They entered the physics building using the side entrance and quickly found the stairs down. Marcus kept a half-step behind Kevin, always within easy reach. As they emerged in the long corridor that eventually ran to the underground parking lot, Kevin muttered, “Seems like I just left this place.”

“Probably because you just did. You really need to get more rest.”

Kevin favored him with a bleak look and headed down the corridor. “Funny. Very funny. Look, I don’t want you messing around in the lab. There’s a lot of valuable equipment there and frankly, I’d like to avoid having to put anything else back together this weekend. I plan on taking it easy the rest of the day and tomorrow.”

Marcus shrugged. “Okay by me. Once I have the disks, I’m gone.”

“Payment?”

“Well, there is that.”

“We still haven’t talked about how you’re going to pay me?”

Marcus looked amused. He snapped his fingers and on the palm of his hand, a red jewel appeared. The facets caught the dim light as he hefted it, flickering pale yellow on a deep red background. “A rather nice ruby. Should be worth a hundred thousand easy.”

Kevin regarded it jaundicedly, but didn’t reply. All of the stories he’d read as a kid about leprechauns and disappearing pots of gold came to mind. He affected a shrug and took it from Marcus, hefted it himself and then shoved it into his pants pocket. “Got any suggestions as to where I’d find a buyer? I don’t know a lot about gemstones.”

Marcus nodded. “I might. But it will …”

“…cost me. Why am I not surprised? I think I’ll just take a trip to New York City and see if I can’t figure out something myself. Save a bit of dough.”

Marcus grinned at him. Kevin had no illusions about the reality of the stone. It would probably last as long as he would, a length of time that right now, could be measured in minutes and seconds.

They’d reached the physics lab Kevin had in mind. It was two doors down from the electronics lab he’d actually used to retrieve the information from the hard disk, but connected by a back corridor that had an outside stairway and lift to allow heavy equipment and materials to be easily transported into the lab, often for repair. Kevin figured the outside door as a last ditch escape route if what he had in mind blew out. Which it probably would. He was rolling dice on a hunch.

He unlocked the door and walked in, flipping on the lights as he did. Kev also managed to switch on some circuits that had nothing to do with light but were essential to his idea. Marcus followed him, taking a quick look around before parking himself on top of a lab counter top.

The lab was stuffed with electronic equipment. Oscilloscopes, power supplies, transformers and banks of circuit boards were along one wall, supplies for various experiments that might be run by undergraduate or graduate students during the term. Kevin was unsurprised to see one lab bench still set up from the week, with an elaborate network of cabling running between two prototype circuit boards. An oscilloscope had been connected to one of the circuits, just the way he remembered it from earlier on Friday. He’d been helping with the class and they stumbled on a weird glitch that he and Tommy Parsons, the lab TA, had wanted to show the course professor. The two of them had simply left things set up for Monday.