There were more speakers to come, Harry discovered much to his horror. The only plus side being that the longer the speeches rambled on the less time the band would have and the sooner he'd be able to escape, it was nearly 11.

He was surprised to see the student with the enormous earlobe piercings and something akin to a sabre tooth tiger teeth sticking out the back of his ears up on stage. He was listed in the summary as Sebastian Smythe. 'I bet his Dad is regretting all the money spent on his school fee's' thought Harry.

Sebastian didn't mince his words though, and to his credit he was a good speaker but Harry tuned out as soon as he went off on some diatribe against the authorities and the mismanagement of university money.

'It really is stiflingly hot in here now' thought Harry and looked round to see that the doors at the back of the hall had been closed and some of the waiters stood next to them. The doors at the front were the same. Harry had been uneasy all evening but now he was sure there was something wrong. He tried to attract Leo's attention but he was engrossed in a conversation with Janet.

He tuned back into the speech, it had moved on to the proposed building expansion plans and in particular the rebuilding of the animal house. Things suddenly started to slot into place. The scruffy students, weren't students at all, or not all of them anyway. They were radical animal rights activists. He'd read about their campaigns in both Oxford and Cambridge, Oxford had managed finally to rebuild their animal house, but the costs had become overwhelming in Cambridge due to all the disruption and the project had been canned.

Even allowing for the amount of alcohol consumed that evening, Harry could see that no one in the room was laughing now. Sebastian had announced that because there were heads of all the faculty departments present, a new proposal banning the development of the 'Animal Welfare Centre' as it was named, could be put forward and voted on. The appropriate quorum numbers had been met and it would just take the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and eight of the senior management team to sign the agreement.

"You can't get people to agree just like that to please you." someone shouted from near the back.

"Yes, I'm aware of that" Sebastian stated quietly "and so we have brought along some things to help eight of you to step forward and sign this document."

"We may well be here this evening to remember our innocent class mates that died earlier this year, but how many innocent animals are still slaughtered in this institution every day? Where are their memorial services? There are eight tables at the front, seating many of the people we need to see up here on the podium, we intend to conduct our own small experimentation on some of you at those tables and see how you like being the victims for once."

"This is lunacy," shouted another voice. "It's not like we're making puppies chain smoke here, we're not one of the big pharmaceutical companies, they are for the students, the animals are treated humanely and only used when absolutely neces.." He never finished his sentence but someone else at the table screamed.

"What did you do?" a woman's voice cried out.

"Anyone coming up to sign, or do we need some more experimental subjects?" Sebastian sneered.

Harry was up on his feet and looking towards the table where the scream had come from. Nikki grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back down to his seat.

"Harry, what are you doing? These guys are obviously maniacs, it can't possibly go on for long, someone will have phoned the police, sit down please." she begged.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Harry whispered. "They've blocked the exits and they've obviously managed to recruit waiting staff sympathetic to the cause. Look!"

Instead of collecting plates the waiters were now circling the front tables, as the one nearest them turned to face them he raised the syringe he was holding and pointed it directly at Harry. There was also one of the 'students' stood behind the Chancellor, and he too had a syringe.

"So, no one coming up to sign then" Sebastian taunted, "I guess our experiment can continue, shall we have our test subjects up near the front so we can all record the results and draw our own conclusions."

A couple of 'waiters' grabbed a man near them and hauled him up on stage, the man made a good attempt to punch one of the waiters, but that only led two more of the 'waiters' to pull his wife up out of her seat and at that he climbed meekly onto the stage.

"Harry" murmured Nikki, fear pricking her eyes.

"I know," he whispered back and squeezed her hand.

He was only distracted for an instant but it was long enough, he felt a sharp pain in his left arm and then an arm round his neck hauling him out of his seat and onto the stage.

"Ah, one of our gallant hero's" said Sebastian. Anyone else prepared to stand up and help the helpless?"

"Harry!" called Nikki again but even now she could see his eyes glazing and struggling to focus.

"What have you given them?" she screamed,

"What have you done?"