A woman at another table yelled, “They use us!”
Marvin stood, looked around at the employees, and yelled, “Is that what you people are doing? Using us for power grids and shit?”
A former politician yelled out, “Probably high-tech military devices, and financial markets.”
“It’s like that movie, the Matrix, but without the cute guy and the cool special effects,” another woman shouted, pushing against the table to stand.
People were milling everywhere. The room itself was shaking. Three windows shattered but proved to be safety glass, and Marvin didn’t turn his recycling magic at the plastic, so they stayed together instead of turning to sharp shards and dirt.
Dani had lost track of who was getting involved, but half of the tables were empty, and everyone was upset. The feel of magic was an electric buzz in the air and along her skin.
“Zombies,” a man with a very rounded belly shouted. “Kept drugged, our power drained and used by the warden to make money! Working us until we die.”
All the plates on Table Q flew up and hit the ceiling. Shattered stoneware rained down and some of Marvin’s remaining dirt landed on the inmates.
“The warden said all the people at Table J got contracts!” A woman said, her voice quavering.
“All together?” Dani shouted. “I don’t think so.” She pointed at the doorways as the security teams, all dressed in black like some kind of SS thugs, entered, carrying void strips, and this time Dani screamed like a terrified old woman, “They’re going to hurt us! Nazis!” She released her magic, outside. Into the parking area.
In the employee parking lot, two cars exploded.
A guard slapped a void strip on her, and Dani dropped as if dead.
Mable
Mable watched as four patients were loaded onto gurneys. Sirens were blaring in the parking lot as firetrucks and police zoomed in. She wanted to run out and get the police to come in, arrest the staff, or get them to go into Building Z and check it out, but . . . There was no probable cause. Police would believe the staff and Devoe and not old people. That had always been the case. And . . . this was the plan, create havoc so Dani would get taken away.
“Fuck,” Marvin muttered, and gripped her hand. She gripped back, holding on for dear life.
“She’ll sleep this afternoon,” Zeddie said of Dani.
“Fuck,” Marvin said, tightening his grip on her.
Sandra shared quick glances with them, hers full of command, which shocked Mable. Sandra was not the commanding type. Or the Sandra she knew wasn’t.
The light-skinned black woman’s dark eyes demanded they gather behind Dani’s gurney. Together, they followed Zeddie as they all went to the inmates’ elevator—Zeddie, and the counselor to drop off Dani in her room, or so they said. Sandra, who suddenly appeared full of resolve and purpose, pushed her way into the elevator with Dani, her eyes like thunderclouds.
Zeddie and the counselor who had knocked Dani out looked confused. The counselor said, “Ma’am, you’ll need to take another elevator or wait until this one returns.”
Sandra stared them down, “I like that crazy old white woman,” she said, playing her role, pointing at the gurney. “I’m going to make sure she gets to her room.”
Mable pulled Marvin in too. The doors closed, leaving the six of them trapped; five standing people—three of them magical practitioners, and two of them voids—and Dani, lying under a sheet.
“What happens to her now?” Mable asked.
Zeddie looked at her quickly in the reflective metal and away.
The counselor, Deborah, according to her nametag, said, “She’ll be evaluated. She sounded paranoid in the dining room. It’s possible that she’s had some kind of mental break. If so, she’ll be moved to a different facility. The Sevens isn’t equipped to handle people in that condition.”
Mable frowned. Sandra looked down and whispered to Jesus. Marvin cursed again. All playing their parts, yet all being themselves. They had placed Dani in this position. If she was hurt, it was on them.
Mable
Mable sat on her toilet, in the only place in her room where there was no surveillance, holding her secret laptop, and pulled up pictures of her fake grandkids. She entered the encryption code, making the photo dissolve into lines of computer code, and tapped the sequence that would execute part one of Program ABZ, or Attack Building Z. If the MTT worked, this should wake the tracking device.
Dani, if she was really out and her magic was still voided, could be found. If she was awake, she would feel the sting as the tracker went live. The plan was for her to lie still, let the small device do its first two jobs: perform a diagnostic on itself, and then send out a GPS pin for Dani’s location. Within five minutes, Mable knew the device was working and had obtained a GPS on her. Dani was no longer in her dorm room.
Dani already being gone made things harder, but she never expected things to be easy. Mable paused Program ABZ and opened a photo sent to her email from TriDevi’s intern, Shellie. Or Thomas. Or whoever. Once she had it on her drive, she dissolved that photo. More code was buried there, and she isolated the program she had worked on for weeks, ever since Zeddie had first smuggled in the small tablet, hoping that The Sevens’ IT team was too busy watching the replay of all the cameras to notice her stealthy incursions into their system.
