Contest

Two.

Swain climbed out first and saw that on this floor, the elevators were embedded in the wall of bookshelves.

He looked out from the doors and immediately realised that they were on one of the long ends of the rectangular floor. The southern wall.

Swain remembered finding Hawkins on this floor, and seeing Reese for the first time, and running blindly through the maze of shelves to the safety of the stairwell. But that, he remembered, had happened on the other side of the floor.

He turned back to the elevator shaft and pulled Holly and Selexin out.

'I remember this part of the labyrinth,' Selexin said, seeing the bookshelves around him. 'Reese.'

'That's right.'

'Daddy, I have a headache,' Holly said wearily.

'I know, honey.'

'I want to go home.'

'So do I,' Swain said, reaching down, touching her head. 'We'll see if we can find something for your headache, and at the same time, somewhere to hole up. Come on, let's go.'

They began walking left, down the southern wall of the Stack. After walking some distance, their aisle turned sharply to the right, and they headed up the shorter western wall of the floor. They had gone about twenty yards along the wall when Swain noticed something odd.

Just ahead of them, flush against the outer wall of shelves, something was ajar, sticking slightly out into the aisle. Something red.

As they came closer, Swain realised what it was.

It was a door.

A small red door, slightly opened. It was tucked into the outer wall of shelves, very unobtrusively. Indeed, Swain had seen it only because he had almost walked right past it. Anyone conducting a cursory examination of the Stack would almost certainly miss it.

The small red door had writing on it.

''No Staff Access Permitted',' Selexin read aloud. 'What is that supposed to mean?'

But Swain wasn't paying any attention to Selexin. He was already kneeling in front of the door, peering down at its base.

Selexin said, 'I thought the staff were allowed to go everywhere in a place like this--'

'Shh,' Swain said. 'Look at this.'

Selexin and Holly crouched beside him and stared down at the book lying on the floor, wedged in between the door and its frame.

'It looks like it is holding the door open...' Selexin said.

'It is holding the door open,' Swain said, 'or at least stopping it from closing.'

'Why?' Holly asked.

Swain frowned. 'I don't know.' He looked at the door handle. On the library side, it had a keyhole in the middle of a plain silver knob. On the other side, though, he could not see any lock or keyhole. High up near the hinges he saw the closing mechanism.

'It's spring-loaded,' he said. 'To make sure it shuts every time. That's why someone used the book.'

'Why is no staff access permitted?' Selexin asked.

'Probably because this door has nothing to do with the library. And only staff are allowed in the Stack. I'd say it's probably a gas or electricity meter. Something like that,' Swain said. 'Something the staff are not supposed to touch.'

'Oh.'

Holly said, 'Can we get out through there?'

Swain looked to Selexin. 'I don't know. Can we?'

'The labyrinth was supposed to be sealed at the time of electrification. I cannot know what would happen if one entrance was not fully closed at that time. But I can guess.'

'So guess.'

'Well,' Selexin peered around the rim of the small red door marked NO staff access permitted. 'I see no visible sign of electrification here. And unless there is another door beyond this one that was closed at the time of electrification, my guess is that we may have just found a way out of the labyrinth.'

'A way out?' Holly said hopefully.

'Yes.'

'Are you sure?' Swain whispered.

'There is only one way to find out,' Selexin said. 'We have to see if there is another door beyond this one.'

'Do we?' Swain said, thinking.

'Why, yes,' Selexin said. 'Unless you can think of another way.'

Crouching on the floor, Swain looked up at the little man, and said, 'As a matter of fact, I think I can.'

And with that, Stephen Swain thrust his left arm -- with the thick grey wristband attached to it -- through the gap between the small red door and its frame.

Immediately they heard a loud, insistent beeping coming from outside the door, and after a couple of seconds, Swain pulled his wrist back inside.

The beeping stopped instantly.

They all looked at the thick grey wristband. Its display now read:

INITIALISED--6

DETONATION SEQUENCE INITIALISED.

AT * 14:57 * DETONATION SEQUENCE

CANCELLED

RESET.

14:57 was flashing.

Swain smiled at Selexin. 'There's no outer door. This is the last one.'

'How do you know, Daddy?' Holly asked.

'Because,' Selexin said, 'your father's wristband is set to initialise an automatic detonation sequence of fifteen minutes as soon as it senses that it is outside the energy field of this labyrinth.'

'What?' Holly said.

Swain said, 'He means that if I move outside the electric field that's all around this building, this wristband will explode unless I get back inside in fifteen minutes.'

'And do you see that?' Selexin pointed to the readout, the flashing 14:57. 'The countdown started when he put his wrist outside the door.'

'Which means,' Swain continued, 'that once we're outside this door, we're outside the electrical field, and outside the labyrinth.'

'Right,' Selexin said.

'So let's go,' Holly said. 'Let's get out of this place.'

'We can't,' Swain said sadly, 'or, at least, I can't. Not yet.'

'Why not?' Holly said.

'Because of the wristband,' Selexin sighed.

Swain nodded. 'I can't get it off. And if I don't, I'll only last fifteen minutes before this thing explodes.'

'Then we had better find a way to get it off,' Selexin said.

'How?' Swain said, shaking his wrist. The wristband was hard and strong, a thick steel clamp. 'Look at it. It's as solid as a rock. We'd need an axe or a hammer to break it open, and someone strong enough to crack it.'

'I bet Balthazar could do it,' Holly said. 'He's really big. And I bet he's really strong, too.'

'And when we last saw him, he was not strong enough to stand up by himself,' Selexin said sourly.