by Duncan Long
I was back in my previous pickle.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” the medical bot said, shoving the sharp needle of the empty hypodermic syringe into my groin.
Or at least, that’s what would have happened had I not had the metal serving platter in my lap. It had come with me, and now the hypodermic needle bent against it, leaving my family jewels untouched.
“You’ll only be asleep for a few hours while I extract all your teeth and eyes. Then, once you’ve rested for a bit, we can work on your skull.”
With renewed strength perhaps brought on by the full meal I’d enjoyed, I broke free of the tentacle holding me down and rolled of the examination table into the mass of cable that rooted the medical bot to the floor. The machine bent at an extreme angle, three of its hands snatching at me as I rolled farther out of its reach.
“Don’t resist,” the machine ordered. “You won’t feel a thing and then you can be on your way to detox classes.” It snatched at me again.
I zigged when I should have zagged.
The med-bot latched onto me and then its mechanical tentacles twined around me as well. Once I was secure, the machine reeled me in and tossed me onto the table where more restraints snapped into place, little by little securing me to the surface, arms and legs securely bound as if by so many Lilliputians.
A rusty scalpel appeared in the med-bot’s claw, and slowly inched its way toward my right eye. Brave person I am, I closed my eyes and whined, waiting for the inevitable, reflecting on the fact that now would be a great time to — what had Alice called it? Wink. Come on, wink now, I ordered myself.
Wink, wink, wink!
Nothing happened.
I waited.
Still nothing.
I opened my eyes.
I was still on the table.
The scalpel was just a hair’s breadth from my eye and the med-bot stood frozen in place, motionless, as if trying to extract the most terror from the ordeal as possible.
I waited and still nothing moved. The room was silent, except for my beating heart.
Finally: “End of line. Error message 4,562,” the mainframe announced with a grating drone only computers can achieve. “System on hold until reset.”
Never have I been so overjoyed by a computer glitch. Oh, wondrous, beautiful bug of programming.
The only thing that might outdo the glitch I now enjoyed would have been a government tax computer crash, destroying its records of my existence. But this current malfunction was certainly the runner up in a contest of such events.
The error has saved my teeth, eyes, and God only knows what else, I thought, eyes fastened on the scalpel. At least for a while — but I was still trapped.
I squirmed around in my restraints and glanced at the bot that had escorted me to the medical room. It, too, was frozen in place.
How to get free?
I spied the restaurant platter lying on the floor. That had been in the restaurant. Somehow I had brought it back with me.
So my experience with Alice hadn’t been a hallucination of some sort. I had carried the platter back with me.
I didn’t waste any time pondering how any such thing might happen, or what was real and what was not. Instead I wriggled and wiggled until first one hand, then a foot, and then all of me was free of the restraints. I cautiously rose from the table, crossed to the door, and squeezed past the automaton blocking the exit.
After cautiously checking up and down the hall and seeing nothing, I boldly stepped into the passage and then tried to decide what to do next.
One thing was certain: I’d be dead or horribly crippled if I stayed here for even a few more days. If I wanted to stay alive, I had to escape.
But how?
I was clueless.
The irony was not lost on me. Here I was, free as a bird, and I had no idea of how to escape or which direction to flee. It dawned on me that proper direction for a getaway might very well be inscribed on the floor in front of me. “Follow the red line,” was the phrase the bots had drilled into us the night before. So, in theory at least, by backtracking along the red line I should be able to get to the front door.
Provided I went the right way; the wrong way would only lead back to the cells.
I knew I had to act quickly. Once the mainframe rebooted, all bets were off because I was certain one or another bot would grab me before I got far.
So, hoping I was headed in the right way, I raced as fast as I could along the red line snaking down the hallway.
Chapter 17
Ralph Crocker
Thirty minutes and two false trails later, I was at the front gate of the pit that formed the entrance of Timothy Leary’s Home for the Addicted. Feeling like Peter freed from Herod’s prison, I stared at the open gate as if an angel had flung it aside. Beyond was the loading ramp where the slaughter had occurred the night before. Then up the incline.
Freedom, sweet freedom.
But was I really free? Were there guards outside? Was it possible they might operate on a system separate from the mainframe?
I cautiously crept onto the dock. There sat an empty truck loaded with prison cubicles.
Empty prison cubicles.
I wondered if it had been full of prisoners half an hour earlier when the system shut down. If so, they had escaped. At least that’s what I suspected. There weren’t any bodies on the dock and the killer mechs were lined up at the ready, frozen in place as if in eternal anticipation of the arrival of the new prisoners to terrify and slaughter.
I prayed my assessment was correct and that everyone in the truck had escaped and that the machines were petrified by the mainframe glitch.
The alternative was that the machines might simply be waiting. How can you tell whether a mech is on its lunch break or if it’s dead?
I cautiously stepped onto the arrival dock and then climbed upward toward the rim of the pit where freedom lay. The guards were truly immobile. It seemed then that the prison wagon must have come in a short time ago, with the glitch allowing the prisoners in the cages to escape. How long before cops from outside the compound came to see what had malfunctioned here at the drug detox hospital? Probably days, weeks, or months. The place was automated and supposedly cared for itself.
I squinted at the sun that shone brightly above the rim of the pit like a beacon of liberty. All I had to do was waltz up the ramp and say “so long” to the insanity behind me.
Yet I didn’t.
Because I was haunted by the plight of the men still imprisoned in the bowels of this nightmare.
So, once more, I became a victim of my own conscience. While a few days before, I would undoubtedly have left without another thought, today I did not. Today my conscience won the match.
The thought of leaving all the inmates back in their prison cells, waiting perhaps for eternity until the system timed out and rebooted or a technician was summoned to check the automated machinery, was more than I could bear. Leaving them in prison was a death sentence, whether the mainframe rebooted or not. If starvation didn’t get them, the errors in programming would, just like they’d got Francis Scot Key this morning.
Heads they lost, tales they lost.
Instead of climbing the ramp, I looked around, trying to fathom where the main controls to the system might be hidden. If I could locate them, and do so before the system rebooted, there was a slight chance that I might set the captives free. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to imagine the most logical spot to place such a system within the prison.
Obviously the builder would place the system where it would be easy to access for him and impossible for prisoners to reach.
And he would most likely place it toward the center of the complex to minimize wiring and fiber runs (assuming some sort of logic had been used in its design). It would need to be easily reached from the main road, too.
I cautiously stepped onto the loading dock, hoping the system didn’t restart while I pondered the layout of the land. Doing my be
st to ignore the lightning rod-equipped terror machines, I shaded my eyes from the sun and searched for a second entrance.
There it is.
The small doorway was nearly hidden by the vines that grew along the cracked wall, one of the few spots in the pit that was hit with sunlight. I raced to the entrance and cleared away the growth, exposing a locked door.
The lock was of the cheapest sort — that surprised me. Then I realized that you didn’t need much of a lock if you have killer bots milling around the entrance all the time. The lock was more a superfluous gesture than necessity.
I searched a moment for something I could use as a pry bar. Then I had an idea. I toppled one of the guard bots and yanked a large rod from one of its legs. I started toward the door and then decided a side trip was in order.
For the next few minutes I very methodically beat the crap out of each of the six statue-like guards on the loading ramp. Even if I didn’t succeed at doing anything else, I would have the satisfaction of knowing these blind mechs would never kill any more prisoners who had the misfortune to arrive in the dead of night.
After stopping only a moment to admire the litter of used parts that now decorated the dock, I turned my bloodied-in-battle steel rod upon the door. It was not a job requiring great dexterity or finesse. It was a skill I had trained at the age of six when I had found myself alone and hungry on the back streets of Topeka: Simply bash the electric lock face apart, then push the bar into the opening and pry until the latch snaps, freeing the door to rotate.
So I bashed.
And pushed.
And pried, hardly working up a sweat by the time the door opened on squeaking hinges.
I stepped into the black opening beyond, my nose greeted by the odor of damp concrete. Waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, I felt along the rough wall and was rewarded with an old-fashioned light switch that I flipped up, bathing the area in a greenish, flickering florescent light.
Ahead of me was a low tunnel, with a red arrow and lettering that said, “Main Control.”
I headed down the passageway, my boots echoing off the concrete, the rod held firmly in place just in case I should meet a vampire, mummy, or other creature that the environment seemed so well suited for.
At the end of the long, hundred-meter tunnel was another door that I dutifully broke into, again using my makeshift pry bar and the same technique, the noise reverberating down the hall with enough volume to alert anyone who might have been around. I might as well have yelled, “I’m down here, come and get me.”
After I’d finished on the lock I waited a moment, holding my breath. I heard nothing. No one came. There was only the hum of florescent lights.
Turning my attention toward the room behind the door, I stepped into the diminutive compartment that was at the most perhaps three meters across. A console opposite the door spanned the room with rows of monitors placed above it. Everything was coated with dust and the control board appeared to have gone unused for perhaps decades.
I brushed the cobwebs off one of the ancient office chairs and sat at the control panel, pulling the plastic protective cover off a decrepit keyboard, hoping no dirt had reached the keys during the years it had been sitting there. A few taps on the “Enter” key brought everything to life except for three of the monitors, which were either burned out or were connected to cameras that no longer functioned. After experimenting a bit, I was able to locate the various cellblocks and view locations within the prison.
Finally I turned my attention to the video monitor connected to the mainframe itself. The screen was covered with various error messages, the last of which was the herald of the command that shut things down moments before my eye-ectomy.
I paused a moment before doing anything, double-thinking what I was about to attempt. I wanted to open the cells and let everyone out; I definitely wanted to avoid reactivating the guards. But looking at the programming code, I knew that doing one without the other was going to be tricky if not impossible.
I cautiously tapped commands that unfurled the main directory of the system and then I explored various files for what seemed an hour, though it was only minutes. Finally I located the electronic manual outlining the general procedures and commands available to manually override various systems. Written in encrypted English, it had an owner’s manual any bean counter would love:
Procedure for Accessing Cellular Entrance Gates Within Automated Prison, Modular Incarceration Cells
Which was manualeese for “How to spring an inmate.” It took me a few more minutes to translate its engineer jargon into something that made sense — or seemed to.
Once I discovered the right commands, I slowly and methodically entered the keystrokes required. Then I double-checked them to be sure everything was correct, because I didn’t want another glitch that might cost lives. Satisfied all was correct, I hit “Enter” on the keyboard.
And with that last keystroke, a riot erupted in Timothy Leary’s Happy Hellhole. Because not only did the cell doors open, the guards were unfortunately reactivated as well.
I watched the monitors with mounting terror at the scene unfolding before my eyes. As the cells doors opened, prisoners raced for their freedom. But at the same time, the bots guarding the halls and various points within the prison came to life. For a time the mechs were winning the battle, then they were slowly pushed back by the sheer weight of prisoners throwing themselves against the machines.
Once a guard toppled over, it wasn’t long for this world as the desperate men dismantled the machines with bare hands and boiling hate, and then used various parts of each smashed mechanism as clubs and javelins against the remaining bots. So, one by one, the mechs were transformed to rubble, and the detainees won their freedom, albeit not without casualties.
Satisfied I’d done all I could, I took my pry bar and slammed it into the mainframe, once, twice, three times. Not much happened. No showers of sparks, no explosions. Only the smell of burnt plastic as the monitors flickered off and a thin, anti-climatic whiff of smoke rose from the dying computer.
I turned to make my own escape.
And ran smack dab into a modi-gorilla policeman.
I don’t know where the creature had come from. Maybe he’d been sent to check on the prison after it was discovered that the captives held in the prison delivery wagon had escaped.
Or maybe he’d just stopped by to chat with his buddies on the loading dock. Who knows why a modi-gorilla does anything? (The old saw that a five-hundred-pound gorilla can do whatever he wants applies, I suspect.)
At any rate, he’d stood right behind me waiting for me to finish smashing the mainframe. Now there was no escape with him blocking the only exit. I decided to go down fighting and, given that he could tear a man limb from bush, that was the last thing the beast expected and that gave me an edge. My running tackle caught him off guard and I managed to bowl him over.
He looked anything but happy, throwing his head back to release a growl that could curdle the milk inside Tarzan’s mommy. Then he rolled over and fastened beady eyes on my cowering figure. He struggled to rise, a look of growing anger on his hairy face. He also had a simple solution to the problem: “Me tear you apart now,” he said in Tarzanese.
Not wanting to play wishbone for the monkey, I turned and sprinted down the narrow tunnel toward the main entrance to the prison.
Knowing I would never outrun the beast, I leaped into the air as I ran, kicked the in-line wheels out of my boots, and then landed on the floor, my momentum carrying me along at a rapid pace as I pushed for more speed on my skates.
As I raced forward, I could hear loping feet and knuckles slapping the floor as the policeman in an ape’s skin charged down the narrow passageway behind me.
My pursuer snatched at me several times, narrowly missing me before resuming his four-legged chase. Once in the open I ran awkwardly up the ramp leading to the surface, my wheels becoming more hindrance than asset.
As my pace slowed,
the gorilla overtook me, snatching my heels just as I neared the top of the ramp. My feet yanked out from under me, I sprawled on my face, clawing toward the avenue of freedom, now out of my reach. I felt myself dragged downward into the pit, my muscles growing more leaden with the realization that I was about to witness an angry gorilla do an impromptu rearrangement of my body parts.
He tossed me down onto the concrete, warm from the morning sunlight. I gasped for breath and curled into a ball, putting my head between my arms, waiting to be beat to a pulp.
A dull roar like falling water echoed from the prison entrance at the side of the loading dock. I looked up to see the beautiful sight of a butt-ugly hairy posterior racing away from me toward the underground entrance of the prison where the elated cries of men intent on escape now reverberated.
Faced with the reality that all the inmates were stampeding out of the prison, the modi-gorilla’s training apparently dictated dealing with the biggest crowd of criminals first and ignoring the small shrimp like me. So now he galloped toward the gate, swinging it shut in an attempt to hold back the throng of screaming inmates who were soon cascading against the bars.
For just a moment the furry cop succeeded in his Herculean task. But the growing flood of humanity piling behind the gate continued to mount as more and more captives shoved against it. Four seconds later, the gorilla vanished beneath the wave of convicts that swept over him.
At this point, I realized the human tide was also sweeping toward me. To avoid becoming jetsam in its wake, I stumbled to my feet, and once again commenced scaling the ramp. I had reached the top just as the crest of inmates crashed like heavy waves around me. I fought to keep my footing, inundated by a pushing, shoving, and cursing mob that continued its mad flow toward freedom. I rode the horde like a surfer, carried along by the vanguard, only leaping from time to time over prisoners who had the misfortune to trip and fall. Carried down the roadway, I was soon clear of the prison grounds.
The mob ebbed and slowed. I threw myself off the road, lying on my back in the cool grass for a few minutes, catching my breath while I stared upward at the blue, cloudless sky. Finally I sat and studied the escapees trickling past, making their way back toward the city where they hoped to hide. I felt a tinge of sadness, knowing that most of them would be captured before they got far.