The helicopter moved in overhead, and again there came an amplified voice, screeching down at him from above:
'We know you're in there, Grove! Throw down your weapon or weapons, and come out with your hands up! Let the hostage'
Dave rolled on his back, took aim, and pumped a dozen bullets into the belly of the helicopter. There was a mighty explosion. Shattered glass, engine housing and rotor blades flew in all directions.
He returned his attention to the police by the toll booths. Five of them were still alive, and continuing to fire at him.
He stood up, held his rifle by his hip, and walked towards them. Bullets scorched the air past his face.
The policemen did not move from their positions, but continued to fire an unending stream of bullets at him. Their faces were concealed by their silver helmets and mirrored sunglasses.
One was different: this was a woman wearing police uniform. She had removed her helmet and shades to reveal her face. She was gorgeous, with long flowing tresses of black hair. She regarded Hartland with a surprised expression.
He stood still, knowing that at this range the cops would not truss him. Moments later, the bullets struck him in the chest, throwing him backwards across the surface of the road. His last sight was of one of the tall suspension towers, coloured a glistening red, outlined against the frozen sky. An illuminated sign, strung between the girders, suddenly came to life.
An animated pig with an idiotic grin tottered into view, and settled at the top of the screen with a scattering of muddy droplets. A scroll it was carrying in its mouth unfurled. It carried these words:
World Copyright Stuck Pig Encounters
Check Out Our Website
For Our Catalog Call Toll Free 1800STUCPIG
Bullets continued to tear painfully into him.
The silence that followed neither lasted an eternity nor felt like one, because Hartland was braindead and unable to measure elapsed time. A few moments after the technician registered that his ExEx session had ended she activated the doorrelease and light flooded into the cubicle where Dave Hartland's body was lying.
The technician's name was Patricia Tarrant, and she was tall and intenselooking, with her brown hair stretched back tautly from her face. She coolly regarded the dead man lying there. He had thrown back both his arms a not uncommon gesture amongst ExEx users.
Patricia brought his arms down, then with some difficulty turned the man on his side. She brought forward the nanosyringe.
She laid it horizontally along the base of his neck, seeking the tiny valve that connected to the nerve cluster next to the spinal column. She slipped the point of the syringe into the opening of the valve, then twisted the plastic integument to seal it. With the syringe in place, she felt under the tiny flap and located the microswitch. She was supposed to use a special tool for this, but she had carried out the operation so many times that she now usually used the simple pressure of her fingertip. She flicked the microswitch, reactivating Hartland's life. He stirred immediately, grunting. One of his shoulder muscles twitched slightly and he drew a breath.
'OK, take it easy, Mr Hartland,' she muttered auto
matically, quietly. 'You'll be all right. Let me know if any of this hurts.'
He lay still, but she knew by the movements of his eyes behind the lids that he was either conscious or fractionally below the threshold of consciousness. To be on the safe side she reached over to the console above the trolley and sent a signal through to the medical team, giving them a green alert. This advised them that a resuscitation was in progress, with no complications expected at this stage.
With the life neurochip reactivated she extracted it into the syringe, then deftly transferred it to the phial placed beneath. Using the sensors she located the remaining nanochips and removed them from the valve with one steady suction of the syringe. When all the tiny modules had been removed, she took the phial to the ExEx cabinet.
What then followed was fully automated. The chips were checked electronically to make sure they were the same ones that had been administered at the beginning of the session, then they were moved to the ultrasonic autoclave and cleansed of any fluids or cells brought from Hartland's body. Each nanochip was then in turn deprogrammed, scanned, formatted and reprogrammed, and stored ready for the next use.
The ExEx cabinet, totally sealed not only against atmospheric and other pollution but also against interference from the user, performed all these operations within four and threetenths seconds, of which by far the longest was the ultrasonic cleansing.
A total of six hundred and thirteen different neurochips had been injected into Hartland's nervous system for his session inside the ExEx equipment, and six hundred and thirteen of them were recovered from him, cleansed and reprogrammed.
After Patricia had completed her resuscitation work, she left the cubicle, leaving Dave Hartland to recover in his own time.
Soon Hartland was sitting up on the edge of the bed, glancing around the bare interior of the cubicle, feeling tired and listless, but as he reorientated, and remembered what had happened inside the scenario, he began to feel aggrieved. After a quarter of an hour, Patricia returned and asked him if he was ready. When he confirmed he was she gave him the releases to sign.
'I'm not prepared to sign anything, Pat,' he said, and thrust the sheaf of forms back at her.
'Not this time.'
'Any particular reason?' said Patricia, apparently unsurprised.
'Yeah. lt was no good. lt wasn't what 1 wanted.'
