“Nope! Nope! Nope! NOPE!” Adam yelled as he ran away from the pursuing three-headed beast.
As soon as the Cerberus had come into view, the group of people had scattered, leaving Adam standing there dumbstruck for only as long as it took for the beast to focus its attention on him. He briefly fumbled with his phone and called Lance’s number.
“Pick up! Pick up! Pick up!” he called out as he turned a corner and pushed through a door into a stairwell.
The dial tone sounded and continued to ring, but there was no answer. Adam was a few flights of stairs down when he heard the door above slam open into the wall and the creature snarled as it looked down the stairs. He continued running and tried twice more calling his friend with similar results, allowing it to go to voicemail the last time.
“Greetings,” started the recorded message. “I am unable to answer the phone right now, leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.”
After the tone, Adam panted out a message.
“Hey… buddy… hope you’re not too busy right now… I can use some HELP!” he shouted at the end when the Cerberus crashed down just behind where he had just been.
He bolted through the door ahead of him, now on ground level.
“Anyways… there’s a science project that decided to walk away from our mutual doctor friend and I may need some help cleaning it up… Call me back... PLEASE!”
He hung up and glanced over just in time to see the Cerberus squeeze its body through the narrow door frame and refocus back on him. People around him called out in fear and began to run away as the monster chased after Adam once more. He was turning a corner towards the main hall when his phone rang.
“So glad you could return my call!” Adam said with a tense exhale as he answered.
“Does the science project in question have three heads and a bad attitude?” Lance’s voice asked through the phone.
“Oh, how ever did you guess?” asked Adam.
“Intuition,” answered Lance dryly. “And the fact that there is another one on this end of the campus.”
“Wonderful… please tell me you have some gear stashed here somewhere?” Adam inquired as he reached the central hall of the university.
“Where’s the go-bag I gave you?” Lance asked.
Adam let out a nervous chuckle.
“What if I told you that I forgot it at home?”
There was a long pause, which Adam felt was a little too long as he could hear the sound of the beast chasing him getting closer.
“Get to the parking lot, meet me at my vehicle,” finally came the reply. “Try to lose the Cerberus if you can.”
Adam hung up just in time to have to start running once more as the creature came bounding towards him, its multiplied barking echoing around the hall. He spotted a fire extinguisher and hoped it would work well enough. He pulled it from its mount, primed it, and then shot a stream of foam in a circular motion from its hose to attempt to blind the dog-like creature. The Cerberus whined as it shook violently in reaction to the irritating foam, giving Adam a window of opportunity to run around the center of the hall and go back the way he came. For good measure, he pulled a fire alarm on his way down the hall he chose to go down, surprised no one else had done so already.
He finally made it outside where other people had already gathered and pushed through the crowd to move toward where he knew Lance usually parked. He spotted the blue SUV, its rear hatch open as its owner was already reaching for something inside.
“I had the feeling that a spare kit would be necessary,” Lance commented as Adam approached.
“Just in case.”
“You know me too well…” noted Adam as he received what looked like a gym bag made of neatly connected black squares.
“This is different…. I didn’t know we were hitting up the university gym with quilted duffles.”
“Just find a place to gear up,” Lance commented. “Inside is some basic equipment, and the bag itself is part of it. It opens up inside-out to become a protective vest.”
“Multifunctional,” said Adam. “That’s handy.”
“Just watch for cameras when you go choosing where to gear up,” Lance added as he closed the hatch of his vehicle and hefted his own bag. “Then let’s meet back up near the closest Cerberus.”
Attempting to remain as inconspicuous as possible, they split up to find different corners of the campus that seemed as concealed as possible in the broad daylight. Adam set down his bag and opened it to find a helmet similar to the one he typically wore. It was a slimmer design, likely with fewer bells and whistles than the other, but knowing Lance it would be functional. On either side of the helmet were a pair of gloved bracers with the familiar control and communications system, but these seemed to have slightly more bulk over the top of the hand and knuckles. There was a utility belt with a set of pouches he presumed had his special concoction of smoke screen and a flash bang, and one disassembled grapple gun. He set the items aside and found a set of zippers along the inside of the bag, which he slid along their paths, and, just as Lance had said, once the bag was turned inside out it resembled a vest.
“You're quite a crafty one, Lance,” Adam said under his breath as he geared up.
Once he was ready, he keyed up the HUD on his helmet and linked it to their private communications channel.
“I’m ready,” Adam stated. “Where to?”
“Get to the roof and work your way into the building from there,” Lance responded through their comms.
“We don’t have long before the local authorities show up and we can’t afford a run-in with them without our full gear.”
Adam used his grappler to scale up the side of the wing he was nearby and noted Lance’s location on his HUD map.
“Do you know where they’re at right now?” Adam asked as he headed towards the rooftop access.
“Or do we just follow the screams?”
“I left a trail for the one chasing me to follow as a diversion,” Lance said. “If anything, at least that one should be easy to find.”
“A trail to where?”
“The cafeteria,” Lance said.
“As much as they were clearly hunting us, I figured that no animal could resist the smell of food, especially what they cook up in those kitchens.”
Adam laughed in agreement.
“I know I can’t resist it!”
Adam ran through the halls, grateful to have some concealment to his identity as he rushed by several places he knew had security cameras. He reached a balcony that overlooked the main hall and used his grapple to drop himself to the floor. Checking Lance's location again, he noted that they were close to converging together and continued toward the cafeteria. He thought he heard a slight clicking sound from a room he passed along the way but didn't think much of it as it didn't seem threatening.
He reached the doors that lead to the cafeteria and cautiously peaked through the opening of the propped doors. Inside was a ravaged space, tables and chairs were strewn about from what he assumed was both a panicked crowd leaving as well as whatever damage the creatures may have done. Just as Lance had said, it seemed that the two Cerberus had found the abandoned cafeteria food more interesting than whatever they were sent here for.
“Hey, do we have any reason to think these things are any way, shape, or form of smart?” Adam asked in a hushed tone.
“Not beyond the basic intelligence of any normal dog scaled to the size of a small horse…” Lance replied over the comms.
“Did you have any specific ideas?”
“Not yet, I was mostly just wondering how they seemed to come looking for us specifically,” Adam stated. “I sprayed the one that was chasing me with a fire extinguisher.”
He thought for a moment.
“What if these are just like the mythological Cerberus?” Adam supposed.
“Considering that they’re technically not supposed to be real, I can’t assume anything is too crazy,” Lance replied.
“In mythology, Cerberus was tricked several times with food or music.”
“Did you read up on Greek mythology recently or something?” asked Adam with a light chuckle.
“No, but I have before,” Lance said, almost casually.
“Who wouldn’t want to read about gods, heroes, and monsters?”
“So… food and music…” Adam repeated.
“I suppose the first one is a sure-fire way to get their attention seeing as how they are at the library.”
“If you can direct them toward the main hall, I’ll cook something up to trap them,” said Lance.
“I passed one of the labs on my way and there might be something there.”
“Where are you anyway? Can you do something about the fire alarm?” asked Adam. “That ringing is starting to get a bit annoying and I don’t think the Cerberus will hear me for what I have in mind.”
There was a brief pause, then the alarms went silent though the lights still strobed through the halls.
“Done. I’m on the opposite side of your position in the hall,” Lance stated.
“Give me a few minutes and then get them moving.”
A timer popped up in Adam’s view with three minutes which immediately started counting down. He peeked around the corner again and saw that the two beasts still seemed to be feeding. He scanned the chaos of the cafeteria and spotted what he hoped for – an abandoned wireless speaker. He crept low, trying to keep his profile behind the scattered furniture. He glanced over a table to see one of the creatures’ heads perk up briefly, but the efforts of the remaining heads to consume the food in front of it kept it from turning far enough to notice Adam. He snatched the device and powered it on.
Unfortunately, the round device made a brief beeping sound when he paired it with his phone which he knew couldn’t be ignored. He looked over just in time to see one of the Cerberus had turned more in his direction and he had to make a split-second decision. He took a flash-bang from his belt, primed it, and lobbed it behind him with the hope of diverting their attention long enough to move. He almost felt sorry for the monsters as their multiple heads whined in pain from the burst of light and sound.
He tossed a smoke bomb over his shoulder to cover his movement and dashed back to the hall he had come from. Glancing at the timer, he saw that he had less than a minute left and hoped it was enough time.
“Ready or not, here they come…” mumbled Adam as he picked the first song on his device’s playlist.
“Let’s hope they like the King of Pop.”
A catchy pop song began playing and he turned the volume up as far as it would go as he turned down the hall and ran. He could hear the multiplied barks and growls of the Cerberus behind him, which he took as they were likely not too far behind.
“Hope you’ve got a giant newspaper or something for these things,” Adam called as he ran. “They don’t sound happy with my music preferences.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got something that will cool them down,” Lance replied over the comm.
The clacking of clawed paws started to get louder behind Adam as he was just reaching where the hall he was in intersected with the main hall. Ahead was a barricade of overturned metal lab tables and what looked like a tangle of tubes to large canisters. “Warning: Liquid Nitrogen” was plastered in a large blocky font on each tank. Next to them were what he assumed were several flash-bangs.
“Get past the tables,” Lance called to him from the other side.
“I’ll take care of the rest.”
Adam vaulted over the blockade and turned around as Lance stepped out from the side, hefting another table onto the pile with seeming little to no difficulty. The Cerberus were now visible down the hall and seemed to run harder when they saw Lance and Adam’s position. Right before they would have reached them, Lance pushed a button on his gauntlet. Flashes burst and deafening pops sounded in successive lines in front of the tables, the concussive grenades being set off. Both Cerberus cried in shock and pain from the disorienting bursts just as a huge cloud of fog suddenly materialized in the hall around the creatures.
Once the white cloud had seemed to settle, Lance and Adam cautiously approached the barricade to investigate. The creatures were covered in a layer of ice, each of their heads bearing the heaviest layers being closest to the origin of the nitrogen.
“I didn’t think pup-cicles were in season,” Adam joked.
Lance turned his head towards him and Adam presumed he was giving him a half amused look.
“Nice idea, to put them on ice,” Adam stated. “I can only guess at how much it took…”
“All of it…”
Lance rapped a knuckle on one of the three-foot-tall nitrogen tanks, a hollow metal sound clanged in response.
“All four of the lab’s 200-liter capacity tanks…”
For a moment, Adam only stared and blinked, dumbfounded.
“How did you get them to dump that much fluid at once?” he finally asked.
“Never mind even get them out here so quickly?”
He couldn’t see Lance’s face entirely but assumed his friend had a sly grin on his face.
“Trade secret I’m afraid,” Lance said with a shrug.
“Though the tanks did have dollies under them originally, so that is how I moved them into the hallway.”
Lance pulled two of the lab tables out of the way and then produced a pair of empty vials and a scalpel from his belt.
“I am going to take samples so we can study these newer iterations of Cerberus though.”
He carefully scraped at the body of the closest creature’s body, scooping the particles into the first test tube. He tapped on its back to test how solid the ice was and the frozen monster crumbled.
“I was not expecting that…” he commented.
“I almost thought they’d be stable.”
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