Shutdown (Glitch)

somehow, I don’t know, negate our abilities. Just get to the pods before they blast their way in!” We were no match for Regs without our powers.
    “We’ll go get everyone out of the Caf,” Rand said, pulling City along behind him.
    They took off sprinting, and I looked around at the crowd. There were only three pods in this bay and far too many people.
    “The pods are filling here,” I shouted into the crowd. “Head toward the other pods!” But the noise was so loud, barely anyone heard me.
    A loud banging noise sounded above us, shaking the walls. The lights flickered several times and people started screaming.
    When the lights came back on, I grabbed a tall refugee man holding his young daughter in his arms. “Follow me!” I shouted. I pulled on the arms of several others who were closest to me, then I took off down the west corridor toward the Med Center. We’d had compound-wide practice routes to the pods before, but the compound hadn’t been nearly so full the last time we ran a drill. I passed more people crowding around pod sites. I slowed for a moment outside Pod 5. It was already stuffed to the brim.
    I stopped at the Med Center, but waved the group behind me onward. “There are two more pods at the end of this hall,” I shouted at them. “If those are full, the rubble’s cleared enough, you should be able to follow the switchback around the Caf to get to the pods in the east corridor.”
    I turned back to the Med Center. Adrien’s mom, Sophia, had already started draining the tank and was reaching into the gel to pull the electrode patches from his skin. I hurried over to help her. The blue gel was warm to the touch, and I focused on ripping the nodes off Adrien’s forehead.
    Jilia’s frantic voice came shouting over my com. Screams filled the background. “They’ve breeched, they’re inside! Pods one and two have launched, we’re a minute away from launching the third. I’m enacting the emergency protocol to slow them down.”
    “Stay safe,” I said back, my heart thumping with fear for Jilia, for all of us.
    The beeping alert overhead switched to one long ear-splitting tone. The emergency protocol was triggered. The blast doors would shut every thirty seconds now. Once they closed, there was no opening them again.
    “Help me lift him,” Sophia shouted. We each reached under one of Adrien’s arms and hefted his slim body over the side of the tank. His foot caught the side and the whole tank tipped over sideways, shattering glass and blue goo all over the floor.
    “You need to stand up, honey.” Sophia bent over to help him up.
    Adrien tried to obey, but his legs buckled and he fell. We only barely managed to catch him before he crumpled to the ground.
    “It always takes half an hour or more for him to be able to walk after he gets out of the tank,” Sophia said.
    Laser fire shot past the door opened to the west corridor. They were already here. Sophia’s terrified eyes locked onto mine. I knew it wasn’t herself she was afraid for. It was for her son.
    “Drag him!” I shouted to her. “My power isn’t working. We’ll have to take our chances with the east corridor.”
    There were two entrances to the Med Center, and we grabbed Adrien by his arms and hauled him toward the far door that opened to the east corridor. It was still partially obstructed by rubble, but we should still be able to get through. The floor was slippery with gel. While it made it harder to stay on my feet, Adrien’s body slid easily across the floor.
    I hopped over the boulder blocking the bottom of the doorway. The door itself was still jammed so that it was only half-open. I reached back to help Adrien through when three short beeps sounded from the other side of the Med Center. The three-foot-thick metal blast doors in both corridors leading to the Med Center were closing.
    Which meant we had exactly thirty seconds to get past the next blast door, and then past one more, to where the pod launch was located. Or else we’d be trapped inside. I took a quick glance out into the hallway behind me. The door was only fifteen feet away, and the path was clear of debris. We’d get there in plenty of time.
    I gripped the upper half of Adrien’s body and Sophia shoved from the other side. But his shoulders were so wide, he got caught.
    “Sideways,” Sophia shouted, “Turn him sideways.”
    I shifted my grip to angle his shoulders sideways through the narrow opening.
    “Halt,” a voice called