He was going to have to get out of this, no
question. He pushed the book hastily into the inside of his tunic.
‘Come on Kaleem,’ said Zema. ‘Don’t be difficult.’ She held
out her hand towards him. ‘Come on, then, the book.’
Kaleem fumbled inside his tunic. He pulled his arm out and
grabbed Zema’s arm and twisted it. He clenched his teeth. This was really the
last thing he wanted to do, but there was no choice. He wasn’t sure, whether
he’d got the strength to hurt her, or the energy to run away from her.
Zema screeched in pain and tried to pull her arm away from
him. He gave it one more twist and then let it go. She fell to the floor
clutching her arm and shouting ‘Get him. Don’t let him get away.’
Kaleem darted forward. At least he could run. He had managed
to keep himself quite fit despite being cooped up with a dataserve a lot of the
time. By the time he’d got to the other side of the cave, to the side which
lead into the cave with the glass roof, the other people in the room had only
just reacted. They didn’t look too fit. He stood a chance.
The droids in the records room didn’t seem to be disturbed
by the noise. Kaleem spotted an empty console. He darted underneath it and
pulled a box that was at the side of it over in front of him.
‘Seal the entrances. Scan the caves,’ he heard Zema shouting
as she came into this cave.
If they were going to scan, he didn’t have much of a chance.
They’d find him by his body heat alone. He wouldn’t be able to hide from them.
The droids didn’t seem to be reacting much to Zema, but all
at once all the fans on the dataserves started making a lot of noise. The
droids must be activating the security programmes. Seconds later, there was a
loud clunking. Kaleem guessed that some sort of gate must be coming down to the
entrance of this cave system. He really didn’t have much of a chance. Could he
hide the book somewhere? At least that would stop them doing anything with it
for a while.
A droid stopped suddenly in front of the console.
This is it, though
Kaleem. They’ll get me any minute now.
Then it occurred to them, that although all the operatives
in this section of the cave network were droids, they were dressed like normal
humans. Could he do it? Could he pretend to be a droid? Would the other droids
notice? Would Zema? Well, she would if he couldn’t do anything to disguise
himself. Then he noticed something shiny and metallic sticking out of the cardboard box. Could he
use that to make it look like one of the masks that some of the humans and some
of the droids used? He daren’t move for the moment, though. Not with the droid
there. And who knows how long it was going to stand there? This may all be over
before it had really begun. The scanner would be sure to pick him up any second
now.
A wave of warmth air drifted towards Kaleem. It was coming
from the droid. They’re overheating, thought Kaleem. That’s why they’re not picking me up. It
must be all the extra security measures. Or some other fault. He did wonder
how they kept all their systems going here without the authorities finding out.
They probably did get lots of breakdowns. It looked as if luckily for him one was happening right now.
‘Search. Search between inner and outer gates,’ commanded
Zema. She sounded hysterical now.
The droid hurried off in the direction of the door. Kaleem
pulled at the piece of metal he had seen sticking out of the box. It not only
looked like a mask. It was a mask. He slipped it on. It immediately it moulded
itself to his face. Now what? He thought. That had been a stupid thing to do. Goodness
knows what this mask was supposed to do. Still, at least Zema wore one too.
Could he get away with this?
His heart thudded as he crawled out from under the console.
This cave was deserted. The exit was now being guarded. The droids and the
human operators were searching in the passages between the main entrance to the
complex and the door to this cave system.
As Kaleem walked forward, he became aware of what the mask
did. He started hearing instructions being whispered into his ear and a
transparent holomovie appeared in front of him. The mask was telling him and
showing exactly where he was. Was this some form of portable dataserve?
‘Alternative route to main exit?’ he whispered.
Immediately a three dimensional map holoed in front of him.
He walked out of the exit, remembering to imitate the slightly stiffer
movements of a droid and hold his head steady, suddenly jerking it to the side
when need be. If he could call up information like this, so could the other
droids and humans who were wearing similar masks. He wasn’t safe yet.
He carried on following the mask’s instructions. It was
definitely taking him away from the other activity.
‘Can we really get out this way?’ asked Kaleem.
‘We are approaching an emergency exit,’ said the mask. ‘The
escapee may have taken this route.’
Kaleem smiled to himself. The mask had not realised he was
the escapee. The technology here was clever, just not all that clever. He just
hoped it would stay that way.
‘How far to entrance?’ he asked the mask.
‘One point five kilometres,’ reported the mask. ‘Is there an
emergency?’ asked the mask. ‘Should emergency lock be activated?’
‘Yes, there is an emergency,’ said Kaleem. ‘There is a fire
in central control.’ He hoped that the
central control really was where he’d guessed it was. That would mean that the
others would not try to cross back to this exit. They might try and go round or
over the top, though.
‘The emergency lock is opened,’ said the mask ‘and a
fire-proof transporter will be waiting. How many personnel will board?’
‘Just me,’ said Kaleem. I
hope, he thought.
‘Proceed,’ said the mask.
Kaleem ran forward, following the arrows which the mask
flashed up in front of him. He was soon out of breath. Eventually, though, he
came to a blank wall. As soon as he stopped running, a stone door slid open.
And now? he
thought.
‘Transporter approaching,’ said the mask.
He seemed to wait an age but at least there didn’t seem to
be anybody following him. Then there was
a faint rumbling. It gradually grew louder and then suddenly in front of him
was a standard, if a little old, two-person transporter.
Kaleem climbed into it.
‘How do I get this thing to work?’ he muttered. He’d never before had a
transporter all to himself.
‘Set coordinates for Excluded Zone Edge?’ asked the mask.
What on Terrestra was the Excluded Zone? Was that where the
Hidden Information Centre was based?
‘I guess,’ mumbled Kaleem. Anything which would get him away
from here would be good. And now would be better that later.
The transporter lurched forward and was soon hurtling along
through the dark, just casting enough light in front of it from its two
headlights for Kaleem to see that they were still in the underground system.
‘This face unit will stop working when we reach the Edge,’
reported the mask. ‘Shall we load manual control ready?’
‘Yes, ‘said Kaleem. ‘I hope’s there’s an instruction
programme.’
‘Loaded, ready,’ reported the mask. ‘Sixty seconds to face
unit shut down.’ The mask started counting. It reached zero and switched itself
off. Kaleem ripped it off. The transporter stopped moving. A row of lights
appeared in front of Kaleem. A movie clip started playing, and pointed out how
he could set coordinates for anywhere on Terrestra. He gave the transporter his
cave home address. It started to move again as the movie clip showed him how he
could make the transporter go faster, or turn if he wanted to take a different
direction. There was even a control
which made it go up or down. He couldn’t see that he’d need any of these. It
looked as if the transporter was going to take him right home, and through the
long forgotten underground cave system at that. But just for fun, he sent the
transporter zooming forward faster, and then made it go up as near to the roof
as he dare. This was actually quite something.
He became aware of sound coming from behind him. He looked.
There was another transporter catching up with him fast. He could just make out
the person driving it. Ninety!
Kaleem used the control which made it go even faster and
dived back down towards the ground.
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