Chapter 76: 76 Important Finds

Surprisingly, the group of loudly talking girls with a single guy in the middle didn't get a lot of attention, either on or off the campus grounds, even being in the large group that they were. They entered the restaurant and the man behind the counter laughed at their appearance in the restaurant. He did not appear to be Chinese or even Asian, which was odd for a Chinese restaurant.

“You're lucky we have large party booths over there.” He said and pointed to the side of the room.

“Great!” A few of the girls said loudly and immediately walked over there.

“I'll bring the menus over in a minute.” The man said and the rest of the girls guided Arnold over to the booth and had him sit in the middle, then they sat around him. They didn't even argue about who was allowed to sit beside him, because they didn't want him to think that they were that petty. The menus were delivered and the man took their drink orders. It was mostly diet soda and a few glasses of water and Arnold asked for root beer. The man was back five minutes later with a tray of drinks then left and came back with another tray and served them all.

“I'll give you a few minutes to decide what you want to eat.” The man said and walked away.

The girls all talked loudly about all the good things on the menu and about what they wanted. By the time the man came back, they had all decided and placed their orders. Arnold ordered the rice and chicken ball platter and the man left to fill their orders.

The food was served and they all ate and talked about... well, everything. Arnold didn't try to follow along with the six different conversations going on around him, or wonder how there could be six conversations with only eight people. He ate his food and answered questions when they asked him. They all finished eating and pushed their plates away to show that they were done.

“This place really is great.” The first girl said and reached over the girl between her and Arnold to put her hand on his. “Thank you for showing us where it is.”

Arnold nodded and the man behind the counter came over with the check.

“Here you go, fella.” The man chuckled and handed it to Arnold. “Don't die of shock when you see it.”

Arnold opened the little folder and saw the total. It wasn't that much more than when he had taken his friends out after prom. He took out his wallet and counted out the bills that were just over the right amount, put them in the folder, and handed it back.

Not much of a tipper on such a big order. The man said and then his eyes widened as Arnold held out forty dollars to him. “Thanks, fella. Thanks a lot.” He said and accepted the generous tip.

The girls around him were stunned. Completely and utterly stunned. They had essentially forced Arnold to bring them along while he had lunch and they had fully intended to pay for their own meals. Now they were at a loss for words because he had paid for everything. He didn't ask them to split the check or to even pitch in on it, and it rendered them all speechless.

“You ladies and gentleman have yourselves a great day!” The man that served them said and bowed.

The girls took the cue to leave and they all shuffled out of the booth towards the door and Arnold followed them.

“WAIT!” The man said and they all stopped just before opening the door. “I almost forgot to give you your fortune cookies!” He laughed and went behind the counter and grabbed several handfuls of them, much more than the nine people in front of him, and put them in a paper bag. “Here you go.” He said and walked over to Arnold and gave him the bag. “Hand those out later.”

Arnold nodded and they all left the restaurant. The girls stayed quiet for the entire walk back to the dorm building and Arnold led them inside. He walked over to Doris and opened the paper bag.

“Fortune cookies.” Arnold said and Doris reached in and took one of them.

“Thank you.” Doris said and Arnold walked over to the elevator and pushed the button. It opened immediately and he and the eight girls with him stepped inside. Doris opened the fortune cookie and read it. Be wary of those around you. She read silently and watched the doors to the elevator close. Yes, but who? She asked herself and ate the cookie.

The elevator went right up to the top floor and Arnold stepped out first and held the open bag for them.

“Thank you for lunch.” The first girl said sincerely and with a slightly red face as she reached into the bag and took a fortune cookie, then each girl stepped out of the elevator in turn and took a fortune cookie and thanked him, too.

The other girls in the hallway were surprised by this, since it was odd to thank someone like that when all you did was go along. When the last girl passed, Arnold counted the cookies left and went to each girl that hadn't been able to go and let them take one as well. Some thanked him and others just took it, since they had missed out on the meal and were upset about it. Even Janet took one and she apologized again for what she said.

Arnold didn't respond and went to Emily's door. She sat on the chair by her desk and looked like she was doing homework. She still wore the same strapless bra and high hip panties, too. He knocked on her door frame and she startled slightly and looked up.

“There's two fortune cookies left.” Arnold said and held the bag out to her.

“Wh-what?” Emily put her pen down and walked over to him. “I can have one?”

Arnold nodded and she reached in and took one.

“You didn't have to do this.” Emily said. “Thank you.”

Arnold nodded and turned to his door, opened it, and stepped into his dorm room and left it open.

Emily watched him get changed back into shorts and he took off the open shirt, then she looked down at the plastic-wrapped cookie in her hands. She opened the plastic wrap and cracked the cookie open to read the fortune.

Perseverance is a virtue. Emily read silently and then she smiled.

The girl that had asked him to watch television that morning didn't come over to ask him again, so Arnold sat down at his computer and looked up specimens for the next two hours. Thanks to Kelly's prompting, he searched specifically for three dimensional specimens, since that was what he truly wanted to see. There were not a lot of them on the internet, not in the detail that Arnold had expected or in a format that he had access to or could convert them to.

The ones floating in jars were just static images that he had seen hundreds of times before. Almost none of them had the option to pull out the insides, because the insides were static images as well. This reminded Arnold of what his mother had said about him being frustrated about the lack of things he wanted on the internet and he agreed with her.

With none of the available three dimensional specimens at the level of detail his orderly mind required, he decided that he had to make one. All he needed was a model to duplicate. He immediately thought of the biology lab's storage and all of the specimens there, then realized that he didn't want to model another person's specimen and wanted to model his own.

Arnold knew that the biology department only ordered the specimens that they needed and never more than that, which meant they didn't have any spares at the moment for him to use. That was why he hadn't been able to prepare any of his own specimens. His sudden presence in the lab hadn't been factored into the ordering schedule that had been set well before he accepted the job. That meant only one thing could be done.

Arnold needed to hunt.

He quickly put on his jeans, dug his backpack out of his closet with his things in it, and left the dorm room after locking the door. He received several subdued greetings and returned them, and none of them asked him where he was going. He didn't take the elevator this time, though. He almost ran down the stairs and then stopped at the bottom of the stairs on the ground floor.

Arnold peeked out to see Doris as she sat behind her desk and stared out at the lobby and the people in it. The front door opened and a pair of girls came into the lobby and Arnold recognized them.

“MAAAAAA!” Cissily yelled and opened her arms wide as she trotted over to the front desk.

“Stop making a ruckus!” Doris said halfheartedly and accepted the exaggerated hug with a laugh, because she loved her daughter and let her get away with everything.

“Hi, Doris.” Amy said and walked over at a normal pace and handed her a large brown paper bag. “We got you the special at the pizza place.”

“Wait, what?” Doris looked at her and at her daughter. “How in the world did you two get up early enough to go out to the pizza place?”

“Ma, we weren't that drunk last night!” Cissily said.

“I remember leaving this morning and seeing the three of you passed out on the couch!” Doris said and Cissily and Amy laughed.

“It's because of Arnold's mother.” Amy said.

“Wh-what?” Doris asked, surprised.

“She told us the trick to not being hung over!” Cissily said loudly. “Keep drinking!”

“That's odd advice for an older woman to give college students.” Doris said.

Amy laughed again. “She said to have another drink to stop the withdrawal symptoms, actually.”

“That's what I said!” Cissily said. “Ma, I love you.” She said and kissed her mother's cheek.

“I see somebody didn't stop at just one.” Doris said and turned around to help Cissily sit down at her desk, which just so happened to turn her away from seeing the lobby. By the time she turned back around, Arnold had already left the building.

“I think you better eat some of this, too.” Doris said and opened the bag to take out the spaghetti and meatball special and handed her daughter a plastic fork. “Dig in.”

“Thanks, Ma.” Cissily said as she successfully speared a meatball and shoved it into her mouth.

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*

The first thing Arnold did was go right to the building that housed the maintenance department. Unlike a normal school with only one or two janitors, a college had a whole staff to clean the place. Since it was the weekend, they were out in force in all the areas that were normally not accessible because of the students, mainly the hallways and bathrooms of the main buildings.

“Hello.” The woman at the desk just inside the door said when Arnold entered. “Are you here to report a mess?”

“No.” Arnold said. “I work in the biology department and I need to talk to the people in charge of vermin removal.”

The woman visibly shivered. “You're going to want to see Carlos. He is all the way over in building M.” She said and picked up a walkie-talkie, changed the channel, and pushed the talk button. “Hey, Carlos. What are you doing?” She asked and let the button go.

“Dammit, woman!” Carlos said. “You made me miss my shot!”

“Ugh. Disgusting.” She said and then pushed the button. “I've got a guy here from the biology department that wants to talk to you.”

“I'm busy. Tell him to come back later.”

“I can go meet him.” Arnold said and she nodded.

“He says he'll come over to you.”

“Oh. Well, tell him to go to the rear of M and open its grey back door.” Carlos said with a chuckle.

“You know, you don't have to try and make me uncomfortable every single time I talk to you.”

Carlos laughed. “It's fun seeing you squirm.” He said and clicked off.

The woman changed the channel and put the walkie-talkie down. “You can't see me.” She said and looked around for a second, then sighed in relief. “There's a small maintenance door at the back of building M. It leads to the basement and Carlos is down there somewhere. Be careful.”

Arnold nodded and left the office, then he jogged all the way across the campus to building M. It was a huge expansive building and on the front it had the large 'M' painted on it and the sign 'Liberal Arts'. He jogged around to the back of it and searched for a grey door. It didn't take him long to find it and it wasn't locked. He went inside and down the small flight of stairs to the basement.

It was full of all the things a building would have in the basement. There were heating ducts, water and sewage pipes, electrical wires, and grey paint covered everything. Luckily for Arnold, Carlos wasn't trying to be quiet at all as he worked.

“Get back here, you stinking rat!” Carlos nearly yelled and there was a sound of something sparking and then a squeal. “HA HA! Got you, you little bastard!”

Arnold followed the sounds and easily found a dark haired man wearing a pair of janitor overalls. He was stuffing a large and still twitching rat into a large sack.

“I'll finish you off later, my pretty! Hahahaha!” Carlos cackled, almost maniacally, then he saw Arnold. “Oh, hey there.” Carlos said in a normal voice. “I'm just carrying on.”

Arnold looked at the bag and back at his face.

“I'm entertaining myself by pretending to be an evil villain and I'm rounding up victims to dispose of later.” Carlos said and waved a hand at the basement walls. “There's not a lot down here to keep a mind occupied, you know?” He laughed and pat a long stick on his hip. “Stunning them is pretty fun, too.”

Arnold looked and saw the stick had a trigger and the end was a two pronged fork.

“It's a cattle prod.” Carlos said. “It won't do much against people except give them a nice shock and make them jump. Against rats and mice? It's like magic.” He said. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

Arnold pointed to his bag.

“You have a rat problem in the biology department?” Carlos asked.

“No. I want that rat for a specimen.” Arnold said to his surprise.

“You do realize they are disgusting and full of diseases, right?” Carlos asked.

“It'll be properly treated before it's dissected.” Arnold said.

“I don't know if I should hand a dangerous creature over.”

“Did you catch anything else?” Arnold asked and he shook his head. “I won't have any specimens to work on until the new orders go in next month for the fall semester, then it'll be another month for them to come in.”

“Yeah, specimens don't just grow on trees. They have to be caught.” Carlos said. “I'm still not comfortable just handing it over... so... how about a trade?”

“Of what?” Arnold asked.

“How about an hour or two of helping me track these things down?” Carlos asked. “Help me find how they are getting in, and any rats you catch you can keep.”

“Do you have another cattle prod?” Arnold asked and opened his backpack, then took out a thick canvas sack that was similar to the one Carlos held.

“Ha, you've done this before.” Carlos said when he saw the bag. “I guess you would be used to catching them if you can't afford to buy them.”

Arnold nodded.

“I'll let you take point, then.” Carlos said and held up the cattle prod. “I'll show you how to work this first and we can get started.”

Arnold listened and learned how to work it, then it was handed to him and he started to hunt. He was surprised by how much easier it was to use a cattle prod to reach his targets and shock them. He was going to have to check their insides and see if anything was damaged from the shock, just in case; but, other than that concern, over the next hour, Arnold hunted down half a dozen rats and stuffed them into his bag.

Carlos had been a little surprised at the young man who had taken to hunting rats with a cattle prod like he had been doing it all his life. It would have taken him two to three times as long to get as many, and he had been doing it for years. After another half an hour of not finding another rat, they stumbled upon what Carlos thought was the source of their problems. They found a small broken drain pipe that was still attached to the sewer and hadn't been repaired.

Carlos clicked his walkie-talkie, waited for a second, and spoke. “This is Carlos. I'm still in the Building M basement and I'm pretty sure I found the source of our rat problem.”

“Thank god!” A woman's voice said, full of relief.

“We need a sewer pipe repaired in grid six. I'll wrap it in tape to cover the hole for now.”

“That's great. I'll let Jerry know!”

Carlos hooked the walkie-talkie back to his belt. “Let's work our way back around the other side of the basement and see if we can scrounge up some more specimens for you.”

“Okay.” Arnold said and they did just that. They found three more rats and no other possible entryways for them, so they went back to the stairs to leave.

“Hey, Carlos.” Jerry said as he came down the stairs with a big bag of tools, a length of sewer pipe, and a plastic bag of supplies. “Who's the new kid?”

“We worked all this time and I didn't even get your name.” Carlos said with a laugh.

“Arnold.” Arnold said and handed the cattle prod back.

“Hi, Arnold.” Carlos said. “This is Jerry.”

“Hey, kid.” Jerry said. “Carlos, you better come with me. If any of them nasty things try to jump at me while I'm working...”

Carlos laughed. “Not a problem, Jerry. I got your back.” He said. “See ya, Arnold.”

Arnold nodded and left the basement with a bag full of specimens.

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