They rushed to the man on the gurney. It was Sax, although Michel recognized him by his body rather than his face, which was a deathmask apparition, with two blackened eyes, and a mashed nose between them. He appeared unconscious at best. They worked to detach him from body restraints. There were electrodes stuck to several places on his shaved head, and Michel winced as Maya simply tore them all away. Michel pulled a thin emergency suit from his thigh pocket, and set about pulling it up over Sax’s inert legs and torso, manhandling him in his haste; but Sax didn’t even groan. Maya came back and took an emergency fabric headpiece and small tank out of Michel’s backpack, and they hooked them to Sax’s suit, and turned the suit on.

Maya’s hand was clutching Michel’s wrist so hard that he feared the bones would crack. She plugged her phone line back into his wrist. “Is he alive?”

“I think so. Let’s get him out of here, we can find out later.”

“Look what they’ve done to his face, those fascist murderers.”

The person on the floor, a woman, was stirring, and Maya stalked over and kicked her hard in the gut. She leaned over and looked in the faceplate, cursed in a surprised voice. “It’s Phyllis.”

Michel pulled Sax out of the room and down the hall. Maya caught up with them. Someone appeared before them and Maya aimed her gun, but Michel knocked her hand aside— it was Spencer Jackson, he recognized him by the eyes. Spencer spoke, but with their helmets on they couldn’t hear him. He saw that, and shouted: “Thank God you came! They were done with him— they were going to kill him!”

Maya said something in Russian and ran back to the room and threw something inside, then ran back toward them. An explosion shot smoke and debris out of the room, peppering the wall opposite the door.

“No!” Spencer cried. “That was Phyllis!”

“I know,” Maya shouted viciously; but Spencer couldn’t hear her.

“Come on,” Michel insisted, picking up Sax in his arms. He gestured at Spencer to get helmeted. “Let’s go while we can.” No one seemed to hear him, but Spencer got on a helmet, and then helped Michel carry Sax along the hall and up the stairs to the ground floor.

Outside it was louder than ever, and just as black. Objects were rolling along the ground, even flying through the air. Michel took a shot to the faceplate that knocked him down.

After that he was two steps behind everything that happened. Maya plugged a phone jack into Spencer’s wristpad and hissed orders at both of them, her voice hard and precise. They hauled Sax bodily to the tent wall and over it, and crawled back and forth until they found the iron spool anchoring their Ariadne thread.