It was only after he had left the room that he realized how stupidly and impulsively he had acted. He had had the Researcher wrapped around his little finger; he probably could have convinced her of anything. In fact she had been in the middle of ordering the Lab Rat to free Lucky and Luna when he had grabbed the remote away from her. If he had had a bit more patience, and hadn't tensed up at the sight of the Lab Rat...

  On the other hand, he wasn't sure how much longer he would have been able to hold off the Researcher's advances. She had obviously wanted to get intimate with him, and Stu had no desire to start making out with a zombie, even a gorgeous one like Natasha Valois.

  Well, there was nothing he could do about it now. He had made his choice; now he was going to have to live with it.

  He ran through the hospital's long corridors, using his enhanced speed to rush past the patrolling robots. One of them, alerted to his presence, started blaring a siren, and this quickly spread to every other robot in the hospital; they must have been linked together via Wi-Fi or something. Ignoring them as best he could, he made his way back down to the utility room -- the same room where the Lab Rat had captured him earlier -- and quickly switched off all the circuit breakers in the electrical panel. This plunged the room into darkness, forcing Stu to feel his way out -- he no longer had his flashlight, and his Night Vision skill wouldn't be available again for another twenty hours or so.

  Finally, though, he found his way out of the room, and after a few minutes of fumbling around in the dark, he eventually made it back to the room where his friends were being held.

  By a strange coincidence, he burst into the room at almost the exact same moment that the infected man -- the man sharing the cage with Lucky and Luna -- rose to his feet, fully zombified. Lucky was backing away from him; Luna had Stu's Midnighter up and aimed. A second later, she fired, hitting him in the head, causing him to collapse in a gruesome spray of blood and brains.

  "I hate having to do that," Luna muttered.

  "Are you two all right?" Stu asked.

  "Yeah," Lucky said, "but where the hell have you been?"

  "I ran into some trouble. Stand back, I'll get you out of there."

  Using his superior strength, he ripped the edge of the cage out of the wall to which it was attached, allowing a space for Lucky and Luna to squeeze out. Luna handed him his Midnighter.

  "I waited until the last possible second," she explained, gesturing to the zombie she had just killed. "I didn't want this Researcher to know I had a gun. What's that noise?"

  She was referring to the robots; their sirens were going off all over the hospital. "The robots," Stu said grimly. "They spotted me."

  "What's the plan?" Lucky asked.

  Stu wasn't sure. Should they try to escape through the morgue? That seemed like the quickest and easiest route out of the hospital, but without electricity it was sure to be pitch black down there, and they didn't have any flashlights, lamps, or torches.

  And even if they escaped the hospital...what then? The streets of Heart's Glow were still full of zombies, robots, and drones, and they still hadn't found the dynamo fluid they needed to get them out of town.

  He was pondering this when the lights suddenly flickered back to life. A moment later they heard a crackling noise, and a voice came on over the hospital's PA system.

  "You've made a very big mistake, Stuart," the Researcher said, her voice echoing eerily through the building.

  Stu winced. How had she managed to get away from the Lab Rat? But she conveniently explained it a second later: "When you turned off the power, you reset the grub module system. Please, Stu. I realize you were frightened, but..." She trailed off, as though she were choking up, then said, "You're in terrible danger now. He's coming for you. The safest thing for you to do would be to come back upstairs. Please, Stu. Please."

  She sounded terribly desperate. Lucky and Luna, picking up on the weirdly intimate way in which she was referring to him, both turned to look at him. "Is she crazy or something?" Lucky asked. "She sounds like she's in love with you."

  "Maybe she is," he muttered. "Let's get the hell out of here, before the Lab Rat shows up."

  They left the room and proceeded through the hospital's hallways. Stu had decided that the morgue was their best bet; unlike the front and rear entrances, it was probably still unguarded. He led the way with the Midnighter, while Lucky carried Excalibur. "What about our weapons?" Lucky asked at one point. "What about my railgun?"

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  "We don't know where she might have hidden them," Stu said. "And we don't have time to go looking. Sorry, Lucky." He knew the kid was attached to that railgun.

  "Where are we going?" Luna asked.

  "Through the morgue. That's how I got in. Except..." He stopped there, because they had just turned a corner and discovered, to Stu's dismay, a small army of robots blocking their path. There were at least a dozen of them, all lined up in the hallway, and all were carrying guns. Their sirens were screaming, and their heads were flashing red and blue lights.

  "I don't think we can go this way," Lucky whispered, peeking around the corner. "Is there another way out?"

  "The front entrance is crawling with zombies and robots," Stu whispered back. "Maybe the rear entrance? We might find Millie back there, too."

  "Millie?"

  "The girl who helped me sneak in." He paused. "I promised to take her with us when we leave Heart's Glow."

  "You what?"

  But there was no time to discuss it; another robot was just coming around the corner. "Let's try the rear exit," Stu said, and they turned around, retreating back into the hospital's confusing corridors. Fortunately there were a handful of exit signs still hanging from the ceiling, at various intersections; they were able to follow these to the rear entrance.

  Before they could make it there, though, they were spotted by a pair of robots, who surprised them by suddenly emerging from a darkened room, to their right. Stu reacted instinctively, shooting one of them in the head. If it had been a zombie, it would have dropped instantly, but the bullet merely glanced off the robot's shiny dome. It aimed its gun at them -- it was carrying another old rifle -- but Stu somehow managed to grab the barrel and rip it out of the robot's hands before it could fire. Without its gun, it stood there stupidly for a second, as though it couldn't figure out what to do next.

  Lucky, meanwhile, took on the other robot, leaping forward and striking it with Excalibur. The bat knocked the rifle to one side just as it opened fire; the bullet buried itself in the wall. Another blow shattered its delicate fingers, and a third caved in its faceless head.

  Stu destroyed the first robot by kicking it in the chest, sending it flying back into the darkened room it had just wandered out of. He handed the robot's rifle to Luna, while Lucky retrieved the other one. Now that both of them were properly equipped with firearms, Stu put away his Midnighter and had Lucky return Excalibur. He had never been that good with guns, and with his greater strength and speed a melee weapon was probably the better option for him at close range.

  This encounter with the robots had alerted the other robots in the hospital to their whereabouts; they could hear their sirens getting closer. "This way!" Stu said, and they continued on; a moment later they found the rear entrance. The doors had been electronically locked, but a couple of blows from Excalibur broke them down, and with that, they were outside.

  There were perhaps six or seven robots guarding this entrance, along with about a dozen zombies -- most of them, according to Stu's ICON system, were Level 2's and Level 3's. The robots, already aware of them, immediately opened fire, forcing them to dive for cover behind a junked-out minivan that had been parked nearby. Stu heard Lucky yelp.

  "Are you hit?" Stu asked urgently, over the sound of gunfire.

  "Yeah," he said, grimacing. He rolled his sleeve up, revealing a bloodied forearm. Fortunately the bullet had only grazed him.

  "We don't have time to treat it now," Luna said grimly. "Tie it up."

  The kid took the bandana off his neck and used it as a tourniquet, wrapping and tying it around his arm. Stu was impressed with how coolly he was handling the situation -- the injury must have been very painful, but he merely grit his teeth and got on with it.

  Luna now took a position on the other side of the minivan and started sniping at the robots, most of whom were manning the makeshift barricade that had been built up around the back entrance. She took out one, then two, then three, reducing their numbers by half -- the robots were too stupid to try to find cover themselves -- but now the zombies were closing in on them as well, snarling and stumbling towards them. Stu, not wanting to expose himself to the gunfire, waited for the zombies to come to them; as soon as they turned the corner around the front of the minivan he smashed their skulls with Excalibur.

  Level 2 Zombie defeated!

  Level 3 Zombie defeated!

  They couldn't allow themselves to get pinned down here. There were too many zombies, too many robots. The Researcher had an army of these damn things.

  But then he suddenly remembered the remote control he had used to stop the Lab Rat, which was still in his pocket. He had reset the grub system when he had turned off the power, but it was still possible that he could use this remote to control the grub modules in the zombies' brains, just as the Researcher did. Pulling it out of his pocket, he aimed it at the next zombie to approach him -- a Level 1 -- hit the button, and ordered it to stop.

  It stopped. It spat and snarled at him, showing off its bloody teeth, but it stopped.

  He grinned at this development. But was the zombie capable of understanding more sophisticated orders? He put it to the test: "Attack that robot over there," he told it, pointing at the robot he wanted eliminated. It was one of those shooting at them from the barricades.

  The zombie gave him one more defiant snarl, then turned around and started for the robot Stu had indicated. The robots had apparently been programmed to ignore the zombies, for this one made no effort to defend itself; the zombie simply walked up to it and tackled it to the ground. Luna finished off the last robot with a well-placed shot to the head, and with that, the shooting stopped; all that remained were the zombies.

  "Let's run for it," Luna suggested. Stu nodded -- this was their best chance to get away -- and the three of them, together, made a break for it.

  They hadn't gone more than ten feet, however, when they suddenly heard the sound of shattering glass, coming from above them. Stu started to turn his head in that direction, to look up, to see what had happened, but a split-second later they heard an even louder sound: that of a huge, heavy something crashing into the roof of the minivan. What the hell was that? Stu looked up...

  And groaned. It was the Lab Rat. The Researcher's monstrous creation had just exploded out of a hospital window and landed on the minivan, his weight practically caving it in. But he was unharmed; in fact he had landed on his feet. Slowly, he raised his head to look at them, his red eyes glowing ominously.

  Oh, shit.