Sylvia could feel the waves of panic crashing towards the shore of her consciousness, where they would overwhelm her ability to function rationally, drowning her in random muscular twitches, any one of which could guarantee her death. Some small power in the core of her being fought against the waves, holding her still, desperately trying to calm her, steady her breathing, let her thoughts flow freely again.

With minimal control over herself reestablished, she forced herself run it all through her mind, laying it out logically, as she always had when preparing cases for court.

Without somehow getting free of this cage, her inner law clerk told her, then out of this room, then out of this cell block, I have probably two days to live, at the absolute most. Until Monday. I can't last longer than that without water.

With Judy dead, the inner voice continued, there is no living person, other than myself, who knows I'm here. However long they search, they would never think to look here. And they're not even looking for me yet. No search will start before Tuesday, after I'm already dead.

And, the voice went on relentlessly, I can't be found by accident, by some local person. After fifty years, the chance that someone else, in the next two days, will explore this prison is laughable. The fact that Judy might possibly have been seen, and might have attracted the attention of someone who wanted to find out what was going on, can't be discounted. But any such person who decides that the prison could be Judy's goal will find the place obviously deserted. There is no car on the premises to tell them someone is here -- I hid and camouflaged the car myself at Judy's direction, and I saw how invisible it was to anyone unaware of its presence. There are no lights on in the building, no doors standing open, no sign at all of anyone being here. Anyone who did go so far as to enter would almost certainly not happen to try the door to the stairway down to the basement cell block, nor have any reason to go down the stairs if they did. If they got that far, they would find the gate to the cell block locked, and the only key, the voice reminded her, is in this room with me. Surely this person, if by impossible miracle they did make it to the cell block gate, wouldn't have brought along tools to cut through the gate, in that they wouldn't have guessed such tools were needed. Nor would they feel any need to get through the gate -- everything up to that point has told them the prison is deserted, and they can't possibly know I'm here, needing to be rescued, because I can't make a sound they can hear.

The only person who can save me, the voice summarized, is me.

As for doing that, getting myself out, the voice went on, I've already tried every possible way to escape this cage, when I had a lot more freedom of movement than I do now. I can only get out of it by unlocking it with the key that's sitting in the lock, above my head. But I can't get myself upright to reach that key unless I unlock this new padlock first.

So my only possible way to live through this starts with getting that padlock key, the one teetering on the edge of the waste hole. The one that will fall into the hole, irretrievably lost, at the first careless touch. And touch is the only way I can find it, because I'm blind. And I'm hogtied, so the few, very limited movements I can possibly make will be disastrously clumsy.

If I lose that key, it's over. The other keys don't matter. I can never get to them.

Laying all the facts out had, at the beginning, a momentary calming effect. It was something Sylvia was so used to doing. But as she went on she felt the panic returning, coming closer, ready to take over her body and throw it uselessly at the sides of the cage.

I'm going to die here, I'm going to die here, a new voice wailed in her head, as the calm, rational voice receded to the background. I can't get out of dying. I wish, I wish, I wish so much Judy had shot me in the head like I was expecting. Instead I'm going to die of dehydration.

Sylvia knew how that worked. She had read about it. How her muscles, as the dehydration advanced, would start to cramp, first probably her legs, after they'd spent so long bent and immobile, and then spreading around her entire body -- her arms, back muscles, stomach, neck. And it would go on for hours. It would seem to last forever, the pain before she died. The agony of crucifixion, without the cross.

Oh, and the delirium, of course. Visual and auditory hallucinations, all terrifying, the frantic feeling of mental clamor and confusion. There's that to look forward to too.

This, she realized, is what Judy really wanted for me.

Sylvia was already starting to feel thirsty again. Not yet to the degree she had been last night. But she hadn't had any water since then. The thirst I'm feeling now, she thought, that's the beginning of dying.

From behind the voice of doom, another one shouted over it -- NO!!!!

NO! I am not going to give up! I'm here because I decided all along the way, since driving out of the parking garage, that I wanted to live! We fight to live! I will not give up!

What do I need to do to get that key?

Sylvia tried to call up the image of the key in her mind's eye, the exact way Judy had left it. The edge of the waste hole, all around, was like a vertical cliff, revealing that the concrete of the floor was about four inches thick. The key is on the side nearer me, she remembered. It's probably going to fall as soon as I touch it. I have to have my hand cupped underneath it, in the hole, to catch it when it does fall. And I have to keep the side of my hand pressed hard against the side of the hole, so there's no gap for the key to fall through. The only way to make sure I don't knock it over when I touch the edge of the hole is to start from the other side, so I'll know it's not there to be touched when I start. Then move around to it. I have to start from the other side of the cage.

Another wave of fear rolled over her. Even with that strategy, it was nearly impossible. She would never know exactly when she was going to touch it. And she had so little control over her movements -- almost couldn't move at all. She visualized the attempt, and was sure that as soon as she felt the slightest touch, her fingers would flinch in panic.

She visualized that moment when she would hear the key plink down into the toilet below. When she would know that her last chance to avoid the agony was gone.

Stop it! Stop thinking like that!

The key is still in reach now, she told herself. At least, I haven't heard it fall in, and I would have, if it had.

As long as it's there, I'm alive. Try something else first.

What if there is somebody exploring? If they are out there now, I can be saved much faster by them than by my own efforts. And it will only take a few minutes to find out.

Sylvia drew in a breath, and screamed as loud as she ever had, "HELP ME!!!!! HELP MEEEE!!! I'M TRAPPED IN HERE!!!! BEHIND THE BIG DOOR AT THE END!!!!! HELP!!!!! HELP!!!!!"

She went on as long as she could. She knew any rescuer would have to be in the basement already, near her end of it, for there to be any hope she could be heard through the door. It's not completely soundproof, she reminded herself. I did hear the gunshot. Her hopes fell as she realized she couldn't possibly make a sound THAT loud. But she kept screaming.

Soon her voice was coming out raspy and whispery. Swallowing several times failed to bring her voice back. Her throat hurt, and when she tried once more, she found she couldn't produce anything but a whisper.

So that's it for that idea, she thought. I've screamed my voice away. Anybody who could hear it can't be more than minutes away.

She waited. Nothing happened.

That's the end of the hope of rescue, she told herself. Time to try to get the key.

But she waited, indecisive. Again she thought, as long as I know it's there, I know I have a chance. If I try to get it, it will be gone.

Awareness of her growing thirst decided her. If I keep waiting like this, she told herself, I won't have the strength anymore when I do decide to do it.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, and exhorted herself, Do it. Do it. Do it!! If you don't do it because you're afraid of knocking the key off and dying, then you will die.

She visualized it in her mind. Sylvia had never been high on any manual dexterity index, and certainly not using her left hand. I obviously need to use my right hand, she told herself, so I need to be lying on my right side, so that my right hand can get down to the floor, without my left or the hogtie chain getting in the way. I'll start out across the waste hole from where the key is, and gradually creep around the hole, pushing my hand along the side of the hole until my palm touches the key and it drops down onto my fingers.

She gasped as she suddenly realized a new problem. At present, she was on her stomach. She believed it wouldn't be too hard to get herself turned onto her right side, but then she would be facing the waste hole, rather than having her back to it. To put her back to the hole, she would have to turn onto her left side, and would have to use her more clumsy left hand to get the key.

It's okay, though, she thought in momentary relief, I have to get to the other side of the waste hole anyway. Once I get there...

No, she realized, that still doesn't do it. If I circle around to the other side of the hole on my right side, I'll still be facing towards the hole when I get there. There is not enough room in the cage to fix this, to orient myself so I'm on my right side with my back to the waste hole, except by having my body pass right over the waste hole along the way. I'd knock the key down into the hole before I even start working on retrieving it.

She writhed in frustration, her body bouncing slightly, before she made herself stop in near panic, realizing suddenly the vibrations she was causing could knock the key off the edge.

Okay, she told herself, it's okay, it's okay. I'll have to use my left hand. I'll just be extra extra careful, instead of merely extra careful.

And I need to get started now.

Pressing down her knees, middle, and chin to lift various parts of her body slightly off the floor so move in inchworm fashion, she wriggled to her right, until she was up hard against the bars. She needed, she knew, to be as far from the hole as she could get before turning onto her left side. At last, after several attempts to find out what worked, getting nearly there once but coming up just short and falling back onto her stomach, which made her heart pound in fear, again, of knocking the key from its perch by vibrations, at last she managed to get herself lying on her side.

She squirmed forward towards the bars again, and began slowly, laboriously, and painfully to her skin, wriggling ahead, making a gradual circle around the periphery of the cage, arching her back as much as she could to fit into the corners made by the walls of the cage, keeping in contact with the bars so she knew she was staying away from the waste hole, until at last she was on the opposite side of the cage from where she had started. That she needed to minimize the amount of heavy thumping she did on the floor made it still harder. By the time she stopped, the sweat was streaming down her stomach, back, legs, and face, and she lay still for several minutes, trying to let her body cool. She could feel one stream in particular flowing from her armpit. On impulse she bent her head up and licked her shoulder where the stream was flowing along it, tasting the salt, trying to get some of the fluid back inside her. That's ridiculous, she decided. Like trying to stop Niagara Falls with a drinking straw.

Her mind wandered into a fantasy of holding a huge, 32-ounce tumbler of cool, clear water, drinking it slowly, feeling the wonderful stream of it flowing down into her.

Stop it! she ordered herself. I can't have water now. Later. When I get myself out of this, I can have all the water in the world, I can go swimming in it, but later!

Okay, she thought, back up to the hole, now, until you feel the hole with your hand.

With her first move, suddenly her right quadriceps muscle seized up in a cramp. She hissed in pain, unable to give voice to the scream that tried to force its way out of her. Automatically she tried to straighten her leg out, impossible against the hogtie. There was no way to stretch it, nothing she could do at all except wait it out.

Will it even stop, she wondered, or is this the beginning of the end? It's so unfair! I was almost there!

Breathing in tiny sips, she rocked with the pain, tears streaming from her eyes, until, after a time, it began to ease. Gradually it subsided.

Now she was afraid to make that same move again, fearing that the pain would start all over again.

I don't think it's so much the dehydration, or not purely that, she thought. My legs have just been bent up so long. I need to straighten them really soon.

Moving still more carefully, trying somehow to keep her right thigh relaxed as she moved, she wriggled backward towards the hole.

In a few minutes, her fingers felt the edge of the hole. She froze, breathing with her mouth wide open, trying to release tension. I'm almost at the big moment, she thought. Where I find out if I'll live or die.

Okay, she thought. Put your left hand down in the hole. Fingers cupped. Thumb up out of the way, side of your hand up tight against the side of the hole, from the index finger down to the webbing of the thumb. Don't let that side of your hand leave the concrete, for an instant, for a millimeter.

I need to travel backwards around the hole, not forwards, she realized. Damn, I wish I had practiced that!

With her back arched, she wriggled the tiniest bit in the direction her knees were pointing, keeping her hand completely still, unmoving, on the side of the hole. Then, keeping her body where it was, she very carefully, slowly, slid her left hand along the side. The care was for practice -- she knew she wasn't near the key yet. She repeated the movements, body and then hand, body and then hand, until she had to stop for a rest, the sweat from her efforts pouring down her body once more. While she rested she kept her hand frozen where it was, no longer sure how far she might be from the key. At last she made herself start again. Quarter inch by quarter inch, she crept around the hole, holding her breath each time she moved, then staying still to let her breathing catch up, then holding it and moving again.

After at least fifty tiny movements, she felt the lightest touch against her palm, near the heel. She backed off carefully, the breath suddenly racing in and out of her like a steam engine.

It's still there, she told herself. It didn't fall off.

She moved her hand carefully, so carefully, upward, the whole length of the side of her hand pressed tight against the side of the waste hole. In the instant that the edge of her palm touched the key again, the quadriceps cramp came back.

KEEP YOUR HAND THERE, KEEP IT THERE! KEEP IT THERE! She fought against every instinct of her body that tried to make her curl around the pain, to make her clench her fist. Somewhere beyond the pain, she felt a tiny weight fall on the first pad of her index finger and slide towards the last pad, tipping towards the side, wedging itself between her finger and the waste hole wall. She pressed her finger against the concrete still harder, started sliding it up, feeling the key slide with it, coming slowing up with her finger, slowly up, slowly, don't let it drop any farther against your finger, there's no way to recover it if it does. Coming up by slow millimeters, her leg exploding with pain, her breath whistling in and out between her teeth. Suddenly the edge of the hole reached, the key squirting up like an appleseed pinched between her fingers and jingling onto the floor of the cage.

Is it really there, is it really there?? She curled her left hand out of the way and felt the cage floor with the fingers of her right, and found the key, pressed down on it with her fingertips and slid it closer to her, away from the hole, dug her fingernail under its edge and picked it up off the floor. Screaming silently with the pain in her leg, her ravaged vocal cords only able to make a tortured whisper.

Unlock it, unlock it, unlock the padlock! The cramp isn't going away!

Holding the key in the shaking fingers of her right hand, she pulled on the hogtie chain with her left, pulling the padlock closer. Feeling around it with her fingertips, finding the keyhole. Fumbling with the key, keeping one finger on the keyhole to remind her exactly where it was. Finding the orientation, feeling the key slide into the keyhole suddenly, turning it.

The lock sprung open. She yanked it free of the chain, felt the chain slipping between her ankles, her legs extending.

She made another whispered scream, the pain in her leg murderous as it straightened. She pushed her foot against a bar of the cage, using it to stretch her leg muscles.

The pain lessening, lessening, slowly subsiding. Gone, leaving a residual ache.

Breathing in heaves, feeling faint, nauseous.

I've got to stop for a while, she told herself. Everything else can wait. I have to rest.

She rolled onto her stomach, resting her cheek on the concrete. Utter exhaustion, and the release from the immediate threat of a painful, lingering death, sent her floating off in waves of sleep.