Peeps by Scott Westerfeld Page B

environment surrounding our descent into the earth. “So you think there are giant worms down there? I thought you guys in Records were a little more . . . factual.”
    “Yeah, well, we read a lot of weird stuff.” He pointed his pen at the edge of the level labeled Health Club, Lower. “This is what somebody should have noticed—and then filed a great big ST-57.” The pen tapped. “The excavation goes too deep for comfort; it’s only a few yards above part of the exhaust system for the PATH tunnel. Any variation from these plans, and they’re connected.”
    “Connected to what?”
    “You ever seen those big exhaust towers by the river? The fans are about eighty feet across, sucking air all day. Bad.”
    “Air is bad?”
    “They’re pumping oxygen down there!” Chip shook his head, tossed the pen disgustedly down onto the plans. “That’s like pouring fertilizer on your weeds. Lack of oxygen is the growth-limiting factor in a subterranean biome!”
    “Ah, so things are growing. But those ‘explosions’ in Jersey were a hundred and twenty years ago, after all. We’re just talking rats these days, right?”
    “Probably,” Chip said.
    “Probably. Wonderful.” Standing there in the gloom, I realized that Chip and I were underground right now, tons of bricks and mortar piled up over our heads. The squeaking ceiling fan labored to bring oxygen down to us; without the flickering fluorescents it would be too dark even for my peep eyes to see. Down here was hostile territory—a place for corpses and worms, and the bigger things that ate the worms, and the bigger things that ate them. . . .
    “But our guys at the PATH say that there are a few places under the exhaust towers that their workers have abandoned,” Chip added. “They aren’t officially condemned, but nobody goes down there anymore.”
    “Great. And how close is that to Morgan’s building?”
    “Not far. A couple hundred yards?”
    My nose wrinkled, as if a bad smell had wafted into the cubicle. Why couldn’t I have just lost my virginity the normal way? No vampiric infections, no subterranean menaces. “Okay, so what’s the best way for me to get down there?”
    “Through the front door.” Chip ran a finger across the building plans, pointing out a set of symbols. “They’ve got major security all over the joint; cameras everywhere, especially in the lower levels.”
    “Crap.”
    “I thought you had an inside line. That girl you mentioned in your 1158-S, the one who lives there now? Tell her you want to check out the basement.”
    “She had an attitude problem. I’d rather break in. I’m good with locks.”
    Chip raised an eyebrow.
    “Or a Sanitation badge,” I flailed. “Maybe a Health Inspector of Health Clubs?”
    “What happened between you and her?”
    “Nothing!”
    “You can tell me, Kid.”
    I groaned, but Chip fixed me with his big brown eyes. “Look, it’s just that she . . . We had this . . . ” My voice fell. “There was a Superhuman Revelation Incident, sort of.”
    “There was?” Chip frowned. “Have you filed an SRI-27/45?”
    “No, I haven’t filed an SRI-27/45. It’s not like she saw me climbing up a wall or anything. All I did was sort of . . . lift her up, and only for a second.”
    “And?”
    “And swing her from one balcony to another. Otherwise we were going to get caught breaking and entering. Just entering, I mean—nothing was broken.” I decided not to get into the Grand Theft Blender issue. “Look, Chip, all I need are some traps and a Pest Control badge. Catch a few rats, let the Doctor test their blood, see if we’ve got a running reservoir. First things first. No big deal.”
    Chip nodded slowly, then looked down and continued detailing the lower depths of the Hoboken PATH tunnel, letting his expression say it all.
     
    “Pretty late, isn’t it?”
    “Tell me about it,” I grunted at the doorman, willing him not to look too closely at my face. He was the same guy from that