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equipment.
        'I wish they'd stop hiding from us,' said Linda. 'It's crazy. Why are they acting this way?'
        'As we said earlier. They must have something to hide,' said Mark.
        'Then why haven't they prevented us from wandering around?' she asked.
        Mark shook his head. 'Don't ask me.'
        Paul, meanwhile, had made another discovery. Racks and racks of video cassettes, all of them carefully labelled with some kind of code. He picked one of them up and examined it. 'Wonder what's on this, if anything.'
        'We should run it through and see,' said Linda. 'There must be a video playback machine somewhere in all this stuff. It might give us a clue as to what was going on here.'
        'It would take days to run through all those cassettes,' protested Rochelle. 'Look at it later. Right now let's try and find where they keep the food and the beds in this place. I'm about ready to drop.'
        The others agreed with her so they then headed down to the fifth and final level. Level One, it turned out, was entirely devoted to living space and consisted of sleeping quarters, kitchens and recreational rooms. Paul estimated that it would have housed at least 250 people…
        They made a cursory examination of the place and found, as they now expected, it was devoid of human life. Or at least it appeared to be - they couldn't be sure because several of the doors were locked but there was no response when they banged on the doors. Deciding to check them out later they retired to one of the kitchens to have something to eat.
        The kitchen they chose turned out to be well-stocked with both frozen and tinned foods, revealing, if nothing else, that the original inhabitants of the rig ate well. On Paul's advice they used only the tinned food, making a quick stew out of a variety of ingredients. Similarly they ignored the water from the taps and drank only mineral water from sealed bottles and tinned fruit juice.
        The meal made them all feel much better. Even Mark's appearance improved, to Paul's relief, as he'd been worried that Mark might have been coming down with something serious. Even better, the food had the effect of mellowing Alex a little. By the end of the meal his habitual mood of glowering antagonism seemed thankfully absent though Paul was sure this would only be a temporary change.
        It was past ten p.m. when they finished eating and the women were all anxious to find somewhere to sleep as soon as possible but Paul insisted they check out the locked rooms before they turned in.
        It took another hour before they had broken down all the locked doors and investigated all the rooms. They didn't find anyone but what they did find didn't improve their state of minds. In all the locked rooms there were more piles of empty clothing - but in every case the doors had been locked from the inside.
        What they found in one of the recreational rooms was particularly disturbing - a large mound of clothing piled up against the far wall. Paul estimated that there was enough to clothe twelve people. They also found another two M16s and a revolver - which brought the total of guns they'd so far collected to eighteen - and what appeared to be two make-shift flame-throwers.
        'They must have had an orgy in here,' said Alex and gave a dirty snigger, but Paul was aware of his underlying nervousness. And he had to admit he was feeling increasingly uneasy himself. Something weird had happened on the oil rig and until he found out exactly what he wouldn't be able to shake off the fear that it could happen again. To them.
        'It's as if a group of people were all backed against the wall, facing the door, and then simply vanished out of their clothes,' said Mark softly.
        'Hey, don't say that,' said Rochelle angrily, 'you're scaring me.'
        'I can't understand how they got out with the door locked from the inside,' said Linda.
        'Perhaps they