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damned_institute2013-11-18 12:46 am
redcladidealist) wrote in damned_institute2013-11-18 12:46 am
Night 73: Janitor's Closet (Third Floor)
[From here.]
Caught in mid-step when the warp pad flared to life, Lloyd stumbled once it had finished transporting him, his outstretched hand closing around empty air. Panic spiked even higher, worse than the realization that they'd been trapped. He whirled back around - there was Castiel.
Where was Kratos?!
"Dad!" Barely even registering the clean, organized janitor's room (such a sharp contrast to the last janitor's closet he'd been in) or the neatly stacked shelves and cleaning supplies, Lloyd lunged straight back to the pad. He might have still been lightheaded. He didn't care. Kratos wasn't here, which meant-
Strong arms caught him, jerking him to a stop before he could step foot back on the pad. "Lloyd, think!" Castiel snapped. "We can't go back to that room, or we're dead."
If that was supposed to convince Lloyd to give up, it failed miserably. The teen struggled against the older man's grip. "But Kratos is still back there! We can't just leave him!"
"Neither would he want us to return and die for his sake." Castiel's response came swift and sharp. "He'll be fine. He can take care of himself."
Caught in mid-step when the warp pad flared to life, Lloyd stumbled once it had finished transporting him, his outstretched hand closing around empty air. Panic spiked even higher, worse than the realization that they'd been trapped. He whirled back around - there was Castiel.
Where was Kratos?!
"Dad!" Barely even registering the clean, organized janitor's room (such a sharp contrast to the last janitor's closet he'd been in) or the neatly stacked shelves and cleaning supplies, Lloyd lunged straight back to the pad. He might have still been lightheaded. He didn't care. Kratos wasn't here, which meant-
Strong arms caught him, jerking him to a stop before he could step foot back on the pad. "Lloyd, think!" Castiel snapped. "We can't go back to that room, or we're dead."
If that was supposed to convince Lloyd to give up, it failed miserably. The teen struggled against the older man's grip. "But Kratos is still back there! We can't just leave him!"
"Neither would he want us to return and die for his sake." Castiel's response came swift and sharp. "He'll be fine. He can take care of himself."
no subject
The dark room and its irregular, struggling pulses of light whirled away in a sudden violet flash.
When his surroundings settled again, he lurched off of the pad, nauseated. The purple glow on this side was regular and strong, and as such, he didn't need to use his flashlight to see where he had ended up: the row of carefully organized mops and brooms told him that he was in one of the Institute's endless maintenance supply closets. This one seemed very well kept in comparison to the one he and Edgar had looted together.
He had been staring into Lana's face when it happened, hadn't he? It was the last thing he remembered in the dark chamber, after he had turned away from the hideous thing on the other side of the window, and he had known that if things continued to go badly, her face might be the last thing he would ever see.
She was so quiet now--no immediate expressions of relief. He turned to find her again, and understood. She hadn't come with him.
He didn't know enough about the technology to have any real comprehension of how it had happened, but maybe she had stepped off the pad just as it had generated sufficient power to function as intended, or maybe it had never generated enough power to transport both of them. At best, they had been separated, and she had been sent to some other safe place, but at worst, she had been left behind, trapped by herself in the strobing darkness of the small metal chamber, staring down an unimaginable fate.
He had come to trust her a little, but there was nothing he could do for her now. Trying to get back to the chamber didn't seem feasible: if he went via the pad, he might end up trapped there again himself. The door out of this area had already been broken open, but there was no way of telling where it was in relation to the lab except maybe to creep along with his ear to the wall, listening for a woman's scream. That could take much longer than Lana would have.
Or he could wait and hope that she'd benefit from another power surge like the one that had sent him through. He glanced wildly around the room. His gaze fell on something that seemed out of place: in all the cleaning supplies, there were a few plastic key cards on a shelf. No--of course. Cleaning staff couldn't be expected to haul their supplies onto the pads; they'd have direct access to locked rooms.
He frowned and pocketed the cards, exchanging them for the little toy radio. As he tuned it to her frequency, he began to pace. He doubted that signals would make it through the walls of the chamber he'd left her in, but it was worth a try, if only so that he could suggest things to her.
It seemed relatively safe in this room... he could wait out the rest of the night here. The nausea wasn't fading as much as he would like, his legs felt weak under him, and there was pressure at his temples.
Still no Lana. He imagined her back in the room. The ghastly creature that had trapped them both would be watching, so even if her terror was rising, he expected that she would try to remain outwardly calm--if not at first, then eventually. She was a dignified woman; she had chosen to wear a dress uniform in a rainstorm.
He reached the door, and the idea of waiting it out became stronger. He took off the backpack and set it on the clean floor, rested his back against the door, then slid down so that his weight would hold it closed. Once he'd wrapped his arms around his shaking knees and used one hand to prop up his brow, he watched the pad miserably.
His eye caught a flash of silver on his hand, and he was annoyed with himself for having forgotten the ring in his panic. It would only be a useful fail-safe if he remembered it. They would have had some time, he thought, and maybe they would have been able to take themselves out of danger, but he wasn't even completely certain that the rings would work in that situation. What would happen if you used one while also using the pad for transport?
She had a ring of her own, but he wasn't sure that she was wearing it. If she was wearing it, she might be safe already.
Another attempt with the toy radio was as useless as the first. Maybe she was out of range.
He couldn't have been in the supply room for more than a few minutes, but how long might she have left?
no subject
Or she could tell him in person. Light flared again, and the cool air hit her even before the nausea did. She stood frozen, in the middle of tapping her teleport ring lightly on the dial of her radio, for a good moment, staring at Ryuuzaki.
Then she stepped down, and smirked. "I hope I didn't keep you. Found anything yet?" He didn't look like he'd been searching -- the radio in his hands was touching, but she'd had the situation well in hand. Though they'd left the not-so-proverbial frying pan for a more subtle fire, she would like to know, but the air was clear and cold, and a closet was possibly the least sinister room they'd encountered all evening.
Perhaps he just didn't like heat, or small enclosed spaces. They all had their demons, after all.
no subject
Outwardly calm, indeed. Visibly sweaty, but hardly terrified. He discarded the first three things that came to mind to say to her--how relieved he was to see her, then the obvious remark about the ring, then something waspish about how unruffled she was. He was irritated, more because he had been rattled than because she wasn’t.
He pressed his lips together, not showing his annoyance, and got to his feet.
It was immediately obvious that she’d been considering trying to use the ring, and also the radio. That meant that the radio signals had little or no reception through the walls of the chamber they’d been trapped in. If they did, he would have been able to reach her.
He stared at her again for a beat, then replied, “Key cards.” He reached down for the backpack, shouldering it. “The cleaning staff, assuming there is one, probably doesn’t use the transport pads… maybe to get here, but I doubt that they have to come in the way we did. The route would probably be more direct.” That had a few implications: there might be a control center for the pads, if they didn’t come in pairs. “They certainly wouldn’t use them to move their carts and buckets. If these keys are active, they might open other doors on this floor.” If they were lucky; if the card readers hadn’t been reprogrammed; if the cards had been programmed to begin with. They might be spares. But wouldn't spares be kept in an office?
“I was a little too preoccupied to search through the cleaning supplies. To be honest, I wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” A short, awkward pause. "You can dry off if you want to, or we can go through the supplies, if you insist... or we can move on." His tone made it clear that he favored the third option.
no subject
"I wasn't sure either. But if I couldn't take the heat," she said, wiping her brow with her sleeve, "I wouldn't have stepped into a courtroom." Especially not in August.
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