A paralyzing whining shrilled through THX’s earphones. He jerked spasmodically, and in that timeless mindless instant he saw that all the other operators in the assembly bay were also being frozen by the mindlock.”
“Who permitted a mindlock priority in magnum cell 94107? Immediate transfer of disaster responsibility to Control.”
“Checking request for mindlock on cell 94107. What is the time make on this?”
“Abort! Abort! All systems clear. Block it!”
THX fought against the mindlock. With the primal instinct of a terrified animal, he battled against the screaming brain-shattering whine that paralyzed his every nerve. With every ounce of strength in him, he tried to move, to blink his fear-frozen eyes, to clench his fists, to make his feet move. The deepest, most primitive part of his brain was shrieking at him: run, run!
And the gleaming cylinder of radioactives drifted, jerked, carried by the metal waldo hands that followed THX’s spasmodic struggles, toward the neat row of cylinders lined up at the precisely proper and safe spacing next to the inert mannequin’s head.
Through the skull-splitting shriek of the mindlock, THX thought he could hear the supervisor:
“Who authorized this priority? Clear the area, transfer disaster responsibility to Mercicontrol. Repeat, clear the area! Where the hell are those damned pills?”
THX was hanging by the manipulator grips trying to run away, to hide, but held in mindlock. He fought with every ounce of strength in him to release his hands from the manipulators.
And in the cell, the shining cylinder of radioactives fell with a soundless clatter into the row of its brother cylinders. They tumbled together, deadly little metallic children.
The mindlock whistle stopped. “Clear… clear… 4444, 4445, 4446… EJECT… EJECT… EJECT!”
Operators collapsed onto the floor. THX staggered backward, his hands suddenly free, his feet working from instinct, his ears still ringing painfully. He glimpsed a flash of sparks inside the assembly cell.
“Release mindlock!” a voice was shouting somewhere.
“Release mindlock. Replace to command monitor. Transfer obligation for responsibility to central monitor 898. Control center 626 holds no responsibility…”
THX stumbled to his knees and began to crawl toward the safety door, where a baleful red light was flashing urgently at him.
OMM’s voice flooded the assembly bay. “Everything is going to be all right. You are in my hands. I will protect you. Everything is going to be all right. Cooperate and stay calm, I am here to help you. Everything is going to be all right…”
And intertwined with the calm voice of OMM, someone was screaming, “Get those men out of there! Where are the Mercicontrol units! Radiation alert, radiation alert!”
THX reached the door and grabbed at the handle, used it to pull himself up. Leaning against the door, he felt the emergency lock yield and the door swung open. He half-fell into the decontamination room as the door snapped shut behind him. Yellow lights blinked at him and a cleansing spray hissed out from the walls, hard enough to make his skin tingle, even under the clothing. His eyes stung momentarily and automatically, in response to preconditioning training, he stripped and stepped away from the contaminated clothes.
The outer door of the decontamination cell clicked open. THX pushed through and found fresh clothes and a shelf of sedation doses. He dressed, staring at the pills. Then he turned and activated the polarized window on the other side of the narrow locker. The supervisor’s command post was still in chaos. Silently, because of the soundproof window, the workers of the assembly bay and a team of Mercicontrol people in radiation armor were rushing back and forth, dragging operators still unconscious from the mindlock away from the cells and toward the shielded command post. No one payed the slightest attention to THX. The supervisor himself was standing at his console, earphones askew on his head, swallowing handfulls of pills.
The mindlock must work better if you’re on sedation, THX realized as he watched his unconscious fellow-operators being dragged away from their manipulator stations. Then his eyes caught the emergency monitoring gauges on the supervisor’s console and he saw why the man was taking pills by the bottle. All the gauges were way up in the red.
There could still be an explosion!
THX pushed through the outer door of the decontamination chamber. A chrome policeman, tall and firm, was standing out in the hallway waiting for him.
“THX 1138, you are under arrest for drug evasion.”
For a flash of a second, THX sagged into defeat. Then, without his even thinking about it, he slammed both hands palms open into the police robot’s chest. The machine staggered backward and then toppled, clattering noisily to the floor.
Top heavy, THX’s memory told him. They’re all built that way. Barely stable.
He was running down the corridor, running, not away from the police. Toward LUH. He had to find her, warn her. Maybe they could get away. Get to the superstructure. Find her. Maybe at least she could get away, even if they caught him.
No time for the corridors or even the slideways. He pounded down the corridor, into a main thoroughfare where the constant press of people swallowed him immediately. He rushed along, letting the crowd carry him toward the tramway.
Chapter 8
Running blindly, not even daring to look behind him to see if the police robot followed, THX bolted into the tramway and jumped into the first tram car on the platform. The door slid shut behind him and the motors hummed smoothly, accelerating the tram until the rapid transit tunnel outside was nothing but a blur of occasional lights streaking by the window.
The tram was sleek, glistening white, built to whisk silently from one end of the vast underground city to the other.
And it was impossibly crowded. THX was flattened against the door, barely able to breathe in the press of silent impassive people jammed against him.
“Approaching academy facilities 80A. Please remain seated until the tram has come to a complete stop.”
Remain seated. Only fifty of the hundred-some people squeezed into the tram car had seats.
Then THX saw over the heads of the crowd the white helmet and chrome face of a police robot working slowly through the silent, uncomplaining, thoroughly sedated people. The robot was heading toward him.
He pushed away from the door, nudging people aside, worming through the crowd like a man in a nightmare trying to flee some unknown horror, and unable to run no matter how hard he tried. Run? THX could barely move in the crowd.
There was another door at the farther end of the tram car. THX made his way toward it, slowly, painfully, like a man swimming in quicksilver. Every time he glanced over his shoulder he saw the robot’s white helmet heading inexorably for him.
“Academy facilities 80A. This is the termination of intra-urban link DD neck 08. This tram will return to the central web in five minutes.”
The tram was slowing down. The blurred lights in the tunnel outside took shape, became round, single lights. Up ahead, through the forward window, THX could see the terminal platform.
And four police robots standing on it.
Desperately, he looked around for a way out. Any way. A red handle marked EMERGENCY EXIT. FOR USE IN EMERGENCY ONLY. He lunged at it, pushing aside a half-dozen people. He pulled the handle and a whole window section popped out.
The tunnel was roaring outside, the tram still hurtling along unbelievably fast now that the blast of its slipstream wind shrilled at his face. The solid walls of the tunnel stared at him. A woman screamed. With a final look over his shoulder at the still-advancing robot, THX leaped out of the tram.