Contest

He took a long, slow breath. Then he pointed the pole away from his body, toward the wall of crisscrossing blue lightning.

The steel bulb at the end of the pole glistened as it edged closer and closer to the wall of blue light.

Marshall watched tensely. Quaid swallowed.

The NSA team stared in anticipation.

None of them knew what would happen.

The bulb touched the electricity.

The counters in the steel box immediately began to tick upward slowly, measuring the voltage. They sped up slightly, the numbers getting larger and larger.

And then they went into overdrive.

On the Second Floor of the library, Holly and Selexin huddled together underneath one of the large central tables. On the floor all around them lay the crumpled remains of a dozen shattered computers.

The glass walls of the Reading Rooms had once been like the glass partitions on the First Floor -- glass from the waist up, wood from the waist down -- only now they had been shattered beyond recognition by the explosions, reduced to little more than gaping windows with jagged edges.

Worse still, on the eastern side of the floor, in two of the reading rooms, fires had started.

Selexin sighed sadly. Next to him, Holly was sobbing.

'Are you all right?' he asked, concerned. 'Are you hurt?'

'No... want Daddy,' she whimpered. 'I want my Daddy.'

Selexin looked over at the doorway leading to the stairwell. It was shut. 'Yes. I know. I do, too.'

Holly stared at him, and Selexin could see the fear in her eyes. 'What's happened to him?' she sniffed.

'I do not know.'

'And those things that pushed him out through the door? I hope they die. I hate them.'

'Believe me,' Selexin said, still eyeing the door, 'I dislike them intensely, too.'

'Do you think Daddy's coming back inside?' Holly asked hopefully.

'I am sure he is already back inside,' Selexin lied. 'And I would wager that at this very moment he is probably somewhere in the building looking for us.'

Holly nodded, wiping her eyes, encouraged. 'Yeah. That's what I think, too.'

Selexin smiled weakly. As much as he wanted to believe that Stephen Swain was still alive, he was extremely doubtful. The labyrinth was electronically sealed for the sole purpose of keeping the contestants in. Only an inexplicable fluke had created an opening in the building at the time of electrification -- it was highly unlikely that another existed.

And besides, he had heard the explosion himself. Stephen Swain was most certainly dead...

And then, out of the corner of his eye, Selexin saw movement.

It was the stairwell door.

It was opening.

Swain hurried down the grey corridor and stepped out into the white fluorescent light of the car park.

It was exactly as he remembered it. Clean, shiny concrete, white floor markings, the DOWN ramp in the centre.

And it was quiet. The car park was totally empty.

Swain hurried over to the DOWN ramp and had just started to descend it when he heard someone shouting.

'Hello! Hey!'

Swain turned around, puzzled.

'Yes, you! The guy at the top of the ramp!'

Swain searched for the source of the shouts. His gaze fell on the entry ramp. It was off to the left, down a long, narrow passageway, closed off to the outside world by a big steel grille. At the bottom of the grille was a round exploded hole that glowed blue with crisscrossing lines of electricity.

Beyond the hole in the grille, however, was a man, dressed in blue combat attire.

And he was shouting.

----ooo0ooo------

Holly sat frozen underneath the long wooden table. Selexin stared at the slowly opening door.

Apart from the muffled crackling of flames that came from the fire in the reading rooms, the Second Floor of the New York State Library was completely silent.

The door to the stairwell continued to open.

And then slowly -- very slowly -- a big black boot stepped through the doorway.

The door opened wide.

It was Bellos. He was alone. The two remaining hoods were nowhere to be seen.

Selexin raised a finger to his lips and Holly, her eyes wide with fear, nodded vigorously.

Bellos walked into the open central area of the Second Floor.

His boots crunched softly on the broken glass of the computer monitors as he passed within a foot of the table under which Holly and Selexin hid.

He stopped.

Right in front of them!

Holly held her breath as the big boots swivelled on the spot, the body above them looking around in every direction.

Then the knees began to bend and Holly almost squealed at the prospect of it: Bellos was going to look under the table!

Bellos' legs crouched and a wave of terror swept through Holly's body.

The long tapering horns appeared first.

Then the evil black face. Upside down. Peering at them.

And at that moment, a wicked grin broke out across Bellos' face.

In the parking lot, Swain edged cautiously toward the exit ramp.

'Hellooo!' the man behind the grille called. 'Can you hear me?'

Swain didn't reply. He moved forward, toward the grille, focusing on the man on the other side.

He was a stocky man, dressed in blue fatigues and a bulletproof vest, like a member of a tactical response team.

The man called again. 'I said, can you hear me?'

Swain stopped, twenty yards away from the electrified grille.

'I can hear you,' he said.

At the sound of Swain's voice, the man behind the grille turned instantly and spoke to someone else, someone Swain could not see.

The man turned back, held up his palms and spoke very slowly. 'We mean you no harm.'

'Yeah, and I come in peace,' Swain said. 'Who the hell are you?'

The man continued to speak in that kind of slow, articulate voice one uses with an infant.

Or, perhaps, an alien.

'We are representatives of the government of the United States of America. We are' -- the man spread his arms wide -- 'friends.'

'All right, friend, what's your name?' Swain said.

'My name is Harold Quaid,' Quaid said earnestly.

'And what department are you from, Harold?'