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then turned as the pipe did, darting downwards, heading for the lower floors.

Hawkins watched as a droplet of fire fell from the gas pipe and landed on one of the wooden desks. With a sudden whoosh, the desk went up in flames.

Hawkins leapt to his feet. The explosions from the janitor's room were finally beginning to die, but that didn't matter anymore.

A fire was spreading through the gas piping.

Soon the whole building would be alight.

He had to find a way out.

----ooo0ooo------

In a small toilet on Sub-Level One, somebody else was feeling the shuddering explosions that were rocking the New York State Library.

Stephen Swain MD sat with his back pressed up against the white-tiled wall of a cubicle in the ladies' room of Sub-Level One. The water in the toilet bowl next to him splashed about wildly as the building around it tilted and swayed.

Another explosion boomed and the building shook again, although not as drastically as it had before. The explosions seemed to be losing their muscle.

Swain checked his wristband. It read:

INITIALISED--6

DETONATION SEQUENCE TERMINATED AT:

* 0:01 *

RESET

The top line flickered, then changed to:

INITIALISED--5

High above Swain's head, just below the ceiling, the grid of blue electricity was still sizzling. Beyond the glowing window he could hear the faint voices of the NSA agents.

He pressed himself closer against the tiles and breathed deeply.

He was back inside.

It was the thought of Holly that had done it.

Holly on the First Floor, in the dilapidated Internet Facility. When the hoods had been pounding on the door and Swain had handcuffed it shut, he had found Holly over by the window.

She had been holding the broken telephone receiver up against the electrified window. When the phone was brought in close to the window, the electricity seemed to pull back in a wide circle.

Away from the phone.

At the time, Swain hadn't realised what was happening, but he knew now.

It wasn't the phone that the electricity had been pulling away from, but the magnet inside the phone. The earpiece of a telephone is like a common stereo speaker: at its centre one will find a relatively high-powered magnet.

And as a radiologist, Stephen Swain knew all about magnetism.

People commonly associate radiologists with X-rays, but in recent years radiologists have been endeavouring to discover new ways to obtain cross-sections of human bodies -- views taken by looking down on the body from above the head.

There are a number of techniques used to obtain these cross-sections. One well-known method is the CAT- scan. Another more modern method involves the splicing and ordering of atomic particles and is called Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Basically -- as Swain had explained to the troublesome Mrs Pederman earlier that day -- MRI works on the principle that electricity reacts to magnetic interference.

And that was exactly what had happened when Holly had held the receiver to the window -- the magnetic waves disrupted the very structure of the electronic waves and, hence, made the wall of electricity pull away from the magnet in order to maintain their frequency.

To get inside again, Swain had grabbed the receiver from his pocket and held the ear-piece to the window. The electricity had instantly pulled back from the receiver, forming a wide two-foot hole in the grid, and Swain had simply thrust his arm in through the hole.

The wristband, once detecting itself to be inside the electric field again, stopped its countdown immediately.

Just in time.

After a minute's careful wriggling and squirming -- to make sure he did not move his body beyond the two- foot magnetic circle in the electric grid -- Swain was back inside.

In fact, he had just pulled his right foot inside the window when he fell from the high window sill. The electric grid sizzled immediately back into place and Swain fell clumsily onto the toilet seat below.

Inside.

----ooo0ooo------

Paul Hawkins was halfway across the study hall when the explosions ceased.

Only the loud crackling sounds of a fire out of control remained. The desks over by the janitor's room were now blazing wildly. The janitor's room itself was still glowing bright yellow. The whole study hall was bathed in a flickering golden haze.

Suddenly there came a crashing sound from behind him and Hawkins spun.

There, hovering in the doorway to the janitor's room, silhouetted by the flickering yellow flames behind it, was the Codex.

Hawkins froze.

Then he saw it wobble slightly.

The Codex was hovering unsteadily. It began to swirl dizzily. And then, abruptly, its flat triangular head snapped upward and the Codex fell, crashing down on top of a crumpled desk.

After that, it didn't move.

Hawkins sighed with relief.

He was about to turn back for the stairwell when he caught sight of something on the floor not far from the door to the janitor's room. Something white. Slowly, Hawkins stepped forward until he could see what it was...

He stopped cold.

It was a guide. Or at least what was left of him.

It had probably been the Codex's guide, stationed outside the janitor's room while the Codex had gone inside for the kill.

The guide's body lay in a wide pool of blood underneath one of the L-shaped desks and it had been mangled beyond recognition.

Small clusters of parallel red slashes ran across its face, arms and chest -- one of which had broken its nose, making for an especially gruesome excess of blood. Deep scratches on the little man's palms suggested futile defensive efforts. His eyes and mouth were wide open -- frozen in eternal terror -- a snapshot of his horrifying final moments.

Hawkins winced at the sickening sight -- it was disgusting, brutal. And then, as he looked more closely at the clusters of slashing cuts all over the guide's body, he had a sudden, terrifying realisation. Parallel cuts indicated claws...