“Back-up alarms,” Danny muttered.
“Come on,” said Joe, “let’s get back to your room. Or are you going to try to jump me again?”
Shoulders sagging, chin on his chest, Danny went with Dr. Tenny. When they got back to his room, Danny trudged wearily to his bed and sat on it.
“So what’s my punishment going to be?”
“Punishment?” Joe made a sour face. “You still don’t understand how this place works.”
Danny looked up at him.
“You’re punishing yourself,” Joe explained. “You’ve been here about a month and you’ve gone no place. You’ve just wasted your time. As far as I’m concerned, tomorrow’s just like your first day here. You haven’t learned a thing yet. All you’ve done is added several weeks to the time you’ll be staying here.”
“I’m never getting out,” Danny muttered.
“Not at this rate.”
“You’ll never let me out. We’re all in here to stay.”
“Wrong! Ask Alan Peterson. He’s leaving next week. And he was a lot tougher than you when he first came in here. Nearly knifed me his first week.”
Danny said nothing.
“Okay,” said Joe. “Think it over…. And you’d better give me the tape recorder.”
It was still on the bed, where Danny had left it. He picked it up and tossed it to Joe.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Danny sat slumped on the bed for a long time after Joe left, staring at the black-and-white tiled floor.
A month wasted.
He looked up at the TV screen. “SPECS,” he called.
The screen began to glow. “YES, MR. ROMANO.”
“You didn’t tell me about the back-up alarms,” Danny said, with just the beginnings of a tremble in his voice.
“YOU DID NOT ASK ABOUT THE BACK-UP ALARMS.”
“You let me walk out there and get caught like a baby.”
“THE BACK-UP SYSTEMS GO ON AUTOMATICALLY WHEN THE MAIN ALARM SYSTEMS GO OFF. I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THEM.”
Danny got up and faced the screen. “You lied to me,” he said, his voice rising. “You let me go out there and get caught again. You lied to me!”
“IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO TELL A LIE, IN THE SENSE….”
“Liar!” Danny crossed the room in three quick steps and grabbed the desk chair.
“Liar!” he screamed, and threw the chair into the TV screen. It bounced off harmlessly.
Danny picked up the chair and smashed it across the screen. Again and again. The hard plastic of the screen didn’t even scratch, but the chair broke up, legs splintering and falling, seat cracking apart, until all Danny had in his hands was the broken ends of the chair’s back.
“I AM CALLING THE MEDICAL STAFF,” said SPECS calmiy. “YOU ARE BEHAVING IN AN HYSTERICAL MANNER.”
“Dirty rotten liar!” Danny threw the broken pieces of the chair at the screen and cursed at SPECS.
Then he turned around, kicked the side of his desk, then knocked over his bookcase. The half-dozen books he had in it spilled out onto the floor. Danny reached down and took one, tore it to bits, and then ran to the door.
A couple of medics were hurrying up the hall toward his room. Danny ran the other way. But the door at the far end of the hall was closed and locked. SPECS had locked all the doors now.
“Come on son, calm down now,” said one of the medics. They were both big and young, dressed in white suits. One of them carried a small black kit in his hand.
Danny swore at them and tried to leap past them. They grabbed him. He struggled as hard as he could. Then he felt a needle being jabbed into his arm. Danny cursed and hollered and tried to squirm away from them. But everything was starting to get fuzzy. Soon he slid into sleep.
He awoke in his own room. Early morning sunlight was coming through the window. The broken pieces of the chair were still scattered across the floor, mixed with the pages from the torn book. The bookcase was still face down. He was still in the same clothes he had been wearing the night before, except that his shoes had been taken off.