System

13. War Stories

The professor nodded sadly and showed them to the door.

The air was different on the other side. It was cooler and sterile and there was a faint hum of air conditioning. The walls were pale and the lights were bright. The floor was perfectly flat and the windows looked out onto bland institutional buildings.

As the door closed behind them with a faint click Swan became aware of the sound of voices. He could hear people shouting or calling out - possibly the occasional cry of pain. A couple of hospital orderlies came rushing past pulling a trolley of equipment between them. The lights flickered and went out. Someone screamed.

His companion glanced down at his wrist where an old-fashioned digital watch had appeared.

'The war started twenty minutes ago,' he said bluntly. 'Most of these people don't even know what's going on yet.'

He looked backwards and forwards along the corridor.

'Let's go,' he said turning left.

'Where to?'

'We'll just follow the shouting...'

They walked uncomfortably along the corridor, faintly aware that there was something big taking place around them but feeling helpless to respond. They turned and stepped through an automatic door which was wide open and seemed to be jammed.

They were in some form of hospital wing. Staff were rushing around calling out for help or asking for equipment. In a side room, a young man was helplessly comforting a weeping woman. A nurse was shouting down a phone line but they couldn't understand the words. No-one seemed to register their presence and they passed through the rooms like ghosts on a battlefield.

Watcher made his way, by some instinct, to a bed where an old man lay flat on his back with tubes and wires attached to his body. He seemed to be struggling to breathe but no-one was responding.

Swan looked around but the staff were all occupied elsewhere.

Watcher crouched by the bed and took the old man's hand. The man looked back at him with wide open eyes. He was obviously afraid but seemed unable to speak.

'Why aren't they helping him?' Swan asked.

'There's no point,' Watcher replied bluntly, although his tone was reassuring. The man continued to look back at him and clutched his fingers. His eyes closed slowly and he seemed to be breathing less heavily

'They haven't got the resources to save everyone,' Watcher said again. 'There are nearly three-thousand patients in this hospital and many of them are attached to machines. The computers are controlling their breath, their heart-beats, their medication and everything around them.'

He stood up slowly and laid the old man's hand gently onto the bed.

'In this hospital, eight hundred and thirty two people will die, including seventy-one children,' he said coldly. 'Some will receive overdoses, some will be crushed by machinery, but many will simply be turned off...'

He looked down at the old man who had now stopped breathing. They stood there for a while and listened to the sounds of distant life.

'Do you want to see the babies?'

Swan shook his head.

'No,' he said definitely. 'I've seen enough. Take me back.'

Watcher nodded before pulling a sheet over the old man's head.

'Power is a dangerous thing,' he muttered before turning away.

'How do you know all this,' Swan asked as the left the scene behind them. 'You've obviously been here before.'