Poison Most Vial

by Benedict Carey

  “Weird,” she said when she pulled her head back in.

  “What, Ruby?” Rex asked. He was crouched behind the others. He hated being down on the ground.

  “Campus security. Lots of ’em. I thought this case was for the real cops.”

  “Weird is right,” said Sharon, moving forward to have a peek of her own. “At this hour, most of the campus security people are posted outside or in the main lobbies of the buildings, and there aren’t that many of ’em working. Now, here’s three way down here?”

  Sharon took another look, left the door ajar, and said over her shoulder, “All clear now. Should we?”

  No one had a better idea. Out into the lighted hallway they stumbled, Simon turning left, the opposite direction from where they’d seen the security person, Ruby behind, Rex, and then Sharon.

  Simon was counting under his breath. Ruby could hear it—“one Mississippi, two Mississippi”—and she wondered, Why is it Mississippi and not Arkansas? And then, Why am I thinking about this now? Like this is all a joke, a prank. After three Mississippi, Simon all but dove into a deep door well, the others piling in behind him, their breath heavy now.

  “Minimize exposure,” Simon said. “No more than three or four seconds out. That’s my rule.”

  “Your rule?” said Sharon. “What, you got rules now?”

  “Hey, it’s my map, hacker-girl. I get to make some rules.”

  “Hacker-girl? Where’d you get that, skater-boy, at architectural drafting club? Oh, I forgot, at drafting club no one speaks. It’s a deaf-mute ranch.”

  “Whoa, you two friends, right?” Rex said.

  Ruby was relieved to hear him say something; he looked terrified. There was so much more to do, and it was a long way out.

  Simon craned his neck around the corner of the door well and jerked it back. He put a “be quiet” finger in the air.

  A campus cop sauntered right by them: click, click went her shoes. Ruby saw clearly the campus officer’s profile under the cap. The shadow in the door well covered them, and she went right by. The woman was texting on her cell phone.

  Ruby looked at Rex, who seemed to have relaxed. Maybe he just needed to see evidence that they had some luck on their side. The good kind. He gave her an almost-smile. She knew what that meant. No turning back now.

  Four Mississippis later was an intersection, and Simon peeked around the corner, waved, and they all but sprinted to the next door well. The first one had been buried in shadow. This one was not.

  “We need to do better than this,” Simon said. “This here is a showroom.”

  Ruby peered into the new corridor and motioned for Rex to take a look. He nodded. Neither knew where exactly they were, but the look of the hallway was familiar: green walls, gold numbers on a couple of doors. The same look, the same feel as when they’d been down to the bathroom the first time. Years ago, it seemed to her now.

  A clicking of shoes came again. Simon stiffened. He turned, stricken, shaking his hands in a desperate gesture: Do something!

  Sharon put a hand to her mouth. She shuffled, turned, tried the door behind them. Locked, of course, with a keypad under the handle. Her hands moved fast, punching one combination, another, and another—nothing. Now prying the faceplate off of the keypad with a set of keys—jamming a key into the wiring behind, hard.

  The door clunked—they were in, crouched on the other side of the door now, just as the guard’s heels clicked by. This was crazy, Ruby thought. Every five steps, there was some campus security guard.

  She sensed someone behind her and swung around. A large, bright lab room. Forensics territory. A chemistry lab of some kind probably, Ruby thought, maybe the place where they made some of the agents used in the main lab. And there at the end of the lab bench—could it be? Yes. A student she didn’t recognize sat on a stool in front of a rack of test tubes, his head on the table. Fast asleep.

  Ruby smiled. “Grad students,” she said. “I’ve seen ’em fall asleep on elevators.”

  The student stirred, lifted his head, and stared at them, blank-eyed. Like an ostrich gazing out from a cage, Ruby thought. The student then put his head down and continued to snooze.

  “Graduate school looks easier than I thought,” Rex said. “I could do that.”

  Sharon was in no mood. “Be thankful we didn’t get caught, Rex.” She turned to Simon, who had flattened his precious map against the wall. “Now, how close are we? I was lucky getting us through that door. Luck, luck, luck. I hate luck.”

  “Looks like we’re right at this one corner, and we’re close. Ruby, you want to look at this?”

  “Can I touch it?”

  “No, absolutely not. Look at your hands.”

  They were filthy. Everyone’s were, except for Simon’s. She saw why: He had a box of hand sanitizers with him.

  “Gimme one of those hand wipes, then.”

  “Uh, no can do. I got, like, two left. Get your own.”

  “Oh sure, you mean at the drugstore down here?”

  “All right,” Sharon said. “Just go look at the map. Simon’s disturbed. Why do you think they put him in Regular?”

  “I’m disturbed, and you’re the criminal element. How many grades did you alter on the school computers, Sharon?”

  “Hey, excuse me,” said Rex. “Why don’t you two go fight somewhere else. We got a man trying to get some sleep over here.”

  Ruby squinted at the maze and at the tiny mark Simon had made for where they were. She saw the edge of the building on the map, and what looked to be the hallway she and Rex had visited. And the door—the fire door that Rama must have used to get to the bathroom.

  “Rex?” she said.

  He came over, holding his dirty hands high in the air. “Yup, that’s it. We came from the other side, though,” he said, and pretended to lunge for Simon’s hand wipes container.

  Simon recoiled, and the wipes container fell to the floor. “Well, that was sophomoric. Just brilliant. I hope you display the same judgment in the hallway, because now you’ll be approaching from this side. Think you can handle that?”

  “Think you can handle if I take one of those handy wipes and put it straight up—”

  “Rex, Rex,” Ruby said. All they needed was for him to throw a fit down here. He’d attract every cop within a mile.

  “Ruby,” he said. “I’m playing. I am.”

  She gave him a look.

  “OK, OK,” Rex said. “Seriously, though—hand wipes?”

  Simon cleared his throat. “We’re agreed, then. We turn right outside the door. That hallway with the bathroom is the second one on the left. One person needs to stay there, at the corner, to keep a lookout. I can do that.”

  “What about me?” said Sharon.

  “You go to the other side of the hall—the far side—and stand lookout there.”

  Sharon seemed about to say something nasty but stopped herself. “OK.”

  “And,” Simon said, “I trust that you two sleuths have a plan?”

  “Yes, Simón Bolívar,” Ruby said. “Hit the bathroom, scoop up every last piece of evidence-looking stuff in there. That good enough for you? And especially look for a glass vial.”

  “That’s it?” Simon said. “That’s your genius plan?”

  “Simon,” Sharon said. “Be the navigator, you moron. Stop talking. Stop saying things. Stop. I’m the one going to the far end of that hall. You get to stay close to this room and run and hide, you weasel.”

  “Weasels are my favorite animal,” Simon said.

  Rex doubled over and almost fell down. He was trying not to laugh out loud. “I—got—a—new—name—for—”

  “Great news, save it for when we’re out and stop goofing, will you?” said Ruby. “For once.”

  She slipped out the door to check if the coast was clear. It wasn’t. Campus police were patrolling regularly, and there was nothing for them to do but wait. The grad student stirred again. He was happy to have some company and talked easily wit
h them while working.

  “The police, yeah, they began searching early today, I don’t know what for. They are scouring every forensics room for something,” the student said. “They looked in the garbage here, even. Are you guys playing some kind of detective game for school?”

  “’Zactly,” Ruby said.

  “Matter of fact, we’re young detectives in training,” said Rex. “What we call ourselves is the Young Detectives.”

  “OK, sure. That’s got a ring.”

  “I can’t take all the credit,” Rex said. “We had a committee and all.”

  It seemed like hours before the patrol outside eased up, but it eventually did. The time between patrols increased from a few minutes to almost fifteen, and seemed to hold there.

  “I don’t know about you guys,” said Ruby, “but I don’t want to spend the night here. I think it’s time.”

  The others agreed.

  Out they went, strolling more casually this time. The plan if they got caught was to say they got lost looking for the subbasement bathroom, which was about 5 percent believable, given that there were four of them. Still, it was a better excuse than anything else that came to mind.

  Five Mississippis to the corner, where the hallway crossed the one that held the tiny bathroom. Ruby peered around, pulled back. She tipped her head up and pantomimed a scream. Two guards, one at the fire door about halfway down the hall and another closer still, standing in front of—what? She couldn’t tell.

  “What now?” Simon said.

  Ruby thought for a moment. She sensed something deeply unusual. What was it? She tried to locate its source and saw it in the eyes of the others. People were looking at her to make a decision. Quickly. She shook off the sensation.

  It was now her call, and she took a step back and let herself see the immediate surroundings. The detail: to draw it.

  She noticed something about the ceiling. It was low, and sprinklers poked out from white panels. In the movies, they would know how to turn those sprinklers on and set off chaos and all. If only. She saw the same sprinklers back in the older hallways, exposed, held in place from above by a tight network of pipes.

  “Can we get up there?” Ruby asked.

  “Up where?” Rex said.

  “Push up those panels. Up into the ceiling. Climb in there.”

  Sharon didn’t hesitate. The girl was not here for the conversation. She webbed her fingers together, making a step for Ruby, who hopped up and used the wall as another step. She pushed out a panel and—with help from Rex now, lifting her up—pulled herself in. A solid grid of pipes and supports, enough room to crouch. It would have to do.

  “C’mon,” she said, peering down through the opening. “Rex, you’re coming up.”

  “What?” whispered Simon, taking a peek around the corner. “That’s Moby Dick. We need a crane operator.”

  “You the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz. Prob’ly couldn’t lift your own straw ass,” Rex said.

  “I can curl a gallon of cream soda with each hand, young fella,” Simon said. He cupped his hand next to Sharon’s, grinning at Rex.

  Ruby thought that she heard footsteps again. “Rex and I’ll go hit the bathroom, you two guys get out,” she said. “C’mon, quick now.”

  Big T. Rex stepped on their hands, put a giant dirty paw on the wall, and reached up and grabbed the biggest pipe. He yanked himself up, jammed the other foot against the wall, and pushed again—shaking the pipes as he pulled up into the ceiling.

  Ruby, retreating in the dark to take weight off the pipes, saw the boy’s huge frame ease up like a bear climbing a tree, all quiet, brute strength.

  Through the opening she saw Sharon and Simon stare up at them for a moment, glance at each other, and slip away. Rex replaced the panel, and the world above closed around them.

  The two sat there on the pipes, looking at each other in dumb wonder. Spiderwebs of light filtered up from below; a murmur of voices, too. Rex gave her his “Look what stupid thing I just did” smile. She shrugged back in a way that meant—Rex would know—I’m coming through, outta my way.

  She turned and crawled. Rex followed.

  Toward the bathroom.

  It was luck, dumb luck, that was needed now, and Ruby knew it. Crawling over the pipes, squinting down through cracks between panels to follow the line of the corridor, the pair moved forward and quickly lost track of distance.

  “Here.” Ruby motioned to Rex, peering down through the hole for a sprinkler into what looked like a small room. “There’s your bathroom, could be. And it’s busy. Oh no.”

  What? Rex mouthed, now squinting through the hole into the small, brightly lit room. A campus policeman, someone in a suit, and two huge men ransacking the place, emptying the medicine cabinet, turning over the trash.

  Rex tipped his head to get a better angle. “Wait,” he said. “Ruby. That’s not it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not the bathroom I was in.” He was almost impossible to hear, his voice was so soft. “This one’s bigger, and it don’t got that big hole in the wall.”

  “What do you mean?” She didn’t like the quiver she heard in her own voice. “It’s a bathroom. In the hall. This has to be it. How many of them can there be?”

  “Two, maybe, I don’t know. Maybe it’s farther down.”

  “What if it’s not? I have no idea where we are.”

  “Easy, easy. We’re still right over the hallway. Keep going. We got no other choice.”

  “This is crazy,” Ruby said as she turned and moved ahead again. Her eyes adjusting to the dark, she noticed that the web of pipes stretched out indefinitely in all directions. No edges, no walls, no landmarks.

  “Stay straight, you’re drifting over,” Rex said.

  In a few minutes, following the line of the hallway below, they reached another small room. Or so it appeared; it was dark down there. Rex removed a ceiling panel and dropped his head down as far in as he could: cramped, dirty, empty. “This is it,” he said.

  “Amen,” Ruby replied. “You think you can get down and back? Those men are close.”

  “No talking, no thinking.” Rex lowered himself down with a soft thud.

  Ruby saw his huge dark form with a white garbage bag, heard a mumble of clinks and clicks, like someone putting away a board game. “A whole bunch of stuff someone put in this hole in the wall, like it’s a trash can,” Rex whispered.

  “Any glass vials?”

  “No idea, I can hardly see.”

  She sensed movement out in the hall, turned, and peeked through a crack over the hallway. The whole group from the last bathroom was coming toward them.

  “Rex! Hurry. Lock the door.”

  He was emptying the medicine cabinet and didn’t seem to hear. Ruby said it again—but Rex was in a zone down there, and he didn’t even look up.

  She called out loud, “Lock the door!”

  Rex looked up—the door handle turned—and he threw himself against it, jamming the lock in place.

  “Get out, get out!” she said.

  “Someone’s in there—come out now, put your hands where we can see ’em!” shouted somebody on the other side of the door.

  “Grab this,” Rex said, handing up the plastic garbage bag. “Watch out, here I come.”

  More yelling and pounding now; the door was about to blow open. Rex stepped on the toilet, nearly pulled the pipes out of the ceiling, and launched himself up.

  “Get ’em!” boomed a voice, and the two friends scurried along the pipes like a pair of spooked squirrels. No time to replace the panel in the ceiling, and in a second flashlight beams danced in the crawl space. The stabs of light gave Ruby the sense that the space was much, much bigger than she’d assumed.

  She glanced back. Someone was coming. A black shape lunged up through the opening above the bathroom, and now it was a race to—where? She had no idea.

  “Just move for now,” Rex said. “No thinking.”

  Over the pipes, her h
ands numb, Rex right behind, and the damned trash bag banging every pipe they passed.

  The flashlight beams wildly swept their cave and soon found them. The beams bathed them in light, and they froze like cornered beetles. Ruby was sure they were caught. She turned. No—they still had a lead. She pushed herself forward, yanking Rex by the hand.

  “How much longer we going?” Rex said finally, after what seemed like an hour of blind climbing. The lights were still behind them.

  “Long as we have to,” Ruby said. But her heart, and her hands, would not take much more. In minutes she stopped, ready to give up. She sat, limp and exhausted, unwilling to look behind. Rex was the one who turned around.

  “She’s doing worse than us,” he said.

  Ruby swiveled to look: a man, youngish—who?—also sitting, maybe fifty yards away. A country mile in this place. She hadn’t gained an inch. Out in the gloom, Ruby saw a spout of light: Someone else was coming up into the pipes. It looked like another man.

  “We need to be outta here,” she said. Cross the field, she thought. She was five or six, running outside, tall stalks of corn scratching at her skin. A forest of them, no end in sight: Get to the road. How had she found that road?

  “Ruby, I can’t go no more,” Rex said after another ten minutes of climbing. He was behind her, sitting back on his knees. He could barely hold on to the garbage bag, his hands were so raw.

  She sat back, too. Done. There would be no road. This was it.

  She reached down and pulled up a panel, stared through the opening. Gloom. She may as well have been staring into a well. No choice now; there must be a floor down there. Ruby lowered herself down—her hands were every bit as raw as Rex’s—and hung in space for only a moment. Her hands could not hold her.

  The fall down could have been ten feet or ten inches. All she knew was that she was on the floor, blessed solid floor, calling out to Rex, catching the bag of garbage, and down he came, flat on his back.

  “You OK?”