Shutdown (Glitch)

out from behind Sophia. “Turn around!”
    My heart leapt into my throat as I looked past Sophia in shock to see three Regs and a slight girl standing right inside the blast door, just feet away from the west entrance to the Med Center. No! They must have made it in before the last door had closed. I couldn’t imagine how they could have gotten here so quickly. But then I remembered how fast the Regs had run in the arena.
    A smile curved upward on the girl’s cherubic face. She was a teenager, but she couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds. She spoke into her arm com, her voice sweet and high-pitched. “We have visual confirmation on Zoel Q-24.”
    I held up my hand out of instinct, but no power crackled to life underneath my fingertips. The guards raised their weapons, and in the same half second, I heard the blast doors in the hallway behind me grating as they began to shut. Our thirty seconds were up.
    I leapt backward, my grip on Adrien’s elbow like iron. His mother must have had a similar impulse. She threw Adrien backwards with what seemed like inhuman force. Between her push and my pull, Adrien’s body was finally yanked sideways through the narrow doorway. I kept our momentum going as I dragged him toward the blast door with a strength I didn’t know I had. I dropped down to my knees at the last second. With our bodies still slick from the gel, Adrien and I slid under the blast door right before it shut with a loud clang .
    I heard the dull thud of laser fire behind the door and sat stunned for a moment. Adrien’s mother. Sophia, she—
    “We need to hurry,” Adrien said, swallowing hard as he stared at the blast door. He blinked rapidly, like he was trying to shake off the befuddling haze of the sedatives he’d been on while in the tank.
    I looked over at him, full of grief. “Adrien, I’m so sorry…”
    His jaw tightened and he looked away from me, but he didn’t say anything else other than repeating in a monotone, “We need to hurry.”
    Bile rose in my throat, but I managed to get to my feet anyway. Sophia wouldn’t sacrifice herself for nothing. I would get her son to safety.
    “Try to put a little weight on your feet,” I commanded Adrien, dragging him to a standing position. I pulled his arm around my shoulder and we both stumbled forward. He was so weak, he had to lean most of his weight on me. With each step I was sure it was going to be too much and we were going to topple to the ground and miss the next door.
    No . The word blared in my mind. We would not fall. We would not fall. “The pod’s right past the next blast door.”
    We got to the next door with five seconds to spare as it slammed shut. The Regs were probably getting through the doors behind us already. Blast doors were only a hindrance to Regs, not an insurmountable obstacle.
    I looked around. The pod door was untouched. I’d been afraid it would have already launched without us, but there was no one else here. I spun around and saw that farther down, part of the hallway I’d cleared this morning had caved in again, no doubt from all the blasts shaking the compound. No one else had been able to make it through.
    I felt a jolt of sadness mixed horribly with relief. The pod was still clear for Adrien, but so many others would be killed or captured. There was nothing that could be done for them, though. Adrien, at least, I could save.
    I turned back to the escape pod door and clicked it open. The pod was a large cylinder, bare except for the seats and belt restraints lining the circular walls, stacked two high. I didn’t speak, just dropped Adrien’s gel-soaked body into one of the chairs near the door.
    “Get your belts fastened.” I turned to shut and secure the door. I clicked through a small interface near the door to start the pod. Lights slowly glowed to life along the floor, and the whir of the engine started.
    When I finished clicking through the launch sequence, I heard a noise. A loud banging. The Regs were getting through. Henk had estimated when he built the blast doors it would take a Reg at least twenty minutes to get through each one. They must have equipment we hadn’t anticipated.
    I swallowed down my terror and sat in the chair beside Adrien, right by the interface. I fastened the belts across my waist and chest with trembling fingers.
    I glanced over at Adrien. He looked up at me with his eyebrows furrowed together in bewildered confusion and said, “Sophia.”
    Something glistened