The Stories You Write at 9:00 O'clock...

An all together unusual thing happened last Friday. Bea and I were out scouring the hotel lobby, far later than anyone should be in a hotel lobby, looking for the last remnant of Professor Que's puzzle. Careful to leave no stone un-turned, I tossed away every throw pillow and looked under very vase and novelty sculpture. "Donna, I found something!" Bea exclaimed while running over from the far side of the room. Envelopes, three of them to be exact, were hidden in a light fixture hanging over one of the restaurant's booths. Fingering them for a moment, I opened the first one gingerly. "Greeting!" it started, "How your lives are going to change after tonight! I honor you with being at the center of its destruction." Just as I suspected, Professor Que can't help being poetically morbid. "Kindly open the other other envelopes before continuing." Leaving the opened envelope in Bea's hands I open the other two envelopes, each only containing a slip of paper with strange symbols on each. "Mandarin- each paper contains a phrase that will bring about the end of the world." Nothing like the end of the world written in Mandarin to calm your nerves. "Openly proclaim my intentions to the world- and my cryptic Mandarin text- and the world will end with your words. Privately hide them away, and you can kiss your loved ones goodbye- the only thing you have been seeking this whole quest." Que was a madman, and we both knew that he was capable of both of his threats. Realistically, Que could have the catalytic to the world's demise. "So what we do now?" "Translating the Mandarin sounds like a good place to start." Unfolding the paper, I pulled out my phone to type in the Mandarin phrases. Visibly shaking, I read the first phrase out loud. "Weaver Spider- how is that dangerous?"

"Xcarpath..."

"Yeah... what does it mean, Donna?"

"Zenith Rising- it's a company that makes Xcarpath... what if Que tampered with it and wants to turn it against the world?"