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perform.
Returning to his attaché case, Chin removed two microwave transmitters. The first was a short-range job with a small horn antenna; the other—a small dish on telescoping tripod—would pick up the first transmitter’s signal and relay it. Chin plugged the first transmitter into his computer, aimed the horn to the main door, and flipped the device on; a small red light showed it operating. Stepping into the back office again briefly, Chin fetched keys from the unconscious OD, returning front. He picked up the dish transmitter and continued through to the vestibule where he crossed to Elliot and Lorimer’s cell.
The digital clock now read 6:13.
As he approached the two, Chin placed a finger to his lips and motioned them to the cell door. After he unlocked the cell, they briefly joined him in the vestibule. Chin whispered, “You have seventeen minutes.”
Lorimer nodded. Elliot whispered, “Good luck.” Chin pointed them to the OD’s suite, patted each of them on the shoulder, then departed with his transmitter to the front exit. Inside the front office, on the Alpha monitor, Elliot and Lorimer glanced at the guards in their booth, still—respectively—smoking and playing solitaire as, on another monitor, a videotaped Elliot and Lorimer still sat motionless in their cell.
As he watched a cycle of various views within the prisoner compound, Elliot reflected that if one could tell an architect by his work, then Lawrence Powers emerged with a cynical sense of humor, for his utopia—by a purely dictionary definition—met the major qualifications. Within bedroom accommodations fully up to commercial standards—and those of the Cadre themselves—two hundred anarchists and three babies slept under pale blue lighting. Each room had a full private bath, internal telephone, holosonic 222
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cassette machine, and videodisc player. The furnishings were luxurious, to say the least.
With video monitors seeing into all corners, there was no reason to restrict the prisoners’ privacy from each other, nor their access to each other when they tired of privacy. Internal facilities included a library, game rooms, lounges, gymnasium, and medical center. (Several physicians were in residence as prisoners themselves.) The only external restriction was imposed by the timing of meals. The prisoners’ food was commercial frozen dinners, microwave heated by the OD’s food processor and passed in by the officer three times daily through an exchange chute from the front office; empties and refuse were passed out by the prisoners through the same chute. In addition, hot and cold beverages and cold snacks were available twenty-four hours a day in the dining area. Responsibility for the prisoners’ well-being, beyond the facilities provided, was left totally up to them alone. There was no physical contact between prisoners and keepers, not for punishment or any other reason, but the existence of the guards gave the prisoners an outside enemy on whom they could vent their frustrations with impunity. Neither did the prisoners have any knowledge of Sequence Prime or very much reason to fear for their safety. They knew that if Lawrence Powers had wanted them dead, they would have been dead already. Internal sanitation, comfort, rules, recreation, and dispute settlement were left to the devices of the prisoners. Within the confines of their world—literally in the middle of “no place”—
they were free to live their lives as best they were able, propertyless, with the necessities of living provided free of charge. Assuming one placed no price on personal liberty. Elliot tried to locate Phillip on the monitor, but the cycle went by without catching a glimpse of him. But, he reflected, all this meant was that he liked to bury himself among pillow and blankets. Lorimer nudged Elliot silently, pointing to the Alongside Night
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Alpha monitor where the guard was playing solitaire. He had just played out.
High above Utopia, Guardian Angel hovered. Up front was the helicopter pilot, Captain Billis, Jack Guerdon beside him; in the rear were Sergeant Stokowski and the communications technician, Sergeant David Workman. All wore headsets.
It was at 0616 that Sergeant Workman reported he had Ju- das Goat’s signal on his monitor. “Roger,” Guerdon replied over headset. “Start recording and set up your laser link with Bigmouth.”
On the Mount Greylock summit, outside the abandoned television relay station, a temporary laser antenna had been erected. Inside, a few minutes after Guerdon’s order to Workman, Sergeant Compton reported to his lieutenant that they, too, were now receiving the signal. “Record and put it on monitor, Compton.” Evers replied. “Jones,” she continued, “let Guardian Angel know we have it.”