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“Well, it wasn’t a regular bomb, it was an electromagnetic pulse on a massive scale,” he said.
“How do you know?” she asked him.
“Look at the holo-screen,” he said. “Look at your bracelet.”
Sure enough, the screen where news had been streaming when they arrived had gone dark. She glanced down at her bracelet to find it was dead on her wrist.
“Athena,” she said.
“I know,” he told her.
They ran for the lobby doors and jogged down the stairs, past the panicking crowd, and turned the corner to the side of the building.
Two dark shapes lay in the grass.
One was the remains of the backpack.
The other was a limp canine body. Its silken fur looked like a sky darkening before a storm. Heavy-looking clouds scudded across it. As they approached, she let out a soft whine.
“She’s alive,” Gage said, his voice almost breaking on the words. “She must have let it go before it went off.”
“Smart girl,” Naomi breathed.
Something darted through the sky overhead, then let out a strange hiss.
“What’s that?” she asked, gazing up at the funny little metallic thing with one red eye.
“Drones,” Gage yelled. “We have to go. Now.”
He grabbed her hand, as if to drag her to the carriage.
“Not without Athena,” she said, throwing herself toward the dog with everything she had.
He was so much stronger than she was. If he had wanted to force her to leave, he could have.
Instead, he froze for an instant.
“She wouldn’t leave without you,” she reminded him. “She saved us.”
“May the stars protect us,” he hissed under his breath as he ran for his best friend.
Naomi moved to help him, but he slid his arms under the giant canine and lifted her to his chest effortlessly.
“Move, Naomi,” he screamed back at her.
She sprinted for him just as something blasted the wall of the building behind her.
When she reached him, he grabbed her hand and began running for the back of the building.
“No,” he murmured, stopping.
“What?” she asked.
“We can’t steal a hover car,” he said. “The pulse will have knocked them out.”
There was another blasting sound, this one closer than before.
“The carriage,” she said.
