He managed to move himself to the ledge in front of the door. Even the small rest he’d taken had caused his limbs to start to stiffen up, but at least it was a new kind of torture. He gathered his strength and turned the wheel that held the door closed, silently thankful that it was well oiled. The door opened inward, catapulting him onto a flat metal floor. He was instantly asleep.
He dreamed of a giant throat that was trying to swallow him, and of needles skewering him from every side. He woke up to find water gently lapping at him, and he jumped up in sudden terror as earlier events crashed down on him. He immediately crumpled back to the floor with a rusty scream of agony as the pain in his body made itself known.
Monarch spent a few precious seconds doing his best to file the pain away like everything else in his mind. It was stubborn, and it formed a bulky file that looked nothing like the others in his head, but eventually he was able to ignore the throbbing enough to move. He looked around to see where he was.
By the light of two emergency lights, he saw that he was in a small dormitory. There were a dozen bed bolted to the walls, though none of them had mattresses. In face, there was no sign that anyone had ever lived there. He suspected that it was probably a haven for the workers who’d built the shaft, long abandoned and forgotten. Another door was shut at the front of the room; he’d been asleep next to it for...well, who knew how long? Certainly not the premier mind of his time.
Monarch stumbled through the ankle-deep water to the door. He opened it to find a closet of supplies. Freeze-dried rations, flashlights, extra coveralls, and...an emergency life raft. They must have suspected that something could go wrong, and this was the way that the insurance company had tried to cover itself. Silently applauding the bean-counters of yesteryear, Monarch pulled the bulky package out of the closet and opened it. It was one of the self-inflating jobs, a discovery that almost made him sob with relief. He hauled it to the main door, ignoring the screaming in his back, and pulled the cord when it was in the main shaft. The boat immediately began to inflate, so he left it to do its job while he went back to the closet.
He pulled out two flashlights and two pairs of the coveralls; his prison-issued paper clothing was a sorry sight by this time. When he got back to the main door, the raft had finished inflating and was gently bouncing off the opposite wall. He tossed the goods into the raft and waded back through knee-deep water to gather some food.
He threw two boxes of the preserved rations into the raft and then tried to get in himself.
The problem was, the raft was on open water, and he was not in the best of shape. He simply couldn’t get in. He swam back through the frothing water and to the ladder. He scowled at it, promising himself that when he was ruler of the world, ladders would be abolished. He realized that he was a little hysterical by this time, and the hysteria was unraveling the carefully-filed pain, so he only had a little time left. He climbed up the ladder, screaming with every step that he took. Finally he was well above the raft, so he pushed off with his remaining strength.
And missed.