Nightshift 24: Entry Room

[transgenix]

( coming from here.)

The hall was dark and quiet as Max led the way deeper into the building and away from the dorms. She could hear the faint murmur of voices coming from... somewhere, but couldn't quite pinpoint a location

Comments

[transgenix]

Max held her sleeve up over her face, wrinkling her nose at the dust. "What the hell. What happened to medical institutions needing to meet health regulations? Don't they have janitors here?"

As the dust settled, she peered into the small, cramped room, she spotted a neat row of filing cabinets, though they were all coated in a thick coat of dust. She trailed a finger down their surfaces, noting the letters listed on the front. "Well. We've found something at least."

Giving an experimental tug, the drawer proved to be locked, but Max wasn't letting that stop her, now that they might be finding some real information. Her expression melding into one of concentration, she gave a second, determined yank, much stronger this time - more stronger than any normal human could manage - and yanked the drawer all the way out, stopping it from crashing off the runners at the last moment.

Inside were neatly filed folders with names on each of them. Plucking one out, she skimmed through what was obviously patient records and grinned. "Bingo. Looks like they're organised by name. What's your last name?"

[is_god]

"Ivanova," Susan said. She straightened and joined Max in the small room, yanking on another draw until it came open. It took several tries.

She pulled out a file at random. If these people weren't completely insane - if she wasn't completely insane - they'd be in alphabetical order. "Corwin Piers," she read. "Anywhere close to your last name?"

[transgenix]

"No, it's Guivera," Max answered, flipping through the files curiously, but not seeing anything that rang a bell. "Although, it might be under something else entirely. The nurses kept referring to me as Lilian Gulliver. And apparently I'm married. You can imagine my shock at hearing that one. You think I'd remember something like that," she added, her voice a dry retort.

Wiping her dusty hands off, she took a step back. The files over here start with N names. I bet earlier in the alphabet is in the other room. I'll look through those, if you want to see if they have you under a fake name in these? Although I suppose that's a lot of files..."

As she spoke, she was already moving towards the locked door she'd first tried to open. Lifting her leg, she gave the handle a sharp kick, hearing the thing snap, and she grinned as it swung slowly open. Peering inside, she spotted more of the same filing cabinets and instinctively reached for the G's. She could only hope the people running this place would be so careless as to leave real information lying about.

[is_god]

"That's... interesting." Susan said. "Yes, I think you would remember getting married." She frowned. "I don't know what my fake name might be. I guess... I'll just keep looking at these. I might find something interesting, anyway." She opened the file in her hand, but shut it soon after. Corwin was male, so definitely not her.

It was weird, the way she was already playing along with this. She picked another file out at random...

[transgenix]

Max didn't find anything under Guivera, but there was a file close by with the name the nurse had found on her. Hesitating for just a moment, Max finally reached out and plucked the folder from the file. She flipped it open long enough to see a picture of herself staring back at her before flipping it back closed once more. She didn't want to look at it now, she'd look at it later, when there was more time, and not more of the building free for the looting exploring.

Tucking it securely into the waistband of her make-shift belt, Max cast a sideways glance over at Susan. "Find anything?"

[is_god]

"Lots of things, but none of them related to me," Susan said. She was half tempted to grab a handful of random files and read them at her leisure. It'd be something to do. And since she still thought this was probably all a hallucination, well, it wasn't even unethical. "I think until I know what they're calling me, this will be a pointless search." She closed the file she was currently looking at. "Ready to move on?"

Just for the hell of it, she picked up a few of the files to take along. If might give her an idea of just who was messing with her head, seeing the sort of people they populated this place with.

[transgenix]

Max nodded, shoving her drawer closed once more. "We can always come back. We know where to look now. Besides, this doesn't seem to be real information, it seems to be the fake crap they're trying to feed us. Still, you never know, there might be useful stuff hidden in there."

Taking a step back, she glanced around the room, taking in its appearance. We seem to be at the front of the building. People running this place aren't going to be too close by to here - they usually aren't in most places. They're either going to be at the far back of the building, or above or below, if there's more than one floor. Maybe we should check somewhere for stairs? I don't remember seeing offices or anything during the day, but they could have just attempted to steer us all clear of there..."

[is_god]

Susan nodded. She tucked the folders she'd grabbed into her shirt. A little light reading for some other night.

"Good idea," she said. "Though..."

She walked over to the set of doors at the opposite and of the room. If anything screamed 'entrance' that would be it. And entrance also meant exit. She tried the doors, then bent to examine the locks. They weren't in poor shape like the ones on the file room doors had been.

"So much for that," she said. "But I had to try it."

[transgenix]

Max sauntered over and eyed the locks as well. "Solid. Something like that would require the actual key, or at least a heavy-duty set of lock picks. It's a shame they lifted mine. Maybe if I find something to use as a makeshift one, we can come back and try it. At least we know where to go when we find what we need and it's time to get the hell out of this place."

She didn't think twice about letting slip her occupation for the past decade and a half. For now, they needed to work together and some secrets could be revealed.

Straightening, she looked back towards the doors they'd come in through. "Let's see if we can go find someone more familiar with this place. There's got to be others trying to get out as well. Maybe they can give us some more answers. Besides, I want to see for myself if those rumors about mutated monsters were true or not."

After the mention of 'chimera' earlier in the day, she didn't want to take any chances on what this place might be cooking up.

[is_god]

"A thief?" Susan said. She was a little surprised, though thinking about it, maybe she shouldn't have been. At this point, considering they were in the same situation and Max seemed like a good enough person, she wasn't going to suddenly get picky about her allies.

She nodded. "And there might be other doors to the outside that aren't so well-locked." She shuddered. "I'm hoping the rumors are just rumors. The only monsters I've ever seen looked like everyone else..." Mutated monsters sounded just a little too much like fantasy, for her taste. And as weird as it might sound, fantastic elements were probably out of place if her hypothesis that this was some kind of telepathy induced hallucination was true.

She wasn't certain, at this point, what alternative she preferred.

[transgenix]

"A girl's got expenses and I needed to stay off the radar," Max explained with a careless shrug. "It suited both my purposes. No one caught me and I made good money at it."

She turned away, walking back across the room towards the door they'd come in through. "The only monsters I've known have been human, and they were nasty enough in their own right. Things people suspect to be monsters are often the exact opposite, and I prefer to make my decisions for myself."

The fact that she'd been condemned and mistrusted as a monster herself when her secret came out only piqued her curiosity more about what went on here in the dark.

She opened the door and peered out into the hall once more. "Lets see if we can find out if there's more than one floor to this place. People crazy enough to run a scam like this never hide things in the open. They're not that clever."

[is_god]

Susan nodded. She wasn't going to judge Max; she obviously had no clear idea of the situation that the younger woman had come from. "Lead on, then," she said. While she would have preferred to take the lead herself, Max had a better feel for the building still. At least she'd been out of her room during the day time, even if she hadn't seen much.

[transgenix]

"Well, we also have two doors left in here," Max, replied, coming to the middle of the room and peering at the two remaining doors they hadn't tried yet. "Maybe they lead somewhere, or to more information? Why don't you take one and I'll try the other and we can see if we can find anything before moving on?"

[is_god]

Susan nodded. It would be best to completely clear an area before moving on. She'd hate to miss something important because they were in a rush to get to somewhere else that might or might not be useful.

She headed over to one of the doors.

[Moving down a thread. She's taking the door for entry room 1]