Episode 8: The 40th Floor
This one starts with that sweetheart, Sally Stukowski, using the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory doorknob (which she stole last episode) to torture Theodora Stanton, one of the Warehouse Regents. The pain is too much and Theodora tells Stukowski everything she wants to know. Stukowski thanks her by using the doorknob to immolate Theodora. At the Warehouse, Artie tells the others that four Regents have suffered suspicious deaths lately and mentions Theodora’s disappearance. Claudia says every dead (or missing) Regent has some connection to Stukowski,
under a variety of aliases. Pete figures it’s time to ask Stukowski a few questions. They head for Atlanta, where Pete and Steve confront Stukowski and ask her point-blank what happened to Theodora. Stukowski plays innocent, using her FBI status to pretend like they’re on the same side. But she soon shows her true colours, smashing Pete in the head with a bottle and busting her cell phone before taking off. Myka’s waiting outside and zaps her with a Tesla gun. Stukowski’s partner in crime, Marcus Diamond, is watching from a nearby car and drives away … but not before Pete sees him.
They find the doorknob in Stukowski’s purse and bag it, but Stukowski says it’s too late; her plan is already in motion. Claudia finds the intact SIM card from Stukowski’s busted cell and Artie says there are ways of getting info 
from people. Stukowski figures they’ll get rough, but Artie says they don’t use torture. He puts her hand on Henry Stanley’s map and it shows all the locations that she considers important. One of them stands out from the rest, a big office building in downtown Atlanta. They go to check it out, but are turned away by security in the lobby. Even Artie showing some NSA credentials can’t get them in. Artie realizes something’s going on when he notices the guards are packing fancy .45 autos … not the usual rent-a-cop hardware. He says if they were Stukowski’s men, they’d have started shooting already, so something else is going on.
They pretend to leave, but Claudia tosses a Tesla grenade into the lobby, taking out the two guards. Artie finds an Eye of Horus tattoo on one guard
and a card that mentions Suite 4013. He and Myka head upstairs while Pete and Claudia check the video to see what Stukowski was up to. Back at the bar where Stukowski was captured, Steve has her tied up. She tries to tell him the Regents aren’t really the good guys, but Mrs. Frederick shows up and Stukowski clams up. At the building, Pete and Claudia find video of Stukowski and some guy coming in earlier dressed as painters. Artie tells them to trace the guy and find out what they were doing there. Claudia cracks Stukowski’s SIM card and finds the most frequently called number, quickly tracing it to another location in Atlanta.
Upstairs, Artie and Myka find Suite 4013 and are startled to be greeted by Kosan, the head Regent. He introduces them to two other Regents, Philip 
Petrov and a woman named Jane. (Jane doesn’t give her last name, for reasons that’ll become clear later.) Three Regents together makes a hell of a target and when Myka and Artie mention Stukowski’s earlier infiltration of the building, the Regents’ security head (Jackson) says it’s time to move. Jackson is already pissed off when he finds out two of his men were neutralized downstairs and he clashes with Myka over whether to take the elevator or the stairs. Jackson wins that argument, but soon wishes he hadn’t.
Before the elevator gets too far, the emergency brakes come on and the power goes out. Myka checks through the trap door and sees tendrils of energy creeping down the shaft; the energy has already dissolved the cables
and is eating away at the emergency brakes. Myka uses Wells’s grapple gun (which Jane notes isn’t standard Warehouse issue) to anchor the elevator long enough to pry the doors open and bail out. Myka gets out just before the elevator plunges down the shaft. Artie looks up the shaft and sees the energy tendrils are spreading from an Anarchy symbol spray-painted in the shaft. He realizes Stukowski must’ve used some kind of paint-based artifact that’s dissolving the building around them.
At the bar, Mrs. Frederick can’t get any helpful info from Stukowski (although she does get her to drop her phony Southern accent). Mrs. 
Frederick says pain is a better motivator than fear, but Stukowski still won’t talk. Pete and Claudia track Stukowski’s associate (a mercenary named Aquino) to a bank where he’s transferring money to an offshore account. Pete gets some people out of the bank, but Aquino notices him coming and uses the manager as a shield. Aquino spray paints the manager’s back, setting his jacket on fire. While Pete’s putting it out, Aquino takes off, escaping in a car he had parked across the street.
In the building, they split up to check both sets of stairs. Jane goes with Myka (over Jackson’s objections) and tells Myka she’s quite familiar with her and Pete’s exploits. They find the stairwell is compromised, with energy tendrils dissolving the stairs from the eleventh floor up. Artie says the same
thing is happening in the other stairwell. Petrov suggests they head up to the roof. When they get there, Kosan calls for a helicopter to come get them, but Artie figures they got up to the roof too easily. He sees the reflection of their building in the one across the street and notes another Anarchy symbol spray-painted at the base of their building. The entire structure is dissolving upward, and since the chopper won’t arrive for half an hour, Artie figures they’re screwed.
He calls Pete and Claudia and when they mention what happened with Aquino, he tells them to get the spray can and bag it … which will hopefully stop the building dissolving. At the bar, Mrs. Frederick hears from Kosan 
and decides to step up her interrogation of Stukowski. She uses Shiro Ishii’s medal (Ishii was the commander of unit 731, the biological warfare research centre the Japanese ran in China during WW II.) to simulate drowning … basically, it’s the ultimate form of waterboarding. Claudia and Pete track Aquino with traffic cams and realize he’s heading for an airport to grab a private flight out of the country. Claudia taps into Aquino’s GPS to redirect him so they have a chance to catch up. Do criminals really use GPS when they’re making an escape? I guess everyone else does these days, so why not them too?
Mrs. Frederick keeps torturing Stukowski, which Steve really doesn’t like. He tries to get her to stop (mentioning how unreliable torture is), but she says she’ll do whatever it takes to stop more Regents’ deaths. While they’re
arguing, Stukowski uses her ring to slice at the duct tape binding her hands. On the building, Artie notices a window-washing platform near the fifteenth floor and figures if they can get down there, it might get them safely to the ground. Jackson isn’t enthusiastic, but Myka gives him shit and he finally agrees. Jane says Myka’s a natural leader, but Myka isn’t so sure. Jane says they all were called by the Warehouse to serve, even when they weren’t ready; the fact that they all heeded the call means Destiny was at work.
But Destiny can be a bitch at times; partway down the stairwell, the stairs 
below start dissolving, with Jane and Jackson almost falling to their deaths. Myka pulls Jane up and tries to help Jackson, but the energy infects him and he lets go to save Myka, imploring her to make sure Petrov is safe. With his snotty attitude and constant arguing, I was wondering if Jackson was working for Stukowski. But I guess he was just trying to be a good security guard, even if he was kind of an asshole. Myka’s not happy about Jackson’s sacrifice, but Jane says they aren’t out of Dodge yet, so she better cowboy up.
At the bar, Mrs. Frederick’s torture finally gets Stukowski to admit the spray paint has something to do with the Berlin Wall, but she says she doesn’t know how to reverse the effects. When Mrs. Frederick keeps up the torture,
Steve finally has enough and pulls his gun on her, telling her to stop because actions have consequences and acting like scumbags will come back to bite them in the ass. Stukowski works her hands free, smashes them with the chair, and takes off. Obviously, Mrs. Frederick isn’t too happy with Steve. Mrs. Frederick calls Pete and Claudia and they figure out the Berlin Wall connection must have something to do with the Anarchy symbol the East Germans used to festoon the Wall with. Mrs. Frederick says more than the fate of the agents is at stake so they’d better get the paint can fast.
Claudia herds Aquino into a blind alley and Pete tries to get him to surrender. But Aquino figures the guy behind the whole scheme will kill him 
if he talks, so he sprays the paint into his own mouth and dissolves. Pete bags the paint, but that doesn’t stop the degradation of the building. Myka figures maybe they need to be closer, so Pete and Claudia head for the building. As Artie and Kosan open a window a couple floors above the window-washing platform, the ceiling starts caving in. Kosan gets clunked on the head and Petrov is pinned under some cement that’s rapidly dissolving. They can’t touch the cement to get it off him and we finally find out why Petrov is so important: he’s the Guardian of the Warehouse and wears a special armband called the Remati Shackle.
The Shackle is the last line of defense for the Warehouse in case of attack (although we’re not told how it works) and now that Petrov is about to die, he transfers the Shackle to Jane, making her the new Guardian. Petrov
dissolves and Artie uses Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pick-Up-Sticks to make a ladder down to the window-washing platform. Jane is shaken by Petrov’s death, but Myka tells her to cowboy up. Artie and Kosan make it to the platform, but without power the platform can’t ascend. The energy reaches the floor they were on, dissolving the ladder and stranding Jane and Myka. Artie and Kosan head down to the ground, leaving Myka and Jane to find another way out.
Kosan tells Artie that if Jane dies while wearing the bracelet, the Warehouse 
could be in grave trouble. Inside, Jane figures they can pull a Die Hard and use the fire hoses to rappel down the elevator shafts, two floors at a time. Myka’s not fond of heights, but they don’t really have much choice. Pete and Claudia show up and Artie says using the spray paint to overwrite Stukowski’s symbol might reverse the effects, especially since it seems to be triggered by intense emotion. Pete’s pretty worked up, so he sprays a Peace symbol over the Anarchy symbol.
Inside, Myka and Jane make it to the bottom of the shaft, followed closely by the deadly energy tendrils. When they pry the door open, the way out is blocked with rubble. Jane was hoping for a Butch and Sundance moment,
but Myka says it’s more like Thelma and Louise. Outside, Pete’s paint job sends freezing tendrils up the building, neutralizing the dissolving action all through the structure. When Myka and Jane see the dissolving stop, Myka knows Pete had something to do with it. Elsewhere in Atlanta, Stukowski reports to her boss, the guy in the wheelchair; we’ve seen glimpses of him before, but we still don’t get to see his face, just hear his voice.
Stukowski reports that Mrs. Frederick isn’t afraid to cross the line, but Steve 
might be a weak link. Her boss thanks her by having Diamond jab a needle in her neck, killing her with a drug that mimics a heart defect. So much for Sally Stukowski. Back at the building, Pete is very glad to see Myka is okay … as in, more than just worried about his partner. Artie says Aquino was hired by a fake-sounding company called A-to-Z and obviously the Shackle was the target. Mrs. Frederick says they need to find out who’s behind A-to-Z and hit them hard. Steve tells Claudia he pulled his gun on Mrs. Frederick and she fired him. Claudia offers to talk to her, but Steve says he can’t be part of the Warehouse anymore so this is goodbye. Myka introduces Pete to Jane and we find out why her last name was kept secret … it’s Lattimer. Yup, she’s Pete’s mom. We’ll have to wait until next episode to follow up on that cliffhanger.