Monster Nation(98)

That would explain the screaming. It was definitely closer now.

'Fine.' Clark went to a boxy terminal bolted to the wall by the door of the room. It looked like an antique next to the ruggedized laptops and industrial strength cabling that Vikram had installed in the Ops Room. It was the control terminal for all of the prison's facilities and systems. Clark booted it up and paged through a main menu until he found what he wanted:!!!EMERGENCY LOCKDOWN!!!

'Step away from that door,' he called. Vikram was a good ten feet from it but he stepped away anyway, like a good soldier. Clark hit theENTER key and an alarm sounded throughout the entire prison for two seconds. Moving silently on electromagnetic servos the door swung shut and clicked three times. It was locked tight. The clicking seemed to go on for minutes as nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine other doors throughout the facility shut themselves and locked automatically.

For a long time Vikram and Clark just looked at each other and waited for something to go wrong. Nothing did.

'There. We're safe,' Clark announced. 'Now we just have to decide what to do next.'

The two second alarm sounded again and the door of the Ops Room ghosted open.

Clark's heart started beating very fast. Too fast.

'Bannerman,' Vikram began, but Clark held up a hand for patience.

He studied the terminal in front of him. He hadn't touched anything. He called up an activity log and saw that nine seconds after he'd given the order to lock the prison down, someone else had given the order to release the doors again. All of the doors, including all the gates. Even the exterior gates. There was nothing to stop anyone or anything from just walking into the prison.

It could have been a glitch but of course, it wasn't.

There were security terminals all over the prison, and any one of them could have undone Clark's lockdown but it wasn't just a case of someone pushing a random button on a terminal. It wasn't just a simple matter of a few keystrokes to undo an emergency lockdown in the system. It required someone to input an authorization code and then to manually set all the prison's systems to 'all clear'. You had to know how to do it and you couldn't do it accidentally. Clark checked the activity log again.

'Someone's in the infirmary. Someone who wants the doors open.'

Vikram chewed nervously on his lower lip until it looked red and sore. 'Perhaps,' he said, his eyes very wide, 'perhaps we should go there and discuss this with them.'

It was the worst idea Clark had ever heard. He couldn't think of anything else to do. 'Right,' he nodded. He removed his weapon from its holster.





Monster Nation





Chapter Ten


Mars is a snowball, Venus a boiling pot of sulfuric acid. Everywhere we look in the universe we find sterile rocks and dust but not here' Earth is special, a special case. Lovelock's hypothesis is all but proved, life regulates itself, but through what agency or process? The morphogenetic field' the field is real, it's real and it can be manipulated. [Lab Notes, 2/15/04]

'What the hell are you doing here?'

Mael Mag Och raised his hands in mock exasperation. 'Saving your skin, lass. You got yourself in a bit of a pickle, didn't you? That big fellow, the one with the vaccine, he was going to do your head in. So I did the only thing I could, which was to bring you here. Now I'm making it possible for you to get out of this place. Show me some kindness, lass. Show your best friend in the wide dark world a bit of love, won't you?'

'I almost talked my way out of here on my own. I could have, if you'd given me a chance.' Nilla pulled and tugged at the chain that secured her to the wall but there was no give in it at all. She tried folding her hand, touching her pinky to her thumb, but still it wouldn't fit through the manacle around her wrist. 'Now they'll probably just shoot me because they assume I'm the one who cut the lights.'

Mael Mag Och swung his legs over the side of the table and got to his feet. He walked behind the bar as he spoke to her. 'I'm here to rescue you, lass, but that's not the only reason I came winging to your side in this dank and fetid prison. This soldier of yours is against us, and he's a smart one.'

'You're afraid of him?' Nilla asked. It was impossible. But if it was true'

Mael laughed. He ran one hand over the bar as if he were wiping it with a rag. 'He's not a threat. Our victory is assured. He could set back my plans by a few weeks, perhaps, if he put his shoulder to the right wheel.'