Shutdown (Glitch)

him about it mercilessly. But then the structure around us shuddered. The girders began to visibly vibrate.
    “Everyone in ,” I yelled. I didn’t know how Henk had managed to get a flier in through the narrow struts of the open wall, or if the floor was as steady as I’d first thought. Maybe when I’d crashed the incoming fliers, the vibrations had weakened the building more than it had been when Henk had first hidden the transport here.
    Now if we could just get out again before the building collapsed on top of us.
    Henk jumped to the front console. Adrien joined him since they both had the most experience flying. I helped everyone else in behind us, glad to relax into a hard metal seat for a moment. But I kept my telek split three ways between my mast cells, the building on top of us, and out into the air searching for more approaching fliers. I closed my eyes hard against the strain of trying to keep it all together in my head.
    Xona strapped herself in beside me, and I looked at Ginni, lying on the floor. For a second, I let my eyes travel down to her stump leg.
    “Is she gonna be okay?” I asked.
    Xona pursed her lips and looked at the ceiling. “The bleeding in her leg stopped, so that’s a good sign. And she’s been out ever since we gave her the meds.”
    “Good.” I leaned my head back against the hard wall of the transport. No lush comfort chairs here; this transport was all hard metal lines and chairs meant to efficiently pack in the greatest number of people.
    I spared a glance toward the front. Henk was hunched over the console intently. He pushed a button and it roared to life beneath us. “All right,” he said, raising the vehicle up off the ground.
    But the transport bumped into the ceiling overhead accidently, and the building that had been only previously creaking in disagreement suddenly began to crack. The girders in front of us buckled, and loud popping noises sounded on all sides.
    I tried to cast my telek out to hold it up, but the building was so huge.
    “It’s coming down on top of us!” City yelled, but Henk didn’t flinch. He leaned hard on the maneuvering stick. The next second we were in motion, shooting out the side of the building right as we heard the huge roar of steel beams breaking. As we zoomed out into the night sky, I glanced back and saw the building crumbling in on itself, throwing off huge pluming clouds of dust and debris as it sank.
    “Wow, Henk, you might as well have handed them a map and a written invitation,” City said tightly.
    “Won’t matter,” Henk said as the transport cut expertly through the sky. “Got the cloaking on, there’ll be no trail to track.”
    I breathed out and relaxed my body into the hard seat. A few moments of reprieve. I’d been barking off orders like I knew what I was doing, and maybe at the time, I had. I shook my head and blinked hard. Had it finally happened then? I’d finally turned into a leader? Everyone had listened to me, even City. It felt unreal. I pinched my hands around the bottom of the chair until the sharp edge cut into my skin.
    We were nowhere near safe. Would everyone keep looking to me now? Could I do it? Maybe after a good night’s rest, I’d feel more up to it—
    My eyes flew open. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but when that blast had hit the entrance to the compound, my med container had been destroyed too.
    There would be no night’s rest for me.
    “Adrien,” I called out. His head swiveled back from the front seat to look at me. I waved him over. “Come here, I need to ask you something.”
    He frowned and chewed on his lip a moment before unbuckling and making his way back to where I sat, stepping carefully over Ginni. He crouched in front of me since there were no open chairs nearby.
    “You asked Ginni if the Chancellor was still at the same location. You think it’s supposed to happen soon, don’t you?”
    He looked up at me, a tortured expression on his face. “Yes,” he finally whispered. “But the Chancellor’s always on the move. She could be gone by now.”
    I looked down at him sharply. “You don’t really think so. You know my sleep container was destroyed. You know what that means.” I saw in his eyes he knew exactly what it meant: I had to try now, before I was weakened again by several days of sleep deprivation.
    “No.” He put a hand on my leg. “There’s every chance you’ll not die. I just found you again. I lost my mom, I can’t lose you too.”