"Robert A. Metzger - Quad-World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Metzger Robert)

тАЬLight request?тАЭ asked a sweet, feminine-sounding voice.

I turned, still leaning against the wall. The room was empty. That was a bad sign, a hell of a bad sign. I
was hearing voices.

тАЬLight request?тАЭ asked the voice again.

I then realized that the voice was coming from somewhere above me. I looked up, peering through the
thickening smoke that was drifting down. A speaker grille. Someone from the Central Security Station
must have been listening in on the conference room. She might have control over the power.

тАЬKill the lights!тАЭ I shouted.

The room was thrown into darkness.

The door was practically at my back. Fumbling, I searched for the doorknob, grabbed it, and pushed the
door open.

I stumbled out and leaned against a wall in a hallway that I'd never seen before. The wall at my back was
soft and warm, nothing like the hard steel-sheet walls that should have been there.
Obviously, I had not been in the Walnut Conference Room. The missing light switch should have told me
that, but this flu was scrambling my brain. After I had passed out they must have taken me to some other
room.

I stared down the long hallway.

The labs were not all that large. I had never seen this hallway, or come across anything that even
resembled these strange walls. I turned my head, looking down the opposite direction. It was identical,
and just as featureless as the other end of the hallway had been.

Not quite.

Almost sunk into the wall, and colored in the same cream color, was what looked like a phone. Hugging
the wall, and dragging my cheek along its warm surface, I worked my way toward it. Grabbing it, I
popped it from the wall. A remote. No cord. I looked at it closely. No buttons, no dial, no nothing.
Desperate, I put the receiver up to my ear. It was dead. There was no dial toneтАФnot even a hiss.

тАЬShit!тАЭ I said into the phone.

тАЬNo one of that name is listed in the directory,тАЭ said the same voice that I had heard in the conference
room. тАЬAre you trying to reach an outside party?тАЭ she asked.

I took a deep breath, that is, as deeply as someone could breathe who felt like they had a quart of slime
filling each lung.

тАЬWhat's happened around here?тАЭ I asked. I leaned my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes.

тАЬCan you be more specific?тАЭ she asked.