Contest

S. 18:14:39 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:02

9. 18:14:40 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:02

10. 18:16:23 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:07

11.18:20:21 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:08

12. 18:23:57 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:06

13. 18:46:00 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:34

Swain stared at the list, bewildered.

Numbers and times and energy surges and the constant repetition of the word unknown. And presumably it all had something to do with the library.

Thirteen surges of energy in all. One in Connecticut and twelve in New York.

Okay.

Swain looked at the times of the first few surges.

18:03:48. A surge -- source unknown, type unknown -- detected in Connecticut, lasting nine seconds.

Exactly ten seconds after that initial surge began, at 6:03:58 p.m., a surge appeared in New York.

All right. That was easy. That was Swain himself and Holly being teleported from his home in Connecticut to the library in central Manhattan.

Six other surges of roughly the same duration -- five to eight seconds -- accounted for the other contestants and their guides being teleported into the library for the Presidian.

Swain remembered that Selexin had already been inside the library when he had arrived. His teleportation must have occurred too early to be on this list.

But that still left five other surges.

Swain scanned the list further and saw the entries numbered 6 through 9 -- the four two-second surges that had come in rapid succession one second after the other. They had been underlined.

Swain frowned at the fifth surge.

18:14:12. A six-second surge. Nothing special about that, just another contestant and his guide being teleported inside. But twenty-five seconds after that surge came the four rapid surges in quick succession.

The hoods! he thought, realising.

They were small, so teleportation must not have taken very long. Only two seconds each.

And that explained the variation in the times needed for the other teleportations -- some contestants were bigger or smaller than others, so they required more or less time to be teleported into the labyrinth, somewhere between five and eight seconds.

Swain smiled, this was coming together nicely.

Except for one thing.

The last energy surge.

It had come more than twenty-two minutes after all the other surges, which themselves had all occurred within twenty minutes.

And it had lasted thirty-four seconds. The longest surge before that had lasted only nine seconds.

What was it? An afterthought perhaps? Was it something the organisers of the Presidian had forgotten to put inside the labyrinth?

It wasn't the Karanadon. Selexin had told Swain that the Karanadon had been placed inside the labyrinth almost a day before the Presidian was to commence.

Swain couldn't figure it out now, so he let it be for the moment. It was time to go.

He put the sheet of paper in his pocket and with a final glance at Reese's motionless body, he headed for the door marked to stack.

----ooo0ooo------

The study hall was bathed in the yellow glow of a fire out of control.

In the far corner of the wide room, beyond the flames, the janitor's room stood sombrely -- dark and charred, the fire inside it having burned itself out.

Holly shut her eyes as Selexin led her around the bloody corpse swinging from the ceiling. Her feet slipped suddenly on the pool of blood, but Selexin steadied her before she fell.

They could hear the hoods climbing the stairs behind them, grunting, snorting.

Selexin pulled harder, guiding Holly in among the L-shaped desks of the study hall.

'The elevator!' Holly whispered. 'Go for the elevator!'

'Good idea,' Selexin said, pressing on through the tangle of standing and fallen desks.

There must have been hundreds of desks in the study hall, half of which still stood, undisturbed. The other half had not been so fortunate, crushed or thrown by the Karanadon, torn to pieces, smashed beyond recognition.

The elevators were close now.

The doors to the left-hand elevator were still pulled wide, revealing the black abyss of the elevator shaft. The Karanadon must have pulled them open so hard that they had stayed open.

Selexin hit the call button on the run, slammed into the wall, spun around.

In the flickering glow of the fire, he saw Hawkins' body spinning slowly from the ceiling above the entrance to the stairwell.

And beneath the body, stepping slowly and cautiously into the study hall, was a hood.

Through the tangled forest of desk legs, Selexin saw the second hood join its partner and he felt a chill.

They were scanning the study hall very slowly, peering across the room, under the desks.

Selexin watched intently. It was as though the hoods were more resolved now, more serious. It was time to kill. Play was over. The hunt had begun.

Holly snapped round to look at the open elevator shaft behind them.

The cables that had run vertically down the shaft were all gone now, snapped by the Karanadon, probably resting at the bottom with the rest of the battered lift. They couldn't slide down this time.

The numbered display above the other elevator was still working though: one number after the other slowly ignited as the elevator crawled upwards.

LG glowed yellow. Then faded.

G glowed yellow, faded.

1 glowed--

Holly felt Selexin tug on her shoulder. 'Come on,' he said. 'We can't stay here.'

'But the lift...'

'It will not get here in time.' Selexin grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the elevators just as she caught a glimpse of the hoods moving in from the left.

Selexin pulled hard, dragging Holly to the right, watching the hoods through the legs of the desks.

The hoods were twenty feet away, moving with the cold stealth of seasoned hunters.

In the strobe-like light of the fires, Selexin could see them clearly. The needle-like teeth protruding from the spherical head; the bony black forelegs with their bloodied claws scraping on the floor; the powerful, muscular hind legs; and the long scaly tail that swished menacingly behind the black torso as if it had a mind of its own.

The perfect hunter.

Remorseless. Relentless.

Selexin swallowed as he jumped over a fallen desk and found himself standing before the janitor's room. In the corner.

Dead end.

He looked back. The hoods had stopped now, still twenty feet away. They were just standing there, staring at their diminutive prey.

A moment later, they moved again.

In opposite directions.

They were splitting up.

'Not good,' Selexin said, 'this is not good.' It was better when they were together, because at least then he could see them both at the same time. But now...

'Quickly,' he said to Holly, 'get on the desks.'

'What?'

'Get on them,' Selexin insisted. 'They are seeing us through the legs. If we get onto the desks, they will not know where we are.'

Holly climbed like a monkey onto the nearest L-shaped desk. Selexin jumped up quickly behind her.

'Let's go,' she whispered, obviously in her element now, jumping easily across to the next desk.

'Just be careful,' Selexin said, stumbling after her. 'Do not fall off.'

Holly danced nimbly from desk to desk, skipping over the gaps with ease. Behind her, Selexin did the same.

Beneath them, they could hear the snorting and grunting of the hoods.

There was a sudden bing! and Selexin looked over his shoulder and saw -- across the sea of desks -- the upper half of the elevator doors.

They were opening.

'Oh no,' he said, running across the desk tops.

Holly saw them, too. 'Can we get there?'

'We have to try,' Selexin said.

Holly changed her course, turning in a wide semicircle, jumping across the desks. She was about to leap across a wide gap between two desks when the able-bodied hood, claws raised to attack, sprang up from the floor into her path.

Holly fell backwards onto the desk and the hood dropped from sight.

Selexin caught up with her. 'Are you--?'

With a loud squeal, the hood leapt up again, onto an adjacent desk, and lashed out at Holly with a scythe-like foreclaw.

Holly screamed as she rolled clear, off the desk, falling to the floor. Selexin watched her fall out of sight.

'No!'

The hood swung viciously at Selexin -- backhanded -- hitting him squarely in the face. He recoiled sharply, losing his balance, falling backwards onto his desk.

With frightening speed, the hood leapt at him as he landed, but Selexin rolled and the hood smashed into the upright partition of the L-shaped table.

The weight of the impact rocked the desk, and in an instant Selexin's horror became complete as he saw the world tilt crazily and felt the desk he was sitting on keel over backwards.

From the floor, Holly watched fearfully as the desk on which Selexin and the hood fought lurched backwards and tipped over. It seemed to fall in slow motion.

Selexin fell first, hitting the floor hard, his white eggshell hat flying from his head. He rolled clear of the falling desk.

The hood slid off the tilting desk, landing on its feet like a cat, right in front of Selexin.

Selexin was totally exposed, and the hood was tensing itself to attack when abruptly the desk came crashing down on its back.

Pinned to the floor, shrieking like a mad animal, the hood writhed about in a frenzy, attempting to free itself. Its jaws snapped and snarled as it still tried -- despite its own predicament -- to get to Selexin.

Selexin was scrambling backwards on his butt, away from the wailing creature when, from behind him, Holly tipped over a second desk.

This time the L-shaped table fell forward, and the hood looked up in horror at the desk rushing down toward it.

The leading edge of the desk landed with a loud crunching sound on the hood's upturned head, shattering the animal's long needle-like teeth as it crushed its skull against the floor.

The hood's body jerked and spasmed beneath the two fallen desks, until at last it lay still. Dead.

Silence.

Then Holly heard a soft bing! followed by the grinding sound of the elevator doors closing again.

She knelt beside Selexin, looking quickly in every direction. 'Where's the other one?'

'I... I do not know,' Selexin was badly shaken. 'It could be anywhere.'

Now it was Holly who grabbed Selexin by the arm and pulled him to his knees. 'We missed the elevator,' she said, determined. 'Come on, we've got to get out of here.'

'But... but,' Selexin mumbled feebly.

'Come on. Let's move.'

'But my... my hat!' Selexin clawed at his bald head. 'I need my hat.'

Holly spun around quickly and saw the hat. The small white hemisphere was sitting on the floor, jutting out from behind a nearby upturned desk.

She crawled toward the fallen desk on her hands and knees, rounded the upturned legs, and reached out to grab the hat...

Holly paused.

Then she froze.

Beside the hat stood two bony black forelegs -- one with a bloodstained claw; one with no claw at all.

Her eyes lifted, rising up the forelegs, following them until she came face to face with the second hood.

The hood's jaws opened wide, salivating in evil anticipation, inches away from her face.

Selexin watched helplessly from the floor ten feet away. Too far.

Holly was still on all fours, almost nose-to-nose with the hood.

Totally defenceless.

The hood stepped forward and stood over the hat.

It was so close now that all Holly could see was its teeth. Its long, pointed, bloody teeth. She felt the warmth of its hot breath blowing on her face; smelled the foul odour of rotting flesh.

Holly shut her eyes and clenched her fists, waiting for the animal to strike, waiting for the end. Her terror was extreme.

Suddenly, the hood hissed fiercely and Holly wanted to scream and then, as her horror hit fever pitch, she had the strange sensation of hearing her father's voice.

'Initialise!'

There was a sudden, glorious flare of white that shot through Holly's eyelids.

Then she heard the hood shriek in total, rabid agony and she opened her eyes and was instantly blinded by the small sphere of dazzling white light that had flared to life above Selexin's hat.

The hood's shrieking cut off abruptly and Holly heard her father's voice again.

'Cancel.'

The blinding white light vanished instantly and for a moment Holly saw nothing but kaleidoscopic spots of colour.

Then suddenly there were two strong arms wrapped around her, holding her tightly, and still blind, Holly's first thought was to break free.

But the grip was firm and gentle.

A hug.

Holly blinked twice as her eyesight slowly returned and she found herself in the warm embrace of her father.

Her muscles drooped with relief and she let her body fall limply into his.

Then she began to cry.

As he held his daughter tightly in his arms, Stephen Swain closed his eyes and sighed. Holly was safe, and they were back together again. He didn't want to let her

go. Still holding her, he turned to look at the remains of the hood.

The body had been cut perfectly in two -- only the hind legs and the tail remained. The head, forelimbs and upper torso had simply disappeared, teleported to God-only-knew-where. Thick black blood oozed out from the exposed cross-section of the animal's torso.

Selexin limped to Swain's side and grimaced at the sight of the half-bodied hood.

'"Initialise". "Cancel",' Selexin laughed softly to himself. 'It is nice to know,' he said wryly to Swain, 'that you do not forget everything I tell you.'

Swain smiled sadly, still hugging Holly. 'Not everything.'

Holly looked up at her father. 'I knew you would come back.'

Swain said, 'Of course I came back, silly. You didn't think I'd leave you here all by yourself, did you?'

'Ah, ahem,' Selexin coughed, 'I beg your pardon but the young lady was certainly not all by herself

'Oh, excuse me.'

Holly said, 'He was very brave, Daddy. He helped me a lot.'

'He did, huh?' Swain looked at Selexin. 'That was very noble of him. I really should thank him.'

Selexin bowed modestly.

'Thanks,' Swain said softly to the little man.

Selexin, proud of his new-found hero status, shook it off. 'Oh, it was nothing. All part of the service, right?'

Swain laughed. 'Right.'

'I knew you'd come back. I knew it.' Holly nestled into Swain's arms. Then she looked up suddenly, made a mock-angry face, and adopted a severe adult tone. 'So where have you been all this time? How did you find us?'

Actually, in the end, finding Holly and Selexin had been rather lucky.

From the parking lot, Swain had run into the Stack and arrived at the small red door through which he had been bowled out by the hoods. When he found nothing there, not even a trace of Holly and Selexin, he was at a total loss.

And then, in the silence, he had heard the nearby elevator ping.

It must have just been sitting there on Sub-Level Two when somebody on another floor had pressed the call button.

Swain raced for the elevator and reached it just as the doors were about to meet. He jumped inside and rode the lift to whichever floor the call had come from. It was better than nothing. And besides, who knew? Maybe Holly or Selexin had pressed the call button. Then again, it might not have been them, but by then Swain didn't care. It was a risk he had to take.

The elevator had opened onto the Third Floor and Swain had been confronted with the burning study hall.

He had ducked and crawled out of the lift on his hands and knees, trying to stay out of sight.

Then he had heard voices and the grunts of the hoods, and then the crash of a falling desk, and then another.

He jumped to his feet, and followed the noise, rounded a clump of desks and saw his daughter crouched on her hands and knees, nose-to-nose with one of the hoods.

Swain was too far away, and didn't know what to do, when he realised that the hood was standing over Selexin's white, egg-like hat.

And at that moment, a single word had leapt into his mind -- 'Initialise'.

----ooo0ooo------

'Can you get them?' Marshall asked the radio operator inside the NSA van.

'Negative, sir. There's no response from Commander Quaid or Agent Martinez.'

'Try again.'

'But, sir,' the operator insisted, 'all I'm getting is static. We can't even tell whether Commander Quaid has his radio turned on.'

Status Report: Station 4 reports detection of

contaminant inside labyrinth.

Awaiting confirmation.

'Just keep trying,' Marshall said, 'and call me as soon as you pick up anything.'

Marshall climbed out of the van onto the parking lot ramp. He looked up at the electrified grille, at the crumpled lead cube at its base, at the surging blue grid of electricity.

What the hell had happened to Quaid?

In the study hall, Swain stood up, holding Holly in his arms. 'We better get going.'

Selexin was putting his white, dome-like hat back on. It was stained with the black blood of the hood. 'You are right,' he said. 'Bellos cannot be far away.'

'Bellos,' Swain thought aloud. 'It had to be.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Bellos is the other one,' Swain said. 'The only other contestant left.'

'There are only two contestants remaining in the Presidian?' Selexin asked.

'Yep,' Swain offered him the wristband.

Selexin perused it for a moment, then looked up at Swain. His face was grim. 'We have a serious problem.'

'What?'

'Look at this.' Selexin held Swain's wristband up to him. It read:

INITIALISED--2

STATUS REPORT: STATION 4 REPORTS

DETECTION OF

CONTAMINANT INSIDE LABYRINTH.

AWAITING CONFIRMATION.

'What the hell does that mean?' Swain said. 'It means,' Selexin said, 'that they have discovered the hood.'

'Which hood?' Swain asked. 'And who on earth are they?'

'The hood that you just killed using the teleport in my hat.'

'And they?'

'They are the officials watching at the other end of that teleport, who I imagine received quite a shock when half a hoodaya was teleported into their laps. They are in Station Four, the teleport station assigned to monitor the progress of contestant number four -- you.'

'So what does the message mean?'

Selexin said, 'This contest is for seven contestants only. It is a fight to the death between the seven intelligent beings of the universe. Outside assistance is strictly forbidden. Hoods are like dogs. They are not intelligent beings. Wherefore, they do not compete in the Presidian. And they most surely do not live on Earth. So when the officials in Station Four received a hood teleported from the labyrinth on Earth, they immediately realised that the Presidian had been compromised, contaminated by an outside agent.'

Swain was silent for a moment. Then he said, 'So what are they doing now?'

'They are awaiting confirmation.'

'What's confirmation?'

Selexin said, 'An official must go to Station Four and visually confirm the existence of the contaminant.'

'And what happens when it's confirmed?'

'I do not know. This has never happened before.'

'Can you guess?' .

Selexin nodded slowly.

'Well?' Swain prompted.

The little man bit his lip. 'They will probably annul the Presidian.'

'You mean call it off?'

Selexin frowned. 'Not quite. What they will probably do--'

'Daddy...' Swain heard Holly's soft voice come from his chest. He was still holding her in his arms.

'In a minute, honey,' Swain said. Then to Selexin, 'What will they do?'

'I think they'll--'

'Daddy!' Holly whispered insistently.

'What is it, Holly?' Swain said.

'Daddy. Someone's here...' she spoke in such a low, hissing whisper that it took Swain a couple of seconds to realise what she had said.

He looked down at her. She was staring fearfully out over his shoulder.

Slowly, Stephen Swain looked behind him.

Across the wide room, he saw a body -- bloodied and mutilated -- hanging upside down from the ceiling, just inside the stairwell door.

And standing beside the body was Bellos.

----ooo0ooo------

Swain spun and saw the body next to Bellos swing around lazily. A wave of sadness shot through him as he saw the police uniform.

Hawkins.

Without a word, Bellos began to walk through the tangle of L-shaped desks toward them.

Toward them.

'Let's go!' Holly said loudly in his ear.

Swain moved laterally to his left, trying to keep as many desks as possible between him and Bellos.

Bellos did the same, moving in a peculiar, wide arc from left to right, threading his way calmly and quickly between the desks. He still had his white guide draped over his shoulder.

Swain stumbled away from the big man, toward the elevators, Holly in his arms, Selexin by his side.

'Nowhere to run!' Bellos boomed from across the study hall. 'Nowhere to hide?'

'They've found you out,' Swain called, walking backwards. 'They know you brought hoods into the contest. You cheated, and you got caught.'

Bellos continued to move forward in wide arcs, left and right. It was an odd movement, a movement that seemed to force them back. Back toward the--

'Their discovery will be of no help to you,' Bellos said.

Swain looked over his shoulder and saw the gaping black hole that was the left-hand elevator. The doors to the right one were closed.

Swain moved sideways until his back was pressed up against the call button panel.

'The Presidian is over, Bellos,' Swain said. 'You can't win anymore. They know you cheated.'

Behind his back, Swain's free hand searched for the call button, found it, pressed it.

'Perhaps they know,' Bellos said whimsically. 'Perhaps they don't. It does not matter now.'

'You have disgraced yourself!' Selexin blurted.

'And I don't care,' Bellos said defiantly. 'I did what I had to do to win. And even if they do find out about the hoodaya, I will still prove to them all that I have won this Presidian.'

'And how will you do that?' Selexin said.

Swain grimaced, knowing the answer.

'By being the only surviving contestant,' Bellos said.

Swain groaned.

Then he heard Holly's voice again. It was loud, close to his ear. 'Daddy, it's here.'

'What?'

'The elevator.' She pointed up at the numbered display above the elevator doors. The number 3 glowed yellow.

There was a soft ping.

The doors opened. The darkened interior of the elevator yawned before them.

'Inside,' Swain said quickly to Selexin. 'Now.'

Swain and Holly stepped back into the elevator as Selexin ran to the button panel and pressed a button.

Bellos didn't react quickly. In fact, he didn't react at all.

He just kept walking forward. Toward the elevator.

The doors began to close.

Bellos walked casually toward the lift.

As Swain watched, he got the impression that Bellos was in no hurry to get to them. It was as if he had all the time in the world.

As if he knew something that they did not. As if he had calculated...

But then the doors closed and they were swallowed by darkness and the elevator began its descent.

Two long cylindrical fluorescent light tubes lay on the floor of the lift -- they were the tubes that Hawkins had removed from their sockets when Swain and his group had been hiding on the First Floor earlier that night.

Swain put one of the tubes back into its socket, bathing the elevator in a dull white glow.

'Well, that was easy,' Selexin said.

'Too easy,' Swain said.

'Why didn't he follow us, Daddy?' Holly said. 'Before, he chased us all over the place. All over the place.'

'I don't know, honey.'

'Well, we are away now,' Selexin said. 'And that is all that matters.'

'That's what worries me,' Swain said.

And then it happened.

Suddenly. Without warning.

A loud, heavy thump! on the roof of the elevator.

They all froze. And then slowly, very slowly, looked up at the ceiling.

Bellos had jumped down onto the roof of the elevator!

He must have jumped across from the open doors of the other elevator.

Swain realised his mistake immediately. 'Goddamn it!'

'What?' Selexin said.

'You'll be happy to know,' Swain said wryly, 'that we've just managed to trap ourselves.'

He cursed himself. He should have seen it. While they were running away from Bellos, he had been moving in those strange arcs, virtually guiding them to the elevators. When they thought they were escaping, they were actually going exactly where he wanted them to go. Shit.

Suddenly, the hatch in the roof opened.

Swain pulled Holly and Selexin to the rear corner of the lift.

Bellos' head appeared through the open hatch upside down, his long tapering horns pointing downward.

He smiled menacingly.

Then his head disappeared from view, back outside the lift. A moment later Bellos swung down through the hatch, landing on his feet.

Inside the lift.

Right in front of them.

'Nowhere to run now,' he sneered. 'Finally.'

Swain pushed Holly into the corner behind him. Selexin stood by his side. Bellos was standing in the opposite corner of the elevator, beside the button panel. He didn't have his guide with him anymore.

Swain saw the panel next to Bellos and wondered which button Selexin had pressed. He hoped the little man had pressed the next floor. Then they might be able to make a run for it.

He saw the illuminated button and closed his eyes in dismay.

SL-2 was glowing.

That was Sub-Level Two, the Stack. The bottom floor. They were in for a long ride.

'You pressed the bottom floor?' he whispered to Selexin in disbelief.

'To get as far away as possible,' Selexin whispered back. 'How was I supposed to know he would jump on top of the--'

'Silence!' Bellos boomed.

'Oh, shut up,' Swain said.

'Yes. And fuck you, too,' Selexin added.

Bellos cocked his head, amazed at this display of impertinence. His face tightened, angry.

He began to walk across the elevator.

It was then that Swain realised just how big Bellos was -- he had to bend so that his horns wouldn't hit the ceiling. And he was built like a house, too. Swain eyed the golden breastplate on his chest. It was dazzling.

He also saw that Bellos had added several more trophies to his belt. He still had the Konda's breathing mask and the NYPD badge clipped to it, but now he had two more-recent additions: first -- and most gruesomely -- the severed head of a thin, stick-insect-like creature; and second -- a more earthly object -- a small canister of police-issue chemical Mace, still in its belt-pouch.

Swain froze at the sight of the Mace.

It was Hawkins' Mace.

It was Bellos' trophy from killing the young policeman.

Bellos caught Swain looking at his newly acquired trophy. He touched the small canister on his belt.

'A curious weapon,' he mused. 'As his dying act, your companion sprayed it into my eyes, but to no effect. You humans must truly be fragile beings if something so pathetic as this injures you.'

'You are a coward, Bellos,' Selexin spat.

Bellos rounded on him, took a step toward him, extended his arm toward the little man's head.

Selexin leaned back against the wall, trying to pull away.

Then, roughly, Swain swatted Bellos' arm away. 'Get away from him,' he said flatly.

Bellos pulled his arm back -- away from Selexin -- dutifully obeying Swain's command. And then suddenly he thrust his arm viciously forward, hitting Swain hard in the face.

Swain fell to the floor, clutching his jaw.

'And fuck you, too,' Bellos said with a sneer. 'Whatever that means.'

Then the big man moved quickly, grabbing Swain by the collar and hurling him into the far wall of the elevator.

Swain banged hard against the wall, fell to the floor again, wheezing.

Bellos strutted across the elevator, following him.

'Pathetic little man,' he said. 'How dare you touch me. My great-grandfather also killed a human once. In another Presidian, two thousand years ago. And this human cried, begged, pleaded for mercy.'

Bellos picked Swain up by the hair and threw him against the doors of the lift.

'Is that what you will do, little earth man? Cry for clemency? Beg me to be merciful?'

Swain was lying face down on the floor. He picked himself up slowly and sat with his back up against the doors. The cut on his lip had been reopened and now it was bleeding profusely.

'Well, little human?' Bellos jeered. 'Will you beg for your life?' He paused, and then turned to face Holly in the corner. 'Or perhaps, you would rather beg for hers?'

'Come over here,' Swain said evenly.

'What?' Bellos said.

'I said, come over here.'

'No,' Bellos smiled. 'I think I'd like to acquaint myself with this young lady first.' He stepped across the elevator, toward Holly.

Selexin took a step sideways, blocking him. 'No,' he said firmly.

It was a strange sight. Selexin -- four feet tall, dressed completely in white -- protecting Holly from Bellos -- seven feet tall and clad entirely in black.

'Goodbye, tiny man,' Bellos said, delivering a heavy blow across Selexin's head, sending the little man crashing to the floor.

Bellos towered over Holly. 'Now...'

'I said,' a voice said in Bellos' ear, 'come over here.'

Bellos turned to see Stephen Swain and a long white fluorescent light tube come rushing at his face.

Swain held the fluorescent tube like a baseball bat and he swung it hard.

The swing connected. The tube smashed against Bellos' face, sending glass shards flying everywhere, and showering the big man's face with a strange white powder that had been inside the fluorescent tube.

Bellos jolted slightly with the impact. But despite the spectacular explosion of the tube across his face, he remained unmoved -- uninjured by the blow, save for the layer of powder on his jet-black face -- and simply stared coldly down at Swain.

'Uh-oh,' Swain said.

Bellos hit him.

Hard.

Swain bounced into the elevator doors, just as the elevator stopped and the doors themselves opened. He stumbled backwards, out onto the floor of the Stack. Bellos stepped out of the lift after him, walked over to him, and picked him up by his shirt.

'Yes, yes,' Bellos said. 'Begged for mercy, that's what he did. And do you know what my great-grandfather did when this human begged?'

Swain didn't answer.

'He decapitated him,' Bellos moved his powder-covered face close to Swain's. 'Tore his arms from his body, too.' Bellos stroked his golden breastplate. 'And then he took this. A glorious trophy from such an inglorious creature.'

Swain looked at the breastplate more closely. Indeed, upon closer examination, it looked like... like the gilded armour of a Roman centurion.

A Roman centurion? Swain thought. In a Presidian? Two thousand years ago? My God...

Bellos raised Swain higher so that his sneakers were a full foot above the floor. He carried him over to the crumpled outer doors of the other elevator. When the Karanadon had climbed out of the broken elevator at the bottom of the shaft, it must simply have crashed through the outer doors to get out.

Bellos threw Swain through the open outer doors and he landed heavily on what was left of the roof of the destroyed elevator, resting at the base of the shaft. The roof was a good five feet below the floor level of the Stack.

Bellos leapt down onto the roof after him. 'Well, human?' he said. 'Do you beg?'

Swain coughed. 'Not in this life.'

'Then perhaps in the next,' Bellos said, picking him up again and hurling him into the concrete wall of the shaft. Swain hit the wall and fell to his knees, aching, coughing.

'Are you thinking of yourself now, little man?' Bellos said, circling Swain. 'Or are you thinking of what I will do when you are dead? Which is worse? Your death, or the prospect of what I will do to your little one after you are dead?'

Swain clenched his teeth, felt the warmth of his own blood in his mouth.

He had to do something.

He looked up and saw the other lift, hanging above them like a big square shadow in the blackness of the shaft. There was a dark gap beneath it. Maybe...

Bellos moved in close again -- and suddenly Swain came to life, launching himself quickly forward, tackling the big man around the ankles, throwing Bellos off balance, sending them both falling toward the edge of the roof.

They fell.

Both of them.

Off the roof of the destroyed lift, out into the shaft underneath the working elevator.

The drop was about ten feet and Bellos landed heavily on the concrete base of the elevator shaft. Swain landed on top of him, the big man's body cushioning his fall.

Swain got to his feet immediately and looked around the base of the shaft.

Solid concrete walls on two sides -- a series of counterweight cables on one of them. Opposite the counterweight cables was the battered side wall of the destroyed elevator, lying crumpled at the bottom of the shaft. On the fourth side of the shaft, however, Swain saw the most unexpected sight of all.

A pair of outer doors.

There was another floor down here.

The working elevator could come down.

And if it could, then...

'Holly! Selexin!' he called desperately. 'Are you still up there! If you are, go to the buttons! Press anything below SL-2!'

Inside the elevator, Selexin was still sprawled on the floor, bloodied and dazed. Holly was huddled in the corner.

Then strangely she heard her father's echoing voice and she blinked back to life. '--anything below SL-2!'

What?

She ran over to the button console and scanned the buttons there:

3 2

1 G

SL-1 SL-2

SL-2 was the lowest it went. There was nothing below SL-2!

What was he talking about?

Groggy, Bellos got slowly to his feet. The fall had hurt him.

Swain called up again. 'Anything below Sub-Level 2! Just press it!'

Holly's voice floated down the shaft. 'There isn't anything! There's nothing below that one!'

Christ, Swain thought. I can see the doors. There has to be!

He called again, 'Look below the buttons! Is there a small door in the wall! A panel of some sort! Something like that! Anything like that!' A few seconds.

Holly's voice. 'Yes. I see it! I see a little panel!' Beside Swain, Bellos staggered against the side wall of the destroyed elevator. On the other side of the shaft, Swain saw the five or so counterweight cables running vertically up the concrete wall. They were taut and greased and they appeared to run all the way up the shaft, past the elevator hovering above them. 'Holly!' he called urgently. 'Open the panel! If there's another button there, just press it!'

Holly opened the small white door set into the wall beneath the button console. Inside she saw several switches that looked like regular light switches.

Underneath them, though, was a mouldy green button, beside which was scrawled in white chalk the words: ACCESS TO STORAGE BASEMENT.

'I found one!' she called.

'Press it!'

Holly pressed the green button and immediately felt her stomach lurch.

The lift was going down.

The cables running up the wall of the shaft suddenly came to life, some going up, some going down -- all moving too fast to tell -- as the complex pulley system of counterweights burst into action.

Swain looked up as the elevator fourteen feet above him began to move.

Downward.

Toward them.

That was good. He'd needed to do something, to provide some sort of--

And then abruptly he was slammed onto the concrete floor. Bellos had thrown himself into him and both of them went sprawling to the ground.

Swain hit the floor hard and rolled quickly just as a big black fist came plunging down into the concrete right next to his head.

Bellos roared in pain, clutching his fist.

Swain leapt to his feet. He looked up at the slowly descending elevator. It was close. There wasn't much time.

You can't fight Bellos. You have to find a way out of--

Then suddenly Bellos was on his feet again and he launched himself at Swain, driving him back against the side wall of the destroyed elevator.

The moving elevator edged downward.

Twelve feet off the ground.

Bellos punched Swain in the stomach. He buckled over.

Eleven feet.

Bellos hit him again. Swain gagged. Bellos was just too damn big to fight.

Ten feet.

Bellos glanced up quickly at the descending elevator and then all around himself for an escape. He saw the rapidly moving counterweight cables by the wall. There seemed to be enough space there to stand...

Nine feet.

The bottom of the lift scraped Bellos' horns and he ducked.

Eight feet.

And Swain saw the speeding cables, too. Beside him, Bellos was crouching now, bent over at the waist, facing the other way, looking at the cables.

It was a chance.

Swain seized it.

He moved in quickly behind Bellos and kicked him hard in the back of one knee. Bellos dropped immediately, fell to his knees.

Seven feet.

Swain dived in front of Bellos, scrambled for the counterweight cables.

Got to get out.

Have to get out.

Going to die.

He was almost at the cables when suddenly -- violently -- a big black hand clasped his ankle. Bellos had his foot in a vice-like grip, and was dragging him away from the cables!

Six feet.

Swain broke out in a cold sweat.

Bellos was holding him tightly, pulling him backwards --so that now Bellos was closer to the counterweight cables.

There was nothing Swain could do! It was obvious Bellos was going to hold him until the last moment and then roll to safety near the cables, leaving Swain to be crushed underneath the elevator. There was no way out this time, no way to break Bellos' grasp. The elevator came slowly down.

It was then that Swain saw Bellos' trophy belt right next to his eyes--saw Hawkins' chemical Mace canister hanging from it.

The Mace...

But it hadn't worked for Hawkins before...

Five feet.

And then Swain saw the white powder on Bellos' face. The white powder from the fluorescent light tube that Swain had smashed across his face.

It was oxidised fluorine.

And fluorine added to Mace would make...

Don't think! No time. Just do it!

Swain wrenched the Mace canister clear of Bellos' belt and aimed it at Bellos' face.

But Bellos saw him move and in response, the big man lashed out at the Mace canister with his fist and hit it a glancing blow, snapping its spray nozzle clean off!

No! Swain's mind screamed. Now he couldn't spray it!

And then he saw another option.

Gritting his teeth with determination, Swain slid in close to Bellos' head and then, in one fluid movement, holding the Mace canister tightly in his fist, he banged the base of the canister down on the point of one of Bellos' horns -- puncturing the canister in an instant.

Blinding chemical Mace sprayed downwards -- out from the puncture hole in the base of the canister. Swain then whipped the canister up so that the spray jetted directly into Bellos' powdered face.

The chemical reaction was instantaneous.

The active ingredients of chemical Mace -- chloroacetophenone and diluted sulphuric acid -- combined with the oxidised fluorine immediately to create hydrofluoric acid, one of the most corrosive acids known to man.

Bellos roared in agony as bubbles of burning acid rippled across his face. He squeezed his eyes shut and released Swain's ankle instantly.

Four feet.

Swain was free!

But he wasn't finished yet.

As Bellos recoiled, Swain rolled onto his back and let fly with an upwardly directed kick.

The kick hit its mark -- slamming into the underside of Bellos' jaw, causing the big man's head to jolt sharply upward.

The big man's head snapped up -- and his sharp horns penetrated the floor of the descending elevator -- and in a moment of pure terror Bellos realised what had happened.

He was stuck!

His horns were jammed into the floor of the descending elevator, and he didn't have enough room beneath it to manoeuvre himself out!

Three feet.

Swain was flat on his stomach now, crawling away from Bellos, across the base of the shaft.

Two feet.

And he could feel the bottom of the elevator touching his back. It was like crawling underneath a car.

He reached out for one of the speeding counterweight cables running up the far wall. His hand closed around the cable.

Behind him, Bellos now lay on the ground, his neck bent upwards at an awkward angle, wrenching desperately at his horns. He let out a piercing high-pitched wail. 'Arrrrrrggghhhh!!!'

One foot.

And Swain felt the cable yank on his arm and he was pulled into the air, his feet sliding out from under the elevator just as it hit the bottom with a resounding boom! and Bellos' hideous wail cut off abruptly and Swain flew up into the darkness of the shaft.

----ooo0ooo------

Swain swung to a sudden halt.

The counterweight cable stopped dead as the elevator came to rest at the base of the shaft.

Everything was silent.

There was no light, save for the weak yellow haze coming through the crumpled outer doors that led to the Stack.

Swain was hanging by his arms six feet above the roof of the working elevator, dangling against the wall. He looked down at the elevators.

It was a peculiar sight -- both elevators, side by side, resting on the bottom of the shaft, one totally destroyed, the other just sitting there, silent.

Suddenly the hatch of the working elevator burst open and Swain's heart jumped. Bellos couldn't have...

Holly's head appeared through the hatch and Swain sighed with relief. Her head swung around anxiously, searching. Finally she saw him, hanging above her, swinging gently from the counterweight cables on the side of the shaft.

'Daddy!' Holly climbed out onto the roof of the elevator.

Swain let go of the cable and dropped down onto the roof beside her. She leapt into his arms and held him tightly.

'Daddy, I was so scared.'

'So was I, honey. Believe me, so was I.'

'Did I do the right thing? Did I press the right button?'

'You pressed the right button, all right,' Swain said. 'You were great.'

Holly nodded to herself, satisfied, and hugged him harder.

Selexin's head popped out through the hatch. He saw Swain and Holly and then looked around the dark, empty shaft.

'It's okay,' Swain said. 'Bellos is dead.'

'I, uh, gathered as much,' Selexin said.

Swain frowned. Selexin nodded back at the elevator's hatch. Swain looked down through it.

'Oh, yuck...'

Sticking up through the floor of the elevator were two high-pointed horns -- Bellos' horns. Having pierced the underside of the lift, they now appeared inside it -- unmoving, still -- like the hood ornament of a Cadillac. The only remnant of Bellos.

'What happened?' Selexin asked.

'Crushed,' Swain said.

'Crushed?'

'Uh-huh.'

Selexin winced. 'Not a very nice way to die.'

Holly said, 'He wasn't a very nice kind of person.'

'This is true.'

At that moment Swain's wristband beeped softly.

Swain checked it to find that its rectangular display was now filled with scrolling lines of type:

PRESENCE OF CONTAMINANT CONFIRMED. AT STATION 4.

* PRESIDIAN HAS BEEN COMPROMISED * REPEAT.

* PRESIDIAN HAS BEEN COMPROMISED * DECISION TO ABORT PENDING.

The screen flickered and a new line appeared:

INITIALISED--1

OFFICIALS AT EXIT TELEPORT REPORT ONE CONTESTANT REMAINING INSIDE LABYRINTH.

AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS.

There was a pause.

'What does that mean?' Swain asked.

'When only one contestant remains,' Selexin said, 'the Karanadon is awakened, if it is not already awake, and then--'

'And then the exit teleport is opened,' Swain said, remembering. 'And if you can avoid the Karanadon and get to the teleport, you win the Presidian.'

'Right,' Selexin said. 'Only now that Bellos has compromised the Presidian, the officials are deciding whether or not they should abandon the Presidian completely. Because if they do decide to abandon it, they will not open the exit teleport. And we will be left here, with the Karanadon. And as I wanted to tell you before, they will also probably...'

The wristband beeped loudly and Selexin immediately stopped speaking.

OFFICIALS AT EXIT TELEPORT BE ADVISED THAT A DECISION HAS BEEN MADE TO ABORT PRESIDIAN.

* DO NOT INITIALISE EXIT TELEPORT * REPEAT.

* DO NOT INITIALISE EXIT TELEPORT *

'They're calling it off,' Swain said flatly.

Selexin didn't reply. He just stared at the wristband in disbelief.

Swain shook him gently. 'Did you see that? They're calling the whole thing off.'

Selexin said softly, 'Yes. I saw it.' He looked up at Swain. 'And I know what it means. It means that you and I are most certainly going to die.'

'What?' Swain said.

'Die?' Holly said.

'You will certainly die,' Selexin said to Swain, 'and without the exit teleport, I cannot leave this planet. And what do you think my chances of survival on Earth are?'

Swain knew the answer to that. The NSA were outside the library right now and they weren't here to borrow some books. Selexin didn't have a prayer outside the library. And now there was no way he could leave.

Swain said, 'So why do I have to die? Why is that so certain? There's no guarantee that the Karanadon will find us.' Now there was an alien that Swain would gladly give to the NSA.

'It is not the Karanadon that comprises your greatest threat,' Selexin said.

'Then what does?' Swain asked as his wristband beeped again, announcing another message:

* OFFICIAL SIGNAL *

PLEASE RECORD THAT DUE TO EXTRINSIC INTERFERENCE IT HAS BEEN DECIDED THAT THE SEVENTH PRESIDIAN WILL BE ABORTED. GRATITUDE IS EXTENDED TO ALL OFFICIALS IN ALL SYSTEMS FOR THEIR ASSISTANCE THROUGHOUT THIS CONTEST.

AN INQUIRY HAS BEEN INITIATED INTO THE CAUSE OF THE CONTAMINATION OF THE LABYRINTH.

* END OFFICIAL SIGNAL*

PRESIDIAN COMPLETE.

STANDBY FOR DE-ELECTRIFICATION.

Swain said, 'De-electrification? Is that what I think it means?'

'Yes,' Selexin nodded. 'They will bring down the electric field surrounding the labyrinth.'

'When?'

'As soon as possible, I suppose.'

'What about the Karanadon?'

'I presume that they will simply leave it here.'

'Leave it here?' Swain said, incredulous. 'Do you have any idea what something like that would do in this city? When they cut the electricity around this building, that thing will be loose, and there will be no way to stop it.'

'It is not my decision,' Selexin said sadly, vacantly.

Swain knew that the little man had other things on his mind. Without the exit teleport, Selexin could not leave. They had survived the Presidian and yet he was stuck on Earth.

'Well,' Swain said, looking up at the dark elevator shaft around him. 'It's not going to help us standing around here doing nothing. If they're going to pull the plug on the electricity, I suggest we find a place where we can get out when they do.'

Holding Holly, Swain stepped from the roof of the working lift onto the roof of the damaged one. Selexin didn't move. He just stood there sadly, deep in thought.

Swain and Holly climbed out through the crumpled outer doors into the Stack and looked back at Selexin.

'Selexin,' Swain said gently. 'We're not dead yet. Come on. Come with us.'

On top of the lift, in the darkness of the shaft, Selexin looked up at him, but said nothing.

'We have to get to an exit,' Swain said. 'So we can get out when the electricity is cut off.'

'Bellos.' Selexin said flatly, thinking.

'What?'

'Bellos knew of a way.'

'What are you talking about?' Swain said, checking the Stack behind him. 'Come on, we have to go.'

'He had to get the hoods out,' Selexin said. 'He said so himself.'

'Selexin, what are you talking about?'

Selexin explained. 'We were on another floor, I think it was number Two. Bellos was there, and he spoke to us briefly before the Rachnid arrived and they fought and we escaped. But at the time, I asked Bellos what he planned to do with the hoods if he won the Presidian, because I knew that if he left them here, they would certainly be discovered. What he told me was very strange. He said that the hoods would be long gone from the labyrinth by the time he went through the exit teleport.'

Swain watched Selexin intently, watched him thinking.

'But the only way he could do that,' Selexin said, almost to himself, 'was if he had a teleporter.'

'A teleporter?'

'A large chamber in which a teleportation field is created.

And as you are no doubt aware, there are no teleporters on Earth.'

Swain thought for a moment, a hazy picture beginning to form in his mind. A picture of a puzzle that hadn't yet been solved.

'Just how big is one of these teleporters?' he asked Selexin.

'Usually very large, and very heavy,' Selexin said. 'And technologically, extremely complex.'

It was now Swain who was lost in thought. The hazy picture in his mind was slowly becoming clearer.

And then it hit him.

'Bellos brought a teleporter with him,' he said flatly.

'We don't know that,' Selexin said.

'Yes, we do,' Swain reached into his pocket, pulled out a sheet of paper -- Harold Quaid's list of energy surges at the State Library that night.

'What's that, Daddy?'

'It's a list.'

'Where did you get it?'

Swain turned to Selexin. 'I found it in the pocket of another mystery guest who happened to find his way into your Presidian.'

'What is it a list of?' Selexin asked.

'Take a look.' Swain held out the sheet of paper.

Selexin stepped from one elevator roof to the other and then climbed out into the Stack. He took the sheet and examined it.

'Something from Earth,' Selexin scanned the list. 'Detecting energy surges of unknown origin. What are these numbers on the left?'

'Times,' Swain said.

Selexin was silent for a moment. 'So what is it?' he asked.

'It's a list of every teleportation that has happened in this building since I was teleported here from my home in Connecticut at 6:03 this evening.'

'What?'

'And now I've figured it out,' Swain said. 'Thirteen teleportations detected. Twelve in the library, one in Connecticut. Before, I could only account for eleven of the twelve surges that occurred in the library: namely, seven contestants with their guides, plus four hoods, equals eleven surges.'

'Uh-huh.'

'But I couldn't figure out the last surge,' Swain pointed to the bottom line of the sheet:

13. 18:46:00 N.Y. Isolated energy surge/Source: UNKNOWN

Type: UNKNOWN / Dur: 0.00:34

'Look at it. It's thirty-four seconds long -- three times longer than any other surge. And look at when it occurred: 6:46 p.m. That's nearly twenty-three minutes after the surge before it. All of the others occurred within twenty minutes.'

Swain looked at Selexin. 'The last surge was a separate surge. And it was big. Very big. Something that took a long time to teleport -- thirty-four seconds to teleport.'

'What are you saying?'

'I think Bellos had someone teleport a teleporter into the library so he could get the hoods out of here before he left.'

Selexin took it all in silently. He examined the list again. Finally he looked up at Swain. 'Then that means...'

'It means,' Swain said to Selexin, 'that somewhere in this building is a teleporter. A teleporter that we can use to get you home.'

Selexin was momentarily silent as it all sunk in.

'So what are we waiting for?' Holly said.

'Nothing now,' Swain said, grabbing Selexin's shoulder, starting to run. 'Let's find it while we still have time.'

----ooo0ooo------

James Marshall stood at the base of the ramp leading to the parking lot. He was watching the grid of blue electricity stretched across the metal grille when his radio operator came up to him.

'Sir?'

'What is it?' Marshall didn't turn around.

Status Check: 0:01:00 to De-electrification.

Standby.

'Sir, we're not even getting a signal now. Commander Quaid's radio is completely off the air.'

Marshall bit his lip. The night that had begun with so much promise was not panning out well at all. They had already lost two men inside the library, destroyed one Radiation Storage Unit, lost track of a bum who had been seen by the southern wall of the library, and now had a building that was burning itself to the ground. And for what? Marshall thought.

Jack shit, that's what.

They had nothing to show for their night's work. Not a single fucking thing.

And Marshall would be responsible. Too much was riding on this operation. Sigma Division had been given complete authority on this matter and they needed something to show for it.

Christ, not long before, the New York Fire Department had shown up in response to all the explosions and the NSA had held them back. The building was the source of a National Security Agency investigation, he'd said. Let it burn. But it's a National Register building. Let it burn. That wouldn't go down well with the bosses upstairs.

So now the situation was clear: if Marshall didn't get anything from this building, he would be the scapegoat. His career now depended on what they found inside that library.

They had to get something.

As it turned out, Swain, Holly and Selexin didn't have to run very far before they found the teleporter. In fact, they didn't even have to search beyond the Stack. But they almost missed it altogether. It was only Selexin's keen eye that had caught sight of a deviation in one of the long aisles of the Stack as they had been zigzagging their way toward the floor's central stairwell.

Status Check: 0:00:51 to De-electrification.

'It's so big,' Holly said in awe.

That was an understatement, Swain thought as he stood in the aisle and stared at the enormous machine.

It looked like a massive, high-tech, steel-sided telephone booth, with a glass door in its centre, and thick grey walls that almost reached to the ceiling. All of its edges had been rounded off to give it an elliptical shape and a big grey box sat on the floor beside it, connected to the teleporter by a thick black cord.

Surrounding the giant teleporter was a perfect sphere of emptiness that had been cut into the bookshelves and the ceiling around the big machine. The spherical hole in the air through which this machine had travelled had simply vaporised whatever had been standing here when it had arrived.

'That's a portable generator,' Selexin said, pointing to the grey box. 'Bellos had to bring one of those in order to operate the teleporter on Earth.'

Swain stared at the teleporter and at the bookshelves around it. They were right in the middle of the eastern section of the Stack, at least thirty yards from any entrance to the floor and surrounded by the towering floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It was highly unlikely that anyone had been through here during the Presidian.

'Well hidden,' Swain observed.

'I do not think Bellos had much choice,' Selexin said.

'What do you mean?'

'Well, I have been thinking about this -- about how Bellos teleported his hoods into the labyrinth. Do you remember that every time we saw him, Bellos always had his guide draped over his shoulder?'

'Yes.'

'Well, I kept wondering, why did he need to immobilise his guide? What I think happened was this,' Selexin said. 'On his home planet, Bellos steps inside the official teleporter with his guide. Once inside, the guide receives the co-ordinates of the labyrinth on the wristband, which he hasn't given to Bellos yet. Bellos then attacks the guide, beats him, steals the co-ordinates, and then reopens the teleporter and relays the co-ordinates to someone else.

'Then he and his guide are teleported to the labyrinth alone, while at the same time, at another teleporter nearby, the hoods are sent.

'Much later, they teleport this teleporter, but they only have co-ordinates that are rather general. The teleporter could have arrived anywhere inside the library. It was impossible for them to teleport it intentionally into a dark corner. But then, when you're teleporting something into a maze, the odds are in your favour of teleporting it into a dark corner. A calculated risk, no doubt, but obviously one that Bellos was prepared to take.'

Status Check: 0:00:30 to De-electrification.

Next to Swain, Holly was staring up at the big grey machine. 'So what do we do now, Daddy?'

Swain frowned, looked back down the dark aisle behind him. In the distance he saw that some shelves were now on fire.

'We send Selexin home, honey,' he said. 'So he can tell the others what really happened, and so he can get away from here.'

'Oh,' Holly said, disappointed.

'That is right,' Selexin nodded slowly.

'Can't he stay, Daddy?' Holly said. 'He could live with us. Like in E.T.'

Selexin smiled sadly and reached up for the handle to the glass door of the teleporter. He said to Swain, 'When I came to the labyrinth, I thought about myself being assigned to guide the human contestant through the Presidian. And I was not happy at all. I thought you would not last a moment, and if you did not, I would not either. But having seen you, and the way you defended your life and the life of your daughter, I know now just how mistaken I was.'

Swain nodded.

Selexin turned to Holly. 'I cannot stay here. Your world is not ready for me, just as I am not ready for it. Why, even the Presidian was not ready for your world.'

'Thank you,' Holly said, crying. 'Thank you for taking care of me.'

Then she leapt forward and threw her arms around Selexin and hugged him tightly. Selexin was momentarily taken aback, unprepared for this sudden display of affection. Slowly, he raised his arms and hugged Holly back.

'Take care of yourself,' he said, closing his eyes. 'And look after your father, the same way he looks after you. Goodbye, Holly.'

She released him and Selexin turned to Swain and extended his hand.

'You are a little too tall for me to hug,' Selexin said, smiling.

Status Check: 0:00:15 to De-electrification.

Swain took the little man's hand and shook it. 'Thank you, again,' he said seriously.

Selexin bowed. 'I did nothing that you yourself would not have done for her. Or for me. I was only there in your absence. And besides, thank you, for making me change my mind about you.'

He reached for the door to the teleporter. It opened with a soft, pneumatic hiss.

Swain put an arm on Holly's shoulder. 'Goodbye, Selexin,' he said. 'You'll be a hard memory to forget.'

'That is just as well, Mr Swain. Considering you have forgotten just about everything else I have told you tonight.'

Swain smiled sadly as Selexin stepped inside the teleporter.

'Don't forget to teleport this thing back once you get there,' he said, pointing at the teleporter.

'Do not worry. I will not,' Selexin said, closing the glass door behind him.

Swain stepped away from the teleporter and looked down at his wristband.

STATUS CHECK: 0:00:04 TO DE-ELECTRIFICATION.

'Oh, damn...' Swain said, realising. 'Oh, damn!'

Inside the teleporter, Selexin punched some buttons on the wall and then stepped up to the glass door.

A brilliant white light glowed to life behind him and the little man pressed his finger up against the glass.

'Goodbye,' he mouthed silently.

The dazzling white light inside the teleporter consumed Selexin and then, abruptly, there was a bright, instantaneous flash, and the inside of the teleporter was dark again.

And Selexin was gone.

Holly was wiping tears from her eyes as Swain looked at the wristband again.

STATUS CHECK: 0:00:01 TO DE-ELECTRIFICATION.

STANDBY.

DE-ELECTRIFICATION INITIALISED--

Swain grabbed Holly by the hand and immediately began to run desperately down the narrow aisle, toward the central stairwell. Holly didn't know what was happening, just ran with him anyway.

A loud beeping filled the air.

Swain knew exactly what was going on now -- it was what Selexin had been trying to tell him before. He didn't even need to look at his wristband to confirm it.

The damn thing was beeping insistently again and as he heard it ringing in his ears, he realised what aborting the Presidian really meant.

The electrified field was down.

His wristband was no longer surrounded by the field.

It had reset itself to self-destruct.

And nothing could stop it. There was no other electric field on Earth to surround it with.

Swain looked down at the wristband as he hit the stairs on the fly. It read:

PRESIDIAN ABORTED.

DETONATION SEQUENCE INITIALISED.

* 14:54 *

AND COUNTING.

Jesus.

SIXTH MOVEMENT

30 November, 10:47 p.m.

----ooo0ooo------

Outside the library, Marshall was barking orders.

'Move! Move! Move! Get in there!' he yelled, oblivious to the falling rain all around him.

Moments earlier, the grid of crackling blue electricity had vanished to nothing and Marshall had been faced with a gaping hole in the metal grille of the parking lot. Now he had Sigma's SWAT team racing past him, charging into the car park.

'Higgs!' he called.

'Yes, sir!'

'I want a total media blackout on this matter from now on. You go straight to Levine and you tell him to call the networks and pull some strings. Get those cameras out of here. And get me a No-Fly Zone over this whole area. I don't want any choppers within a five-mile radius of this building. Now go!'

Higgs ran off, up the ramp.

Marshall put his hands on his hips and smiled in the rain.

They were in.

Swain and Holly climbed the stairs two at a time, rounding the banisters, hauling themselves up, breathing hard.

They stopped at the Ground Floor. Swain peered out through the fire door.

The Ground Floor lay before him -- wide and dark and bare.

Empty.

Swain could just make out the First Floor mezzanine above. It was still dark there, too. No fires here. Not yet.

There was no-one here.

Wristband.

14:23

14:22

14:21

There was a light over by the Information Desk. Swain stepped cautiously out among the bookshelves, heading toward it. Holly followed nervously.

When he was ten yards away from the Information Desk, he said to her, 'Stay here.'

Swain edged closer to the desk. He peered over the desktop and suddenly turned away, wincing.

'What is it?' Holly whispered.

'Nothing,' he said, then added quickly, 'Don't come over here.'

He glanced over the desktop again and saw the grisly sight again. It was the bloodied and mangled body of a policewoman.

Hawkins' partner.

She had literally been torn limb from limb -- her arms were simply gone, each one ending at the bicep as a ragged bony stump. Her uniform was covered in blood. Swain could just make out the long jagged tear in her shirt where Bellos had ripped off her badge.

And then he saw her Glock pistol on the floor -- lying inches away from her desperately outstretched hand.

Swain had a thought: maybe he could shoot his wristband off.

No, the bullet would pass through his wrist. Not a good idea.

He bent down and picked up the policewoman's gun anyway. Protection.

And then, completely without warning, there came a sudden, crashing whump! from somewhere behind him.

Holly screamed and Swain snapped around instantly and saw--

--the Karanadon, crouched on one knee, slowly rising to its full height.

Right behind Holly!

It must have been up on the First Floor! It must have leapt down!

Without even thinking, Swain levelled his new found dock at the beast and fired twice. Both shots missed by three yards. Hell, he'd never even fired a gun before.

Holly screamed through the gunfire, ran over to Swain.

Boom.

The Karanadon stepped forward.

Swain raised the pistol again. Fired. Missed. Two yards off this time. Getting closer.

Boom. Boom.

'Run!' Holly squealed. 'Run!'

'Not yet! I can hit it!' Swain called back, raising his voice above the beast's thunderous footsteps.

The Karanadon began to charge.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

'Okay, run!' he yelled.

Swain and Holly dashed for the bookshelves. The Karanadon was gaining. They rounded a corner and entered a narrow aisle, bookshelves on either side. Running hard, Swain looked over his shoulder.

And then, suddenly, his feet hit something -- and he tripped -- and went sprawling head-first to the ground. He hit the floor hard and the glock went skittling off down the slick marble aisle.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The floor all around him was shaking violently and Swain rolled onto his back to see what had tripped him.

It was a carcass. The ripped and torn carcass of the Konda -- the grasshopper-like alien that the hoods had killed before, while Swain and the others had watched from the First Floor balcony.

Boom.

The floor rumbled a final time.

Silence. Save for the beeping of Swain's wristband.

Swain looked up and saw Holly standing on the other side of the carcass.

And behind her -- right behind her -- towering above the little girl, its massive frame silhouetting her body with total blackness, stood the dark shape of the Karanadon.

Holly didn't move a muscle.

The Karanadon was so close she could feel its hot breath on her neck.

'Don't move,' Swain whispered fiercely. 'Whatever you do, don't move.'

Holly didn't answer. She could feel her knees shaking. She knew that she wasn't going to move. Even if she'd wanted to, she couldn't. Beads of sweat began to appear on her forehead as she felt the Karanadon move slowly closer.

Its breath came in short, rapid spurts, as if it were breathing very, very quickly. As if it were--

Sniffing. It was sniffing her. Smelling her.

Slowly, the big beast's snout moved up her body.

Holly was terrified. She wanted to scream. She clenched her fists by her side and shut her eyes.

Suddenly, she felt a cold wetness touch her left ear. It was the Karanadon's nose, the tip of its dark, wrinkled snout. The nose was cold and wet, like a dog's.

She almost fainted.

Swain watched in horror as the Karanadon brushed the left side of his daughter's head.

It was taking its time. Moving slowly. Methodically. Intensifying their fear.

It had them.

Swain could hear the constant beeping of his wristband. How long to go? He didn't dare look -- didn't dare take his eyes off the Karanadon. Shit.

He shifted his weight -- and, oddly, felt a bulge in his pocket. It was the broken phone receiver. That wouldn't be much use here. Wait a second...

There was something else in his pocket...

The lighter,

Slowly, Swain reached into his pocket and pulled out Jim Wilson's Zippo lighter.

The Karanadon was sniffing Holly's ankles.

Holly just stood stock still, her eyes shut, her fists clenched.

Swain rolled the lighter over in his hand. If he could light something with it, the flames might momentarily distract the Karanadon.

But then, he recalled, the lighter hadn't worked in the stairwell before.

It had to work now.

Swain held the lighter up to the nearest bookshelf, up close to a dusty old hardcover.

Please work. Just once. Please work.

The Zippo flipped open with a loud metallic calink!

The Karanadon's head snapped up immediately and suddenly the beast was staring accusingly at Swain as if to say: 'And what do you think you're doing?'

Swain held the lighter closer to the dusty book but the Karanadon bounded quickly forward and in an instant Swain found himself slammed against the floor, face-down, the weight of an enormous black foot pressed hard against his back.

Holly screamed.

Swain was pushed down against the floor, his hands spread out in front of him, his face tilted sideways, one cheek flat against the cold marble floor. He struggled in vain against the weight of the Karanadon.

The beast roared loudly and Swain looked up to see that he was still holding the lighter in his left hand. On his left wrist, he saw his wristband, beeping insistently. In a distant corner of his mind, he wondered how long they had before it exploded.

The Karanadon saw the lighter.

And Swain watched in horror as an enormous black claw slowly descended upon -- and clasped around -- his entire left forearm. It gripped his arm tightly. Squeezing it. Cutting off the bloodflow. Swain saw his veins pop up everywhere. His arm was about to snap in two--

And then the big creature banged his wrist, hard against the floor.

Hard against the floor.

Swain roared in agony as his wrist hit the marble floor. There was a loud clunking sound, followed by a sharp burning pain that shot right through his forearm.

With the impact, his hand holding the lighter reflexively opened wide and the Zippo dropped to the floor.

Swain never noticed it.

And he had instantly forgotten about the burning pain in his forearm.

Now he was staring. Staring at his left wrist in total disbelief.

The wristband had hit the floor, too.

And the force of the impact had unclasped it. Now it just rested loosely around Swain's wrist, still beeping incessantly.

Only now it was unclasped.

Now it was off.

Swain saw the countdown.

12:20

12:19

12:18

And then suddenly he felt a claw clutch the back of his head and push it roughly against the floor. The weight on his back increased.

Time for the kill.

Swain saw the Zippo. On the floor. Within reach.

The Karanadon lowered its head.

Swain quickly grabbed the lighter and held it to the lowest shelf of the bookcase and then he shut his eyes and prayed to God that once, just once, Jim Wilson's stupid frigging lighter would work.

He flicked the cartwheel.

The lighter ignited for half a second, and that was all Swain needed.

A dust-covered book next to the Zippo burst instantly into flames, right in front of the Karanadon.

The big beast roared as the fire flared in front of its head, the bristled fur on its forehead catching alight. It pulled back instantly, releasing Swain, clutching desperately at its flaming brow.

Swain rolled immediately and in one swift movement, removed the wristband from his wrist, reached for the Karanadon's foot and clasped the band around one of the beast's enormous toe-claws.

The wristband clicked into place around the toe.

Clasped.

And then Swain was up. On his feet, running. He scooped up Holly, grabbed the Glock from the floor nearby and raced for the massive glass doors of the library's entrance. Behind him he could hear the wails and roars of the Karanadon.

He came to the doors, threw them open.

And saw about a dozen cars with revolving lights on their roofs parked out front. And men with rifles. Running toward him through the rain.

The National Security Agency.

'It's the police, Daddy. They're here to save us!'

Swain grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the doors, toward the stairwell.

'I don't think those policemen are here to help us, honey,' Swain said as they ran. 'Remember what happened to Eliot's house in E.T.? Remember how the bad guys put a big plastic bag around it?'

They were running hard. Almost at the stairwell now.

'Yeah.'

Swain said, 'Well, the people who did that are the same people who are outside the library now.'

'Oh.'

They came to the stairwell and started down the stairs.

Swain stopped.

He could hear voices... and shouts... and heavy footfalls coming from downstairs.

The NSA were already inside.

They must have come in through the parking lot.

'Quickly. Upstairs. Now.' Swain pulled Holly back up the stairwell.

They climbed the stairs.

And as they ran past the fire door leading to the Ground Floor, they heard the loud smashing sound of breaking glass, followed by more voices and shouts.

----ooo0ooo------

Swain shut the door behind him.

They were inside the photocopying room on the First Floor.

'Quickly,' he said to Holly, guiding her toward the Internet room, 'through there.'

They entered the Internet Facility of the New York State Library and Swain walked directly over to one of the windows on the far side.

It opened easily and he leaned out.

They were on the western side of the building. Beneath him, Swain could see the grassy park that surrounded the library. It was a fifteen-foot drop from the window to the grass down below.

He spun around and looked up at the wires hanging down from the ceiling.

'Daddy,' Holly said, 'what're we doing?'

'We're getting out,' Swain said, reaching up for the ceiling, yanking on some of the thick black wires.

'How?'

'Through the window.'

'Through that window?'

'Yep,' Swain yanked some more wires out from various other outlets. He began to tie them together, end to end.

'Oh,' Holly said.

Swain walked over to the open window again and with the butt of his gun, broke the glass. Then he tied the end of the length of wire around the window's now-exposed horizontal pane and knotted it tight.

He looked back to Holly.

'Come on,' he said, jamming the gun back into his waistband.

Holly stepped forward tentatively.

'Jump on my back and hold tight. I'll climb us both down to the ground.'

Just then, they heard shouts from inside the First Floor. Swain listened for a second. They sounded like directions, orders. Someone telling someone else what to do. The NSA were still searching. He wondered what had happened to the Karanadon. They mustn't have found it yet.

'Okay, let's go,' he said, helping Holly onto his back, piggyback style. She gripped him firmly.

Then he threw the length of wire out the window and began to climb out onto the ledge.

'Sir?' a static-ridden voice said.

James Marshall picked up his radio. He was now standing outside the main entrance to the library. The majestic glass doors in front of him were now shattered and broken, totally destroyed by the NSA's bold entry only minutes earlier.

It was the radio operator in the van.

'What is it?' Marshall said.

'Sir, we have visual confirmation, I repeat, visual confirmation, of contact on two floors. One in the lower parking structure and one on the Ground Floor.'

'Excellent,' Marshall said. 'Just tell everyone not to touch anything until I say so. Sterilisation procedures are in force. Anyone who comes within twenty feet of one of those organisms will be presumed to be contaminated and quarantined indefinitely.'

'Roger that, sir?'

'Keep me informed.'

Marshall switched the radio off.

He rubbed his hands together and looked up at the burning library above him. It was the building that would skyrocket his career.

'Excellent,' he said again.

Swain dropped to the grass and set Holly down beside him.

They were out.

At last.

It was raining more heavily now. Swain looked for an escape. They were near the south-west corner of the building. He remembered coming out of the subway before. Over on the eastern side of the library.

The subway.

Nobody would care if they saw him on the subway -- his clothes ragged and torn, Holly's not much better. They would just be another bum and a kid living on the subway.

It was the way out, the way home.

If they could get past the NSA.

Swain pulled Holly eastward into the shelter of the southern wall of the library building, the rain pelting down around them. They passed the broken window at ground level that he had used to get inside before. Using the cover of the rain and the shadows of the oak trees in the night, Swain hoped they could get past the NSA undetected.

They came to the south-east corner.

Beyond the row of oaks, Swain could see the great white rotunda. And beyond the rotunda, the subway station.

Yellow police tape still stretched from tree to tree around the library, forming a wide perimeter. Swain saw a few NSA agents armed with M-l6s stationed on that perimeter, their backs to the building, keeping the small crowd of helpless firefighters, local cops and late-night onlookers at bay. There weren't many NSA agents, just enough to secure the area. Swain guessed that most of the others were now inside the building itself.

'All right,' he said to Holly. 'You ready? It's time to go home.'

'Okay,' Holly said.

'Get ready to run.'

Swain waited for a second, peering around the corner of the building.

'All right, now!'

They dashed out from the building, across the open ground and into the treeline. They stopped beneath a big oak, catching their breath.

'Are we there yet?' Holly asked, breathless.

'Almost,' Swain said. He pointed to the rotunda. 'That's where we go next. Then on to the subway. You want me to carry you?'

'No, I'm okay.'

'Good. Ready?'

'Yes.'

'Then let's go.'

They ran again. Out from the treeline. Out into the open.

Boom.

Marshall felt the ground beneath him shudder.

He was still standing at the main entrance to the library. He looked inside, through the broken glass doors, to see what was causing the vibration.

Nothing. Darkness.

Boom.

Marshall frowned.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Something was coming. Something big.

And then he saw it.

Motherfucker...

Marshall didn't wait for another look. He just turned and ran -- down the steps, away from the entrance -- a bare two seconds before the library's enormous doors were blasted from their hinges like a pair of matchsticks.

Swain and Holly were halfway to the rotunda when it happened.

A booming, thunderous roar echoed across the park behind them.

Swain stopped and spun. The pouring rain pelted down against his face. 'Oh no,' he said. 'Not again.'

The Karanadon was standing at the top of the steps of the main entrance. The huge glass doors of the library, now totally destroyed, lay in pieces in front of the enormous black beast. NSA agents were running in all directions to get away from it.

The Karanadon paid no attention to the people fleeing from it. In fact, it didn't even acknowledge their presence at all. It just stopped at the top of the steps and stood there, its head turning in a slow, wide arc.

Scanning the area.

Searching.

Searching for them.

And then it saw them. Exposed between the treeline and the big white rotunda, standing there in the pouring rain.

The huge beast roared loudly.

And then it leapt forward and with frightening speed, covered the distance between the library and the treeline in seconds. It bounded quickly forward, charging through the sleeting rain, its every step shaking the muddy earth beneath it.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Swain and Holly ran for the rotunda. They reached it and climbed the steps, up onto the circular concrete stage.

The Karanadon hit the treeline and crashed through the branches of one of the giant oaks, charging toward the rotunda.

Then it stopped. Ten yards away. And watched them for several seconds.

They were trapped on the stage.

Marshall had his radio out.

'I'll give you fucking confirmation! The damn thing just charged out the front fucking doors! Get someone over here right now!'

The radio crackled back.

'I don't give a flying fuck what you're looking at! Get someone over here now and tell them to bring the biggest gun we've got!'

Swain led Holly over to the far side of the stage. He picked her up as the Karanadon moved slowly closer. The rain drummed loudly on the roof of the rotunda.

'Stay down,' Swain said, as he lowered Holly over the railing at the edge of the stage. She dropped lightly to the ground, six feet below.

The Karanadon reached the base of the rotunda. The pouring rain had wet its fur, slicking it down like a dog's. A running trickle of rainwater ran down a crease in its long black snout, dripped ominously off one of its huge canine teeth.

The big beast took a slow step up the stairs.

Swain moved in an arc around the circumference of the stage, away from Holly.

The Karanadon stepped up onto the stage.

It stared at Swain.

There was an endless, tense silence.

Swain drew his Glock.

The Karanadon growled in response. A low, angry growl.

Neither of them moved.

And then suddenly Swain made a break for the railing and the Karanadon bounded forward after him.

Swain reached the railing and had just started to vault over it when a giant black claw snatched his collar and snapped him backwards, and he landed in the centre of the concrete stage with a loud smack.

The Karanadon stood astride Stephen Swain and lowered its snout until it was face-to-face with him. It had his gun hand pinned to the stage beneath one of its massive hairy claws.

Swain tried in vain to turn away from its hideous fangs, its foul hot breath, its dark wrinkled snout, set in a perpetual sneer.

The Karanadon cocked its head slightly, seemingly daring him to escape.

It was then that Swain turned his head and saw the beast's hind foot step forward.

A wave of terror flooded through his body as he saw the wristband that he had worn for the duration of the Presidian right in front of his eyes.

'Oh, man...' he said aloud.

The countdown was still ticking downward.

1:01

1:00

0:59

Only one minute to detonation.

Holy shit.

He began to wriggle and squirm, but the Karanadon held him down. It seemed totally unaware of the bomb attached to its foot.

Swain looked around the rotunda for an escape -- at the white lattice handrail that circled the stage, at the six pillars supporting the dome-like roof. There was a small wooden box attached to the handrail, but its door was padlocked shut. In a detached corner of his mind, Swain wondered what the box was for.

There was nothing here. Absolutely nothing he could use.

He had finally run out of options.

Then suddenly, there came a voice.

'Hello...?'

The Karanadon's head snapped up instantly, turned around.

Swain could still see the numbers counting down on the wristband inches away from his face.

0:48

0:47

0:46

'Hello? Yes. Over here.'

Swain recognised the voice.

It was Holly.

He looked up. She was standing over near the edge of the stage, the rain slanting down behind her like a curtain. The Karanadon swivelled to look at her--

--and abruptly something small smacked against the Karanadon's snout. It dropped to the ground next to Swain's head. It was a black school shoe. A girl's school shoe. Holly had thrown it at the Karanadon!

The big beast growled. A deep-chested rumble of pure, animal anger.

0:37

0:36

0:35

Then it slowly lifted its foot, moving toward Holly.

'Holly!' Swain yelled. 'Get out of here! It still has the wristband on and it'll blow in thirty seconds!'

Holly was momentarily startled. Then, in an instant, she understood and she began to run, leaping down the steps, vanishing from Swain's sight out into the park.

The Karanadon took one step forward in pursuit of her and then it stopped dead in its tracks.

And turned around.

0:30

0:29

0:28

It still hadn't released Swain's gun hand -- still had it pinned down against the stage.

Swain struggled vainly against the giant creature's grip, but it was useless. The Karanadon was just too damn strong.

0:23

0:22

0:21

And then, just then, as he squirmed, something on the stage scraped against Swain's back.

Swain frowned -- and saw that he had brushed up against a part of the stage that wasn't perfectly flush against the floor.

A small square of wood, sunken fractionally into the stage.

It was a trapdoor.

The same trapdoor that he had seen used in the summer pantomimes over previous years.

He was lying on top of it.

And then, realising, Swain's head snapped around -- and his eyes fell on the small padlocked wooden box that he had seen attached to the lattice handrail before.

Now he knew what that box was for.

It housed the controls for the trapdoor.

0:18

0:17

The Karanadon stood over him, growling.

0:16

0:15

Even though his gun hand was still being held down by the beast, Swain's pistol was aimed roughly at the trapdoor's control box.

0:14

0:13

Swain fired. Hit the top corner of the box. The Karanadon roared.

0:12

0:11

He adjusted his aim. Fired again. This time the bullet hit the box closer to the padlock.

0:10

Third timers the charm... he thought, narrowing his eyes.

Blam!

Swain fired and... shwack! ... the padlock snapped open, smashed by the bullet!

0:09

The control box's door swung open, revealing a large red lever inside. Simple operation: you pulled the lever down and the trapdoor on the stage dropped open.

0:08

Swain fired again, this time at the lever. Missed. He stole a glance up at the Karanadon -- just in time to see one of its mighty black fists come rushing down at his face! Swain swung his head to the side, just as the gigantic black-clawed fist smashed into the stage right next to his ear, punching a hole clean through the trapdoor. The Karanadon raised its free claw again, for what would no doubt be the final blow.

0:07

Swain saw the big claw rise. He loosed several shots at the lever in rapid succession.

Blam! Blam! Blam'. Blam!

Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss.

0:06

The Karanadon's claw reached the height of its back-swing. Its knuckles cracked loudly as it tightened into a fist.

'Goddamn it!' Swain shouted at himself. 'Focus!'

The Karanadon's fist came rushing down--

Swain looked down the barrel of his gun--

--and suddenly the lever came into crystal-clear focus. 'Gotcha,' he said.

Blam.

The gun discharged and the bullet whistled through the air and this time...

... crack! ...

... it slammed into the lever, severing it at its hinge in an explosion of sparks, causing the whole lever mechanism to snap and fall and--

0:05

Whack!

Without warning, the trapdoor beneath Swain dropped away.

0:04

The Karanadon's fist hit nothing but air as it came rushing down, missing Swain's nose by centimetres as he dropped unexpectedly from beneath the massive beast, falling like a stone into the belly of the stage.

Swain landed with a dusty thump in darkness.

0:03

He saw the Karanadon on the stage above him, standing in a square of light, glaring down at him through the hole that only moments before had been the trapdoor.

Move!

He looked right and saw a vertical sliver of light in the darkness -- a sliver of light that indicated the small wooden door that led out from underneath the stage.

0:02

Swain scrambled toward the little wooden door, firing his gun as he did so, pockmarking the door with holes, hoping to God he would hit the padlock on the other side.

0:01

And then he rammed into the door with his shoulder and it burst open before him and he flailed out into the pouring rain and landed clumsily on the wet grass that surrounded the stage.

0:00.

Cataclysm.

----ooo0ooo------

The explosion from the wristband -- white-hot and blinding -- blasted out horizontally, like a thousand-mile-an-hour ripple in a pond.

Swain scrambled on his hands and knees and pressed himself up against the concrete base of the stage as the white-hot wall of light expanded laterally -- and spectacularly -- above his head. He saw Holly on the ground over by the trees, her hands covering her ears.

The Karanadon simply disappeared as the brilliant white explosion shot outward from it, shattering all six of the pillars supporting the domed roof of the rotunda -- reducing them to powder in an instant -- and the massive white dome, without its supports, came crashing down onto the stage.

Behind Swain's back, the thick concrete base of the stage cracked under the weight of the explosion, but held.

White concrete dust and about a billion flakes of paint fluttered in the air before the pouring rain broke them up, dispersing them.

Swain stood up slowly and stared at the rotunda, its huge domed roof now crumpled flat on its stage, the rain beating mercilessly down upon it.

There would be nothing left of the Karanadon, the explosion had been too big, too hot. The Karanadon was gone.

Swain hurried over to Holly and picked her up.

He saw NSA agents running toward them through the rain, and was about to break for it, when it happened.

Suddenly.

Unexpectedly.

Concurrent explosions -- six of them -- white-hot balls of light, bursting spectacularly from different sections of the library.

The biggest explosion came from the Third Floor. It seemed to be a combination of two separate explosions, twice the size of the other white fireballs that boomed out from the Ground and Second Floors of the library.

Glass blasted outwards from nearly every window of the New York State Library. People all around the building were diving for cover when suddenly an underground explosion -- strangely, right where the underground parking lot was situated -- dispatched a large oak tree clear from its roots, sending a gout of soil and grass flying into the rainsoaked sky.

Shrouded by a veil of slanting rain, the whole library was ablaze with fire now. Flames poured out from every window and as Stephen Swain led his daughter inconspicuously away from the pandemonium, he saw the Third Floor cave in on itself and crumble downwards, crushing the Second and First Floors.

The building's roof was still intact when the sixth and last explosion rocked the library and the strangest sight of all appeared.

An empty elevator -- rocketing upward through the shaft -- burst through the roof of the building and shot up into the sky, reaching the height of its parabolic arc and then falling, flying, crashing, back down onto the roof.

It was then that the roof itself caved in and the New York State Library -- amid the sound of girders creaking and explosions multiplying and fires burning -- collapsed in a blaze of glory and, despite the pouring rain, began to burn itself into oblivion.

James Marshall stared in dumbstruck awe at the fiery demise of the building that had promised him so much. There had been nearly thirty agents inside that building when the explosions had gone off. None could have survived.

Marshall just stood there, watching the building burn. They would get nothing from this building. Just as they would get nothing from the rotunda. Marshall himself had seen the big black creature crash through the main entrance. And he had seen it explode.

A white-hot -- micro-nuclear? -- explosion like that would not leave much behind. Christ, it wouldn't leave anything behind.

Marshall put his hands in his pockets and walked back to his car. Phone calls had to be made. Explanations had to be given.

This night had been the closest they had ever come to contact. Perhaps the closest they would ever come.

And now? Now what did they have?

Nothing.

----ooo0ooo------

Stephen Swain sat on the subway train with his daughter asleep in his lap.

At every jolt of the train, they would tilt and sway with the other four passengers in their carriage. It was late and the near-empty train would get them to the outskirts of New York City. From there they would catch a cab -- an expensive cab -- back to Connecticut.

Back home.

Holly slept peacefully in Swain's lap, occasionally rolling over to make herself more comfortable.

Swain smiled sadly.

He had forgotten about the wristbands that all the contestants in the Presidian had to wear. When the electrified walls had disappeared, their wristbands -- like his -- must have also been set to detonate. So when the Karanadon had exploded with Swain's wristband, the other wristbands had gone off, too, wherever they happened to be -- Reese's in the underground parking lot, Balthazar's on the Third Floor, and even Bellos', at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

Swain looked at his clothes -- greasy, black, and in some places, bloody. Nobody on the train seemed to care.

He laughed softly to himself. Then he closed his eyes and leaned back into his seat as the train rumbled off through the tunnel toward home.

EPILOGUE

New York City

1 December, 4:52 a.m.

Workers on the New York Subway called it the Mole, an ordinary electric engine from a subway train that had been converted into a street-sweeper on rails.

Late at night, when subway services were at a minimum, the Mole would amble through the tunnels, its rotating forward sweepers scooping up any debris that might have fallen onto the tracks during the previous day. At the end of its run, all that debris would be tipped from the Mole into a furnace and destroyed.

Later that night, the Mole made its usual trip through the subway tunnel adjoining the State Library. And as it passed the Con Edison Booster Valve, the driver began to doze.

He never noticed the open doorway, never noticed the crumpled interior -- packed solid with collapsed bricks and fragmented concrete.

And he never noticed the soft clink-clink of metal on metal that rattled underneath the Mole as it went past the Booster Valve.

The Mole ambled off down the tunnel, and all that remained in its wake was a pair of handcuffs, clasped to the track.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW REILLY

THE WRITING OF CONTEST

What inspired you to write Contest?

There were two key inspirations for me to actually sit down and write Contest. First, the works of Michael Crichton. I still believe that Dr Crichton is the best storyteller in the world today. Not only are his stories original, they are also told at a cracking pace. Back in 1993, the year after I finished high school, my brother, Stephen, gave me a book and said, 'I'm told Steven Spielberg is going to make this into a movie, it's about a theme park built around genetically-engineered dinosaurs.' More than any other book I have read, Jurassic Park made me want to tell big action stories (especially stories with big scary 'animal' elements).

In terms of the story, the inspiration to write Contest came from my love of sports. I think there is drama in any kind of competition. All I did to turn that into a story was to make my contest the ultimate contest -- if you win, you live; if you lose, you die.

Contest originally appeared in late 1996 in self-published form. What are the differences -- if any -- between the self-published version and this one?

In terms of the overall story, there are no differences. Structurally, it is exactly the same now as it was back in 1996. The differences come in the finer detail -- in the way Swain does battle with the other contestants. The biggest alterations I made were in the 'final confrontation' scenes involving Swain and the three big villains of the book: Bellos, Reese and the Karanadon. In the original version of the book, these scenes were not as complex. Now they are bigger, badder and meaner.

The other big change was the addition of the Konda and the Rachnid. In the 1996 version, these two contestants weren't named or described. The reason for this was simple: when I originally wrote the book, I dreamed up six different alien species (Reese, Bellos, the Codex, Balthazar, the hoods and the Karanadon) and I just couldn't think up any more! But after a few years of thinking about Contest, I came up with these two extra species. So I put them in.

Apart from those, there are a lot of small changes, ranging from tightening the narrative in places to telling the reader how Swain's wife died, a piece of backstory that didn't appear in the self-published edition.

You mentioned that there are 'big scary animal elements' in your novels. Tell us about the various creatures in your books. Why are they there and why do you choose the ones you do?

I wish I could think of some loftier purpose, but the true reason for the big scary animal elements is very simple: they're there to eat people. I think there is nothing better in a book or movie than to see someone running from a big scary creature (think Jurassic Park, Jaws, or Aliens).

As for why I choose the creatures I choose, well, in Ice Station, for instance, I selected killer whales and elephant seals because I wanted the water to be a dangerous place -- kind of like Jaws. The elephant seals were also the guardians, so to speak, of the underground cavern -- making it a challenge to get there. In Temple I went one step further, and tried to make land and water dangerous places to be. There I used rapas (big, black, five-foot-tall cats which are the subject of myths in South America) and caimans (large crocodilians). I chose those animals because I wanted Temple to be darker and scarier than Ice Station. As for Contest, well, as any Hollywood screenwriter will tell you, the best creatures of all are the ones you make up. For when you create an alien species, there are absolutely no limits. They can bleed acid (Alien), they can see via infra-red (Predator), or they can just be bigger, meaner and nastier than the biggest, meanest and nastiest Earth-based creatures.

Do you have the ending in your head when you start writing a new novel?

Ah, yes! This is Frequently Asked Question No. 1. Whenever I meet people and they discover I am an author, they always ask this question! The answer is: yes... usually.

The reason I say 'yes ... usually' is because I feel that some flexibility is always required.

For example, the last line of Temple (which I won't give away, for those who haven't read it) was something that occurred to me halfway through writing the book. I love that line, and it's a great reason to remain flexible.

As for Contest, one question that nagged me all the way through the writing process was: How the hell am I going to kill the Karanadon? The answer -- using Swain's wrist-band -- came to me completely out of the blue. It just hit me. I started dancing around the house, pumping my fists in the air. It was so neat, so tidy, it saved Swain and yet it left no trace of the Karanadon. But neat as it appears in the book, it was not something I knew from the very start. Again, flexibility.

I see you have a new author photo for this book. Any reason for the change?

Yes -- too much grief from my friends! Some took to calling me 'Mr Suave' because of the old photo! I kind of liked it, but it was getting a little dated (it was taken in 1997, before I had glasses). The new one looks more like the real me!

Any final words?

As always, I just hope you all enjoyed the book, and I hope to see you next time.

MR

Sydney

November 2000