Darkside

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Put your hands out where I can see them,” he ordered, staying put while he held the blinding light in her face. To his amazement, she screamed. Really screamed. She took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and let one fly, a continuous, top-of-the-lungs, “My baby is being ripped from my womb before my very own eyes” scream. That brought Branner out from behind the dogleg, her own flashlight blazing up the tunnel and partially blinding Jim. Then a jet airplane fired up its engines in the tunnel behind him and he could hear nothing but a huge roar of sound as the girl ran right at him, her face still contorted in the act of screaming, even though the blast of sound from behind him in the tunnel was overwhelming all his senses. He managed to grab her as she tried to slip by, and then both of them were down on the deck plates as he tried to hold on to her billowing robes and keep his sanity in the midst of the incredible noise. His flashlight went flying and he was left grappling in the dark with this surprisingly strong girl. He managed to pin one of her arms and then a second one. She started kicking out, and he ended up dropping across her back, still gripping both her arms, until she stopped it.

  He felt rather than saw Branner jump over both of them as she ran in the direction of the St. John’s doors. The blasting noise was getting even louder, if that was possible, and then he felt a billowing wet heat enveloping them both.

  Steam. Shit! There’d been two of them, and the other one, probably the guy they were after, had opened a steam-line drain valve as he took off back the way they had come in. The girl began to struggle again, but this time it was different. She wasn’t fighting him as much as fighting to breathe, and he realized he’d laid his entire weight on her. Being careful to keep his grip, he rolled off her back and yelled at her to keep still, that she was under arrest, but it was pointless in the shattering noise. As he raised his head, he realized he wasn’t able to breathe, not at all. His first inhalation brought a hot, wet gulp of oxygen-free water vapor, and he bent his head down immediately to get some air. This was dangerous. The tunnel was quickly filling with steam. This wasn’t a drain valve, but one of the main lines. Steam would soon displace all the oxygen. They couldn’t stay here. He wondered where Branner was, then decided he had to get himself and his prisoner the hell out of there, or at least behind a fire door. The nearest one was back in the branch tunnel leading to Mahan Hall, so he began dragging the girl toward the junction.

  But which way was the junction? In his struggles with the girl, he had lost his bearings. Now he no longer knew which way led to the branch intersection. What little light there had been was being swallowed up in the billowing steam, and his attempts to breathe were bringing in increasingly less oxygen. If he chose wrong, there were no more doors for at least three hundred feet. He felt the girl start to cough and choke in his grip, and he forced her head down to the deck plates, where there was still some air.

  The deck plates. There was a channel under the deck plates. Hot steam would rise. There might be air in the channel. Keeping one hand on the girl, he clawed at the edge of the deck plate nearest his hand until he got under an edge. He heaved against it and it moved, but the girl’s body was holding it down. He rolled her off of it and tried again. She had stopped struggling and was now down flat on the concrete floor. With one enormous heave, he got the deck plate up and out of its brackets. He pushed the girl down into the trenchlike channel, which was two feet deep and the same distance across, a notch running beneath the tunnel floor where water could accumulate in the event of a major leak, allowing repair crews time to get it stopped. On the bottom of the channel was the top of the main sewage line. He dropped in after her and landed partially on her and into a few inches of ice-cold water. Above him, the steam noise was louder and the temperature was rising fast. He could see nothing but a glow in the billowing mist above the floor. He pulled the plate over them as best he could, and the noise subsided a little.

  “Stay down,” he yelled into the white blur that was the girl’s face, and she got flatter, no longer resisting. He fumbled in his belt for the small, spare Maglite and snapped it on. Where the hell is Branner? he wondered. She doesn’t know these tunnels. The channel ran in a straight line in both directions until it disappeared from sight. It smelled faintly of sewer gas and salt water. He felt water starting to drip down from the edges of the deck plate. Hot water. Steam’s condensing up there on the cold walls, he thought. He wondered how long it would be before the water started rising in the channel. But there was nowhere else to go. Above them, all the air and oxygen had been displaced by steam, and even at atmospheric pressure, the ambient temperature would be at least 150 degrees, enough to sear lung tissue. They would just have to wait until the steam plant’s operators detected the pressure drop, realized they had a leak, and shut down the main steam-supply line to Bancroft Hall. He took as deep a breath as he could stand, then settled lower into the water at the bottom of the channel to wait it out.

  After what seemed like ages, the noise began to subside above their heads. He looked at his watch. It had been more like ten, maybe fifteen minutes since the whole thing started. He waited for the roaring noise to reduce itself to a medium blast, and then he jammed his fingers up between the edge of the plate and the lip of the trench. He raised his hand. The air was still hot and wet. When he thought he could make himself heard, he told the girl that they had shut off the steam but that they’d have to wait until there was air up there. She made a noise, and he shone the light in her face. All that white pancake makeup had begun to run off her face, and he was looking at a young and very scared college kid. Not all the moisture streaming down her cheeks was from the steam.

  After another five minutes, all the noise had stopped and he pushed the plate out of its channel and sat up in the trench. The water was another inch or so deeper in the channel and running in a visible current around his hips. The air above them was still full of mist, but it was no longer hot and he could breathe. The girl was still flattened down in the bottom of the channel, her black clothes looking like an ink spill. He hoisted himself to sit on the edge of the channel, set the flashlight down on the floor, and lifted her up to a sitting position. He could hear the sounds of a maintenance crew in the distance. He wondered where the hell Branner was, and if she’d caught the bastard who’d done this.

  “Did I tell you that you were under arrest?” he asked the girl. She nodded emphatically and started to cry again.

  He saw lights coming down the tunnel from the direction of Bancroft Hall, then heard someone coming from the other direction.

  “Hall?” Branner called. “You still down here?”

  “Here,” he yelled back. “You catch him?”

  A flashlight stabbed through the swirling cloud of condensing steam and then Branner stepped out of the mist. She appeared none the worse for wear. “Saw him, but he slammed a steel door shut, and I didn’t have a key. Then all that steam came and I had to run for it. Found another tunnel behind a door and hid out.”

  “Well, I managed to hold on to this one,” he said, pointing at the bedraggled Goth.

  “She’ll do,” Branner said, crouching down to stare at the frightened girl. Branner had a wolfish look on her face. “She’ll do.”

  The girl began to cry in earnest as the maintenance crew showed up to ask what the hell was going on.

  8

  It was 1:00 A.M. on Sunday when Branner and Jim got the girl to the NCIS offices. Once out of the tunnel, her defiance had resurfaced and she had refused to say anything to either of them. She was carrying no identification, only a small wallet containing eleven dollars, a condom, and a used movie ticket. Branner had taken her in the bathroom and made her remove all the Goth makeup from her face. While Jim waited outside, she searched her for weapons or other contraband, discovering a nasty little two-inch knife in a flat sheath in the girl’s stocking. She also had had a small leather pouch attached to her belt. It was decorated with odd symbols and contained some minute bits of vegetable material, from which Branner had obtai
ned a positive test for cannabis. She’d then locked the girl in the interview room and told her to wait there.

  “So we have her for simple possession,” she was telling Jim while she made some fresh coffee before talking to the girl. “I can big-deal that up to possession of narcotics on a federal reservation-you know, for scare factor.”

  “But actually-”

  “Yeah, actually, it’s peanuts. The knife was concealed, but not long enough for full weapons status. Anyway, I want to know who that guy was I chased into the city tunnels. I’m assuming that he was probably our vampire mugger.”

  “Was he in costume?”

  “Couldn’t see, with all that steam. Just that it appeared to be big, male, description, height, weight unknown. He could flat-ass run, I’ll tell you that, and he knew his way around down there. I was bouncing off equipment cabinets. He wasn’t.”

  “I wish we could have alerted the gates,” Jim said, drawing off a cup of coffee before the percolator finished hiccuping. The coffee was amber instead of black and filled with tiny coffee grounds. He lifted the lid and poured it back in.

  “You think he beat it into town and then circled back?”

  “If he’s a mid, right,” Jim said. “While we were in the sauna. You know, I don’t think he just thought that steam move up on the fly, either. He’s getting into this shit.”

  “Our boy’s a planner and a plotter.”

  “Our boy’s a badass. That touchdown rocket. Live steam. A can of spray paint in the face. He gets chased, he reacts.”

  “And it works, too,” she said. “I thought I was going to be smothered down there when all that steam let go. And the noise!”

  Jim tried the coffee again. “Plus, he’s no hero. He knew we had the girl, but he took off anyway.”

  “Either that or he knows she won’t say shit. Or, just possibly, she doesn’t really know who he is.”

  “Right now, I’m interested in what he is,” Jim said. “You do the talking; I’ll just glare at her.”

  Branner nodded, got some coffee and the tape recorder, and then they went to the interview room.

  The girl was sitting at the small metal table, her elbows propped on it and her head in her hands. She now had an expression of total boredom on her face, and she didn’t even look up when they came into the room. Branner sat down at the head of the table and set up the tape recorder. Jim remained standing to one side, fixing the girl with a steady stare. Without all the Goth paint on her face, she looked much younger, a sophomore maybe. Moon-faced, pasty complexion, limp black hair, the beginnings of a double chin, outsized front, dull, dark eyes, red, dishwater hands with nicotine stains on her right forefinger, exaggerated, extra-long fake nails. A real beauty.

  Branner turned on the machine, identified herself and Jim, and then took her through the required time, date, and Miranda warning for the record. When Branner asked her if she wanted a lawyer present, the girl stared straight ahead, saying nothing. Branner stated that she was taking that as a no, and then she asked the girl to identify herself. The girl gave her a surly look but said nothing. Branner paused the recorder and sat back in her chair.

  “Listen, sweet pea, we have you for criminal trespass on a federal reservation, assault on a federal officer, destruction of government property, resisting arrest, carrying a concealed weapon, and possession of a controlled substance on federal property. You’re in no position to play hardball with us.”

  “What destruction?” the girl asked.

  “Causing steam to vent into the Academy’s utility tunnel complex. Destruction of electrical and telephone equipment from water damage. Hope you or your family carry lots and lots of liability insurance.”

  The girl blinked when Branner mentioned her family. “I didn’t do that,” she said.

  “You were the only one down there,” Branner said, cocking her head to one side. “Right?”

  The girl started to say something, looked quickly at Branner, and then clamped her jaw shut. Branner leaned forward. “More to the point,” she said, “you are the one we apprehended. So if someone else did open the steam valve, it really doesn’t matter to us. Unless, of course, you want to tell us who that was.”

  The girl set her jaw and said nothing. Branner looked at Jim. “Mr. Hall, there’s a fingerprint kit and a Polaroid in the main office. Could you bring them in here, please?”

  Jim left the door open and went to look for the camera and the cardboard fingerprint forms. He could hear Branner explaining what she was going to do. He found the camera, ink pad, and forms and took them back into the interview room.

  “Are you going to tell us your name?” Branner asked.

  The girl stared back at her. “You said I had the right to remain silent. Guess what?”

  “O-kay,” Branner said. “Mr. Hall, do your police have a holding cell?”

  “No. If we need to hold someone, we take them downtown to the Annapolis station. Let’s see, at this hour? They’ll probably put her in the women’s drunk tank. She’ll have an interesting intercultural experience.”

  “Are you willing to cooperate and let me take your fingerprints?” Branner asked. The girl stuffed her hands into the folds of her black dress.

  Branner deactivated the recorder and terminated the interview. “It’s too late for this bullshit,” she said. “We’ll take her downtown. The night-shift cops can get her booked in. She gives them shit, they’ll get a couple of those sumo matrons to help out. I’ll file the charges Monday morning, and she can call her parents. They’re going to be so proud.”

  She reached across the table and snapped on handcuffs, locking the girl’s wrist to the ring on the table. They left her in there, closed the door, and went back to the office with the camera and the identification kit.

  “What we need here is a good dungeon,” Jim said.

  “That one would probably enjoy a dungeon,” Branner replied. “She could hang upside down and hiss a lot.”

  “What do you figure?”

  “She’s too old to be in high school,” Branner said, getting out her Rolodex. “So I’m guessing St. John’s.” Branner found the number for the Annapolis police. “Do you think she could have been in that group Bagger tangled with? In that Irish pub?”

  “It’s possible,” Jim said, rubbing his eyes. He could still feel the steam heat on his skin. “But with all the makeup they were wearing, I couldn’t tell one from another. There’s more attitude than brains in that one.”

  “I know some of the state attorneys,” Branner said. “I’ll get one of them to lean on the parents. Talk about big fines.”

  Jim didn’t think any of that would work. He doubted there had been any real damage done down in those tunnels. Those equipment rooms were built to protect against leaks of water or steam. The steam plant people had come down, closed one valve, and put the system back in operation. The vent fans had exhausted all the steam in about five minutes. Bancroft Hall probably hadn’t even noticed the outage.

  They had missed their real target. Again. Branner was dialing the number.

  “I’ll ride with you downtown, if you’d like,” he offered, stifling another yawn.

  The game continues! And tonight I got a twofer. The security guy brings along a babe this time. Redhead, packing serious heat. From the NCIS no less. How do I know this? Because I have ways of seeing in the tunnels, that’s how. Learned long time ago, if you have the time, prepare your ground. Marines do that, whenever possible, and they’re the masters of small-unit tactics. So these two come waltzing down into the main complex, and set up some-are you ready for this?-motion detectors! How do I know? Because they talk about them. And I can not only see; I can also hear down there. So I step into a quiet zone just outside and make a quick call to Krill, my most pliable Goth moth. Krill’s up for anything, as I told you earlier, because her prospects in life are, shall we say, limited. I mean, how far will boobs get you these days? Krill’s not the brightest bulb in the circuit, in other words. How she got i
nto St. John’s is beyond me. Suspect some money changed hands in alumni channels somewhere, because those people, as weird and liberal as they are, also have to be fairly smart. Anyway, Krill comes a-running, all decked out in serious Goth cloth. I pitch her into the main complex, send her down Broadway, and wait for the big bad law persons to do their thing. Then as soon as they say the magic word? I cut open a steam-line drain valve directly off the 150-psi heating main, and-presto-the tunnel fills with hot, wet steam. And me? I decided to call it a night and go on back through the Maryland Ave. gate, just like I rated it. Which I did, of course.

  This security guy must be taking things seriously. I’ve tapped into his E-mail terminal, but he doesn’t use E-mail for his cop stuff. I’ve scanned into the Yard cops freq., but that’s all seriously routine, total admin crap. You wondering how I do all this? It’s easy, really. Well, you know, they teach us how. All those years of electrical and electronic engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, materials, chemistry, physics, and lots and lots of math? Well, shucks, I actually use it. Most of my classmates are welded to the get-through treadmill. You know, grind through the courses, pass the daily quizzes, pass the weekly tests, scurry for the Gouge, and then sweat through the exams. And then what do they do? They do a core dump and set up for the next required course. They learn nothing.

  Not me. I actually learn it. I actually like it. But, of course, I see all the tests and exams beforehand. And if my classmates treated me better, so would they. It isn’t hard, you know. The faculty dweebs are basically lazy. And they’re bureaucrats. Which means they use test questions from a database (and all God’s databases were made for me to break into). AND, they have to get the test approved by the department head. AND, they use E-mail to do the approval process. AND, I can read any E-mail riding the Academy’s intranets. Piece of cake. They don’t even really encrypt the stuff-of course they have fire walls to protect against outside penetration, but not from someone who can place his own fire-wire port in the faculty server bank. Most importantly, they don’t expect us mids to do this shit. They expect us to hunt for Gouge, but not to read their internal mail.