Dr. Hetzel’s information had given me something of an edge, but obviously she’d left some things out about this processing facility. She had to have known it was underground, but that was a fact which she didn’t share. Of course, she was experiencing a high degree of anxiety during my interrogation session.
Some of the things she had told me had, indeed, gotten me this far. Such as the importance of traveling through the portal with a “reader” so I would not arrive in that other form. Had I not incorporated that element into my escape strategy, all would have been lost before it even began. She also made it clear that even though she wasn’t fully informed on the ultimate fate that awaited me on the far side, it was not something she’d wish for herself. So, I knew that the stakes were high. But that was about all of the pertinent facts I had.
From this moment forward, I would have to rely on my wits. They’d served me well in the past, or so I liked to believe.
But the idea of charging into whatever situation awaited me in the control room seemed foolish. I would have liked some sort of weapon, but there wasn’t anything useful laying about.
Suddenly a flash of green came from one of the lower levels.
“It was just a couple of tiers down,” Rose said, crossing over to the railing. “Do you think they fixed the portals back home?”
“There are other portals,” I told her. “Different game shows in other cities.” Well, I suppose that there were other things Dr. Hetzel had told me. And, who knew, some of those facts might eventually prove useful.
“Really?” Rose asked, less interested in such matters that I thought she’d be.
I stepped over to join her.
She was leaning to the side, trying to see where the light had come from.
My attention, however, went to a figure moving down at the bottom level. Someone dressed in white pushing a handcart.
Rose gave up trying to see where the newcomers might be when she saw I was looking elsewhere.
“Our robot friend,” she said.
Probably she was right, but there could be others roaming about, pushing those carts.
We watched the robot roll his wheelbarrow to a break in the railing of the bottom tier. He tilted it up, and two small forms (Helen and Darlene, I presume) slipped into the sluggish dark water and oozed out of sight.
“That doesn’t look very pleasant,” Rose said. I had to agree with her. “Maybe that’s just for those who go through Door Number Two. Could be the winners go some place less…disturbing.”
“It’s all a cruel sham,” I told her. Not that I learned this from Dr. Hetzel, but it was self-evident. “Just sick entertainment.”
Rose returned to the door to the Control Room.
“We might as well do it,” she said, opening the door to reveal a dim stairwell leading up.
She did not wait for my permission, so I had no choice but to follow her up the stairs. This was unlike the stairwell we had climbed earlier. The steps were wide and carpeted and and only went up a short distance, curving around to reveal, unexpectedly, a large, circular room.
The control room.
There were lighted consoles, video screens, and a soothing hum that came from a glass or plastic ceiling which glowed with a familiar green light. A lone man in a white jumpsuit moved busily from console to console. He looked up as we entered, but immediately turned away, seemingly unconcerned with our presence. He appeared identical to the other two robots, workmen, or whatever they are. But it was not the technician in white who commanded my attention.
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“Well, if it isn’t the villain of this adventure,” said a familiar man seated in a plush white armchair on an elevated platform that was somewhat removed from the work stations. “I hope you didn’t murder any more robots on your way here.” It was Silverio Moreno, or Sy as everyone called him. He still wore that absurd red wig. And beside him, no longer seated but on her feet, was that girl who had helped me back when I’d had my “episode” in the elevator. “It’s good to see that you’re safe,” Sy added, but this time speaking to Rose.
“What are you doing here?” Rose sputtered.
“Why, we came to rescue you from this madman,” Sy said. “Me and Nora.”
“We’ve been spying on you,” said Nora, the elevator girl.
“And obviously move faster than the two of you,” Sy said. “And we did begin a couple of floors below you. Not that it’s a contest or anything.”
“It was awful what happened to those nice ladies from the TV show.” Nora had shifted her attention to the worker in the white jumpsuit. “These robots aren’t so easy to figure out.”
We turned, all four of us, to look at the individual in white, who was peering into a video monitor, calmly turning a dial. We had all shifted into an awkward detente. The nuances of allegiances and alliances uncertain.
Sy looked over at me, and I almost thought we would wink again.
“This one,” Sy said, indicating Nora, but keeping his eyes on me, “says she loves robots. Me, I think it’s just the novelty—her first day amongst them. Mine, too, but they’ve not yet won me over. Aren’t they supposed to be servants of man? Think they could offer us sandwiches or at least some coffee.”
“I think you broke the portals, Sy,” Rose said. “When you came through.”
Sy continued to regard me with caution as Rose moved across the room and up the steps to join him and Nora.
“Me?” Sy laughed. He got to his feet and welcomed Rose into the safety of their little group. “That bald headed scoundrel started it all.”
Speaking of me, of course.
“I think we need to get out of here,” Nora said.
“The sooner the better,” Rose echoed in agreement. “August has already had, well, an altercation with one of the workmen.”
“You mean robots,” Nora corrected.
“Whatever. But probably we’ve overstayed our welcome.”
The robot in the control room with us lifted his head and spoke to Rose.
“It would be preferable if you were to depart. The presence in the facility of a high level Reader such as yourself poses the threat of a full tau field feedback cascade. And then where would we be?”
“We’d be happy to go,” I told him. “If we could just have a key to the elevator.”
“The elevators to the surface have been sealed for two centuries,” the robot said, returning his attention to the consoles. “A bad decision, but there you have it.”
“Centuries?” Sy sputtered.
“Besides,” the robot continued, “even if access were possible, REINCORs are forbidden to leave the facility.”
“Well, we really didn’t want to leave with him,” Nora said, her eyes flashing over to me. “Sorry,” she added, but of course she wasn’t.
The robot pushed a button and tapped at information displayed on a screen.
“We still need to process August Mathers 5813213768 and Silverio Moreno 2964865366.”
“What?” said Rose, stepped back to stare at Sy.
Things were beginning to get interesting.
“But the pressing issue,” the robot continued, “is the disruptive qualities of this Reader.” He advanced a couple of paces toward Rose, who retreated closer to Sy. “New York will be sending three dozen REINCORs through at 21:25 Eastern Standard. Are you familiar with their show? Chaos Squad? I’ve not seen it. I understand it’s quite violent. And they do excel at volume. 36 each day, Monday through Friday!”
“If I must stay,” Sy said with a cloying magnanimity, “might we find a way to send these two woman to a safe place, out of your hair?”
“Quite unprecedented,” the robot said. “However, I’m afraid that any action will have to wait until after New York transfers their full complement of tonight’s REINCORs.” He lifted an arm and pointed to Rose. “You will not leave this room once the Chaos Squad download has begun.”
“So, we wait,” Sy said with a smirk. He descended the two steps from where the armchairs were and sauntered his way across the floor, coming to a halt once he stood nose to nose with me. His bravado was of the schoolboy variety. “It looks like the two of us are in the same boat.”
Just what all did I have in common with this foppish fool?
There was the sound of a footfall on the stairs we had come up.
It was another of those robots in white coveralls. And even thought they all looked identical, for some reason I knew that this was the one that had carted away the creatures who had once been Helen and Darlene.
“How timely,” the technician said to the new-comer. “Please do something about these two REINCORs.”
“You again,” he said, glaring at me. “And now with a new companion?”
I suppose by that he meant Sy.
Without a second thought, he pulled a familiar baton from a pocket, aimed it my way, and suddenly I was bathed in green light.
Nora screamed as Sy collapse into a squirming, tentacled thing. I spun around to escape before he could get off another shot, but I didn’t move. That was when I noticed everything was above me. I was on the floor, but I hadn’t fallen. Had I? I found myself looking directly at Sy, or whatever one would call that thing which he had become. His pupils were star-shaped. And that was when I saw my own arm twitching. I looked at it. It wasn’t an arm at all, but a moist, veiny tentacle.