As soon as the situation had settled down, Keagan began to explain 
what he had reasoned out while convalescing in the medical unit. He 
met some resistance at first, the way anyone might when trying to 
persuade eight traumatised men that their only hope of getting out of 
the nightmare they found themselves in was a fraud. 


"Why would they do that?" shouted the shaven-headed convict from 
HMP Belmarsh whose name Keagan had never bothered to learn. 
"Why bother telling us all that bullshit about low-security facilities 
and gradually getting out of the system if it wasn't true?" 


"| think you know that," Keagan said calmly, face angled away from 
the chunky protrusions in the ceiling he suspected housed the 
CCTV. "It gave us something to look forward to, something to make 
us keep our heads down and do what we're told. If they'd said on the 
first day that we weren't going home, ever, that we'd been lured here 
on false pretenses, how much co-operation do you think there would 
have been? Even if you don't believe they're going to kill us when 
our shift's over, look at the maths. How many of us are going to be 
left at the end of the month? And then what? At best, you get put 
together with other survivors and the cycle begins again until 
everyone is dead anyway.” 


"Way you put it—KAK—” Cancer objected, "doesn't seem like we 
have a lot of choice in the matter." 


"There's always a choice," Keagan said. "One of the researchers 
told me supply trucks come in and out every Thursday. We get a 
pass or find a way out through the kitchens or something, we can 
hitch a ride." 


Cancer laughed, breathlessly. "You're talking about jailbreak." 


"I'm pretty sure this jail doesn't officially exist. If we can get out, what 
are they going to do? | know someone on the outside who's looking 
into this place—she wanted to publish an exposé. All we have to do 
is get to one of the army bases—the real army, | mean—in the 
area." 


Silence. 


"Come on," he said. "You know what I'm saying makes sense. 
Surely it's better than waiting to be shot." 


"I'd rather be shot than gassed," Ronny said in a subdued voice, 
looking up at the stains on the walls. "Someone told me, you never 
hear the bullet that kills you. It's just—lights out." 


No-one responded, but as the evening went on, one after another of 
the inmates came over to Keagan's bunk and made some non- 
committal offer to map out the facility or try to figure out what 
backroutes might exist. What he'd said had hit home—perhaps they 
realised that with Goettsch's terror at an end they could no longer 
rely on him to take their place in the Foundation's experiments; had 
seen what happened to those with not so apparently charmed lives 
while he had been laid up in the medical unit. But Keagan couldn't 
rely on them, not really. They were institutionalised, he realised— 
fortunately for the British public at large, they thought of escaping 
prison as something that happened in dimly remembered Hollywood 
movies, not to them. And you're not institutionalised? said the little 
voice. You had a job at Wormwood Scrubs—two if you counted your 
failed stint as bodyguard. You were happy to wait out your time. 
That was different, he thought, angrily, that was outside—and 
paused for a moment at the thought that HMP Wormwood Scrubs 
was now ‘outside’. 


The idea that an unguarded back way out might exist was seductive, 
of course, but probably unlikely given the fortress-like levels of 
security at the main entrance. Their best chance had to lie in the 
keycards—if you could wrestle one off a suitably senior guard you 
could presumably make significant headway towards the entrance, 
although most likely the attack would be quickly registered and the 
facility locked down. 


The first objective, of course, given that Shift B's already tenuous 
calendar had disintegrated further with the loss of its principal 
keepers, was to find out the day of the week. Given they had at most 
two weeks left, there was no opportunity for trial and error. Keagan 
spent some time thinking—you couldn't use the presence of staff as 
a barometer without a clear indication of who was allowed home and 


when, and monitoring supplies was probably out given that they had 
at most one opportunity to notice a marked replenishment that might 
suggest a delivery. But the facility's computers would still need to 
have an accurate time, even if access to the internet was restricted. 
Patrick Goettsch, on his return from the medical wing, was 
immediately dispatched again complaining of sharp pains in his 
dislocated shoulder, and reported having observed the system clock 
on one of the electronic drips. It was Tuesday, the 16th of August. 
Soon the replacement Shift A would be here, a fresh batch of 
quarrelsome lifers, and the guards would be on high alert. 


Keagan therefore decided that any attempt to be free of the facility 
had to happen on the eve of the 18th. What he would do if he 
actually managed to clear the gates was less clear—if he was able 
to hide long enough to smuggle himself away in one of the supply 
trucks he could wait there until they reached their destination—most 
likely one of the regular army bases he had mentioned. Whether he 
could trust its occupants was another matter—there was every 
likelihood given how well-entrenched within the country's systems 
the Foundation seemed to be that they would simply turn him back 
over to the custody of Dr Skinner. Escape then—but there was a 
reason the facility in which he now resided had no walls—or rather, 
its walls were miles thick, a great open expanse of muddy fields and 
unexploded ordnance, standing between him and civilisation. That 
part of the plan, Keagan decided, would have to be thought up on 
the fly. As to getting out of their imposingly sealed dormitories, 
however, he was reasonably sure that would be the easiest part. 


Surprisingly, the reconnoitres of the other inmates proved successful 
—there was indeed another exit that led directly out into the 
churned-up vehicle yard. A couple of them had been drafted into 
waste disposal and had caught tantalising glimpses of the outside 
world. The bad news, of course, was that it was locked down with a 
series of keycard-activated gates, similar to the main entrance, but 
Keagan seriously doubted it was as closely monitored. 


The following night there was an electric atmosphere in the 
dormitories—the topic on everyone's lips seemed to be what 
Keagan was going to do, and to Keagan's dismay that was how it 
was invariably framed—what he, and no-one else, was going to do. 


"How're you going to get out in the first place?" asked the younger 
Belmarsh inmate. "Doors look solid to me." 


"They are." Keagan said. "But if you've listened whenever they open 
and close them, the bolt is spring-loaded and pulled back with an 
electromagnet. That means if the power goes out it's locked shut. 
But D-Class staff don't grow on trees, and they go as far as to treat 
us when we beat each other up, which makes me think there would 
be some kind of failsafe if there was a fire that disabled the mains 
supply. Who has the lighter?" 


Cancer did, handing it over warily. "I really hooe—KAHHK—you're 
not gonna torch the place." 


"Hopefully | won't need to. There should be a sensor close to the 
door mechanism that registers high temperatures and engages a 
backup battery." He looked along the featureless surface of the wall, 
imagining the mechanisms behind the concrete. 


"Right about here." He flicked the lighter on and held it up to the 
wall. The grey paint flaked and peeled away, turning black and 
falling to the floor in a neat little circle. The inmates looked on as the 
little store of lighter fuel diminished. 


"You're wasting it," Cancer said accusingly. 


Keagan looked at the little lighter. Was it really powerful enough to 
heat the wall in that spot sufficiently to simulate a fire? A few 
seconds later, there was a thin hum, then the familiar click-buzz. 
Keagan quickly spreadeagled himself over the wall, keeping the 
lighter in place while wedging the door open with the tip of one shoe. 
One of the others could have held it open, he thought, but they were 
too busy watching him. The Great Escape, he thought, back on TV. 
He tossed the lighter back to Cancer. 


There was probably a guard watching the feeds—maybe even 
assisted by an algorithm that picked up on unusual levels of 
movement or noise, but at this time of night, Keagan hoped his brain 
was too fried by caffeine to make sense of what he was seeing—an 
inmate slipping through a narrow crack in a door that should be 
impregnable. 


The sudden relief of the corridor—cold air untainted by body odour 
or the revenant spirit of last night's powdered eggs—sent a thrill 
through him. He waited a second to see if any other inmate would 
follow after him—when none were forthcoming he set off at a steady 
lope down the corridors, remembering the directions he had been 
given by the reluctant waste disposal technicians. 


Collect blue lines, keep the green lines to your right... it seemed to 
make sense, and soon Keagan was running along a corridor with 
four blue stripes on the walls, green lines falling away as soon as 
they appeared. The door ahead was locked but not keycard 
protected, the interior darkened, behind reinforced glass. Keagan 
looked at the lock for a second then, bracing himself against the 
opposite wall, kicked the handle hard up and right. The sound of the 
mortise block splintering told Keagan he'd correctly identified the 
mechanism and the door swung loosely open as he pushed at it. 


Keagan emerged into a large, split-level area, and as his eyes 
adjusted to the darkness he picked out the faint gleam of computer 
screens. He swore softly under his breath. The area was plainly 
somewhere D-Class weren't supposed to be—some kind of 
administrative area, maybe handling logistics or co-ordinating 
manpower across the facility—but it was most distinctly not the 
kitchens or anywhere that might logically lead there. 


Plan B, he thought. This was an office, which meant during the day 
there must be staff working here. No matter how strict your security, 
no matter how inhumanly regimented you try to keep your staff, 
there'll always be someone who loses their access credentials and 
gets buzzed through by the guard or swiped out by a colleague. And 
in a place like this, if you find a keycard, you don't turn it in, you 
keep it at the bottom of a drawer somewhere so if you lose your own 
one you aren't immediately screwed. That was the theory, anyway. 


Keagan began ransacking the desks whilst making as little noise as 
possible, and when he exhausted the possibilities of the smaller, 
raised area he descended the staircase and began work on the 
workstations there. A certain amount of leeway had been allowed to 
make the workspaces tolerable to exist in—the odd potted plant, 
amusing parodies of heavy lifting guidance sellotaped to the side of 
the printers ("Just let your ghost lift the box for you, you fucking 


idiot", the annotation now read pointing to the dotted outline of the 
ideal posture overlaying the diagrammed office worker), even, 
somewhat improbably given what Keagan suspected was true of the 
Foundation's policies regarding contact with one's family, a couple of 
World's Best Dad mugs left on the tables. What there were not, 
however, were any keycards. 


Come on, come on, he thought, feeling underneath and behind 
prolapsed drawers in case a spare card had been stuck to it with 
Blu-Tack. He lifted monitors and shuffled desks, but it was becoming 
increasingly clear that the Foundation didn't care to conform to his 
experiences of the outside world. Plan C. He began to dump trays of 
documents onto the floor, looking through them for anything useful. 
A map, he thought. A passcode. Any fucking thing. He started 
scanning the documents. 


SCP-287 is a Viking longsword, measuring 78cm from 
pommel to tip, and weighing 1077g. 


What? No. He threw the paper on the floor and picked up another 
paperclipped file. 


When spread onto a surface as paint, the liquid takes on 
a slight red tone which fades as it dries. The final dry 
color is a pale white. 


What is—this? 


bags often contain multiple parts, such as heart and 
lungs, while the intestinal tract is usually split into cca 
1.5m segments, each packed separately 


Jesus, no, stop. 


The blood and tissue is mixed with the food sauce ina 
manner to suggest it was added to the food prior to 
consumption. 


He was making whimpering noises now, kneeling in the middle of 
the ruined office, scanning each of the useless, lunatic files one by 
one before hurling them from him. He wanted to cry, he wanted to 


be sick, he wanted to- 
"Okay. That's enough. Put your hands behind your head slowly." 


And—Christ—they snapped in, not all at the same time but ina 
dizzying wave, the men who had been standing around him, 
watching him, for—seconds, minutes—pistols drawn. Change 
blindness, he thought. He probably should have had that checked 
out, at some point in the last few years. Too late now, of—stop it. 


"How the hell did you even get out of the dormitory?" 


Keagan didn't respond, sitting mute in the middle of the floor. It's not 
something you did, he thought numbly. It's something you are. You 
don't fuck up, you are a fuckup. Your whole damn life. Why? Why do 
| deserve...? You know why, said the little voice. What did | do? You 
know what, said the little voice. 


One of the blue-hats began talking and he swiveled his head to look 
at them as though they were something alien. 


".,.about as serious as it gets without killing someone or breaching 
containment, | mean, he's out of D-Class accomodation, in a secure 
area, trashing the place. We get a new batch of the fuckers in a few 
days, we don't need him around pulling any more of this shit." 


The first soeaker, whose greying temples marked him out as the 
senior officer, addressed Keagan: "You know the drill, D-8671. You 
violate the rules, we decide what happens to you. Right now. That's 
Our prerogative. You understand?" 


Keagan spoke, his voice tired. "Yes, | understand." 


The greying blue-hat raised his gun, but suddenly there seemed to 
be some disagreement in the ranks. One of the junior blue-hats 
spoke up: 


"D-8671. Isn't he the guy they were going to send over to Dr Barker 
tomorrow?" 


The gun was lowered. "That right, D-8671? You been assigned to 
554?" 


"| don't know," he said quietly. 


The lead blue-hat took a few paces back and spoke into the radio 
clipped to his chest. Keagan caught a few words: "...then wake him 


up!" 


The other guards kept Keagan at gunpoint but moved back slightly. 
Keagan thought he could detect in their distant gazes some hint of 
the emotion he had seen in the faces of the white-coats when he 
had been tasked with clearing up the liquefied corpse of one of his 
fellow inmates. 


The lead blue-hat had apparently finished his call. "Well, it seems 
you're needed for the time being. Not my call. Gradley seems to 
have taken a shine to you—he can babysit you until Barker deigns 
to show up. Get up! Don't try anything or Skinner and Barker 
together won't stop me lighting you up." 


Keagan watched the soft gleam of the nearest P229 barrel, traced 
the shape of the weapon down to its handle, where a dark cable 
connected it to the guard's belt. Even if | got hold of it, Keagan 
thought, | wouldn't make it out of this room. Instead, he got to his 
feet and bowed his head. The lead blue-hat shoved a pair of plastic 
handcuffs at his chest; he put them on, and allowed himself to be 
frogmarched out of the wrecked office. His feet caught a fragment of 
PC casing, a smashed lampshade. When did | do that, he 
wondered? 


Chapter Seven: "The Necessary Illusion"