“Well...”

Olivia consults the touch screen panel in front of her.

“… at least this looks a little more up to date than the previous set up.”

With the distant sound of clattering machinery, the heiress turns her head and, once again, thinks to the blood smear in the closet and the scrawled warning on the ground, written in paint. Clearly, if something had gone terribly wrong in this place, being caught was going to be something worse than if she were dealing with an up and running facility. On the other hand, thinking back to her initial assessment, she didn’t have to worry too much about reprisal once she’d left this place. Right now, she just had to focus on getting out and, with that, she didn’t have to hold back at all.

“So...”

Given a little time, the heiress glances up at where this rail system ascends, going up into the ceiling and, presumably, the previous floors. On the one hand, she didn’t know what further security measures were waiting for her if she went deeper. On the other, those Gyronoids probably wouldn’t be affected by any kind of power cut and, if something had gone wrong in this place, she might luck out and hit upon a place in this facility where the security was either broken, or was dependent on a manual input from staff who were no longer present.

For a brief moment, Olivia’s thoughts go to the library far above, and to the vast halls of emptiness. Librarians and students going about as usual, hosted by an empty front that now covered… nothingness. Nothing but silence coming from below, were the people above even aware that something had gone wrong down here? Had they ever known that there was something down here? Well, it’d be good if Olivia found a way out of here, and then found a way to circumvent the security. She could perhaps get access to some much info of what was going on here on this island but then… she once again considers the toying and mockery that’d come from the security above, the game that ‘someone’ had tried to play with her. The heiress’ thinking goes immediately to a steward of some sort, perhaps just a single member of security left on a dead end job to look over this abandoned facility…

Well, if that was the case, maybe she could forget about stumbling across some place that needed manual input, thinking it a safe space but… Gah! She shakes her head. She was overthinking things and needed to get moving. The more time she spent here trying to think out her next move, the more of a chance she was giving someone and something else to advance. She still didn’t have any place from which she could access the mainframe. It was possible that this screen was yet another game, yet another trick but, once she pressed a key, she’d soon find out. If interacting with this panel actual made things happen, chances were, it wasn’t another ‘playground’ meant to trap her. She would actually accomplish something by choosing those options presented to her here but… Heh. If only this one had an actual keyboard, she might have at least been able to give Control-Alt-Delete a try.

Not wanting to wait around for much longer, Olivia immediately goes for options 1 and 2, unlocking the rails and calling the Buoy. Of course, there was every chance she’d see one of those Gyronoids on the thing, right as it came down the rails, but she’d have to deal with that when it came. Hopefully though, she’d have an empty thing to step aboard and, from there, perhaps a way to move elsewhere in this facility.

A meaty, mechanical chunk echoes through the underground shaft; the rails beneath the metal strips set into the floor have extended, and bright blue light is emitting from a pair of strips set alongside each rail, harsh and tinny, casting harsh shadows through the room wherever the thin strips of light aren't blaring. A barely audible hum vibrates up through the floor as well, but there's no other visible difference. Instead, five seconds later, a metal platform raised perhaps a foot off the floor silently glides in through the gloom, sliding over the rails with no visible means of locomotion, though the hum grows louder. Most importantly for Olivia, its sides touch the walls on either side, and while there's a set of stairs up the side approaching her, it's probably best not to be run over or trampled by the machine - there's no visible space between it and the ground, and the possibility of falling down in front of the buoy sounds like it could have gruesome results.

The buoy moves at an unhurried pace, eating up the space in the shaft, until it seals against the back wall of the shaft; whether Olivia heads back into the stairwell to give it room, or climbs aboard, the shaft is clearly designed to locomote this platform and nothing else. It's about five feet square, with a little raised dais at the front with another of those mocking screens embedded, and the rest is tiled floor. Notably, this one has handprint scanners on either side of the screen, at least.

If Olivia heads back into the stairwell, she hears another clatter as the gynoids fall down another set of stairs, and gets a good enough estimate of how much time she has remaining; three or four minutes, judging by the clumsy sounds of them two flights above her.

The buoy's screen has a pair of digitized party balloons floating along, along with a message.

CONGRATULATIONS! FAST TRAVEL UNLOCKED.

PLEASE SCAN HANDPRINT TO CONTINUE.

The hand scanner looks innocuous, but then the technology in the Library basement has been misleading from the start. It's just a green handprint with some kind of reader underneath a clear screen. There's one to either side, and there's no input jack, but there is a panel at the base of the dais that has a slight join and screws she could probably pull out if she has some kind of suitable device. At least the light of the screen and the lit rails give her some light to work by, as well. Behind that is a jackpot; a nest of cables and a wireless network adapter, presumably to let the platform interface with whatever monitor calls it or it arrives at.

For a moment or two, Olivia found herself gripped by a most irrational fear as the mechanisms moved and slotted into place. Loud noises, more so, loud noises caused by herself, got the heart racing a little and, with the ability to hear anything that might try and creep up behind momentarily deafened, the mind, of course, became a bit more self aware and self conscious about the existence of open space and emptiness behind oneself. Well, one assumes, it is a natural response, a way for the mind and body to respond instinctively to the prospect of predators, of being hunted. Yet, for all that, the young heiress resists the urge to turn around and, instead, keeps her eyes tracked on the incoming buoy as it arrives which…

Alright, so she was going to have to step out of the way as this thing arrived. Looking at it, she could see at least that there wasn’t anything dangerous onboard it, no new Gyronoids or security personnel. On the one hand, she could probably try and climb aboard as it came. Even now, even in her current state, Olivia still had some agility to her. A former gymnast, or at least, an amateur one, studying it after school until that accident made those studies no longer tenable and, in light of her present condition, someone who had to use her upper body strength quite a fair bit, Olivia probably had the power and flexibility required to pull herself up onto it. However, such a thing seemed unnecessarily risky and, though she didn’t quite know where those Gyronoids were, she figured she probably had time enough that she could at least step back that way for a moment.

Finally, once the buoy had arrived, she could sigh a slight sigh of relief. The air settled and, once again, she could hear the distant clattering and clumsy movement of those things, giving her a better estimate of how long she had. Climbing aboard, she’d be welcomed by the screen and the ever continuing prompts that made it all so clear that she was still playing some game, set up by some person. In fact, for the first time since she’d come down here, she wonders exactly how much time it must have taken for someone to set this all up and, though she suspects one of a few possible outcomes, each of them unpleasant in their own, special way, she has to think what exactly motivated somebody to spend this much time and effort.

Well then… The young heiress looks down at the screen and hand print scanners, taking this moment to rest slightly. She wasn’t that shaky on having to stand up for long periods. Fortunately, today wasn’t one of her scheduled physiotherapy days, so she was in pretty good nick. Yet still, something to sit on, or at least lean against, it would have been welcomed.

So, the scanners and screen seemed quite the obvious answer. If the situation at hand told her anything, it was that she was still in the playground. Despite everything, she was still inside the parameters of whatever game this was and, if she really wanted to escape and get away, she would need to found a way outside of the box. It occurred to her, mainly because she’d been watching too many movies lately, if she could find any kind of grate, perhaps an air vent large enough for her to get into, that would probably be the way. At the very least, she figures, she probably doesn’t want to go wherever this track leads. That would be a pretty literal railroading of this plot and, wondering just how fast this thing went, she finds herself considering how safe, or how dangerous, it’d be to hop off the back of this buoy once it was moving. She could picture herself tumbling off the back of this thing as it moved, landing, albeit roughly, getting a bit muddied up but, at the end of it, she’d be outside the predictable boundaries of this game. Then of course, in the ideal picturesque imagining of this scenario, there’d immediately be an easy, accessible grate off to one side, somewhere she could crawl into and get inside the system…

Which… okay… fantasy and imagination was all well and good in this situation, especially if it was a means of keeping herself hopeful. However, she had to get this thing moving first. In the distance, she continues to hear those clumsy security machines stumbling around and, though she had some time to mess around, she did want to move quickly. Studying the layout for a while, she indeed finds somewhere she could maybe do some work but… Her brow furrows. Damn, if only she had some basic tools to work with. Unfortunately, most of her proper equipment would be back on her wheelchair and, no way was she going to be able to go back and grab that. Could she improvise something? There’d be perhaps a further minute or so where she tries a combination of finger nail and loose change in the grooves of the screws and, whilst she does start to make some progress, the threads are turning just a little too slow, all just a little bit too stiff.

“Urgh!”

Her hair, by this point, is a little disheveled, a single strand going across the face. Skin on her knees going slightly raw, she puts a hand up on the top of this thing and, as she starts to pull herself back up from the floor, her digital eyes fall on that screen once more, with its ‘playful’ celebration balloons. She scowls slightly.

Okay. If she’d had a screwdriver, or some sort of tool, maybe she could have done something useful here. However, she’s out of time now and needed to get moving. It’s irritating, and she would have liked to have at least seen if there was anything she could have done, but needs must. She thinks for a second. Was there some way to work around these hand print scanners? Probably not. She’d be surprised if there was even a record out there of her hand scan but, thinking it over, somehow she suspected it wouldn’t even be an issue. She was pretty sure she wasn’t authorized personnel, and this thing wouldn’t even have a way of recognizing her hand scan anyway but, lo and behold, she’d see what happened.

Standing up, putting her hand on each of the two print scanners, she really didn’t have any other choice in the matter and, with the sound of those things fast approaching, she really had to hope this did something.

The example handprint turns blue as Olivia presses her hand against it, with scanning appearing over it in tiny font, along with a percentage counter, ticking rapidly. It's at about eighty percent when everything goes wrong.

The platform drops slightly - either the suspension or some automated process, and only two to three inches, but there's a noticeable sensation of vertigo for a moment, probably causing the girl to lean against the console instinctively. A split second later, a flim snaps across the handprint scanner's surface, a clear gel that bonds painlessly with the girl's skin, holding her hand in place - more insidious than glue, which bonds only to the surface layers, this gel feels like it slides right through stratum and bonds to the lipid matrix underneath. A beat passes, and then a mechanical hiss issues out from the machine, as it draws the film tight against the top of the scanner again.

GOT YOU, the display says now, this time in a gleaming, dire red unlike the mottled greentype it's used thus far. The words bounce around the screen like a demented screensaver. HOLD ON TIGHT. A LIBRARIAN IS ON HER WAY TO ASSIST YOU.

A clatter from the stairwell, again, this time far closer; the gynoids had descended another flight while she'd tried to extract the screws, and now are just above the current floor, struggling to stand again.

If Olivia is tired enough to be sweating, and she leans over the film enough for it to drip down onto it, the water content begins to dissolve the film, or at least loosen its grasp; likewise, any slickness in her grasp would make the gel's grip less effective. Completely dry skin is immobilized completely, but wet or sweating skin feels more like it's buried in heavy sand or cool, thick wax.

Trying to steady and slow her breath, Olivia could feel the pulsing of her heart as she found herself there, waiting impatiently. Even though she could hear that the Gyronoids were still some distance off, the stillness had her somewhat on edge and, as the percentage gauge on the screen continued to tick away, she has to force herself to remain.

“This is taking too long...”

She grumbles to herself. Even though there was a clear indicator showing the level of ‘progress’ that’d been obtained, she finds her stomach bubbling low with a kind of anticipation dread. They were still a ways off, right? She could hear them clearly, but a nagging in her mind proposes the what if of them being closer than they sounded. Coupled also is the worrying thought that, this place, this entire facility, was seemingly on alert now for her and, though she had a rough idea where ‘those’ things were, this didn’t discount the prospect of something else suddenly turning up whilst she just stood there.

The young heiress glances around her, taking in her surroundings, watching over her shoulder as the percentile counter on the screen continued to tally up. Her chest, beneath the sweater she’d hastily put on earlier, rises and falls and, despite the chill she’d experienced on her way here, the exertion of having to stand up and stay on this thing for so long was beginning to get to her. She could feel the trickle of sweat trying to escape beneath the underneath of her bra and, breathing deep through her nostrils now, as she glared down at the screen, she’d be happy to at least get this layer off once she had use of her hands again. There was heat, to be certain, which she would soon be grateful for in a moment. Until then, she did whatever she could, even pressing her tight covered leg and thigh against the cold metal in an attempt to cool yet…

Gritting her teeth and swallowing, a usually video game immersed Olivia thinks to herself, ‘You know, this would be the perfect moment for a jump sca-’ Which… No sooner had the thought started to occur to her, had it begun to cross her mind, then she would feel that sudden jolt as the platform beneath apparently gives way.

“AH!”

The little high octave note, her yelp, echoes slightly in the otherwise empty tunnel. Dishevelled hair dropping across her face for a moment, weight going even more against the panel (she’d been steadily putting more and more force on her arms as the burn in her calves had grown), the petite heiress throws back her head to unblock her cameras and… Her body instinctively leans back slightly, tugging at the new binding that’d coated her hands as the picture finally clarifies and steadies. There’d be a beat where she found herself startled, she could feel this stuff, this substance, whatever it was coating her hands and, with an almost glass like substance right beneath her palms a moment before she’d be glad at least it wasn’t blood but…

With what little strength she had in her arms, Olivia starts to pull and tug, trying to wretch her arms free. However, in that immediate, initial moment where the realization strikes, and that mocking message flashes across the screen, she genuinely finds herself stuck. Now she was really in trouble and, with another clatter, those machines from before sounded even closer now than ever. Tug, pull, her weight goes all the way back as she tries again to free herself. At this point, she finds herself becoming just a teensy bit frantic. However, given a little time, she finally starts to feel some give, a soft, sludgeness to the gel where it was moist but…

"C'mon. C'mon."

Before long, Olivia’s tactic would have to change and, leaning forward, over the counter, strength in her lower half still not great, even worse now that she’d tried to pull herself away from this with her legs, the strategy would shift wisely. Pushing down with one arm as the other pulled up, focusing on getting the one hand free, it’d definitely start to work yet… Sweat, exertion and, once even Olivia’s currently panicked mind had caught on, even a little bit of spit carving the way to her freedom, the young heiress would have just gotten her right hand loose when a new clatter, not but a few meters away, turns her head and, with a flutter and jolt of her heart, she’d be welcomed by the sight of one of those sickening things as it landed, lurched, and twisted, it’s grotesque form and limbs slowly righting as it narrowed its attention in on its quarry.

Olivia wouldn’t even be there to continue viewing its horrifying approach. Instead, one hand already free, though the back of it still coated in sticky gel, our newly ‘freed’ student would have taken to the banister at the front of this platform and, risking a sprain of her wrist if the weight of her own body didn’t immediately wrench her hand free of the remaining bounds, she goes ahead and drops, praying, just praying, that she wasn’t about to get herself electrocuted or worse as a thick slurp and pop accompanies the prying and twisting of her remaining limb out of that gel.

Olivia's right hand works free just fine, but her twisting escape attempt doesn't work out - the gel twists together like taffy when she hops the banister, binding into a long, ropelike strand. While it's given her a few feet of motion, she's accidentally wound it into a rope with vastly less give than the gel originally had. She can get about a step past the platform before she reaches the end of her brand-new tether, thanks to the way the strand arcs up and forward off the terminal screen. It's thicker now, translucent instead of clear, and with visible imperfections where the gel has bound to dust, dirt, and other particles, turning a smudgy grey. There's apparently a reservoir of the stuff in the platform, from how much it's dispensed now; several square feet, or its some kind of aqueous liquid that hardens on contact with air that's stored pressurized, or something of that nature.

The door to the stairway clicks open, and one of the gynoids paces out, looking none the worse for wear for its traumatic passage down the stairs. They're still ridiculously feminine - this close, the legs are long and mocha-colored, wide and thick, and the body itself is a white and featureless jumpsuit over the torso, then a blank head perched atop. It turns and affixes that blank stare onto Olivia, then begins to close on her with that same impractical swivel in its steps - pointlessly sexualized, but apparently impervious to harm, and its forearms look wide and powerful, for whatever given value of strength can be given to automatons.

If the screen has said anything else, Olivia isn't in a position to see it, having leapt over the monitor, and with it now covered in gel anyways it'd be impossible to see anything written there.