't know," Ione answered. "We never found him. But listen - you need to get to the utilities room and bring the backup power online. If we can get the doors open for just a minute or two, we can get to the B-3 bunker and lock ourselves in. We can wait things out from there."

Dinah thought for a moment. "It would help to know where they are." She paused. "Can you hear them? Are they still near you?"

"No. I mean - I don't think so." For a moment, Dinah could hear the quiet, sibilant sounds of Ione and James whispering to one another; then, Ione spoke again: "Listen, Di - the power may be off, but the auxiliary surveillance system should still work. You can access it from the terminal in Security Two. You won't have all the cams, but you'll have the ones running on battery power.

"Or I could just go for it."

"Or that," Ione agreed. "We'll go on mute and wait to hear from you."

Dinah took a long, shuddering breath. "Okay, then. Here we go."