1269_UgliesFreeBook

378 Scott Westerfeld
She looked at David. He shrugged and gave the door a
push. It opened.
“I guess when you’re in an underground bunker, there’s
no point in locking up,” he said softly. “After you.”
Tally crept inside. The room was big, the walls lined
with dark and silent machines. An operating tank stood
in the middle, the liquid drained out of it, tubes and electrodes
hanging loosely in a puddle at the bottom. A
metal table glistened with the cruel shapes of knives and
vibrasaws.
“This looks like photos Mom showed me,” David said.
“They do the operation here.”
Tally nodded. Doctors only put you in a tank if they
were doing major surgery.
“Maybe this is where they make Specials special,” she
said. The thought didn’t cheer her up.
They returned to the hall. A few doors later, they found
a room labeled MORGUE.
“Do you . . . ,” she started to ask.
David shook his head. “No.”
They searched the rest of the floor. Basically, it was a
small, well-equipped hospital. There were no torture chambers
or prison cells. And no Smokies.
“Where to now?”
“Well,” Tally said. “If you were the evil Dr. Cable, where
would you put your prisoners.”
“The evil who?”