Elsewhere on the base in the Hydra research laboratory, about twenty people sat round a table. Being honest, “people,” was a generous description as many of them were so grizzly while nursing their hangovers, that they bore more resemblance to bears; especially as a few of them were still wearing fury dressing gowns. Some of them had taken the day off specifically to recover from a hard night's partying and had deeply resented their pagers going off.

Professor Hicks was bringing the assembled group of entities up to speed with the mornings events. “So that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we now have a Hydra, heavily armed, sat in the hanger that isn't responding to shut down orders. Anyone have any ideas?” He sat down to let those congregated come to terms with the situation, with Andy and Gary sat either side, still looking somewhat the worse for wear.

Harris, one of the people who had been hoping to have a quiet day off, ventured a barbed quip. “Yes. Walk in front of it with a crown on your head, then fall over and play dead. Maybe it would think you had conceded and end the program.”

“Actually that might be worth a shot.” Hicks smiled, much to Harris' annoyance. “Anyone else?”

Someone sympathetic with Harris' position, put forward the obvious. “We designed the damn thing to be impervious to anything short of a nuclear explosion. If it has closed its control panel and refuses to listen to commands to shut down, then I don't know what we can do.”

“What about doing something that will drain its power?” came another voice.

Someone else quipped, “So you want us to design a giant treadmill, tune it into the fitness channel and hope that it decides to go on an extended exercise program for a few decades?”

“Now listen here…” At that point the discussion turned into a free for all. Voices started to raise as far as people's aching heads would allow as the exchanges came thick and fast. Hicks sighed and put his head in his hands. This was just too surreal for his alcohol addled skull.

Suddenly, the alarms went off. Lights started flashing and sirens flooded the lab. Everyone around the table, most of them with thumping headaches, wailed, slapped their hands over their ears and closed their eyes. The only ones unaffected by this were Gary and Andy, the former by his practised skill in the art of alcohol consumption, and the other because the smell of his own urine had been the mental equivalent of a defibrillator shock.

Someone on the other side of the table started to shout over the din. “I hadn't been told of a drill. How dare they do this unannounced.” Others in the room seemed to be in general agreement with the sentiment.

A woman on Gary's right stood up and shouted an observation to the assembled throng, “Well as we haven't been told that there was a drill, I believe there is only one possible outcome that we can conclude as being a valid logical state.” She then fell silent.

The original naysayer spoke, or rather screamed, for the rest of the team. “Well don't just stand there shouting logic at us; kindly deliver the result of your matrix.”

She obliged him. “My conclusion is that this isn't a drill, you moron.”