A Talk Among Shadows [for likeashadow ]

[in_the_cracks]

The building Telrim leads the way into is bare and functional, one high long room with a rough concrete floor. From inside, the walls look rather sturdier and shored up, and from them comes a faint electric hum. For Telrim, installing better security is just part of moving in.

And yet, as she steps in and the lights switch on, the warehouse is revealed to be empty. There's a table against one wall, a couple of chairs, an wooden crate of assorted things... but that's it. Telrim - and the handful of Yeerks who work with her - don't use this place as a storehouse. It's a staging ground.

The door slides shut behind them, and the Controller goes to pull out the table.  "Like a seat?" she asks over her shoulder. "There should be a couple of cushions in the box."

Comments

[in_the_cracks]

It's something to watch her move, though that sharp memory looks set to thwart Telrim's curiosity at this rate.

"They'll be in a cupboard somewhere," she says, following much more cautiously. Her scanner's out again, just to double-check for any more alarms. "Possibly down at the bottom of the stairwell, yes."

Or in one of the closets across the room, but then the camera's covering that end...

[likeashadow]

Annah examines the door to the stairway carefully, but sees nothing to worry her. Fortunately, though she might not realize, staircases are often used for evacuation and thus the doors to them tend not to be locked. She pushes at the push bar, then, noticing its weight, holds onto it as it closes so it doesn't make a lot of noise as it relatches (although if Telrim follows she does not object). She blinks as dim orange night lights in the stairwell cancel out her darkvision, and peers downward, where the stairs turn and lead to a solid metal door.

This one, perhaps leading to a maintenance room or storage, has a fair more traditional lock than the card lock. Annah removes her earring, looking at a glance like an punk-esque assemblage of junk turned jewelry, and assembles from it a rather clever set of lockpicks, which she uses to deftly disable the pesky lock.

[in_the_cracks]

Telrim does indeed follow, and despite her claim not to run these missions often, she has had practice moving quietly in this body. She closes the door quietly but lingers close to it, automatically taking up a guard position as Annah goes for the lock below. She expects the night watchman to be on the ground floor, but she's listening for steps either on the stairs or beyond the heavy door.

There isn't time for anyone to near their position, though: in moments she hears the faint click of a failed lock and comes down to check the small maintenance room beyond. And there indeed are the circuit breakers, Telrim's logical guess more accurate than intended. It's not even worth checking them for further tricks.

She gives a soft 'hmh'; if Annah doesn't get to them first, she'll step in to snap the rows of switches upward, plunging them back into dark as the night lights are extinguished. Along with everything else.

[likeashadow]

Though she tries to conceal it as quickly as it comes, she stares a little blankly at the row of switches, uncertain where to begin or what does what. She therefore steps aside quickly when Telrim silently volunteers to throw the switches.

"The mark was on th'upper floor, aye?" Annah whispers, trying to picture the layout Telrim had pointed out in her "illusory" map. She is also listening--if this was the only place the circuit breakers were located, any guards certainly would come down to investigate--but that also means this is no place to wait. "Let's give this place the laugh." She hisses and is already moving, rapidly yet still softly padding up the stairs, back to the loading area where they mentioned.

Soon enough, there are signs of a guard coming from two different directions: one, from an upper floor, entering the stairwell from the sounds of the clanking door. Another is heading toward the loading dock from indoors on that level, his flashlight gleaming through the window in the door he approaches, the doorway earlier protected by the now-dark camera. Annah scrambles up onto a crate and waits, the faint silhouette of her tail twitching like that of a cat waiting to pounce.

[in_the_cracks]

"Right," Telrim says softly, answering both comments as she looks up the stairs. She follows Annah without wasting time, shutting the stairwell door quietly behind them.

It's a decent place for an ambush. Telrim backs up so she can cover Annah and the door behind them at the same time. Their incoming guard on the ground seems a little hesitant. Perhaps he's tired, or perhaps he's noticed the logged ID entry followed by the power failure and he's experienced enough to wonder what's going on.

"I'll handle the stairs," she whispers as that thin beam of light bobs and flashes across the crates around them. If Annah takes this one out quietly enough, the other won't even know and they can ambush him at the breakers. Even if he does hear, the darkened steps will slow him down.

[likeashadow]

Annah nods to Telrim and waits as the guard approaches, silently urging herself to be patient. The guard was wary and therefore slow. He might be canny enough to look above the crates and find her. She decides for an old, overused but tried and true trick: she fishes out a coin and tosses it across the room into a corner, striking the grated metal floor. He predictably turns toward the source of the noise, and then she leaps down and slams him in the back of the head with the hard metal knob at the side of one of her punch daggers, it having been drawn swiftly and silently as she had jumped.

He gasps, gurgles, and drops to the ground with a soft thud.

Knowing even that noise might cause the other guard to be more cautious, she slides up behind Telrim, nodding to her that she has the woman's back. Doubtless, the woman was already taking action even as she moved.

On another note, a few days from now, a loading dock worker would find a bent Sigil Copper Common in the corner, wondering where such an odd coin had come from.

[in_the_cracks]

The thud of a fallen body is a promising sound, and in the darkness Telrim's mouth flickers upward at the edges. All her attention is turned on the stairwell now. By this time the other guard is nearly down the steps, liable to find the flipped breakers at any moment. It seems he does hear something as his colleague falls: there's a muffled (but not worried) call of "Hey, Bobby?" from the other side of the door.

The Controller takes advantage of his moment's unwariness: she shoves the door open, Dracon beam readied. Before he twigs it's not his friend there, she snaps off a shot. There's a flash of orange light from her weapon, a sound like a high, soft 'tsew!' and it catches him across the chest. He crumples back onto the steps, and Telrim peers at him a moment before deciding he's still breathing, then steps into the stairwell, peering upward for any more employees.

"Looks like we're clear," she says in a low voice.

[likeashadow]

Annah's impressed by the ray weapon, and the back of her mind she starts calculating the street value of what is essentially a magic wand that doesn't require knowledge of spell triggers to use. That is something to consider later, however.

She grabs some nearby bungee cord used for securing packages to dolly carts, and binds the hands and feet of the guard she knocked out. Just in case he comes to sooner than they expect.

"After yeh," she says to Telrim.