Wren is lying paralyzed on her bed. In the seven weeks that she has been in this place she has wasted away to skin and bone. It’s hard to recognize the beautiful Alt I was infatuated with during my time in the Loop. My eyes move to her right shoulder, the space where her arm used to be before it was severed by the automatic hatch in my old cell door. I move quickly, pulling the needles out of her body and then lifting her until she is free of the paralysis.

She gasps as I carry her toward the door, her eyes open in wide, glaring horror, and she begins to scream.

“No! No! No!” Wren cries, over and over again, her voice thick and guttural.

“She’s gone, Luka, we need to shut her up,” Pander says, walking with purpose toward Wren and shouldering the rifle.

“We are not leaving her, and we are not killing her,” I command.

“Look, this hurts me too. Wren was my friend, but this isn’t Wren,” Pander hisses. “She’s going to alert the guards and she’s insane, Luka. This is what she would want.”

“We can bring her back,” I say.

“Listen, Luka: She’s been a Smiler, had her arm chopped off, been drugged with drone poison, and used as a battery for seven weeks. There’s no coming back from that.”

“This isn’t a debate, Pander!” I yell over Wren’s screams. “She’s coming with us.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Pander mutters, letting the rifle hang by its strap. She holds a finger to an earpiece in her left ear and for the first time I realize she’s not wearing her hearing aids either. She nods, responding to a voice that I can’t hear. “We need to go, now.”

“Okay, all right,” I say, hoisting Wren up until she’s draped over my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

I walk past Pander and Kina and into the hallway. I move toward the staircase that leads down.

“No,” Pander says, grabbing me by the arm. “This way.”

As we begin moving toward the staircase that leads up to the top floor, the lights once again dim and Happy’s voice comes over the speakers while red lights begin to flash. “Escapees on floor three, moving toward floor four. Complete lockdown initiated.”

“What’s the plan?” I ask as we move toward the top floor of the Block, with no means of escape.

“Keep moving,” Pander replies from ahead of me.

I hear the massive doors at the ground-floor level begin to open, and the sound of dozens of running footsteps rise up to meet us. At first they sound solid as the soldiers’ feet hit the concrete of the ground floor, and then they turn into echoing rattles as they connect with the metal of the staircases.