Page 80 of Clive Cussler Desolation Code

Continuing past the pipe, she felt along the flat surface until she discovered a tight seam that ran up to a standard six-foot, eight-inch height, then across for three feet, and then back down: a steel door with no inner handle.

She banged on it with her fist. “Is anyone out there? Can anyone hear me?”

“I can hear you,” a voice answered calmly from somewhere above her.

She looked up into the darkness, searching in vain for a speaker or intercom.

“How about turning the lights on?”

A small light came on directly above her. It was no brighter than a penlight and pointed straight down. It did little to illuminate the room—which appeared to be paneled in black anodized steel. Used to the dark, Gamay squinted against the glare.

“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up,” the voice told her.

“I don’t normally sleep in.”

“You were dosed with ketamine polychloride, a powerful sedative,” the voice told her. “It has side effects. It seems to have impacted you more strongly than the rest.”

“The rest,” she said. “You mean my husband and the crew.”

“Among others.”

There was something disconcerting about the voice. It spoke withperfect rhythm and nothing in the way of inflection or personality, but it seemed to be calculating its responses, as if it were offering subtext.

“Well, I’m awake now,” Gamay snapped. “So why don’t you let me the hell out of here?”

The sound of locks disengaging rang out.Click, click, clunk. Three of them, one after the other. The door—which seemed to be spring-loaded—popped open and slowly swung wide.

Gamay looked beyond it. A hallway beckoned. It was illuminated by two rows of the tiny penlights, and the floor was made of the same metal grating she’d been lying on in her cell, though instead of black it was a raw metallic gray.

She stepped out of the cell and eased her way down the hall, not sure what to make of the situation. “Who are you?”

“I’m your host,” the voice said.

“You sound like a computer,” she replied. “I’ve spoken to enough computers to know one when I hear it.”

“You have a logical mind,” the computer said. “Geometric in its progression.”

“I’m very organized,” Gamay insisted.

“And you’re not afraid,” the voice announced.

Gamay wasn’t sure if that was a question or a statement. But she wasn’t afraid. Years of hunting with her father and on dangerous expeditions with NUMA had taught her to control her fears, to compartmentalize them and act as if they were nonexistent. And yet this seemed different. She wasn’t blocking anything. She simply felt nothing that could be called fear. Only curiosity, irritation, and a desire to find Paul, Chantel, and the rest of theIsabella’s crew.

“Where are my friends?” she asked. “Where’s my husband? Why did you abduct us and imprison us?”

“So many questions,” the voice replied. “Why don’t you come and see us? You can ask your questions in person.”

“You’re just going to let me walk around unguarded?”

“If we did, where would you go?”

Good question.Not only did she not know where she was, she had no idea where any of the tunnels she was passing led to.

“I assume you control all the exits,” she said. “And the vertical and the horizontal,” she added, referencing an old TV show.

“There are no exits,” the voice said. “There is no path from the labyrinth that would take you to freedom. So you might as well come our way. You’ll end up here eventually, one way or another.”

With that, a band of lighting came on in the floor. It showed a path running ahead and then diverging to the left at a fork in the corridor. “Not exactly the yellow brick road, but I’ll take it.”

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