Free Damn Him to Hell by Jamie Quaid

slippers over her chimp appendages, she would be less conspicuous.
    I couldn’t damn innocent scientists so I could save Bill. Wouldn’t it be convenient if I could wield constructive instead of destructive justice? Experimentally, I whispered as we hurried down the hall, “Bless Sarah and Bill and let them wake up.”
    Nothing happened.
    “Pretty please, Saturn? Just let them wake up?”
    Nada.
    Maybe I needed red rage to reach Saturn, but at the moment, I was too terrified to be angry. I neverwanted to enter these bowels of hell again. Scientists with needles and hidden cellars were a Frankensteinian death trap if I ever saw one.
    Leo had the gurney halfway down the hall and was hitting buttons to summon a hidden elevator he must have discovered in his search, when we heard a shout.
    “Wait a minute!” We heard footsteps pounding from the other end of the corridor—just as the elevator door opened.
    This was the reason I hadn’t dared rescue Bill, too. He was too heavy for running like hell.
    I glanced at Schwartz. He nodded and, clenching his jaw, shoved the gurney into the elevator. Remembering his request that I not get him fired, I hit the up button and prayed to escape from the antiseptic depths of hell. Not that I expected prayers to be answered.

7

    “G as mask.” I pointed at Schwartz’s, reminding him to cover his face. “Security clearance.” I held up my purple badge.
    I could tell he got my message because he scowled as he adjusted his mask, and I whipped out my phone. Did cell reception even reach through this bloody building? Better yet, would the Zone let me call out?
    I hit Andre’s number. I got voice mail for a cheese shop in Wisconsin. Worried that I was about to blow this, I tried to think of some way to carry Sarah out of there without better transportation than Leo’s cop car.
    She seemed pretty pale, and my gut knotted. What had they done to her? She was the only person remotely like me that I knew, and I felt more than alittle protective. Schwartz had managed to pull the gloves over her paws, because one dangled outside the sheet. I had just carefully tucked it under when my phone played “Here Comes the Judge.”
    Unhappy with the inappropriate interruption, I seriously considered getting the hell out of the Zone if this electronic comedy routine continued. Wondering how Acme operated computers if I couldn’t even use a phone, and realizing that I could not not answer the Judge’s call if I wanted to still remain a lawyer, I punched the button just as the elevator doors opened on the main floor. No welcoming committee. Yet.
    My employer’s secretary spoke in clipped tones in my ear. “Clancy, Judge Snodgrass needs you to research a case this afternoon. Can you be here by two?”
    I glanced at my watch as we rushed the gurney down the main hall of offices. It was after one already, and it was just research. On a weekend. “We’re having a bit of a public emergency down here, Jill,” I told her. I knew she wouldn’t like it. She didn’t like me. She liked men and didn’t think women ought to be attorneys—or near her favorite judge. But I needed this job. “Can this wait until tomorrow?”
    “I’m not coming in on a Sunday,” she said acidly. “And you don’t have clearance for office keys. If you want this job, you’ll be here by two.”
    She cut me off. I generously refrained from damning her to hell, but for a minute there, she hung on the precipice.
    One more stressor added to my day. You can do it, Clancy .
    A couple of security goons in uniform were coming at us, looking mean. Since they hadn’t hurt anybody, I couldn’t wish them to Hades or anywhere else any more than I could Jill. Apparently, my attempts at anger management were working. A pity, that.
    I kept talking loudly into my phone as if it hadn’t gone dead. “Yes, Senator. Of course, Senator. Is the ambulance outside yet? Your cousin is in good hands, I assure you. We’ll let you know as soon as