"Dear Lord, how is this possible?" George asked. The buzzing was all encompassing, there had to be at least fifty of those wasps. Kevin took the first tentative step into the Emissions Tower. His next few steps were labored and George soon found out why. The ground was sticky, not sticky enough to entrap them, but more like the floor of a movie theater, except worse.

In front of them was a large cargo elevator that led to the top of the tower. George couldn't fathom why the university needed this tower in the first place, but he had long given up on trying to understand the structural design of the city he had once thought he knew.

"Do you think they know we're here?" Cindy asked.

"I don't know. They don't seem to be doing anything about us right now." David replied. He quickly made his way to the elevator and stopped. "It looks like the hive is above us for the most part. So the only way forward is up."

"We have to move fast though whatever we're looking for is most likely in here. They're not just going to let us take it." Kevin warned. "Be ready to fight our way out."

David nodded and pressed the button to call the elevator. Nothing happened. He pressed it again. "Shit, it's not working."

"Maybe some of the lines got corroded because of this stuff." Yoko said, pointing at the wax-like material all over the floor and walls.

"Let me call Jim to see if the computer is saying anything is wrong." Cindy suggested. She took out the radio and spoke into it. "Jim, the elevator in the Emissions Tower isn't working, does the computer say anything is wrong?"

"Hold on, let me check on it." Jim said. He was silent for a few moments and then the radio crackled again. "It's saying something shorted the power in the Power Supply Room. You're going to have to go turn it back on before you can use the elevator."

"Wonderful." David moaned. He took out the map and scanned it quickly. "That's back down the ladder and through a Store Room, we passed right by it."

"This should be quick then." George tried to sound optimistic.

"Any idea what we have to do to turn the power back on, Jim?" Cindy asked.

"I'm looking it up now. I think it's just turning the switches back on though, kind of like a breaker in a house." Jim said. "Let me get back to you on the details in a bit though."

Without any more discussion, they made their way back through the door and down the ladder into the T-hallway below. The Store Room was just around the corner to the right. Kevin sidled up to the door and prepared to swing in as they had gotten used to doing. He grabbed the knob, twisted, and found the door locked.

"I wish I was surprised." Kevin said. "Any other way in?" He directed at David.

"I don't see any on the map." David answered.

Kevin examined the door, it was metal, and by design, looked to be fairly sturdy. Regardless, Kevin kicked the door near the knob where it should be weakest. Despite kicking it multiple times, Kevin's assault on the door was ineffective. As Kevin wheeled back to kick again, Yoko stopped him.

"Look." She said and pointed to the wall on their right. At the bottom of the wall was a very narrow opening. It looked like a ventilation shaft, but when George crouched down, he could see through to the other side.

"That's a pretty small opening, I don't know if we'll fit." George said.

"That's why we're not going." Cindy noted. "Yoko and I can fit easily enough. We'll just find a way around and unlock the door for the rest of you."

"I'm not comfortable with you going alone." George said.

"That's why Yoko is with me." Cindy arched an eyebrow as if to dare him to press the issue farther.

George opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. Cindy and Yoko were more than capable of handling themselves. Both of them had saved his life more than once throughout the night. "Be careful then." He said with a smile.

"Always." Cindy replied. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." Yoko said with a nod and followed Cindy through the hole in the wall. The hole was even too small to allow Cindy to move without difficulty, but they made it through to the other side and called back to reassure them that they were fine.

"I'm surprised you caved in that easily George." Kevin chided him. "If that was Alyssa I would have fought her tooth and nail to let me go instead."

"You mean like you fought her in the security room?" David chuckled.

"Well, I…that was different. You all needed me, and she has Mark and Jim."

George shrugged. "We're all different people than when we met earlier. I think Cindy can handle herself better than I can. Sometimes I wonder if I'd slow her down."

"From what I've seen, you haven't slowed down at all tonight. I think you'll be fine." Kevin laughed.

"Perhaps." George was unconvinced. His legs still hurt, his arms were tensing up, and he felt drained, both physically and emotionally. He shook his head, he probably just needed something to eat, he hadn't eaten in a few hours and he'd been running around for most of the night. As if realizing he had been thinking about food, George's stomach growled uproariously.

"I heard that." David said and rubbed his stomach. "I feel like I haven't eaten in days."

Days? It felt like George had been starving for months. His mouth was suddenly very wet. He needed something to eat. A hamburger would work great, thinking about that made his stomach ache even more, the red juice just dripping down his chin…

George took a deep breath and cast the image from his mind, thinking about food only made it worse, so he tried to think of anything else, but it was difficult. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long for a suitable distraction. A gun shot sounded from within the Store Room.

Cindy opened the door in front of them before they could say anything. "No need to worry, we cleared the room for you guys."

George smiled. Maybe even he couldn't slow her down.

The Supple Room was aptly named. Shelves enveloped the walls of the room, each laden with stacks of bound blank copy paper, pens, pencils, and other office supplies, as well as some maintenance supplies like light bulbs and various tools. Yoko was already trying the only other door in the room, but found it locked.

"There's another opening here, I'll go and unlock the door from the other side." She said and started through the hole before anyone could object.

"Why even lock the doors if there's always an opening right next to it?" Cindy wondered.

"There were probably grates on them sometime before tonight." George suggested.

"Maybe, but it's still a pretty big security flaw." Cindy shrugged.

"You must be the master thief they hadn't prepared for."

"I do look good in tights." Cindy smirked.

"I'll have to take your word for it."

"For now." Cindy said and started toward the door as Yoko opened it. "You coming?"

George could only nod and follow. The Power Supply Room was small. George stood in the doorway because the room was full with only Cindy, Yoko, and David. When Kevin saw how crowded it was, he told them that they could handle it and started looking around the room.

"Jim, we're in the Power Supply Room, any more news on resetting the power?" Cindy asked into the radio.

"I'm just finishing the last of the instructions. They are a bit complicated, but what I gather is that you just need to turn on all of the lights on a large panel. It should be in front of you there. Do you see it?"

The breaker took up the majority of the room, but as Jim had said in the middle of the breaker was a large panel with a grid of buttons. Only a few of the buttons were lit up.

"I see it, so I just have to push each of these buttons?" Cindy asked.

"It's not that simple. Each button turns on adjacent buttons in a plus pattern—it's a function of the circuit apparently. So each button will turn on at max four others. The tricky part is that if a button that is already lit up is turned on again it trips the circuit and turns that button off. Do you see what I'm saying?"

"So we have to turn them all on and if the plus pattern hits a button twice it will turn it off?"

"Pretty much, just try it out and see what I mean." Jim suggested.

David pressed one of the buttons and the button lit up, each of the buttons above, below, and to each side also lit up. He pressed the button to the right and not only did that button extinguish, but so did the button he had first pressed. "I think I get it."

He repeated the process backwards to reset the buttons and stroked his chin as he thought. "I can get this, but let me think on this for a little while.

George turned around to give David some space and saw that Kevin had disappeared.

"Kevin?" He called out. "Kevin?"

George walked over to the door and called out his name again. Cindy followed him to the door and called to Kevin with him.

"Over here!" Kevin screamed from around the corner, near the ladder. He was in a side room that they had passed by. "I just figured I'd look around while you all worked on the power. I figured I wouldn't be missed."

"I wish you would have said something." George softly scolded the man.

"Sorry about that, it was getting kind of hot in there, and I didn't mean to be gone for long, but I found this. Take a look." Kevin handed George a clipboard. There were notes pinned to the board. "It looks like these pricks made these giant wasps months ago. They needed a 'cheap vessel' to incubate something."

"It's a virus." George said, and suddenly understood. "That's why we need the venom. Regular wasp venom isn't potent enough, so they had to make a larger, more powerful version. Using wasps also means cooperation in the task. They could let the little workers do the job for them. What the hell was the point of this?"

"Someone created those things?" Cindy asked incredulously.

"According to this, they not only created them, they helped the development along as much as they could. They weeded out the weak so only the strong survived. It's unnatural selection on steroids." George tapped the paper as he spoke. He put it down on the table disgusted by it. Was Peter involved in this?

"George, was Peter…?" Cindy never finished her question because the lights suddenly turned on.

"We had better get back to the elevator."

David and Yoko were waiting for them outside of the Supply Room. "It took us longer than I would have liked, but we got it." David said.

"Let's just get this over with." George intoned. He climbed the ladder quickly and made his way through the access way into the Emissions Tower. If it was possible, the din of the beating wings was louder than last time. The room itself was only minutely brighter, but it was noticeable.

David tried the elevator again and this time it hummed to a start. The elevator began its slow descent.

"How is it so hot in here?" Kevin asked as he pulled his shirt away from his chest. "I'm sweating bullets."

"It feels fine to me." David said.

"How can you say that, it feel like a—" Kevin wasn't able to finish his sentence. He lurched forward and vomited. The liquid was mostly bile, but some of it was blood as well. Kevin swayed on his feet and started to fall. David was there to catch him.

"Damn it," David let out as he shifted Kevin in his arms. Kevin turned away from David and let out another, smaller bought of vomit. "What's wrong?"

"I was worried this would happen." George complained as he reached into his bag and brought out the spider venom. The elevator dinged and the door slid upward. "Get him onto the elevator."

David dragged Kevin onto the metal floor of the elevator and laid him down gently. Yoko turned to push the button for up when she screamed. One of the large wasps flew down in front of her and landed on the control panel.

"We don't need this right now." George growled. "David, Yoko, keep them off us, Cindy I need you to help me make the antidote."

David took his flamethrower out of his side pouch and started it up. He let out a long blast of fire and burned the wasp off the control panel. It fell off without any resistance, twitching and writhing as the flames consumed its body. Yoko slammed her palm across the up button. The elevator lurched to a start.

George took out a bottle of distilled water and began to work, mixing the venom in with some other ingredients from his bag. He worked quickly, but carefully. He'd read about making antidotes before, but never actually had to make one. It was tricky, and he only hoped that he would get the mixtures correct.

David and Yoko did their best to fight off the wasps as they found their way into the elevator. In only a few minutes, the floor was littered with the burning bodies of wasps. David's flamethrower was working as well as he had said it would.

George was finishing up the antidote when David cursed loudly. He looked up to see David shaking the can and then tossing it aside. David pulled out his pistol and started firing with Yoko at the wasps, but they were coming too fast. The noise of the wasps was growing louder and louder until it was a cacophonous mixture of wings and death cries.

Finally, George finished the antidote. Taking a syringe from the medical bag, George extracted the bluish liquid from the bottle he had used to mix it. He was readying the needle when he felt the wasp land on his back. George's eyes went wide and all he could do was look at Cindy in horror. She gasped and dropped the empty bottle she was holding.

George thought back to what he had said about the Epinephrine. He wondered if maybe he was mistaken, maybe there was enough if he injected it quick enough. He had never been allergic to wasps before, so maybe he didn't need as much as he had thought. Of course, he wasn't allergic, it would be fine. It would be fine.

There was a burning sensation and a dull kick on his back. Did it hurt? He couldn't tell. Other than the burning, he felt fine. Maybe the poison was working already.

"George, get back to work." Kevin muttered. His shotgun was still propped up against George's back.

George felt his back, some bits of the wasp remained, and there was a lot of blood, but none of it was his. He let out a breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. "Thanks. Now hold still, this might hurt."

The needle went into Kevin's neck smoothly enough, and Kevin did his best not to flinch, but George knew it had to be painful.

"How close are we to the top?" George asked Cindy. She checked while he finished tending to Kevin. Kevin's head was still hot, and his heart rate was still too high, but both were better than they had been when George had started.

"We're almost there." Cindy said.

"David, I'm going to be carrying Kevin, I need you to look for the venom." George brought Kevin up to a seated position and wrapped Kevin's arm around his shoulder. With Cindy's help, George pulled Kevin to his feet as the elevator came to a stop. The door slid upward showing a hive-covered walkway.

"David," Kevin said. "Take this." He held the shotgun out.

"Thanks."

"It'll work better than your shitty flamethrower." Kevin laughed out.

"It just might." David said and led them out of the elevator. "George, look up there."

David pointed to a door on a level above them. It looked clear of the hive's sticky structure.

"Looks good, meet us in there when you find the venom." George said. Yoko and Cindy walked in front of him with guns drawn, shooting at any wasps that got close. A few times George and Kevin had to shoot one or two down with their free hands. Climbing the stairs proved to be difficult for both George and Kevin. Kevin was still weak from the spider's venom and George's legs were still stiff from the virus.

"George you look like you're having as much trouble as I am. What's wrong?" Kevin asked as they struggled up the stairs.

"You're just heavier than I thought. I'm fine otherwise." George managed through gritted teeth.

"You look like you're ready to collapse, you need to rest." Kevin warned him.

"I'll rest when we're safely out of the city. Until then, I'm still able-bodied." George said, but when Kevin continued to look at him askance, he added. "When we get back to the security room, we'll both rest for a bit before going back out."

"I guess we really can't take too long if we're on a time limit." Kevin relented.

"That's all I'm saying." George lied.

Cindy opened the door for them and ushered the rest of them through the door. Yoko motioned for Cindy to go through without her.

"I'm going to go back for David, he might need help." She said.

"Okay, be careful." Cindy said with a nod and shut the door behind her.

They were in a room that had all of the accoutrements of a control room. There were panels with more buttons than George could guess, a single desk with papers strewn over the desktop, and one other door on the opposite side of the room. George put Kevin down in one of the chairs and tried the door, it was locked, but the lock was on his side, so George unlocked it. He opened the door into a familiar scene. The parking lot they had climbed out from the sewers into greeted him.

"Shit, that parking lot is out here, I think we might have to cross the bridge again." George said.

"The one with the sharks?" Cindy asked.

"Yes, and we left one of them alive, I doubt it will be easy to get across safely with Kevin like this." George paced as he spoke. "If we can carry him, we might be able to move quickly, it will be tough, but we might be able to do it."

"Hold on, we might not have to do any of that." Kevin moved some of the papers on the desk. "Jim was telling me that the door in that parking lot is locked with a card lock. Well," Kevin held up an I.D. badge, "I think the Dean of Natural Sciences might have access."

George took the badge from him and ran across the parking lot to the door Kevin was talking about. It was a large set of thick mahogany doors with a card reader to the right of the doorway. He slid the card through the reader and the light turned from red to green. George let out a sigh of relief and returned to the office.

"It worked." George handed the badge back to Kevin. "Nice find."

"It's not hard if you slow down every once and a while." Kevin arched his eyebrows and looked to Cindy.

George took the slight in silence. He knew Kevin was just worried about him, but if he knew how bad George really was, he would worry too much and George wouldn't be able to help out. He didn't want everyone to look at him like he was going to turn at any moment. Even though George was beginning to wonder that. Could he be trusted?

David and Yoko burst through the door before George could have any more time to follow that thought. Yoko turned around and slammed the door closed just in time to stop a wasp from coming in after them.

"Were any of you stung?" George asked.

"No, and I think I found what we're looking for." David held a vial out to George. There was a label on it that read: V-POISON. "There was a collection device almost completely covered by the hive."

"That seems like it's what we came for to me." George said and gave the vial to Yoko. "Would you mind holding this?"

Yoko took the vial and put it gently into her backpack.

"Hey, guys, where are you?" Jim asked.

Cindy took out the radio. "We just got the venom. We're coming back now."

"I don't want to alarm you, but you need to be careful on your way back. I just saw that 'Thanatos' monster that the crazy guy let loose walking around on the first floor. It's just wandering around for now, but things could get ugly real fast if you're not careful."

"I forgot about that damn thing." David said.

"Me too, we had more things to worry about." George added.

"Thanks for the info Jim, keep us up to date on where he is if you can." Cindy replied.

"Will do, just make it back here," Jim said and then added in a softer voice, "Alyssa is getting stir crazy. She's making me check up on you guys every two minutes. I didn't say that though. Hurry back!"

"We had better get this guy back to his lady love then." David said. "I'll carry him, why don't you take this George?"

David held the shotgun out to George, who took it gratefully. Kevin wasn't heavy per se, but his earlier point stood, George needed the rest.

"Come on Romeo, up and at 'em." David knelt down so Kevin could grab a hold of his shoulder. "Do we have a way back? I don't think we can take the route we came in from."

"We have one, just follow me." George said and led them across the parking lot to the large set of mahogany doors.

"For a second I thought we were going to have to go across that bridge again." David said.

"You can thank Kevin for that." George noted and opened the doors into a long industrial hallway.

Exposed piping ran along the ceiling on either side, following the corridor down and to the right. The walls had a hastily applied coat of gray paint that flaked off more than covered the wall. Just before the hallway turned was a sparking electrical box that seemed to control the electricity to a damaged wire around the corner.

George held up a hand as they approached the electrical box. The wire was sparking in time with the box, so George wondered if he could turn it off before they tried to pass it. The switches were flicked left and right randomly, but one was stuck in between the two settings. George flicked the switch to the right.

A brilliant explosion of electricity shot out of the wires and struck the floor below. Bits of plaster and cement shot up into the air and rained down pattering against the floor. The wires were dancing as electricity continued to shoot into the floor. George quickly flipped the switch to the left. Instantly, the electricity stopped and the wires ceased to move. George waved his hand to clear the haze of dust that billowed out of the hole.

"It's probably a good thing we turned that off." Cindy said.

"I think I agree with you on that." George laughed. He carefully made his way around the wires and then followed the hallway around to the left. At the end of the hallway was a single door.

"Jim, any idea where the Thanatos monster is?" Cindy asked into the radio.

"He was around the elevator room you have to head to, but he heard something, so I think you should be all clear now." Jim said.

"It's not us it heard, right?" David sounded worried.

"Let's not stick around to find out." Cindy suggested.

George opened the door and walked into another hallway, however, this hallway was the polar opposite of the one in which they had just been. Ornate wooden display shelves adorned the walls in evenly spaced intervals. Inside each were various trophies the university had won ranging from collegiate academic competitions to sports trophies. At the far end of the hallway, just before it turned to the right, was a marble bust of one of the university's past presidents proudly displayed with his painting above the bust. The walls were papered in a design that exuded sophistication and class.

"I remember this room." George said as they walked past the marble bust. "Peter took me here when he was showing me around the first time he got a job here."

"So you know where we're at then?" Cindy asked.

"Yes, the main hall should be just beyond the next room." George pointed to the door as it came into view around the corner. "I think that's a waiting room."

He was right, although unless Peter had told him it was a waiting room he would have never known it to be one. The room was almost identical to the last with the display cases and another bust, but the room formed a U shape. The narrow and enclosed shape of the room wasn't very conducive to waiting.

"This is a waiting room?" Yoko asked.

"I would have chosen another room too." George explained. As they followed the room around, George spotted a zombie waiting by the door to the main hall. He approached it carefully and dispatched it easily with one shot. He stepped around the body and reached for the door.

Nearby, the sound of an angry roar pierced the silence. It must have been the wiring that the monster had heard, it was only a few rooms away, and it just heard the gun shot.

"We have to go, now." Kevin said.

"It's coming for you!" Jim's voice called out from Cindy's side.

George pushed the shotgun into Cindy's hands and took Kevin's other arm around his shoulder. Cindy led them into the main hall. They sprinted as fast as Kevin could handle across the main hall toward the door with the elevator. As Cindy and Yoko reached the door, well before George, David, and Kevin, Thanatos burst through the waiting room door.

"Hurry!" Cindy screamed as she ushered them through the doorway. She slammed it shut behind them while Yoko ran to the elevator and jammed the call button.

"Come on, come on, COME ON!" Yoko chanted as she jumped up and down. The elevator dinged as the men passed the monitors Jim had used only half an hour ago. Yoko ran in and pressed the third floor button, holding one arm out to block the door sensors to keep the elevator open.

As the group piled into the elevator the door at the far end of the room exploded, sending large splinters of wood into the opposite wall and pushing the door frame out at an odd angle. Thanatos calmly stepped through the hole and surveyed the room. Its clawed fingers danced idly back-and-forth in the air as Thanatos looked at the now broken monitors.

Yoko jabbed the door close button as fast as she could. Thanatos soon tired of the monitors and turned to the elevator. The clawed fingers stopped dancing and instead stood at attention like soldiers at war. That roar they had heard only a minute ago sounded much more threatening up close as Thanatos let out a blood curdling scream.

The doors began the slow process of closing as Thanatos leapt into a run. Cindy pulled the shotgun up and squeezed off a shot, hitting Thanatos square in the chest. It fell to the side and grabbed at its exposed heart, slowing it down enough that the doors closed before it could reach them. The outer door reverberated with the sound of Thanatos' shoulder colliding against it.

The ascent was quiet and tense as they waited for the monster to somehow attack them, but it never came. Instead, the doors rolled open on the third floor and they somberly walked back into the security room. They had completed two of the three tasks, and George thought he should feel proud about that, but a realization had come to him on the elevator. The last ingredient was "Blood of the Beast," and after seeing that monster up close, and seeing its exposed heart, George knew from which beast they had to take the blood. The only question was how did they get it?