The Universe's Mixer

Boyd had left the relative safety of the ER and ventured into other parts of the hospital. Which was to say that he ripped out the IV in his arm after the attending informed him that they knew he was a drug seeker and weren't going to do anything to help him out. Aside from informing the police. Then he'd turned the wrong way, gone through the wrong door, and instead of finding himself out in the night like he'd wanted to be, he'd found himself in a hallway.

A very clean hallway.

It wasn't Boyd's fault that he was an idiot or that he lost his sense of direction all the time. It was because he didn't have the drugs he needed. The drugs helped. They centered him. Made him feel things. He needed them to function. The doctors just didn't understand that.

So it couldn't really be blamed on him that he found himself standing near a door, on his way out (so he thought, it was roof access actually) when he heard voices. At first he thought they were in his head. Then he realized he wasn't smart enough to have voices like that inside. They used words that he didn't know the meaning of. Or how to pronounce. Boyd hid quickly out of sight, but somewhere he could still hear. Curiosity had gotten the best of him, and he wanted to know what the secretive tones were for.

His heart was beating so hard that he couldn't hear everything that they were saying.

".... found it? What do you mean? You couldn't..."

"Had to.... in order to complete the .... discovered the compound...."

"Remarkable... think it could be.... amazingly dangerous...."

"I have the.... see? It's also only ..... in the case of it .... and only if it falls into the wrong hands...."

"Wrong hands.... City dripping with...."

"Not like.... nobody is going to..... it's .... heroine or anything..."

Boyd's ears perked up at that. He became intensely more interested in what was going on. They'd said the magic word. Or one of them had. The drug of all drugs. The golden ticket. Far better than anything he'd put into his body thus far, that was for sure. He'd heard stories about it.

Just his luck, a nurse ran down the hall past him, right to the door. He heard her frantic voice inside now, too.

"Needed, right now!" She was much clearer. Probably because she was yelling.

"Stand right here." One of the male voices insisted as they both burst out from the room. "Don't move. Don't let anybody in."

Boyd's heart sank. He wasn't going to get his hands on it. He almost turned and left before his luck struck once more. The nurse cursed herself. Muttered something about Mr Ling's medication, then how she was sure she could get back before anybody even noticed. She took off, and that's when Boyd struck. He went through the door as fast as he could manage. The sight that greeted him was certainly nothing he'd expected. Two needles sat on the tray in the middle of the room. Both full. And a monkey. In a cage.

The monkey didn't look right somehow, but Boyd didn't care. His eyes were for the needles only. He picked one up and put it in his mouth, immediately working his veins so they would pop to the surface. The drug went in, and he felt none of the burning he'd expected to. After a moment, there was still nothing, so he picked up the second needle and did the same thing. Perhaps it was actually something, or perhaps it was just Boyd hoping for something, but he would have sworn to anybody that it was finally working.

Satisfied, Boyd dropped the needles. The monkey made a noise at him. He went to inspect the cage, sticking his fingers through to pet the thing. It turned on him, bit him. Almost bit one of his fingers off. Angrily, Boyd smacked the cage, not quite feeling the pain yet. It was time to leave. He'd gotten what he wanted, and gotten bitten by some monkey on top of it. That was what he'd call the end of his day. He needed to find a bed to sleep in so he could continue his search tomorrow. More drugs. More high. Never ending.

Boyd wasn't feeling too hot by the time he found his way back downstairs. He felt sick. Feverish. He felt cold, but knew he was sweating. The ER docs tried to stop him at first until the one who had worked on him told them he was just a junkie drug seeker. Then they let him go without a word. Boyd stumbled into the night, his wound throbbing now. Maybe he should have stopped to get it checked out.

He collapsed near the alley on the side of the hospital. Breath stopped. Heart stopped.

A woman ran over to him to see if he was okay. Boyd looked up at her. Grabbed the hand checking his pulse, and bit down.

Hannibal returned to his office after the emergency was over. Simon was not in tow, having had to go handle something else. He'd expected to find a nurse standing outside the door, which he did not. Already Hannibal had a feeling something bad had happened. Just from the door he could smell blood, and the monkey's agitation.

The scene was much worse when he went through the door.

He could see the blood on the monkey's face, he could see the two empty syringes on the floor. Spent of their contents. The smell of unwashed junkie flesh hung on the air, mixed in with everything else. Hannibal closed his eyes and inhaled. Got as much as he could from it. Trying to form some kind of mental picture.

He could only imagine that somebody off the street had gotten in here, mistaken what was in the business end of the needles, and injected themselves. Then, for whatever absolutely asinine reason, they'd tried to pet the monkey. The monkey had clearly bitten them.

And who knew what had happened then.

Whatever it was, somebody wandering around with the contents of the experiment running through their bloodstream, complete with a bite from the most diseased, cursed, monkey on the face of any universe, couldn't be good.

Not good at all.

Hannibal spied the box that held the cure. He grabbed it up and hid it in a locked cabinet. Then he was off to find Simon. He had to tell the other doctor about this. Even if they couldn't do anything just yet, Simon had to be ready. There was no telling.