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the only discovery they made that gave them any comfort. Level Two, as it was officially called according to various signs on the walls, was much the same as the top one. Gleaming white corridors linked a complex of laboratories and store rooms - and all devoid of human life.
        More bundles of clothes were found, several of them ripped and blood-stained like the ones in the communications room but the majority were unmarked. And all, inexplicably, had the underwear inside the outer garments. There were also signs that outbreaks of violence had occurred. There were bullet holes in a few of the walls, some broken doors and one of the store rooms had been burnt out.
        By the time they reached the second level from the bottom they were all feeling thoroughly exhausted and were no longer bothering to do more than just look briefly into each room they passed. They were all empty, of course, and no one answered their increasingly weary cries of 'Hallo! Anyone here?'
        This level was the same as the ones above except for two things. One was a long, narrow room full of empty cages of varying sizes. And despite the smell of disinfectant in the air it had a pronounced zoo-like odour.
        'Phew,' said Rochelle, wrinkling her nose. 'What the hell did they keep in here? It smells like Alex's socks.'
        Paul began to read out the labels on the empty cages. 'Rhesus monkeys, Chimpanzees, Marmosets, Orangoutangs…' He moved on down the row of cages. '… And here there were domestic cats, guinea pigs, dogs, rats - lots of rats. These must have been used for experiments,'
        'Bastards,' said Chris who was, of course, a strong anti-vivisectionist.
        'But where are they all?' wondered Linda aloud.
        'They must have been evacuated along with the people when whatever went wrong here went wrong,' said Mark.
        'That doesn't make sense. If that was the case the cages wouldn't be here either,' said Paul.
        'And have you noticed something even odder?' asked Chris. 'All of them are still locked. Why on earth would anyone go to the bother of locking the cages after the animals had been removed?'
        No one had an answer.
        At the end of the room were a pair of swing doors that opened into an aquarium area. Illuminated with the same eerie kind of violet light that had been in the airlock it contained rows of glass tanks of different sizes. And like the cages these, too, were all empty.
        'Curiouser and curiouser…' whispered Linda.
        There was a strange atmosphere in the aquarium, exaggerated no doubt by the lighting and also the sounds made by all the bubbling oxygen appliances in the tanks. But it was the emptiness of the place that was so unsettling…
        'Don't tell me,' muttered Rochelle. 'They evacuated all the fish too.'
        'I don't like it here. Let's leave, now, ' said Chris.
        'More bad vibes?' answered Alex.
        'They must have had some really big fish in here,' said Mark. 'Look at the size of that tank.' He was pointing at one that was at least twenty feet long.
        Paul went and read the label on the front of it. 'Just says "Carcharodon". Anyone know what that means?'
        'Nope,' said Linda and shivered. 'I agree with Chris, let's get out of here. It gives me the creeps too.'
        

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        The other intriguing feature on this level was a room packed with TV equipment. It was obviously the control point for all the cameras they had spotted throughout the platform. There were eight monitor screens positioned around a large console and all of them were functioning, each one showing a different part of the rig.
        'It's as if someone had walked out of here a moment before we arrived,' said Chris.
        'They probably did,' said Alex. 'And I'll bet you this is from where our shy host operated the crane that picked us up.'
        'It's possible,' said Paul doubtfully, staring at the