The downstairs lab was big, but it looked cramped. There were tables and trolleys with equipment, syringes, IVs, opened file cabinets, and rats. Cage upon cage with naked rats. Simon’s stomach twisted painfully as he walked across the little room off the side of the abandoned tube tracks. He wanted to throw up and take a hot shower and change his shirt and call for Ralph forty-nine times. It reeked of blood and rodent urine and pain—yes, pain was the most prominent smell down here.
There was another door on the other side of the chamber that lead to what Simon supposed must have been an old cabinet of sorts or whatever rooms there were to be found in subway tunnels. It was locked. Simon shot it open. The smell was so much worse in there. He didn’t want to switch on the light, but he had t
