Her last word hung in the air as the lights blinked off. Helga’s voice was replaced by a flurry of whispers and shuffling feet. Sarah grabbed Michael’s hand and he reached out to clasp onto Bryson’s elbow. There wasn’t a hint of light in the room—Michael couldn’t see a thing. Even the Coffins’ glow had disappeared. They’d cut the power.

“Calm down!” Helga shouted from the blackness. “Everyone, stay where you are.”

EarCuffs clicked and NetScreens lit up, casting a green glow on everyone’s faces.

Michael could make out Sarah’s parents standing behind her and Michael. They looked even more scared than Michael felt. Gerard had his hands on Sarah’s shoulders, and Nancy had her arms wrapped around her husband.

Helga started speaking again. “Amy, Chris, go pull our friends out of the NerveBoxes. I don’t think we have any choice but to—”

Crash.

Helga never finished her sentence. A rock exploded through a window on the far end of the barracks, glass raining down on the carpeted floor. The fist-sized stone rolled to a stop in front of Michael.

Bryson leaned close to Michael to whisper in his ear. “Dude, I’m about ready to give up on these people. I think we did a lot better job of taking care of ourselves on our own.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Michael responded. “Just not really the best moment for that.”

Another rock crashed through a window, this time closer. Michael jumped, his heart almost stopping. He spun around just in time to see the last shards of glass sprinkle on the carpet around the large stone. This was followed by only a few seconds of shocked silence before yet another rock broke through a window, then another, then another. Screams filled the room as crash after crash splintered the air, stones thumping on the carpet and glass flying like crystal bugs.

Michael and his friends instinctively pulled together. Michael felt glass hit his back; a fragment pricked his neck and stuck there, stinging.

It seemed to last forever, one after another, concussions of sound like a series of thunder strikes. Michael had to press back the certainty that at any moment the world would blow up around him, sending them to oblivion.

Then, suddenly, it stopped. The silence was so stark, Michael worried for a moment he’d lost his hearing. Gradually he could make out breathing, the occasional high tinkle of a shard of glass falling out of the window frame to the ground. Still, no one spoke.

A flash of movement at the nearest window caught Michael’s attention, immediately followed by the distinct giggles of a little girl. Walter raised his gun and started toward the window, but Helga stopped him.

“Remember what they hold over us,” she said to him. “You start firing that gun and they blow us up. We’re out of options, my friend. Except…”