Cops were stringing yellow tape across the front of the store. Fire trucks were parked at dramatic angles, and firefighters were pressed up to the glass storefront, peering inside. Behind the emergency vehicles, a legion of cars had pulled up and people were everywhere, yelling into their cell phones, holding them up to take pictures, sitting in open driver’s-side doors and delivering bad news to someone on the other end of the phone. A gaggle of cops squealed and started dancing a jig as a horde of waterlogged rats ran over their feet.

“There you are! Amy! Thank God you’re all right.” At the sound of her name, Amy turned dully toward the speaker. Pat, the store’s general manager, was jogging over in a Van Halen T-shirt and sweatpants. “Is she okay?” he asked the paramedic.

“So far, so good,” the paramedic said, snipping off the last bit of bandage. “A couple of stitches at the ER, keep her warm, she should be fine.”

“Thank God,” Pat said, turning to Amy. “You look like you might be in shock. Are you in shock? Are you all right? Is she all right?”

“No,” Amy said.

“What happened here?” Pat asked. “This is crazy.”

Amy looked at the flooded store, still gushing water across the parking lot. Here and there among the cops and firefighters were men and women in windbreakers and sports coats, shouting to one another and speaking into cell phones. One was awkwardly trying to compose an e-mail on a laptop while balancing it in one hand. Amy knew these people had to be the Orsk Consultant Team. They had arrived right on schedule. Amy looked down at her filthy clothes, her shredded Chuck Taylors, her torn jeans.

“I don’t know,” she finally said to Pat. “Is Basil okay?”

“His arm is broken and he needs a hospital, but yes, he’s going to be all right.”

“Have you seen the others?”

“Others?” Pat blinked. “There were others?”

“Matt and Trinity. And Ruth Anne. They were all with us.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Pat said, and he ran-walked to the Consultant Team and started talking to them, pointing frantically at Orsk, gesturing wildly.

Amy walked over to Basil. The firefighters had him propped up on the back of a ladder truck. His face was waxy. Bruises were starting to appear, pushing their way through the tight shiny flesh of his cheekbones. He smiled at Amy, splitting open a wound on his lip. Fresh blood glinted in the lights.

“Ow,” he said. “Your head.”

“They didn’t make it out,” Amy said. “I’d hoped they would find a way, but it’s just us.”

The smile fell from Basil’s face and he stood up, wincing at the pain in his arm.

“Son,” a firefighter said, “you need to sit down before you fall down.”

Basil ignored him and he and Amy walked away from the truck.

“What’s Pat doing?” Basil asked.