“Excuse Me.”
I looked up from my station.
“You dropped this.”
I looked at the scratched blue wallet he extended towards me, that was absolutely not mine. I delivered a unimpressed glare over my glasses. This is what he interrupted me for?
“That’s not mine.” I turned a shoulder way in a clear “fuck off” signal.
“But I’m sure it is.” He flopped the small wad of faux leather on the counter, and sauntered away.
I had half a thought to throw the thing back at him or in the trash, but the stranger was long gone and curiosity won out. The wallet was functionally empty, without bank cards, ID, gift certificates. Not so much as a parking pass or a gym membership. I sighed and stomped over to the trash can, irrationally irritated that there wasn’t anything interesting in the pouch and that I interrupted my work for nothing. I peaked inside one last time, and a small corner of torn paper caught my attention. Maybe this handful of minutes wasn’t a total bust after all.
“B-07134”. That’s it? A locker code? Or a badge number?
Tucking the slip of paper in my pocket, I returned to my lab station. I had roughly 10 more hours of video to review and mouse behaviors to code. I certainly didn’t have time to bother with a random string of numbers. I was the only one left in the lab, and the clock’s ticking was starting to grate on my patience. There were only 5 more hours before the lab closed, and I still had nearly 7 more hours of footage to interpret. If I played everything at 1.5 speed, I could finish in just under 5 hours, which would fulfill my deadline and scholarship requirements. That was absolutely the priority and since the scholarship covered my living fees and tuition.
But why would an empty wallet have only those numbers in it? And why was that stranger so convinced it was mine? He was roughly my age, maybe another grad student on campus or a TA. Whatever.
I shook the distraction from my thoughts and marked another few of Mouse 36’s (aka Termite) actions as erratic (04), burrowing (12), and persistent (22). Termite frequently burrowed with persistence and a bit of mania. Thus, his nickname. It wasn’t a real lab-sanctioned name for M36, but the crew had names for all the testing animals. Dr. Schol would hate it. It was all scientific professionalism for her. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t focus on the tedious data coding tasks without a little levity.
Bus route code? Was that it?
Jesus, let it go Syl. Code. Code. Code. We need to eat. Get it together, girl.
PO box? No, those don’t have letters.
I needed to get curiosity’s claws out of me before I was delinquent on my data batch and lose my funding over it. Schol kicked a data mule out last semester for not meeting deadlines promptly. “Requirements are not flexible for a reason,” she said, “falling behind schedule is publication suicide.” Then she delivered her preferred monologue, “Publication is relevance, relevance is funding, funding is academia”. I thought that overinflated the value of our study, but I wasn’t about to be the second data mule kicked out of the lab for slacking. Mama needs the money cuz mama’s gotta eat.
Ok, if I code at 2.0 speed, I can finish the remaining hours in 3.5 hours, and that could give me roughly 1.5 hours to figure out these weird ass number. First code, then Google.
Like the good food-motivated mammal that I am, I rewarded myself with a sour patch gummy after every 25 minutes coded, which equals 50 minutes of raw footage time. I was gambling with my accuracy, but could probably get away with it if I reviewed for errors before the lab meeting tomorrow morning. Self-bribery worked for the next 3 hours. I only had 20 minutes of speed coding to do before I earned my curiosity time. That was a risk as well, as the professional police severely frowned upon using lab resources for outside tasks, basic browser time or email included. If it wasn’t gonna get Schol published, it wasn’t applicable to “company time”. Not that we were really a “company”, more like minimum wage servants.
I pulled out the paper to study it again. The same numbers looked back at me. I turned it over, rubbed my fingers along the tooth of the paper and didn’t see anything unique. It must have been a random reminder from the original owner. Well, considering I “owned” the damn thing now, I was gonna figure out what it meant.
Ignoring the last few minutes of work I had to do, I turned to the internet. I searched the actual number string, then looked up any number common government uses for a 6-character number and letter strings. Some possible candidates included license plates in some states, luggage lockers and section routes for public transit systems, and unit numbers for government vehicles. It also could have referred to item numbers for glassware, some plumbing tool, an obscure opera album from the 60’s, or a color hex for camel brown. My favorite of all the search returns was the Bishop Museum’s listing for a wooden shark tooth weapon.
I probably shouldn’t have dismissed the random guy that gave me the thing in the first place. Maybe he could have given me some clues.
I turned back to the screen. Termite was still going at his manic burrowing, which at least made the codes easy. The recording was nearly done, and poor Term chilled on his tunneling. He was probably exhausted. Surprisingly, he managed to catch a second wind. He burrowed with a renewed vigor before collapsing. Dead. The leads on his little bald mouse chest showed that he had a mouse heart attack, probably from the strain. I’d probably be the one to dissect and confirm in the morning. Schol would want that info in the morning before we inventoried the state of our specimens.
It was nearing midnight now. The lab was technically closed, but I had until Gus the security guy came around in a couple minutes to kick me out. I always got the feeling ole Gus didn’t want to kick me out, but would make it sound like a father dismissing a child to get some rest for the next day.
Feeling a bit glum about the state of my social life and decisions that left me alone in a dark lab, coding M36’s death for the “sake of statistics”, I was even more irritated I hadn’t figured out what the number sequence meant. I put my head down on the desk. Exhausted from another sleep deprived night in the lab, with an expired can of soup waiting for me at home.
“Ms. Sylvia, it’s time to call it a night, dear.” I pulled my head up to Gus’ gruff voice. “Nothing to be done if you can’t keep your eyes open.”
“Yea, you’re probably right.” Gus left me to continue his rounds and I packed up my stuff, including the wallet and paper that plagued me all night.
Stepping out into the night, the air felt heavy, like the clouds would collapse at any moment. They were probably tired and lonely too.
Headlights zapped my attention back to the present. I was usually more alert than that. A generic black sedan pulled up, and the window rolled down. I kept a good distance away from the car, planning to outrun whoever was going to step out of the car. Even if they rushed me, I was far enough from the car’s door and another good couple yards that I had distance to dodge them.
“Did you look it up?” I didn’t see them, but the voice was familiar.
“Sorry, you’ve got the wrong person.” I called behind me while I hurried in the opposite direction. Not towards my apartment, I wasn’t an idiot, but towards a 24 hr pho shop a couple blocks down. Nina would let me hide. Us graveyard shift girls gotta stick together. Plus, she did pepper spray that one junkie a year back, so she may even be packing.
“Did you find it, Sylvia?” Surprise slowed my pace. How the fuck did this guy know my name? I kept on, not trying to get human trafficked. Making it to the shop, Nina only nodded as I sprinted passed people at tables, down the hall, through the door into kitchen and crouched behind the food window. I curled into myself under the window counter and struggled to fold my gangly limbs. My breaths thundered inside my own head. I may end up like Termite if I can’t get my heart rate to slow down.
About 5 or 500 minutes passed when I thought I was maybe in the clear. I started to extend out of my crouch, my knees stiff and screaming. I heard the bell above the door chime. Nina didn’t say anything. She would have greeted a new customer, or told a creep to “make like a tree and fuck off”. I tried to correct her about the idiom one time, but she insisted this version more effectively got her point across. Still nothing from Nina, but a controlled set of steps crossed the front of the restaurant and stopped just outside the swinging kitchen door. The sounds were uneven, like the guy had foot drop or some other neuropathy that left him walking heavier on one leg. I don’t know, I’m not a fucking doctor. In my mental rambling, I noticed too late that the sounds stopped. I dragged my attention down to the foot of the door. It was too dark to make out any boot outlines in the shadows. The owner never changed the hall’s last light bulb. I was stupid grateful that they also never upgraded the door to the clear version that let you see people coming. It would have been safer for the kitchen staff, but a death sentence for me.
I mentally started counting to 10,000, a trick my old therapist taught me when I started to panic.
1, 2, 3…nothing moved.
176, 177, 178…where the hell was Nina?
311, 312…something scratched across the floor and hit my sneaker. I sat for another few moments. Neither the thing by my shoe, or the thing in the hall had moved. Slow clomping steps exited the shop. I melted to the floor, and let some tears fall in my hands before I pulled myself together. I stood and stumbled around in the dim kitchen.
When had the kitchen emptied? Drew and Juan should been on the night shift. There had been 3 or 4 tables full when I came in. Looking around, the stoves were off, the prep stations immaculate. This place was certainly cleaner than I’d ever seen it, it was downright sterile. The line guys couldn’t even spell the word sterile. This was a place where you risked the food poisoning for the bomb food and cheap price. Like a Waffle House.
Halfway to the door, I remembered that something had hit my foot earlier. I turned back to see a file on the floor. And because I never learn my lesson, I picked it up and stuffed it in my backpack to examine back at my apartment…behind a heavily deadbolted door.
I pushed the kitchen door open, cursing the screech it made, and saw the empty hall. The silent hall. I creeped down into the front of the restaurant, to find it completely empty and most of the lights off. The chairs were upturned, disconcerting for a place that had been full of people an hour ago. Still no sign of Nina, I slunk towards the front door, head on a swivel in case a pair of chopsticks tried to make their home in my neck. I was clearly the only one here, and started to relax just as I made it to the door. Pushing the door open, I quickly closed it. It was too quiet. The bells should have rung. I’d just heard them when spooky horse guy left. I looked above the door. The bells were still there, but corroded. I gave them a test bop and no sound came out. A framed photo by the door showed a middle aged couple and their young son. The woman almost looked like Nina, but much older. Maybe a cousin or something.
Spooked and wigging out, I ran. Ran the five blocks to my shitty apartment. Crashed up the stairs and flung the contents of my bag for my keys. Slammed into the door and bolted it behind me.
I needed a drink, or a valium. Completely forgetting the numbers and file in my backpack, I chugged a glass of water and took one too many of my anxiety meds.
I collected my breathing and rummaged for that expired soup. I emptied it into a bowl and tossed it in the microwave. I didn’t have the pots or the patience to reheat things on the stove. I changed into some sweats and pulled the semi-warm soup into my lap. I brought the first spoonful to my mouth, when a heavy fist came to the door. The whole bowl clattered to the floor, broth splattering everywhere.
Two more heavy bangs rang through the apartment. I was frozen. I didn’t have friends. No one visited me.
Horse-foot had found me.
“Read the file, Sylvia.”
What file?
“The one in your bag, Sylvia. We’re running out of time.”
I really needed to stop thinking out loud.
I pulled the file out of my bag. It was brown, one of those standard office-type file folders. It looked beat up along the edges, the whole thing must have been bent and folded any which way, like it was shoved where it didn’t belong. B-07134 read along the tab. It was faded, but it was there. How old was this thing?
“about 20 years.”
I jumped. I forgot he was there.
I opened the file and found a handful of redacted documents, crumpled pictures, and a list of codes similar to the one I’d been given that day. My code was highlighted and circled; most of the others were crossed off. In the back of the file was a picture of kids in a line-up, unsmiling and dressed in uniform.
Only one face looked familiar. It was mine. On my uniform, read “B-07134”. I was B-07134.
I unlocked the deadbolts. I opened the door. I was face to face with Horse-foot.
“That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think? And insensitive.”
I didn’t say that out loud.
“No, you didn’t. But there isn’t time to dance through a conversation where we pretend I don’t know you’re watching your words.”
I stared at him. Horse-foot read my mind.
“We have to go.” I followed him downstairs to the same black sedan from outside the lab. I opened the door and slid into the back seat. The stranger who gave me the wallet watched me from the rearview mirror. His slow grin was the last thing I saw before the meds kicked in and I passed out.
M36 and I were the same after all.