Michael’s momentary torment was suddenly interrupted by the sounds of footfalls and voices in the hallway. He leaned back out through the open door into the corridor and shot a quick glance back up the way they had come. Approaching at a jog was a bevy of uniformed and armed hospital security people.
By reflex, Michael leaned back into the cage and hit the electronic door closer. On the outside was a thumbprint-activated touch pad, but on the inside there was a normal one. The door activated and slid closed, but before it could close completely, a hand shot in and halted it. Michael lifted a foot and gave the intruding fingers a significant kick. With an audible cry of pain, the fingers disappeared and the door sealed shut with a thud.
Faced with this new situation, Michael quickly ended his debate about what to do. He assumed the door to the hallway would not be a significant impediment to those out in the hall. Without further hesitation he opened the wire door and started in the general direction Lynn had gone. Within seconds he was completely surrounded by ambulating patients in various states of coma.
As Michael dodged the erratically plodding people, he experienced a weird déjà vu from having been a high school and college running back. Since he was plainly more eager than they to move quickly and cover ground in a specific direction, he bumped into a few with more force than he would have liked. To his astonishment, none of the patients fell down, a fact that impressed him. He guessed that the computer programs that were directing their walking were able to deal rapidly and appropriately with sudden changes in feedback information and recover enough to keep the patients on their feet.
After progressing twenty or thirty feet from the cage, Michael slowed and stopped, again going up on tiptoes. He had thought it would be relatively easy to locate Lynn since he was looking for the only person in the crowd with clothes, and in white, no less. But there were just so many people. The good side, he thought, was that it was going to be equally hard for the security guys to find them.
All at once Michael caught a momentary glimpse of Lynn’s white hat. Quickly moving in that direction, he came up behind her. She had found Carl and put her arms around him in a hugging embrace. Of course Carl wasn’t able to respond in kind. His arms were limp at his side, his face a tabula rasa, and his legs were continuing their walking motions even though Lynn was holding him in place.
Michael went behind Carl so that he could look into Lynn’s face. She had her eyes closed.
“We’ve been discovered!” Michael said to her. He shook her arm to break her trance.
Lynn’s eyes popped open.
“A bunch of hospital security appeared out in the hall,” Michael said anxiously. “Luckily I got the door closed before they could come in, but they are probably in now.”
Lynn nodded understanding, her face reflecting the same panic Michael was experiencing. She let go of Carl, and like a wind-up toy, he immediately veered off aimlessly.
“There is another entrance at the opposite end of the room,” Lynn cried.
“I’m sure that is what they expect,” Michael said. “They will catch us for sure. We have to do something unexpected.”
Despite the ambient noise from the grapplers and the conveyor systems, they could hear the unmistakable sound of the door to the cage being thrown open, clanging against the cage’s wall. Their pursuers were coming into the recreation room.
Both looked up at the grapplers, which were continuing their ceaseless operation. “No, that’s not going to work,” Lynn said. She sensed Michael had also briefly wondered if they could somehow use the grapplers to get out. “But maybe the conveyors.”
The duo had been aware that the grapplers were depositing and bringing back people from beyond an eight-foot-high barrier on either side of the room. Without even discussing the issue, they started off toward the right side. Lynn got behind Michael and held on to him as he forced his way through the crowd. Behind them they were aware of a major disturbance and assumed the security people were trying to force their way in their direction through the wandering, blank-faced patients.
Hoping they had an advantage of being only two and working in tandem, Michael and Lynn reached the barrier wall that ran along the right side of the room. Sensing the security people were closing in on them, they searched frantically for a door. When they found one, they discovered it had no electrical lever on the wall to open it, apparently for fear the patients would bump into it. A quick inspection revealed there was a handhold depression on the door itself. Lynn put her fingers into it and pulled. The door slid open with relative ease.
Shoving patients away to keep them from following, Lynn and Michael quickly stepped through the door and pulled it shut behind them. As they had assumed, they found themselves in the terminus for the conveyor systems for Clusters 4-B, 5-B, and 6-B. Each was conveniently labeled. Lined up like duckpins were three lines of patients waiting to be either returned to their respective cylinders or lifted and placed out in the recreation space. As in the cluster room they had visited, the handling of the patients was done by robotic machinery. The ambient noise from the conveyor systems was significantly louder than on the recreation-room floor.
“If this is going to work, we should try the conveyor belt for Cluster 5-B,” Lynn shouted over the din of the machinery. “We’ll be on the same floor as the exit door.”
Michael flashed a thumbs-up. As quickly as possible, they worked their way around the crowd of patients who were lined up, waiting to be sent back to their respective cylinders. In contrast to the other patients out on the floor, these patients were standing motionless, a feat as difficult from a programming perspective as making them walk.
Pushing on, Lynn and Michael skirted the robotic arms that placed the patients on the conveyor system for Cluster 5-B when cued. For the moment they were at rest, having just placed a patient. It was, the students thought, an opportune moment for them. Michael climbed up onto the belt on all fours. He motioned for Lynn to do the same.
Lynn cast a quick look behind her. Several security people were coming through the same door that she and Michael had used. Catching sight of Lynn, they yelled for her to stop.
Lynn ignored them and, mimicking Michael, leaped up onto the moving belt on all fours. The surface was a smooth and pliable silicone material, which afforded good traction. With Michael about ten feet in the lead but already out of sight, Lynn ducked her head as she was drawn into a four-foot-high tunnel.
About six feet past the entrance, the conveyor abruptly angled upward, and the tunnel progressively became darker. After Lynn was taken about twenty feet up the incline, the entire system came to a sudden halt.
“Shit!” she heard Michael’s voice say somewhere ahead. “Why did the fucking thing stop?”
“The security people saw me get on,” Lynn said. She began to crawl upward. She sensed Michael was doing the same, yet after only a short distance she bumped into his feet.
“Why did you stop?” Lynn asked. She could barely make out Michael’s form in front of her. She knew they had to hurry. She could hear voices behind them.
“We’re not alone in here,” Michael said. “There is a patient in front of me. We’re going to have to climb over. Are you okay with that?”
“We don’t have any choice. There should be enough room.” Lynn reached up and touched the ceiling. The tunnel was like a tube, with seemingly more than enough room to scramble over a body.
“I don’t think it is going to be difficult, but it sure as hell ain’t gonna be pretty.”