“What have you got, Jack?” Abbot asked.
“I’m not sure. ELF is the kind of radiation a human brain emits all the time, among other things.” He showed Rosalind the paragraph he’d just been reading. “Does this make any sense to you?”
As she read, he looked at the next page, which said quite clearly that Emily’s testimony, even under truth serum, was not to be trusted, since she couldn’t distinguish between truth and falsehood. Not quite right, Jack thought, but near enough.
Abbot, who with Tom Sarbin looking over his shoulder, was reading the other file which had first caught Jack’s attention, looked up. “This sounds like mind reading,” he said.
“Good for them,” Jack said, “let them chase fantasies for a while.”
“You haven’t been keeping up with the literature,” Sally said. “The University of Chicago had definitely demonstrated latent psi talents in a number of Visitor volunteers.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” Sarbin said, “this is about mind control, not telepathy.”
“We’ll figure it out later,” Jack said. “Okay, Abbot, you’ve got what you wanted, now let’s go get Emily, before it’s too late.”
“He’s right, Doug,” Sally said. “We’ve been here far too long already.”
“Okay,” Abbot said. “Shut everything down and let’s go-”
They left the office but at the double doors leading to the main hallway they could hear male human voices talking.
“Guards,” Samuel whispered. “They’ll be coming this way.”
They backtracked to the data office, then beyond it to the last room on the corridor. Rosalind let them in and locked the door behind them.
Though there were few lights in here, and all of them set low to accommodate the Visitors’ visual requirements, they could see that they were in an interrogation room. Four ugly chairs stood spaced around the middle of the floor. Each was equipped with straps, wires, headpieces, and probes. Electronic devices were mounted on the back and sides of each chair, and connected to other devices lining the walls. Glass-fronted cabinets contained peculiar and somehow disturbing medical equipment.
“Let’s not wait here,” Samuel said, pointing to a door at the back. Quickly, quietly, they hurried out the far exit. The door closed behind them just as they heard the corridor entrance being unlocked.
“Conversion system,” Rosalind whispered as they passed a complicated console in front of a glass-enclosed booth. Control panels lined the walls on either side.
“More than that,” Samuel murmured, pointing to an interrogation chair like those in the outer room, but with more complex wiring and more connections of a vaguely obscene nature.
“A lot of good these documents are going to do us,” Jack said, hefting one of the bulging plastic bags, “if we’re caught in here.” Abbot’s jaw muscles twitched, but he said nothing. Instead, he looked around the room, then went to a panel which proved to be a door to a small closet.
“Everybody inside,” he said, “and try not to breathe.”
The closet, filled with unidentifiable equipment and supplies, was barely big enough for all of them. They could hear the guards crossing the interrogation chamber, coming toward the conversion room. As quietly as possible, they shifted and pressed together until Abbot could close the door—almost. It just wouldn’t latch. The door to the conversion room opened and the two guards, both human by the sound of their voices, came in.
File Eighteen: Friday Morning
The guards moved around the room, coming closer to the closet door. “This place gives me the creeps,” one of them said.
“Just be glad they’re not going to run you through that machine,” the other answered, his words just barely audible, as if his back were turned to them.
After a moment the footsteps went away, but they could not hear the door to the interrogation room close.
They waited there, in the darkness, muscles cramping, trying not to breathe too loudly. “All right,” Samuel whispered at last. He was pressed up against Abbot, right by the door. “Let me take a look.”
He eased the door open and slipped out. Abbot closed the door after him. Jack counted the seconds. He got up to fifty-three when the door opened and Samuel, facing Abbot’s drawn gun, told them the guards were gone on their rounds.
Cautiously, they retraced their steps to the main hallway, and from there back to the stairs and up to the floor above. The stairs did not continue to the prison floor.
“We’ll have to take the main way up,” Rosalind said as she and Samuel led them past kitchens, sanitation service, and medical facilities. “We can take care of up to fifty prisoners, though the most we’ve ever had is seventeen.”
“Just as well,” Samuel said. “Most of the people they get to work here are junkies, or stupid, or both.”
“Looks like we’re going right to the central elevators,” Lewis said.
“We are,” Rosalind said. “The stairs there are the only ones up to the top floor.”
But the stairs were set right in the middle of a lounge area, and they were already halfway across the floor before they saw a staff member just waking up from an illicit nap on one of the couches.
When he saw them, he jumped up from the couch and started to run for a far door. Sarbin, with Abbot right behind him, hurried to catch him.
“It’s a raid,” the man shouted just as he reached the door. He fumbled with the knob, and Sarbin and Abbot caught him.
“Shut up, man,” Abbot hissed.
“Help!” the man yelled. Sarbin hit the man on the side of the head. The man staggered free of Abbot’s grasp, his feet slipped, and he came down hard, his head striking the edge of a low table near the door with a sickening crack.
“Shit!” Abbot said. “We’ve killed him.”
“That’s blown it,” Samuel said. “No way we can fake it
now. We had everything set up to look like someone had come down from Northampton and taken Velasquez away. ” “That wouldn’t have worked anyway,” Abbot said, “not after we raided their files.”
“All anybody would have noticed is that the paper supply is low. But now we’ve got a body.”
“We couldn’t just let him scream,” Sarbin protested. “No, but Rosalind and I are on duty tonight, and if we don’t come up with a good story, they’ll run us through that interrogation chamber. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“We’ll think of something,” Abbot said. “Right now, let’s go get Emily.”
They left the dead man where he lay, and took the central stairs up to the top floor of the building. The layout had been radically altered up here. Rosalind and Samuel had been up here, but never further than the central foyer. It took them a while to make sense of the corridor and room numbers. It took them a while longer to find their way past cryptically marked rooms, but at last they found themselves in front of the door bearing the number on Emily’s file.
Rosalind took out her packet of magnetic card keys, but they wouldn’t even fit in the slot. “I was afraid of this,” she said. “It’s a special lock.”
“Let me try,” Jenifer said. She took out a case from which she extracted three thin rods. She put these into the slot, moved them around, pushed them in and out. Nothing happened.
“There’s got to be a set of keys in one of the offices downstairs,” Samuel said.
“And how long would it take to find it?” Jack asked.
'We’ve already spent too god damn much time in here.”
He cast an angry glance at Abbot. “With one dead man on the floor, there’s no sense in being subtle anymore.”
He knocked on the door. There was only silence. He knocked again, more loudly this time. Inside, he could hear Emily’s muffled answer.
“Emily,” he said, his mouth near the doorjamb. “This is Dr. Page. Are you all right?”
“Dr. Page? What are you doing here?”
“We’ve come to get you out. Now listen. Come up to the door.”
“Okay,” she said, and he could hear her more clearly now.
“Stand as far away from the door as you can,” he said, “but on this side of the room, got it?”
“1 understand,” she said.
Jack stepped back. He took his right glove out of his jacket pocket and wrapped it around the muzzle of his gun.
“What are you going to do?” Abbot asked, suddenly anxious.
“Stand back, Abbot,” Jack snarled, “or I’ll hurt you.” Abbot stood back.
“Where’s the best spot?” Jack asked Rosalind. She pointed, a bit above the key slot. Jack put the muzzle of the gun against the door at that point, pressing the wrapped glove around it. He pulled the trigger. The sound was still loud, but the door, recoiling from the impact of the bullet, bucked slightly, the lock destroyed.
Jack pulled the door open and strode ino a small, plainly furnished room. Emily, her long reddish brown hair stringy, her strong features strained, was standing in the comer, her hands over her mouth.
“Let’s get you out of here,” Jack said. Emily stared at him for a moment, and then with a whimper rushed to him.
He enfolded her in his arms, felt her muscles, tight and twitching. He’d fantasized about holding her, but at the moment the sensation was far from romantic.
“Come on,” he said, “pull yourself together.” She raised her head from her chest and looked past him at Rosalind and Abbot. “We’ve got to move real fast,” Jack went on, disengaging her from his arms. “Introductions later, escape first.”
They hurried out into the hall, where Abbot suddenly stopped, staring from side to side.
“Where’s Lewis?” he said. Jack felt a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“He was right with us,” Jenifer said.
“When?” Abbot snapped. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“I don’t know,” Jenifer said. “He was with us in the closet—”
“That was a hell of a long time ago,” Abbot said, looking accusingly at Jack. “All right, forget Lewis, let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“We’ll have to take the back stairs,” Samuel said as they hurried down the hall. “The ones in the central foyer are sealed off.”
As they entered the central foyer they found themselves face to face with four human guards, automatic pistols drawn. They were surrounded, thier own weapons hol-stered. There was nothing to do but put up their hands. It was only then that Lewis came forward from his place of concealment beside the central bank of elevators.
Jack’s heart leaped, but what did the fool think he could do, unarmed against four guards.
“I’m sorry to do this to you, Jack,” Lewis said. The guards did not turn, they just grinned. “We’ve been friends,” Lewis went on, “but my conscience just won’t let you get away with this.”
“I can’t believe it,” Jack said, his surge of hope and admiration gone rotten in his stomach. “Why, Lewis?” “I made my choice long ago, Jack. Even when 1 was declared a traitor, and made an outcast, my faith never wavered. 1 knew that someday I’d be able to prove my loyalty, to win myself back into the good graces of my people. I’m just sorry that you had to be caught with the others.”
“You knew we were coming,” Abbot said.
“No, it was just an accident. This is the first time I’d ever been up here.”
“You were pretty convincing down there,” Jack said bitterly.
“I don’t like what’s happening up here, Jack. But I know where my loyalty lies, as you do. These other two, however,” he nodded at Rosalind and Samuel, “I don’t hold any sympathy for them at all.”
“I think we’d better secure these prisoners,” one of the guards said. He wiggled his gun at the disconsolate group. “Nice and easy now, take your guns out and drop them on the floor.”
Jack suppressed an urge to be foolishly heroic, and along with the others, did as he was told.
“You’re lying,” Abbot said to Lewis as one of the guards came forward to pick up the guns. “You knew about this all along. It’s just too pat.”
“No,” Lewis said, “though I suspected something when we got Annette. She didn’t name any names, Jack, not even yours, and I’d hoped that you were not involved.” “You’re the one who turned her in,” Rosalind said. “Yes I am,” Lewis admitted.
With the weapons collected, two of the other guards came forward, with alien handcuffs in their hands. “Turn around,” one of them ordered. “Put your hands behind your back.”
Rosalind jumped on him, scrabbling for the gun he held so carelessly in his left hand. The other guards were taken completely by surprise, and for just a second, hesitated to shoot, fearful of hitting their companion.
But Abbot, fast as a released spring, knocked the guard nearest him aside, while Tom Sarbin plucked the gun out of that guard’s hand and fired at Lewis.
The shot missed, the other guards scattered, Sally Greenstreet threw a running shoulder block at the one carrying their weapons and brought him crashing to the floor. Jack pushed Emily to one side and strode to where Rosalind and her guard were rolling on the floor. He reached down to club the guard on the side of the head with his false left hand, just as the guard’s gun went off. Rosalind arched, her fingers convulsed on the guard’s throat.
And then it was all over. Two guards were down, two were gone, and Lewis was nowhere in sight. Jack tried to pull Rosalind to her feet, but she was completely limp, and blood was pouring from a gaping wound in her chest.
He let her fall. “She’s dead,” he said.
“No,” Samuel said, “she can’t be.” He knelt beside her, shook her shoulders. Rosalind’s head just rolled around, bumping on the blood-stained carpet.
“Come on, Samuel,” Sarbin said, “it’s over.”
“Shoot these suckers,” Abbot muttered. He strode like an automaton over to the guard Sally had tackled to retrieve his gun.
“Enough,” Jenifer said, grabbing his arm. “We’ve got to get out of here, now.” She scooped up the rest of the weapons.
“Come away, Doug,” Tom Sarbin said. “Don’t blow everything on a little revenge.” He kept Abbot’s gun, and tugged him toward the central stairs.
Jack dropped his own gun back in his pocket and looked around for Emily. She was standing alone, sobbing hysterically. He went up to her, folded her in his arms, hugged her so hard she gasped.
“Come on,” he said, letting her go but keeping his one good arm around her shoulders. “It’s all over now,” he said as he guided her after the others. She clung to him as they hurried down the stairs to the service floor.
His mind was in a turmoil. Lewis had betrayed him. Emily was safe. They were a long way from freedom yet.
They had to leave the central stairs at the service floor, and go back to the stairs by which they had come up— twenty minutes ago? They made it down to the administration floor, but there they ran into trouble. The two guards who had escaped had called in reinforcements, and it was only by virtue of the guards’ bad marksmanship that they escaped being cut down as they tried to exit the stairwell.
“We can’t get out this way,” Abbot said.
“Back upstairs,” Samuel told him. His voice was a strange mix of terrified panic and dead, flat grief. They retreated up the stairs, and when the guards tried to follow, sent a volley of lead at them.
Back at the service floor, Samuel led them at a run to the other side of the building. Abbot and Sally took up the rear, occasionally firing back at the guards in pursuit.
“Nobody uses this stair,” Samuel said as they turned a last corner to see a steel door that looked as though it was painted shut. He grabbed the latch bar, threw his whole weight on it, the paint chipped and cracked, and the door opened.
They hurried down to the administration floor below. The stairwell was closed off by another new firedoor. This one, however, did not open. Jenifer pushed Samuel aside, looked quickly at the lock mechanism, then flipped a little lever to one
side. Above them, they could hear the guards pounding down in pursuit.
In one rush, they all went through the now unlocked door, and slammed it shut behind them. Moving as quickly as they could, they descended.
File Nineteen: Friday Morning
Jenifer started to leave the stairwell but Samuel stopped her. “They can shut down the elevator up there,” he said. “Besides, it’s too slow.”
“Then let’s move,” Abbot said, continuing down the stairs. The others followed.
Jack had to half carry Emily, and after two flights Tom Sarbin fell back to help him. There were no sounds of pursuit from above. The stairs seemed to go on forever, but at last they reached the ground floor.
“I’m coming with you,” Samuel said as they paused to catch their breath. “I can’t stay here, they’ll arrest me, or shoot me. I can’t go home, what can I do?”
“We’ll find you a place to hide out,” Jenifer said, “until this blows over. There’s an enclave of Naturals living out on west Howard. They’ll take care of you.”
“I had lots of friends in Northampton,” Samuel said. “They’re going to wonder what’s happened to me. They— they won’t wonder about Rosalind, though.”
“I’m sorry,” Abbot said. “We'll try to get word to your friends. But we won’t tell them where you are. They might, like Lewis, find loyalty more important than friendship.’-When their legs had stopped shaking from the long, rapid descent, and their breathing was more or less normal again, they left the building by the way they had come in. It was nearly four in the morning.
“We’d better split up,” Abbot said, “and try to get some rest.”
“You come with me,” Jenifer said to Samuel, and led him down the alley toward Holiday.
“I’ll take the documents,” Sarbin said, collecting the plastic bags. “We’ll start work on translating them later today. Where are you going to be?”
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