Escape 1: Escape From Aliens Read Online Free Page A

spot. Behind the fragments there glowed a light that was partly blue and partly white. He stepped back and looked to either side.
    In SEAL training and afterward in his specialized classes, he’d learned that holograms are produced by the intersection of two or more laser beams. He guessed he’d just killed one holo laser emitter, thereby causing a sudden absence of empty air and blue lake water that stretched from eleven feet above him down to the floor. The wall now was visible gray metal. Looking up he saw the ceiling still appeared to be open sky with a yellow sun glow to one side. Clearly there were holo emitters in the ceiling that created the appearance of sky, and the sharp pebbles and brown sand that made up the floor. Since he’d not felt any beads while walking along the cell floor, there were no floor level emitters. Just in the wall and in the ceiling. He grinned.
    “Diligent! Take your lakeshore and mountain fakery and stuff it!”
    Moving to the left, with his eyes closed, Bill felt with his left hand for the laser emitter bead that lay at a level above his head. There!
    “Whang!”
    A second strip of gray metal appeared as he whacked the boot’s metal heel against the emitter bead. Moving again to his left, he felt for another bead, found it, placed the metal heel against the bead and punched it.
    “Whang!”
    Twenty minutes later he had completed the circle of his cell and had killed twenty laser holo emitter beads. Looking around, he saw the gray wall of his cell surrounding him. There were no windows, no portholes, no obvious openings. But in front of his tent, just below the first emitter bead, he saw the faint outline of a man-high oval. The door to his cell!
    Looking to his right he saw on the wall the small mesh circle of the water outlet, while to his left, on the floor and next to the wall, was a basin depression. A hole in its bottom was clearly the exit for urine and shit. Turning further around and looking behind his tent he saw the outline of a slot the size of an old VHS feeder slot. The slot outline was in the wall, at waist height. As he watched a rectangle of gray something slid out from the wall and dropped to the floor with a soft thud. The slot showed black briefly, then gray metal covered the opening. Perhaps he could jam something into the slot just after the next meal slab came out. He walked over, grabbed the gray rectangle, squeezed its spongy surface, lifted it up and took a bite out of one side.
    “Damn! You Aliens could make cardboard taste good!”
    The food slab no doubt held carbs, proteins, minerals and vitamins essential for his survival. But it had no taste, its texture was granular, it had no smell and he knew it would never pass for prison food on Earth. He swallowed the slab fragments, turned, dropped the remnant beside his tent and walked over to the mesh water outlet. Touching the wall above it, he held his other hand under the mesh. Water spurted out.
    “It’s cold at least,” he said, hoping his verbal repartee would keep the ship captain interested in monitoring him.
    Walking back to his tent he knelt, reached inside, grabbed one of the ziplock baggies, emptied the nut mix into the backpack and then held the open baggy under his butt. He squeezed his gut muscles and focused on taking a shit into the bag. He would need the brown crap for one of his escape plans. He’d try the simpler one first, after he finished his dump. He looked up at the spot on the wall from which the voice of Diligent Taskmaster had come.
    “Bet you’re wondering why I don’t use your handy dandy refuse pit. Well, you’ll find out. Eventually.”
    With his free hand he gestured a middle finger Fuck You at the invisible vidcam spyeye in the ceiling. Let the cockroach bastard search the internet for the meaning of that gesture!
     
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    An hour later Bill finished stuffing everything useful into his waterproof backpack, zipped it shut, hung the hiking boots from