Mole, raising his pistol, said, “Nobody can make me listen to this crapola...”
“The future!” Matthias’s voice echoed through the dark, dim chamber, the monitors glowing like small fires. “The future... arrives!”
The trio of transgenics followed the Familiar’s finger to the glass dome...
... and saw a streak of silver and gold, appearing in the sky, a fiery Christmas ribbon flung across the heavens, its tail a shimmering scattering of white sparks.
“Cool,” Alec said.
Max had never seen anything quite so beautiful, nor so breathtaking. And still she shuddered: was that stardust trail the bearer of the biotoxin — the beginning of the end for mankind...?
Matthias stood on his roost, his eyes going from one monitor to another...
On some of the screens, faces shone with delight from the sight of the Christmas comet. In some locales, a sea of small candles glowed, as if at a church service; in others, gay streamers of silver shook in upraised hands, in happy imitation of the remarkable event they’d just seen. Though there was no sound from the monitors, it was clear cheers and hoops and hollers and whoops of Yuletide joy were ringing in the air at the various locales. And then, slowly, spectators began to filter off, into their own lives, their own celebrations of the holiday...
... and they all looked just fine.
Matthias stared with an astounded expression — Max had never seen a longer puss on a guy. He kept shifting his vision from one monitor to another, and all he could see was ordinaries having a good time... clearly feeling hunky-dory.
“Maybe it takes a while to kick in,” Alec said. He seemed vaguely disappointed. “An hour or so.”
“Or maybe a thousand years,” Max said.
Matthias sat — heavily — in his black chair; it was as if the hand shape of it was trying to crush him.
“Hey, don’t be down in the dumps,” Mole said, stepping up to him. “Do what the other end-of-the-world cults do, when the big day craps out on ’em. Pick a new one! Revise and move on.”
“We... are... superior,” Matthias said, dazed.
“Sure you are,” Max said. “I read about this cult... before the Pulse? A comet was coming to take them to outer space, where God was waiting for ’em. First the men had to castrate themselves...”
“Ouch,” Alec said.
“... and then take poison. Purify themselves — y’know, you don’t want to meet God without sprucing up a bit. But they just knew that comet was gonna take ’em to outer space. Guess what? They’re still waiting.”
Matthias looked directly at Max, his expression haunted. “It was predetermined thousands of years ago. We shall prevail—”
“Maybe next comet,” Alec said. “When’s that, 4006?”
Max stepped nearer to Matthias. “Can you control the facility from where you sit?”
Matthias turned his gaze upon her. “Of course.”
“Then unlock all the cells... Cooperate, and we’ll spare you.”
Mole said, “Hey! I say we—”
“It’s not a democracy,” she reminded him. Then to Matthias she said, “Well?”
Matthias’s ice-blue eyes fell to the computer screen built into the armrest — he touched the screen, in a “button” at the upper right...
... and the monitors changed image.
All of them the same.
All, in huge red numbers, reading: 5:00. For one second, that is; then they read: 4:59... 4:58... 4:57...
Max jumped onto the perch and grabbed him by the front of his robe. “What the hell—”
“This facility will self-destruct in five minutes. More or less. Less, now.”
She put her hands on either side of his face and looked at him, as if she were going to kiss the silver-haired leader. “You won’t have to wait,” she said.
And broke his neck.
Hopping down, she said, “Alec — take a look at those controls. We got minutes to clear this place and get our people off these grounds!”
Mole pitched what was left of his latest stogie and grumbled, “Why can’t these megalomaniac meatheads be satisfied with killin’ themselves? Why do they gotta take a bunch of people with ’em?”
“We’ll break up into discussion groups later,” Max said, unceremoniously pulling the corpse of Matthias by his feet down off the throne onto the black floor, while Alec scrambled up in his place.
She looked at him, hopeful. “Think you can unlock ’em?”
“No problem.” Alec touched a button.
The explosion rocked the building and knocked Max on her butt.
She sat there, next to dead Matthias, and again looked up at Alec. Not so hopeful.
Alec gave her half a grin and half a shrug, and said, “I seem to have blown up one of the outbuildings.”
Getting on her feet, she said, “Don’t just go touching any more buttons, until you’re sure, okay?”
Four thirty-four... 4:33... 4:32...
“Maybe I should crack open a brewski,” Alec said, “and read the manual... You know, at my leisure?”
“Just do it, Alec,” she said, and she and Mole were out of there.
Max told Mole, as they sprinted down the stairs, “You take the cells on the left, I’ll take ’em on the right... If Alec can’t unlock ’em, just pull the damn things off their hinges.”
“No prob,” Mole said.
That was when the sprinkler system started in, whether automatically — thanks to the explosion of the outbuilding, its fire presumably spreading — or by more experimentation on Alec’s part, she had no idea. The indoor rain felt icy cold and smelled of rust, as though it had been captive in the asylum’s pipes for a long time.
Max prayed that Alec had found the button to unlock these doors...
In the long bare hallway, she tugged on the first door and nothing happened. She cursed, but it was inaudible over the sound of the sprinklers and voices screaming in cells all along the hall.
Finding a fire extinguisher in a box on the wall, Max elbowed the glass, got the thing out and started clanging it against the lock of the first door. Finally, the old lock gave way and she threw open the door...
On the single bed suspended by chains from the wall, a wide-eyed C. J. Sandeman lay wrapped in a straitjacket and gagged. Even so, it was clear that he recognized her immediately.
“No time to get you outta that,” she said, yanking him off the cot, steadying him onto his feet. “Building’s going up in a couple minutes. Get down to the first floor, they’ll help you.”
He managed to nod and stumbled out and off toward the stairs.
Mole tried a door, looked at her bright-eyed. “This one’s unlocked!”
Quickly he opened it and stuck his head in.
Just as quickly he yanked his head back out and slammed the door shut.
Mole shuddered.
“What?” she asked.
“Snakes,” he said, and went on.
You’d think he wouldn’t have a problem with that, she thought, going on to the next cell, trying to keep track of time. About two minutes left...
With the water coming down, her hair was well-matted by now. She had released four prisoners when she finally heard the locks all click open. All the doors thrummed open slightly and the prisoners needed no further encouragement than that. They flew down the hall, splashing, barely aware of Max waving them toward safety. She stayed on the floor, going from cell to cell making sure everyone got out.
She saw no other inmate or prisoner until she got to the last door, which she opened wide, and looked in to see a lump in the middle of a padded cell whose stuffing was largely hanging out of gaping tears.
“Get on your feet!” she said. “Building’s gonna blow!”
The lump rolled over to reveal a sickly, emaciated man who had obviously undergone a great deal of torture, a man who stared at her with beady dark eyes...