The Prisoner Read Online Free PDF Page A

lungs to capacity with air redolent of chemicals.
    Her jaw ached.
Give head? Never again. Never
.
    A few yards away and to her left, she eyed a square pool—an expanse of black glass, its unmoving surface pierced by pairs of wires and fat green tubes.
    By the numbers, you must go by the numbers. Get out of the protective net and remove the plugs
.
    When she could control her greedy gasps for air, Laurel reached to the back of her neck, explored the thick ring surrounding it, found the quick-release catch, and pressed it. The doughnut sprang open. Pulling with fingers and toes, she disentangled herself from the slippery net. When she was free, she pulled out her nose and earplugs, ran a sticky hand over the smooth dome of her head, and huddled on the floor to enjoy her recovered senses and peer at the mass of green cords, slowly flattening over the hard floor like a beached jellyfish. Laurel eyed her knees, stretched her legs, and wiggled her toes.
Like a boiled lobster
.
    She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, shocked at the sudden euphoria shooting through her body. Laurel remembered hearing tales of how Napoleon, Caesar, and Alexander had each spent a night in the funerary chamber of the great pyramid at Giza—a large room, perhaps thirty by fifteen feet. Half the size of Hypnos’s standard tanks, and with a large sarcophagus dead center on the floor. They had experienced aneverlasting night, alone in complete darkness, where it soon became difficult to decide where fingers ended and air began. They claimed the pinnacle of the experience was not the entrance or even the stay but the exit. The return to the outside, walking along a narrow gallery in darkness and toward the light, was like a rebirth.
    Everyone who had undergone such an experience was changed. Fear of death was forever lost. Laurel felt similarly reborn.
    When she heard a high-pitched whine, she glanced upward but couldn’t find the source of the noise. Suddenly she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. At the edge of the tank, the surface broke and another cocoon started to emerge.
Raul or Bastien
. She narrowed her eyes and smiled at the glossy ebony skin inside the net. Bastien.
Let’s see how you fare when they yank the plug from your mouth, buster
.

chapter 5
     

     
    17:41
    Nineteen minutes to computer shutdown.
    Lukas held his breath as the wire harness pulled the woman clear from tank 913, dreading an explosion of blaring alarms, but nothing happened. The subroutine he’d slipped into the station’s computer when he started his shift had worked like a charm. Donald Duck had said it would and, so far, the quacking man had been true to his word. Obviously, only someone familiar with Hypnos’s internal procedures could have written the code. During the daily backup routine, when the machine connected with the mainframe at the corporation’s headquarters, engineers would probably detect the rogue program. Then all hell would break loose. But by then he hoped to be out of the reach of the DHS’s long arm.
    With another ten inmates left, processing the new arrivals was only halfway done. At three minutes each, he and his team couldn’t deal with all the new guests before the computer would start its backup. After a moment’s hesitation, Lukas turned to a squat gray cordless box on his desk and blinked to bring it online. The box turned dull red.
    “Instruction to all controllers,” Lukas said.
    The chameleonic box changed to green.
    “Please continue processing for twelve minutes, until seventeen fifty-three, then prepare to shut down until backup is complete. Secure all unprocessed inmates.” He paused. “Lukas Hurley, supervisor.”
    The box seemed to shrink as it returned to its gray standby status.
    He could have scheduled another inmate, or two, but he didn’t want to tempt fate. If any of the inmates struggling through the admission freaked out—and a few did—it would add minutes to the schedule. They would have to