Basement B3

Part 4

       A few seconds later the lift doors opened and Tracy stepped out into a dimly lit passage. She took a deep breath. The air was stale and musty, but breathable. If B2 was a creepy floor, then this floor was something out of a haunted house movie. The passage was lit by old fashioned fluorescent lights, but only every fourth one was on. The air conditioning was not operating so the silence was exactly that.....complete silence. And it was cold, too, which was not surprising since she was about twenty five metres underground and no heating had operated in here for sixteen years. The lift had gone and the only sound Tracy could hear was her own breathing. She knew there were no security cameras, and no voice access to System A, the computer which ran the complex. There was a phone mounted on the wall by the lift. She picked up the receiver. It was dead. She checked her mobile phone. No reception.

Well, Tracy thought, I really am on my own down here. She waited a minute in the silence, but her mind picked up nothing, and there were no mens' voices either. There was a thin layer of dust on the floor which left her footprints as she slowly walked down the passage to the first door. Her footsteps made an echoing sound off the walls. Tracy stopped at the door. The sign simply said Laboratory 1 Authorised Entry Only. She continued on to the next door, Laboratory 2. It was a solid looking steel door with no window. It didn't require a hand scan for entry, just a five digit code to be entered onto a small keypad mounted on the wall next to the door. She typed in the number the computer had given her. The lock released with a click. She paused to take a deep breath, then turned the handle, but just as the door started to swing silently open Tracy heard a faint whisper. She quickly turned around but saw nothing. It was like someone whispering very softly. Then it stopped. Where had it come from? Inside the lab or behind her? She couldn't tell. The silence had returned but alarm bells went off in Tracy's head. She should get out of there now, wait till her father returned. Something was definitely not right down here. But she had come this far, she would not back out now.

She pulled a torch out of her bag and stepped into the blackness of the laboratory. It felt even colder in here she thought as she swept the torch beam around the large room. She tried the light switches, but the computer was correct, there was no power. There were benches and cabinets along three of the walls and two small offices at the far end. The lab was mostly devoid of any equipment. It must have been cleared out when the floor was closed off. But what really got her attention was the large isolation chamber in the middle of the room. It was basically a cube, three by three by three metres made out of thick presumably reinforced glass set on a platform about one metre above the floor. It was designed for easy observation from all sides of whatever the subject was. In one corner there was a small airlock entry with doors on each side just big enough to fit one person. Various tubes and cables were attached to the chamber, and there were even two remote controlled arms with claws on the ends folded back against one wall.

Tracy shone the torch through the glass, but there was nothing inside. This is where Walker and Bolton would have placed the crystal cluster for examination. She walked to the two offices at the far end of the lab. Each contained a desk and empty shelving. The filing cabinets had been cleared out of all files. She went back out into the lab and walked around the benches checking all shelving and cabinets. Except for a few bits and pieces of lab equipment there was nothing of interest. Then Tracy noticed she could see her breath. It was definitely getting colder since she had walked in the door. That was rather worrying.

Let's try increasing the temperature in the chamber. The man's voice came out of nowhere causing Tracy to jump in surprise. She swung the torch around the lab, but there was no one there.

Another man's voice spoke clearly. No, no, Dan. Turn the temperature down. It doesn't like heat!
What do you mean? How do you know it doesn't like heat?

I don't know how but it's somehow telling me!

Again Tracy swept the torch beam around the room, and again there was nothing to see. Now the alarm bells in her head were deafening. Time to get out! She ran for the door, grabbed the handle and tried to wrench it open. It wouldn't move. She tried again unsuccessfully as a voice seemed to whisper in her brain, Tray-seee. She frantically tried the door again and it suddenly opened. She dashed through and collided with a shadowy figure standing just outside the doorway. She screamed, lost her balance and almost fell to the floor as two strong hands grasped her by the shoulders.

"What the hell are you doing down here, Tracy?" came a familiar voice.

Tracy looked up into the concerned face of Brad Sullivan. Behind her the door to the lab slammed shut. She stood still gasping and taking deep breaths. "Brad, I should ask you the same question. Why are you here?"

"I got a call from Martin Phillips. The computer sent him a message that you were coming down here and he was concerned, so he asked me to check up on you. He gave me the access codes. When I entered the code for this door you came running out right into me. Did something happen in there? That lab should be empty."

Brad Sullivan was head of the company's investigations unit and he had access to the entire complex. Tracy knew him quite well. He had once saved her from a nasty situation when they were on a 'mission' together in England.

She wasn't quite sure how much to tell him. Brad was unaware of her 'ability'. No one knew about it except her parents. She managed to get her breathing under control, then turned around and entered the access code into the keypad. She pushed the door open, turned to Brad and said, "Come in here with me for a minute, but don't let the door swing shut." 

Brad looked around and found a chair by the wall. He wedged it between the door and the frame. He looked around the lab as Tracy shone her torch around. "Well?" he said, "What are we doing in here?"

"Are you aware of the history of this lab?" Tracy asked.

"Not until about an hour ago when Martin filled me in. Don't tell me you think it's haunted by the ghosts of those two scientists?"

"All right I won't tell you, but there is something not right in here."

"What do you mean? All I see is an empty lab."

"Do you hear anything?"

Brad paused for a few seconds, listening. "Nothing but deafening silence."

Tracy sighed. "Same here. Let's go. This place gives me the creeps."