The next few days passed in a haze of uncertainty and impotent rage for Number 6. More acutely than ever he felt his every movement was being scrutinized, his every utterance analysed. He fought against the temptation to censor himself in any way. It would be, he realized, the first step toward bending to the will of the Village. Operation Status Check be damned, he would not bend.  The attacks on Number 9, meanwhile, had ceased. Far from reassuring him, however, the lull only heightened his awareness that the next neural assault on the fragile young woman would undoubtedly be fatal. Number 6 briefly considered attempting to remove the device from her wrist, but realized he couldn't risk the possibility that the implant contained some kind of anti-tampering feature that might do irreparable harm. Instead he kept vigil, installing Number 9 as his house guest, rarely letting her out of his sight. It was an exercise in futility, and he knew it. Number 2 was right: There was no recourse against the devices. Their assaults were unpredictable and unpreventable, and unlike Rover, didn't even allow the spiritual solace of putting up a fight. Number 6 wondered grimly if the Village masters appreciated that aspect of their new technology, or if it was simply an added bonus to their vicious machinations. While he watched over Number 9 and brooded over his predicament, he heard nothing further from the Green Dome. Apart from a vague sensation of relief, he didn't give the silence much thought. When Number 2 was ready to act out the next scene in this drama, he would make his plans known. Number 6 had no intention of forcing his hand without a firm plan of his own. But nothing workable even began to suggest itself as frustrating hours lengthened into days. "You don't blame yourself for any of this, do you?" Number 9 asked as they had tea on the sun-drenched terrace overlooking the beach. "I hadn't given it much thought," he shrugged. "Liar," she said, rolling her eyes. Some of her strength and spirit had returned after several days free from electronic molestation. She remained weak, her movements stiff and tentative, but the shadow of fear had receded from her features. Number 6 hadn't told her the details of his conversation with Number 2, or the significance of her blue status. She believed the truce he had called for still held. What was the point of telling her otherwise? "You never did tell me what they want from you," she added, stirring sugar into her tea. "They want information," Number 6 said automatically. Number 9 considered this. "Why don't you just give it to them?" she asked. "Because I choose not to." There was a long pause. Then she said, "I don't blame you." "Thank you." The companionable silence that followed was split moments later by the clarion call of the public address system. A familiar voice, slightly distorted by amplification, announced, "Number 6, to the Green Dome. Urgent. Repeating, Number 6, to the Green Dome. Urgent."  Reluctantly he took Number 9 back to his cottage and left her there. He crossed the square with determined strides to answer his summons. The Supervisor, the Butler and Number 110 were gathered in the elegantly appointed waiting area outside Number 2's chamber. They regarded Number 6 with worried eyes. "What's going on?" he asked, instinctively on guard. The Supervisor stepped forward, clearing his throat nervously.
"Rover is holding Number 2 hostage," he said without preamble. "I beg your pardon?" Number 6 raised his eyebrows, incredulity and amusement in his expression. Number 110 pushed the Supervisor aside. "It won't let any of us in there," she said impatiently, gesturing toward the inner chamber. "We sent in two guards to get Number 2 out. They never came back." "We were preparing to shut down its support matrix," the Supervisor interjected. "Because…well, you know why. It knew, too, although I don't how it could. I received a distress call from Number 2 in the Control Room. The final command to deactivate the Rover system has to come from him. It won't let him give it." "I see," Number 6 said, utterly baffled. Rover, turning against its masters? Whatever the thing was, it had a self-preservation instinct. He felt no sympathy for the otherworldly guardian, whose brutality was well known to him. Still, he thought with dawning realization, Rover was, with regard to what Number 2 had called "efficiency and scale," now the lesser of two evils. Could he bring himself to join forces with it - whatever it was – against the Village? "What on earth do you want me to about it?" he asked the assemblage of Village staff. "Number 110," said the Supervisor, glancing apprehensively at the steely aide, "believes that Rover can distinguish between warders and prisoners. It knew the guards we sent in were, well, against it." "But Rover must know you, as a prisoner, can't shut it down," Number 110 concluded. "So we want you to go in there and distract it long enough to let Number 2 get out, so he can deactivate the bloody thing." Number 6 looked thoughtful. "You're scared to death of it, aren't you?" he said. "We have our orders, and we will carry them out." There was anger in Number 110's eyes, but there was fear there, too. "Without my help," Number 6 said curtly, turning to go. His hand was on the doorknob when he heard Number 110's voice behind him: "How is Number 9 these days?" He hesitated, emotions at war on his face. Number 110 came up behind him. In a flat voice only he could hear, she said, "Don't misinterpret what I'm about to say. My job is to get the damn support matrix shut down, and I'm going to do just that, by any means necessary. But if you find yourself in a position to dictate terms while you're in there, that's your concern. Do you understand?" She stepped away and looked at him expectantly, her face carefully composed. Without a word he pushed past them and through the door to Number 2's chamber. 
"Looks as if you've got morale problems," he greeted the Village master cheerfully. Number 2 was seated in his command chair, his rugged face unusually drawn. Two bodies in anonymous striped shirts were laid out on the floor near the console. Off to one side, emitting a low, ominous wail, was the strange spherical watchdog. It drifted a few inches toward Number 6, then stopped. Number 6 watched it out of the corner of his eye. "Did you have a hand in this?" Number 2 demanded querulously. "Don't be an idiot," Number 6 said. "I'm only the sacrificial lamb." He took a few steps toward Rover, looking more confident than he felt. "If you ask me, I don't think you'll be able to outrun it, even with me as a distraction." As if in agreement, the guardian crossed the chamber with otherworldly speed, until it was mere inches from Number 2, who cringed away from its undulating surface. "Then we're both doomed!" he cried, his voice a shadow of its former booming self. "Both of us!" "Oh, I don't know about that," Number 6 said casually. "It's not my problem if you've got a disgruntled employee on your hands." "Well, what can I do?" Number 2 implored. Number 6 pretended to give the matter serious thought. "Give in to its demands?" he suggested. "Demands? What the devil are you talking about?" Number 2 glanced nervously at Rover and checked himself. "What do you think it wants?" "Perhaps I'm just partial to the idea, but I'd guess it wants to be left alone." "You mean not deactivate the Rover system? Out of the question. It's not in the budget." Number 2 folded his arms across his chest, but his gesture of defiance was somewhat mitigated by the cautious posture he assumed in Rover's proximity. "Ah, yes, streamlining the Village," Number 6 nodded. "Can't maintain two separate search-and-destroy systems. One of them will have to go." A sly smile pulled at the corners of Number 2's mouth. "I see. You have some interest in seeing Operation Status Check fail, of course. But you've got no cards to play here, Number 6. You will help me, here and now, to deactivate Rover. Or Number 9 dies, here and now." He extended his hand over the innocuous button on the console that would trigger the fatal assault. "According to you, she's going to die anyway," Number 6 snapped, despising the words as he spoke them. But he saw a glimmer of hope. He could protect Number 9 – he knew he could – if only he could remove the damn neural implant as a factor. Had Number 2 just said he had no cards to play? He realized that, in fact, he did. "I'll help you," he said calmly, "but you won't like my advice. Call your superiors. Tell them there's been a problem with the new system, and it will have to be shut down indefinitely." "You're mad," Number 2 snorted. "They'll have me removed, thank you very much. In any event, it won't help you. My successor will pick up where I leave off, and the neural receptors will become a reality." "Yes, but your successor won't pursue the angle of using them against me, will he?" Number 6 said, his voice quietly hypnotic. "You said yourself that part of the plan was your own embellishment." He thought about what Number 110 had told him in the waiting room and took a calculated risk. "Does it have enough support out there to go on in your absence? I don't think so. In which case, it doesn't matter to me whether the Village has Rover or implants or some other systematic means of subduing its citizens. It's six of one, half a dozen of the other." Number 6 sat down on the edge of the console, reached out and picked up the telephone. "Call," he said, "or I'll walk out of here, and Rover can have you for a plaything." "I'll kill you right now," Number 2 warned him. "Which would solve all of my problems," Number 6 smiled, "and none of yours."  At that moment Rover inched forward still closer to Number 2; its keening wail intensified threateningly. Number 2 regarded it with renewed terror. He appeared to weigh the unpalatable options before him. Finally he turned away from the guardian and reached for the phone. Number 6 listened to the conversation with satisfaction."This is Number 2…There has been a problem with Phase 2…We haven't tracked it down yet…Total system-wide failure…Have to take everything off-line…I don't know…Indefinitely…Yes, sir, I know…The experimental phase was a success, yes, but…Well, we still have Rover, sir…Yes…Yes, sir…Not as sorry as I am, sir…Be seeing you." The two men locked eyes for a long moment. "Operation Status Check has been put on hold," Number 2 said wearily. "The entire infrastructure will be taken off-line within an hour." Number 6 wondered what Rover's reaction to this development would be. But the spherical guardian was gone. It had simply disappeared. Unnerved, the Prisoner nonetheless suppressed a smile of triumph. "It appears you're free to go," he said. The double doors of the chamber slid quietly open as he approached. He ignored the questioning looks of Number 2's staff and exited the Green Dome with purposeful strides.  Outside the day was warm and fair, the winding streets filled with pleasant, faceless Village citizens. To Number 6 it still resembled a battlefield, but today the light breeze seemed to carry a hint of victory, and the casualties bore the insignia of the enemy. The door to his cottage swung open before him. He could tell Number 9 everything now. They were safe. There was still the matter of status blue, of course, but they would have to physically come and get her now. He would keep them at bay, and then he would work out a way to drive them back entirely. But for now, the threat from the unpredictable neural receptors was dead. The entire system would be shut down in an hour… But an hour, it turned out, was too long for Number 9. It had taken Number 2 less than a second of retributional rage to punch the button that delivered the fatal impulse to her system. She had succumbed even before Number 6 had cleared the steps leading away from the Green Dome. He stood over her lifeless form, finally free from pain, and closed her sightless eyes. Then he went outside to watch the waves disappearing over the knife-edge of the horizon, to the place where she had been a name. In time a burial detail came to collect the body. There was a grave with her number on it, and they would make sure she found her way into it. |
© 1998, Theresa Donia ®
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