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the vents, then we do have them,” Megaton said.
    “No.” This came from Spence. “The backup generator is now offline. Our sensors for tracking airflow obstructions are down.”
    “Then they’re home free,” Megaton said.
    “Maybe not,” said Spence. “We know where they’re likely to come out. But they probably know that we know. What if they’re just planning to double back?”
    “Fine, we’ll check all shaft exits that extend from where Plasmatic saw them,” Megaton answered.
    The earpiece was essentially silent from that point on, except for the occasional “All clear” with respect to a shaft exit.
    We were all following Rudi at this point, exhibiting blind faith in her ability to get us out. We were now approaching what she said was the last door.
    “That’s it,” she said. “We get through that doorway and we’re home free.”
    That must have jinxed it, because suddenly we heard a bolt being thrown, and a second later the door started to open.
    Subconsciously, I slipped into a fighting stance, ready to take out whoever came through the door. Suddenly, Rudi grabbed my hand.
    “No,” she said. “Don’t do anything.”
    I debated. We didn’t have any other friends here; the only people on the other side of that door had to be hostiles. And yet, we hadn’t really had any issues since letting Rudi lead the way. In fact, I had trusted her to get us out when I barely had a plan for getting us in. It only made sense that I trust her again.
    The door opened up, and the light in the background cast the person standing there in silhouette. I had never seen him before today, but I immediately knew who it was – especially when his eyes put forth a baleful yellow light that swept over all of us before coming back to rest on me.
    “Anything there, Megaton?” asked a voice that I heard almost in stereo – both over the earpiece and coming from the room behind him.
    Megaton stood there for a few seconds, with all of us watching him expectedly. Then he said something that shocked me deep to the core.
    “All clear,” Megaton said.
     
    *****
     
    We were still standing there, unable to believe our ears, when I heard the voice behind Megaton (and over the earpiece) sound again.
    “Megaton, you okay?” the person asked.
    “Yeah. Keep checking the other shafts.”
    There was the sound of footsteps moving away, and a few seconds later, Megaton motioned us out.
    We were in another power plant, although this one seemed to have a lagoon off to one side of it. As Megaton escorted us over to the water, Spence’s voice crackled over the earpiece.
    “Megaton,” Spence said. “Where are you?”
    “I’m getting ready to go through the vents to the fans,” Megaton responded.
    “Scratch that. We need you over by the elevator. It’s not working since we lost power, but if we can get you into the elevator shaft, you can manually pull the cables and get it to the surface. Then we might have a chance of catching these people.”
    “Negatory on that,” said Megaton.
    “What do you mean, ‘Negatory’? You get your butt over here.”
    “You seem to forget, Spence, that I don’t work for you. My role here is to assist in the overall mission, not to serve your whims.”
    “But they’ll get away! What’s more important than stopping the people who broke in here?” Spence sounded desperate.
    “Staying alive,” Megaton answered. “You seem to forget that with the emergency generator down, the air handlers aren’t working. I’m going to go turn them by hand until you can get some engineers out of lockdown and down here to fix things.”
    “But they’ll get away,” Spence seemed to whine.
    “Let’em,” Megaton answered. “But without those fans turning the air down here will turn real bad, real fast – and even I have to breathe. Think about whether you’d rather chase these people or suffocate.” He turned his earpiece and mic off.
    At that point, we were at the edge of the water, and it was