Distracted, Gabe was a step slower than he might have been in reacting to the voices and footsteps echoing down the hallway from someplace ahead and to the right. He held his breath and flattened himself within the recessed doorway of B-9 just as two men in security guard uniforms emerged from a corridor, chatting and laughing. They each wore sidearms.

"Did you understand a word they were saying in there?" one asked.

"No, but that's why they're eggheads and earning the big bucks and we aren't."

"I did love the stuff Dr. Rosenberg was showing, though. Real, living brains without bodies. Could you believe that? I heard he was keeping them in his lab on A Wing, but that's the first time I actually saw them."

"Yeah, I wonder what they're thinking. Maybe something like 'Gosh, it's dark in here.' "

"Yeah, and 'Hey, I can't hear a damn thing, either. Where in the hell is everybody?' "

Both men laughed roundly. If either of them had turned to his left, he would have been looking directly at Gabe, who was just thirty feet away and unable to conceal himself fully in the recessed doorway. Instead, they turned to their right, away from him, and exited Corridor B through a pair of swinging steel doors.

Gabe's desperate need for answers again began doing battle with his common sense.

The silence that followed the guards' departure was not complete. Gabe could still hear the low, machinelike hum and also some voices.

Real living brains without bodies.

Fascinating.

There was no way he could retreat now without trying to get even a little more information. His common sense had been routed. Just a little more information. . . . Just a little more.

Hanging on pegs near the scanning electron microscope were two knee-length lab coats. Gabe tested the knob to the room and the heavy door swung open. Seconds later, he emerged wearing one of the white coats. With his boots back at the beginning of the tunnel, his dark socks protruded from beneath his jeans, looking rather foolish but at the same time making it easier to move silently up the corridor. Still, it seemed as if anyone within earshot would be able to hear his heart slamming against the inside of his chest.

Room B-8, fiefdom of a Dr. P. Wilansky, was another empty lab filled with sophisticated equipment. There was a branching corridor ahead and to the right—the hallway from which the guards had come. The low machine hum was more pronounced, as was a man's voice, loud enough now to make out some words.

"Note . . . brain . . . stained . . . immunofluorescence . . ."