Chapter 10, people! This is a landmark, albeit a small one. Still, LANDMARK!

Creativity: I'm not sure 10 chapters warrants this much hype from you.

Author: Let me enjoy this or this bonus check I have is getting introduced to the paper shredder. Also, side note to guest reviewers. Look, positive or constructive, I really like communicating with people who drop reviews. However, that becomes incredibly difficult when you are, after all, guests. I won't begrudge anyone who doesn't feel like setting up an account, but again, me and, in my experience, many other writers like to communicate with people who like dropping a few words about our stories. And it becomes rather frustrating when you deny us that.

Okay, self-indulgent rant over. Here's chapter 10!

Grey was standing in front of a very large transparent wall. It was incredibly thick and durable. He had tested it himself and was shocked to find it held strong. That didn't stop him from flinching one of the cross-species he had captured two weeks ago, slammed headlong into the wall, screeching at him as it scrabbled at him with it's foreclaws. It been two weeks since he had dealt with them when they started attacking cities. Since then, Monarch had set up a sort of enclosure for them to try and figure out a way to help them. However, that had proven much more difficult than they had expected. The cross-species were still incredibly aggressive and difficult to subdue. The only one who had any luck was Grey, mainly because every time he went into the setup, he had to fight them, winning every time.

He had noted that they seemed to get less aggressive every time he went in. The scientists hypothesized that this was because he kept beating them, thus they were beginning to realize that picking fights with him just served to waste energy or worse, gain injuries. During one of the earlier times he went in, that particular time to help a researcher who had a malfunctioning stun gun, he ended up fracturing one of the cross-species ribs. That probably served as a lesson to give him a wide berth.

The more recent time, they actually managed to pin him, but he managed to escape by accidentally causing his arm to become his reptile claws. That certainly was a surprise for them as much as it was him. He left the enclosure with a few bruises and the largest of the cross-species had four scratches on it's chest, courtesy of his claws.

Since then, he had been able to transform from his elbow down into it's reptilian form, but it was very uncomfortable. His skin itched and his hand felt like a week-long growth spurt was being compressed into a few minutes.

His mind turned back to the cross-species. They were stalking around their enclosure, snarling at the barrier between him and them. Obviously, they didn't like him. Actually, they had demonstrated a deep dislike for everyone thus far. He didn't know what had been done to them to make them so vicious, or if anything had been done to them at all. For all he knew, he could be on the same path that led to these poor souls.

He shook those thoughts out of his head. He had to get back to Graham. She had claimed that she had developed a way to ensure he had enough radiation to survive, without having to spend the afternoon on the roof, soaking up as much UV rays as he could. He wove his way through the traffic of people, making his way to Graham's lab. When he entered, she was standing over a strange machine with several small spheres, about the size of chick peas, sitting on a circular dish inside a dome. The machine glowed blue for several moments before she turned to see Grey standing there.

"Ah, perfect! Come here, I want to show you something!"

She motioned to the spheres, which hadn't changed since she had activated the machine.

"Since it's much more time consuming to simply have you soak up ionizing radiation from the sun or go all the way down to the reactor and tap it directly from there, I developed a new method of delivery!"

She pressed a button, which caused the dome to lift free. She gingerly lifted up one of the spheres and handed it to Grey. Now that he was handling it, it felt slightly soft, like a jelly bean almost.

"I managed to develop a special, edible gel that can soak up ionizing radiation like you do, using the data we pulled from your bloodwork and absorption tests. Your body produces a special protein in your epidermis that acts like a sponge whenever it is exposed to ionizing radiation. I replicated the protein in this gel, which means that we can create radiation supplements for you and any other cross-species that requires radiation to survive."

He turned to Graham.

"You're positive I can eat this?"

Graham nodded.

"I tested the gel without radiation on several rats and mice a week ago. None of them show any signs of degrading health."

Grey looked at the gel capsule again before tossing it back. Within a few minutes, he felt the effects. He became much more awake and alert, just generally more energetic.

"Woah, that's the stuff! How many should I take?"

Graham pushed them into a special container and put them in a safe.

"I ran the calculations and you should take a maximum of three a day between 7:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. You can take multiple at a time, but maybe don't take three at once. Considering how you acted with that one, it might give you a radiation "crash", for lack of a better term."

Grey accepted the advice and turned to leave. Graham stopped him by grabbing his shoulder.

"I'll have a bottle of them ready for you by six tonight. I'd recommend doing some more training until then. How is the transformation going?"

"I have it down, so now I'm trying to do it faster. It's really unpleasant though. Oh, any news on getting any coherent words out of our guests?"

Graham sighed.

"Nothing yet. It's entirely probable that you're the only one who will be able to get through to them."

Grey nodded and left. He went down to the storage area where he helped out some of the workers by moving the larger, more heavier boxes. He kept doing this until six in the evening, when he left to pick up the radiation capsules from Graham and grab some dinner. Tonight's selection was clam chowder.

Grey sat down and enjoyed his meal, ignoring the few people who occasionally stole looks at him. He was used to it by now. After he finished his meal, he went back to his room and wrote in his journal before watching some of the local news. So far, there wasn't anything of note, at least to him. He had made a habit of checking social media and the normal news for anything related to cross-species. So far, nothing.

He had, however, discovered something he found rather interesting. When he looked into stories related to his clashes with the strange militia and the cross-species, he found a website that, at first glance, was a forum for conspiracy theorists. This time however, it was much closer to home. The forum contained a list of people from multiple countries that had begun mysteriously vanishing within a two-month time frame, starting back about a week before he was captured. In fact, he was on the list. It went on to state that someone with super-human abilities had been seen doing battle with armed forces and included videos for good measure. The actual conspiracy was that these people were some sort of invading force who were choosing now to strike and that the government was fighting back against the evil invaders! Grey found the last part mildly insulting, and resolved to clear up the mess when they could announce to the world what was happening.

His mind turned back to the television, but nothing had changed. He turned it off and drifted off to sleep.

It was one in the morning. Grey's eyes opened groggily. He got up and cracked his neck. He looked at the time and grumbled. He stood up and walked over to a water dispenser that was beside his desk. He had requested it since he required a greater intake of water and was occasionally woken up by it. He poured himself a cup and chugged it. He was about to go back to bed when he heard someone walk past his room.

The facility was always active, never shutting down as some experiments and processes had to be done at night, but no one ever passed through the sleeping quarters this late. He waited a few moments before opening his door and peering down the hall. It was dimly lit, but he could see someone heading towards the door on the other side of the hall. That doorway led to a section of the facility he hadn't explored yet, but he had been told led to the server room, where all the data collected on Kaiju, various experiments, and more recently, cross species was stored. He crept out of his room and followed them down the hall way, peering out the door, which had been left ever so slightly ajar. He peeked around the corner and saw them continuing down the hall. It was much more brightly lit and he could see the person clearly. It was a man, dressed in a lab coat with blond hair. Grey slipped out and after him, seeing that the man was heading to the server room. He followed him further before the man made his way inside. Grey followed him in and fought against having his teeth chatter. The room was kept very cold to prevent the servers from overheating and losing all the data. Grey watched as the man approached a specific file. Each one had a digital number assigned to it. Grey had been told that all that data pertaining to cross-species research was under the number 0001472698. Grey squinted at the number and resisted the urge to say anything. The number matched. The man reached into his pocket and withdrew what appeared to be some sort of flash drive while reaching a hand up to his ear.

"This is agent 269. I am under full encryption and have located the file. Preparing to collect data for transfer." The man said in a quiet voice. Grey had heard enough.

He leapt forward and grabbed the man, who had been too preoccupied by his task that he yelped in surprise when Grey seized him by the shoulder and threw him out of the room. He turned and charged back after him, cursing as the man withdrew a pistol with a silencer on it. He leapt into the air, almost touching the ceiling as the man shot twice, both of them going wide. Grey tackled him and slammed his arm down on the man's wrist, snapping it and causing him to drop the gun. He hauled the man to his feet and slammed him against the wall before punching him in the face, knocking him out. Grey dragged him back to his room and called Graham and told her to get security heading to his location. In the meantime, he tied him up with his sheets.

Security arrived swiftly and they immediately dragged him down to the cells and shook him down before throwing him in a set of clothes specifically for those detained by security forces and locked him up. Grey kept a glaring eye on the cell door. He was really looking forward to the interrogation. Finally, they could get something concrete on who was behind this nightmare.

"It seems that agent 269 has been captured sir. His transmission was cut and he hasn't responded to any calls since."

Yorburg pinched his nose, trying to keep from blowing his lid again. These failures just kept piling up! After all their near century of planning, one single anomalous test subject was going to bring everything crashing down?! Why hadn't he just dissected him when he had the chance?!

"Terminate the communications line and inform our other agents within Monarch to withdraw. We'll have to cut our losses on that count."

"Sir, one of the directors sent word to order an assassination on the test subject. Should we abort?"

Yorburg nodded.

"Now the boy will be on guard. Any attempt will end in failure."

Yorburg stood and left, heading back to his own private lab. Once alone, he walked over to an empty beaker and picked it up, examining it. He then bellowed in rage and threw across the lab. He then shoved more beakers, some full and some not onto the ground as well. He kicked over the table and bellowed again before stopping to look at the destruction he had wrought. He looked at his hands before balling them into fists. It was high time he took a more direct hand in cutting away this problem.

He strode out of his lab and marched to the larger lab. He pressed a few buttons on a keypad and three tubes emerged. He connected the tubes to a machine and emptied a quarter from each tube before returning them to their containers. A large grid containing three strands of DNA appeared on the monitor. He began tapping the keys quickly, inputting various lines of code and commands. As he did, the sections of DNA began snapping away from the three original and reconnecting into a single strand. The strands that weren't used vanished from the screen. He began inputting new commands at a feverish pace. A larger machine with a steel barrel began humming. Several lights illuminated and the machine shuddered. Finally, an orange liquid emptied into a transparent tube. Yorburg withdrew it and placed it in a case that emitted a chilled mist when opened. He'd want the best unused test subject he could find for this concoction.

However, he wasn't done yet. He walked over to the slab of mass they used for harvesting Godzilla's DNA. It was starting to… expire, for lack of a better term. It wasn't dying, but soon it wouldn't be usable for experimentation. At least, for what the directors wanted it for. However, Yorburg knew he could put it to a use.

Grey was absolutely livid. They had only gotten a few snippets of information out of the undercover agent before he broke a cyanide molar and died. All they had gotten out of him was that he worked for an organization that was looking to accelerate human evolution and that cross-species genetics was one of only a few ways they were trying to achieve that goal. He also revealed that it was the most successful program they had so far. Beyond that, however, they had nothing. The man killed himself before they could get any more out of him.

Grey had no idea why the man gave up as much as he did. He could have cracked that molar any time he wanted but instead answered a few questions before killing himself. On top of that, four members of staff had vanished. A janitor, a lead scientist, a member of security, and an aide. All evidence pointed to them also having been infiltrators who split as soon as one of their number had been found out.

Grey was currently working that frustration out by using the facility's gym. It didn't offer any equipment that would challenge him, but he did have a large number of punching bags. Several of them were already leaking out sand and he was probably about to break another. He snarled as he delivered one last punch and sent the bag flying across the room into the wall.

"We're going to run of those at this rate."

He turned to see Graham standing behind him. He shrugged and hung another one up.

"Sometimes you just need to hit something. Believe me, I'm actually feeling better than before."

"We ran an analysis on the communications device he was using before you captured him. What we were able to find out is that the device runs through a set of relays before going to the destination. We can't pin down the relays, but at least we know how they're communicating."

Grey nodded as he hit the bag with a few more punches before deciding to call it on busting the budget on exercise equipment.

"Anything else on tracking them down?"

Graham shook her head.

"No. Right now, I believe our only option is to let them come to us."

Grey nodded before walking off to the showers. Once he was done he changed into jeans and a T-shirt before heading down to get his dinner. He ate in his room today before writing in his journal and getting ready for bed when his phone started ringing. He answered it to hear Graham frantically telling him that one of the cross-species was loose! He dropped everything and scrambled out of the room, heading towards the enclosure. He could hear yelling up ahead. He snarled and his arms shifted into reptile mode. He dug his claws into a wall to make a tight turn and saw the escaped cross species ahead. It hissed when it saw him and backed up a bit. He snarled back and charged, claws spread for optimal damage. The cross-species leapt into the air to attack him, but he stopped dead and raised his arms, bringing them down in a hammer blow! The creature was thrown to the ground where Grey promptly smashed his fist into the back of it's head, knocking it out. He picked it up over his shoulder and marched back to the containment room to find that the door was open, but the others were unconscious. Grey could see darts in their sides, but not in any way visible to people peering through the transparent wall. They didn't have security cameras inside since the cross-species always destroyed them. He could also see one dart on the floor. He threw the bug-person back inside walked out, sealing the door behind him.

He marched up to Graham and informed her of what he suspected had happened.

"I think that one of the infiltrators put them to sleep with those dart guns and left the door open just enough for them to escape. We're lucky only one of them woke up and not all three."

Graham agreed with his assessment and they triple checked all the security measures around the enclosure before they went to the observation room. He watched them as they started to wake up and brush the darts off. They seemed to have mellowed out. They still snarled at him, but they weren't aggressively scratching at the barrier of glaring at him constantly.

"There has to be a way to get through to them." Grey muttered as we watched one of them start dozing, probably just sleeping off the rest of the drug's effects.

"I'm not sure you can. You yourself admitted that the process has had a psychological affect on you that you won't ever be rid of, what if this is just the way they are now? As much as I would like to help them, perhaps we just can't get to whoever's inside that body." Graham lamented. Then Grey had an idea. It was an incredibly stupid one, but an idea nonetheless.

"What if I can get through to the bug brain as well? If it's a mix of human and giant bug mind, maybe I can get through to both at the same time…"

Graham shook her head.

"That's an incredibly optimistic, if not foolhardy notion. How would you propose you go about that?"

Grey shook his head.

"I don't know. If there's a chance to get them to stop being so vicious and maybe help them sort themselves out, I have to do it. For myself as much as for them."

This was a fun one to write! I hope you all enjoyed!

Also, I have a little surprise coming up after chapter 16. I'll go into more detail later, but I felt like informing you now. Now run along my dear readers! I'll see you next week!

Creativity: Wait! You're forgetting something, aren't you?

Author: What would I be forgetting? We had the bit about guest reviewers, the chapter, the announcement of a surprise, what could we be forgetting?

Creativity: I don't know, I just feel like we're missing something…

Author: Oh right! You have that meeting with the other Creativity's to share ideas and compete in the creativity games, and I have to meet with budget manager in five minutes to discuss the acquisition of an improved idea refinement apparatus.

Creativity: Oh yeah! Wait… I'M LATE!