Chapter One - Before the Lights Went Out

Elliot looked at the face losing color on the floor and realized everybody in the building was doing the same arithmetic: who could be saved, who would slow them down, who was worth the delay. Heat had not made people kinder or crueler. It had stripped them down. Another explosion echoed from below. Smoke surged up from the garage shaft. "Generator fire!" somebody screamed. Mara stood so fast she nearly fell. "There are oxygen tanks down there!" "We can't go back down," Elliot said. "Then twenty people die in there!" "If we go down now, we die with them." She stared at him, trying to decide whether he was heartless or clearheaded. After a few seconds she shoved her saline bottle into his hand and ran for the stairs anyway.