Grouchy the monkey was hungry. The lady who came with the food every day had not come to put it in his bowl. First two strangers had come in and he had yelled at them, and then the lady came in after them, but she did not feed him, she only made loud noises at the two strangers and there was a terrific standoff and then more loud noises and a bright light and she had fallen asleep on the ground, and hadn't woken up to put food in his dish.
The strangers did not seem to want to give him food, so he had gone to sleep, till a very loud noise woke him up and big heavy men came in covered in black, and he had screamed and screamed till they left too without giving him any food.
One of the men came back inside, though, and went into the dark room that hissed and stank. When he came out the monkey could smell death on him. He had walked awkwardly to the other end of the room, spreading the death-scent to the lady on the ground and then to two men outside.
Grouchy was not hungry enough to want food from hands that smelled so bad, so he had gone into a corner of the cage and begun grooming himself. Outside, the four people wandered aimlessly around the room, quiet until they walked into each other, and then they bit or scratched rather lifelessly till one or both fell over and they started wandering all over again.
There was a patter of feet, and Grouchy and all four humans looked up. A figure in a white coat was coming down the steps.
"Hello?" she called. "Anyone down here?"
Grouchy screamed. The humans moved towards the exit. The footsteps grew louder.
"Are you okay?! Is someone hurt?"
Grouchy screamed again, and so did the monkey underneath him and the monkey behind him. One of the dogs barked.
"What's going—AAAAAAH!"
"Mmmawww . . ." They moaned and threw themselves out the door. Grouchy heard something behind him and turned to see more humans, all rank, emerging from the dark room. He tugged at his tail anxiously and wondered if there was food where they were going.
Barkhoff extended his arm gingerly for the technician to bind it and tried to think about something pleasant. Somehow it was difficult putting his mind at ease between having his blood drawn and the threat of everything he had worked for over the past decade shattering before his eyes.
He picked his key up out of his lap, having set it down for the procedure, and called Captain Warsaw. "Have you found the third man yet?"
"No. We believe he may be one of the Hecatians Kreshner was keeping in the basement, which would mean he isn't wearing a key. Do you want us to lock down the hospital?"
"No. Find him yourself! Or tell the local authorities he's a madman with some latent form of rhixis and that they should shoot him on sight once he's out of the hospital. I don't know! But you're not to cause a scene in the hospital. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
". . . You're not to cause a scene in the hospital. Is that understood?" crackled the key on the table.
"Yes, sir."
The Doctor flipped the screwdriver in the air. "HA!"
Camelia sighed as he disengaged the audio link. "Seriously, how can they not know by now that you stole one of their keys? . . . And what are you so happy about?"
"I'm happy because we have a way to get to Barkhoff."
"What are you thinking?" asked Berin.
"Barkhoff doesn't want us causing a scene. What better place to hide than a stage? We'll just go back to the waiting room and reroute from there. We can't stay in here forever."
"We can't?" said Camelia drily. "And after the waiting room, we just leave? Come back another day?"
"Nope! The waiting room is between here and the elevators leading up to the tower. It'd be one step closer to getting to the heart of the problem."
"This is ridiculous. Half our trouble in the first place came from going downstairs when we wanted to go upstairs."
"Hang on, we did find out what rhixis is. That's a start."
She just shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Well, lead the way, boss. Don't get us killed or anything."