Seven Doors

There were a total of seven locked doors. The first was easy enough to pass through; he just had to hold up his card to the reader, wait for the green LED to flash, and pull. He grunted, the weight of the door tweaking his shoulder where it had not yet completely healed. A few steps inside, and the door slammed behind him with a satisfying bang. The lights in the corridor flickered to life as their motion sensors detected him and winked out after he’d passed.

The second was more substantial—metal instead of wood, and the small glass window was reinforced with wires to prevent something from breaking through. This one required a PIN code to go along with the card, and he used his good arm to haul it open. It closed positively with a clunk as he passed, shoes squeaking on the newly laid floor.

Door three had a guard. A bored, elderly man in a threadbare blue jacket, the golden threads of the security company’s insignia long unravelled from the breast pocket. He checked the man’s ID, pressed a button and waved him through, closing the door quietly behind him. He’d never spoken, nor even nodded in recognition, during all the years the man had been visiting.

At the next door, he had to surrender his gun. The guard here was younger, and an impressive array of muscles strained his much newer jacket. He took the weapon, secured it in a purpose-built locker, and issued a receipt. He nodded tersely as he held open the door, a solid metal affair some six inches thick. The corridor beyond was metal-lined, and the man’s footsteps echoed loudly.

Door five was his favourite. Using the retinal scanner always made him feel like a secret agent from the movies, as opposed to the reality of being a government employee. The door slid aside when it recognised him, silently apart from a slight grinding sound in the last three inches of travel. He’d reported it to maintenance before, but were they even able to get this deep into the complex?

The sixth door was thick; concrete and steel requiring hydraulic rams to move it. The fine mesh covering the surface knitted with another one embedded in the walls. It encircled the entire place, keeping signals out (or in) and if he’d been allowed to bring his phone this far, it would stop working the moment the door closed with a hiss.

The last door was simple wood, six panels, a peephole, and a shiny doorknob. He knocked on it, heard a thickly accented voice inside call out something that might have been ‘come in’, and twisted the knob. The door swung open easily, revealing a perfectly ordinary sitting-room. This carpet always reminded him of his grandmother’s house, so hard-wearing that fashion had moved on quicker than it needed replacing. The furniture was plain but similarly long-lived; solid wood glued and screwed together maybe sixty years ago, only the faded tangerine colour of the upholstery hinting that it had been used daily. In the ancient armchair sat a tiny grey figure, dwarfed by the wing-backs. Its long fingers wrapped around the arms of the seat, its bare feet dangling well above the floor. Huge, black, almond-shaped eyes peered out of an almost triangular head at the man, and not for the first time did he wonder whether the creature could read his mind.

“Morning,” the man said.

“Morning,” the alien said, its mouth struggling with the sounds that were still unfamiliar even after so long. For a while, the man had tried to speak the creature’s language, but the anatomy of his throat rendered it unintelligible. His effort had been appreciated, though.

The man sank into the armchair opposite the alien with a grunt. The two beings regarded each other over the scratched glass top of the low coffee table for a moment, before the man remembered something. He pushed his hand into his jacket pocket, trying to extract something slightly too large to fit easily, and gave up when his shoulder issued a warning. Reaching awkwardly across his body with the other arm, he eventually succeeded in withdrawing a small paperback book. He slid it over the coffee table to the alien and leaned back with a sigh.

The alien leaned forward, took in the dog-eared cover, cracked spine and yellowing pages, but made no move to pick up the book. “Slaughterhouse Five?” he asked.

“A classic,” the man replied. “On the futility and horror of war.”

The alien leant back, gestured to the large screen hanging on the wall. Silent images streamed by, the twenty-four-hour-a-day news channel muted for their meeting. “Seems like you need to read it more than me.”

The man shrugged. “So it goes,” he said with a slight smile.

“I trust the doors are still secure?” The alien did not smile. Whether it could was still debated. It seemed to understand human emotional signals, though its own face remained forever inscrutable.

“Absolutely,” the man confirmed. “You sure I can’t entice you outside? Some fresh air would do you good, I think. Put some colour in your cheeks.” The joke was part of the ritual now, as was the alien’s lack of reaction to it, and the next words it spoke.

“Maybe next time.”