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A.R.Yngve
PARRY'S PROTOCOL
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Chapter 2
When Lemercier was about ten meters from the entrance, it opened: a steel door, fitted into the portal.
A short black woman in a doctor's white coat, dark blue trousers, and soft shoes stepped outside. The door shut heavily behind her. At once she saw Abram and paced down the steps toward him. They met at the foot of the steps. He stretched out his hand, and the woman shook it formally. Lemercier, who was of medium height, would have stood one head higher than her, unless she had been standing on the first step. She had a small, round face, and her hair was drawn back into a neck bun. Her age appeared to be about thirty-five.
"Dr. Lemercier?" The woman gave him a cool smile. "I'm Dr. Joyce Oregon, medical superintendent and director of the Westmoreham Institute. Did you enjoy your travel?"
Lemercier smiled, clasping her hand an instant longer than usual, then released it. "Just fine, thank you. Are these sudden fogs common around here?"
Joyce looked briefly confused, then brightened up and gave out a laugh.
"Oh, that!" she said. "No, they don't come very often. It's the proximity to the Rockies that's causing them, I've been told. Come in, and I'll see that you get a pass-card."
They walked up the steps to the steel door. Dr. Oregon stuck a plastic card into a slot next to the door, and several bolts clicked as it opened. They came into a clearly lit hall, with yet another steel door a few feet away. Oregon looked up at what appeared to be a tiny surveillance camera, and spoke toward its microphone tube.
"It's all clear, Mark... check with the entrance guard for confirmation."
The inner steel door clicked open, and Abram and Joyce continued into the main building.
"This guard, Mark," Abram said searchingly, "is he a suspicious fellow?"
Joyce answered calmly, without turning his way: "No, I urged him to make a security check."
Joyce briskly marched on, Abram following with a tinge of worry in his eyes. They entered a wide, tall old whitewashed corridor, and arrived at a small glass booth at one side of the corridor's end. Joyce made a slight wave of her hand at the guard, who was sitting in there studying a number of flat-screen monitors hanging on the wall. The guard caught her eyes, spun around on his old swivel-chair of pale wood, and pushed open a window.
"Mark," Joyce said, "this is Dr. Abram Lemercier, a psychologist come from Virginia to carry out a special study of Parry."
The guard nodded and smiled briefly at Abram. Joyce looked at Abram with a serious face.
"Dr. Lemercier, this is Mark Fosse, he's working the day shift at the doors all week, in normal cases. Should you happen to see someone else in his place at daytime... well, I'll bring you a copy of the guard list. Mark, would you please format a pass-card for the doctor."
"Sure, Joyce. Could you please put your thumbprint on this scanner, Doc?"
While talking, the guard had taken out a small flat box from a cabinet and pressed some buttons, like a man using a pocket calculator. A little white rectangle started to flash at one end of the box; in a LED display Abram could see the text "ACCESS CODE CONFIRMED---PLACE PRINT ON SENSOR SURFACE" scroll past. He pressed his thumb on the box held forth by the guard, and the gadget gave a beep.
"Thank you, that'll do," the guard said.
A larger box inside the cabinet, wired to the small scanner box, whizzed and clicked, then spat out a new pass-card. The guard pulled out the card and handed it to Abram -- it was still warm.
Joyce explained: "Since a year now, everyone going in and out of the main building -- except the patients, of course -- has one of these 'smart cards'. When you stick it into a scanner slot, the card gets electric power to 'read' the user's thumbprint and compare it to the print in its memory chip. That means this card" -- she pointed at the card in his hand -- "only gives access when you use it... so take care of it, and don't lose your thumb."
"The cameras at the entrance and the doors..." Abram began to ask.
"Those are infrareds," Mark fell in. "It turned out to be safer to identify people by reading their thermal 'body-prints', after Parry had stolen a... er, Dr. Oregon could explain it to you, sir."
Mark suddenly looked at Joyce with half-concealed embarrassment. Joyce Oregon gave them both a secretive smile, but briefly.
"It's okay, Mark. Let's go up to my office, Dr. --"
"Just call me Abram, by all means. If I may call you by your first name..?"
Abram looked innocently into Joyce's black eyes, and she raised an ironic eyebrow. A hint of a smile escaped her lips, before she calmly turned around and walked toward a narrow staircase opposite the booth. Abram cast a questioning glance at the guard -- but he was
already busy locking up the scanner equipment.
Dr. Abram Lemercier, fifty-three, paced up the stairs after the short, brown-skinned woman, briefly displaying a breathless, boyish lack of dignity.