She considered what he was sharing about the nature of his mental illusions. Assuming he was shooting straight with her, the idea that she was at least seeing the same thing as everyone else around her helped a little. Of course, if they were in circumstances where he did not have to hide himself, she supposed that would open up his options to mess with her head exclusively. Something to consider for the future, she supposed, though not terribly important just now.

Her keystrokes were getting a little hard, the rhythmic "tak-tak-TAK" of her fingers hammering the keys filling the room as she focused exclusively on the screen, adding "Inhibitors" to the search. After a moment, she added "Security" to the mix, wondering if the school was sticking to traditional deterrents like security cameras, or if they were incorporating more exotic elements like telepathic scans or motion sensors. It wasn't until he set his hand on her shoulder that she looked back his way.

"I can accommodate you there." she said simply, giving him a sidelong glance and pressing her lips together into a thin line, "I did say I'd bring anything along that you requested. You're sticking your neck out for me here, I don't want you to feel I've taken advantage. Are you sure you want hose? Some people prefer stockings, with or without the garter belt, gives them the feel and the look without the extra layer of fabric between them and the goods." she said, though her voice was terse.

"I know I can't stand up to her head to head . . . but I've seen firsthand that a syringe can penetrate her skin. Her steel-like density is all at the muscle level, holy water has a caustic effect on her physiology, and I know she'll want to get physically close to me." she said, narrowing her eyes slightly. The fail safe would be the better chance, but she wasn't sure she'd be able to find it within the time constraints she had available, "Even if I can't kill her, I can take my pound of flesh. If I can just put a fear in her, give her the impression that dancing with me if flirting with injury and death, maybe she'll move on to easier prey." her lips curved in a dark little smile, "Of course, she could be a dangerslut. But you can't plan for every eventuality."

She let her fingers fall still on the keys, breathing out.

"Yes, I'm upset." she said, though she didn't further educate him on the nature of her irritation. She didn't want to offend him, he was too useful a contact to cultivate. Let him ask, if he really wanted to know.

He tapped his temple. I no longer have access to the inventory that you possess so had to guess. Stockings are better, as for the question of a garter I'll let you chose to surpise me or not with them.

He considered the fail safe that had been set up for Rena that he just read though. Thiking that to it's conclusion before commenting on it.

That will not work … nothing prevents her from leaving the building via a door or leaping through on of the windows that is. The measure was to weaken her and keep her busy until a mop up crew is in place I assume …

For that to work you't have to place the infirmiray under look down where the doors auto lock and shutters seal into place but even in such a scnario it was meant to contain her for she could hide in the cabniet you had or under a desk, but it does pin her down for the sweepers to get at her and dispose of the problem.

He glanced to the computer screen as the security/inhibitor search was still running, lots of hits he assumed. Then he gazed at the new student, interested so far in her stuggles. Like a fly in a spider web it appeared but one that realized that it couldn't escape and could only hope it gave the spider heart burn. It was the sort of spirit he only expected out of first years and he had considered tweaking her brain chemistry if it should wane, to keep her from becoming broken like the others he had seen, to keep those spirits up only because he found this interesting.

She the sarch pulled up a few thousand hits after the few seconds it had been placed. Since she had not elaborated on her answer he had assumed it had been with him in some way and he had considered all that he had told her here today. The fact that he had been tained too with human emotions only befuddled him further as their were so many conflciting opinions.

After a moment he addressed the matter. “May I ask why you are upset?”

"Hmn." she listened as Aegir spoke of the limitations of the school's fail safe. She admitted, he made a fairly compelling argument, but it remained her holy grail for the moment, "All good points. I unfortunately don't know just how severe the reaction is, though I'll admit I was hoping for something dramatic. If I catch her flat footed, she might be too severely doused to crawl her way to safety. Since the water would have no effect on me, I might even risk trying to drag her back into the flow. Trying to fight her head on would be suicide, but with her muscles tearing free and me wearing clothes soaked through with something she finds anathema, the odds would be a lot closer."

"You know," she started, leaning back, "I actually debated trying to bargain with her for a moment. Like I did with you. I thought that if I could find this system, I could trade exemption from her attentions for the location of the gun the faculty has pressed to her temple." she chuckled a bit with a shrug, "Unfortunately, I just can't trust her to hold up her end. Worse, if she really did think I knew what she wanted, she'd just keep me under wraps until she could tag me with three of her damned brain slugs and then I'd just happily tell her whatever the hell she wanted." she grit her teeth, making fists with both hands.

"If this head-on attack doesn't work out . . . that's probably what she'll do anyway." she said with a sigh, "That's the problem with mind controllers. You can't take half-measures. Give them any wiggle room and they'll have you eating out of their hand. It's got to be kill or be over-written into something more convenient. That's why the syringe, I won't be able to puncture any vital arteries if I can't get through the muscle, but veins run through the dermal layer where she's vulnerable" she tapped the side of her head, "If the water works are insufficient, then just maybe her veins will hold together long enough for the acid to hit her heart."

"Of course, all of this assumes that the security doesn't just dog pile me on principle. I'm banking on the fact that I've riled her enough to make things personal." she looked at the database for a few moments. Too many hits, she had to narrow things down a bit. Start with the breadcrumb Aegir had given her, "Inhibitor location, Inhibitor effects, Inhibitor construction, Inhibitor impact on holy relics/water, Inhibitor long-term health effects".

"You can ask." she finally responded to his last question evasively. For a moment, she thought about leaving it there, another little hurdle and a hint that she didn't want to talk about it, but ultimately she decided she was being petty.

"I'm just . . . cross, and still adjusting to my new reality." she said a bit tightly, glancing over at "Cindy" again . . . it was so weird having this conversation with someone she'd consider cute under other circumstances, "It just pisses me off. I had a life, dreams, aspirations, friends, and then you things stepped in and I'm supposed to accept this? Rena turning students into pets and spies, you've got your ten favorite playthings implanted with some kinda node so you can keep tabs on them, and God only knows what else is out there." she looked back at the computer monitor, "I'm not fucking prey, nor am I a toy, or a slave, or a goddamn test subject. I'm a sentient being, and I deserve the same rights as the rest of you bastards, even if I didn't win superpowers in the genetic lottery. What gives you the right!?"

“Indeed that may be the case I have never had cause to find out before now … if the reaction is severe enough all that may be needed is to lock her into the infirmary and set the safeguards into place even if that were the case. Even if she attempts to hide or take shelter from the water if she is weakened it may be easier to get at her or at least injure her with soaked clothes and all ...”

He considered what she had to say about Rena. “Most beings on the island are untrustworthy … they might enter into bargains but won't live up to their end of a bargain … if they can simple take they would for the most part, Rena for instance can just implant you with a few of her slugs as you just pointed out … not to mention the faculty would just set something else as a safeguard in place though knowing them they probably have three things set up that we don't know about to keep her in line. The sprinkler system probably meant to be 'leaked' to let her know what is in store for her on some level if she ever does step out of line. No doubt most, if not all the other buildings have the same set up too since they wouldn't know exactly where she is when she steps out of line and she is not the only demon here.”

He then considered her further plans … clearly Rena's muscles were dense enough to prevent most injuries though as Juni found needles worked so she could only assume that the muscles only defended against large areas and smaller pokes could get though similar to an armored knight where the jpings where still vulnerable because they had to move and bend. Rena was stabbed where before … the chest? Was it simply the force of the blow or did the student just get lucky and hit her in a vulnerable spot she did not know about.

“Holy water … a syringe full of holy water will probably be more effective then any drug or chemical you can find …”

Her narrowed search pulled up about a dozen hits. Taking a moment to address the question, that Aegir was going to ask anyway in case she had simple entitled him to ask as a means of speeding things along but he had given her the benefit of the doubt her to elaborate.

“Ah, a partial misunderstanding … the ten do not all have nodes only a few of them do and while I can sense these nodes I can also use my powers through them so if a student is having a rather difficult time with something for instance I can whisk her mind away or make things a bit more barable to deal with …

“Unfortunate this is life now … you have been targetted or stumbled onto the truth as the case may be here which puts you on that short list to be targetted in the future. Now I know what happens after the four years but I suspect you'll work that out for yourself in time. I will freely admit that you wont be killed or implanted with some nasty creature but it's fairly obvious that your old life is going to be bared to you undernormal circumstances …

“Your lot in life is hardly fair but a harsh reality I'm afraid. Your powers are about as breat as insignificant as an ant's would be to you. But the best you can hope for is to be a Pet of something now or an experiment of some sort … otherwise you are just prey to be used up and discard at someone's leisure.

“It is rather harsh but I know you would prefer the truth of the matter than enduring a pretty lie.”

"The question was more the "What gives you the right?" she said, looking back towards the computer, "But, of course, I already know the answer to that. Higher order life forms take advantage of lower order ones, predators need prey, and people domesticate animals. Same principle, I'm just no longer at the top of the list."

"All that bullshit morality they tried jamming down my throat back home, about noblesse oblige and might not making right. Tch, it's starting to feel like sour grapes from the loser's bracket, trying to use philosophy to soothe a savaged ego after realizing that we're not quite the hot shit we always supposed." she glanced back over at him, "Or, perhaps more likely, empathy doesn't work on the interspecies level, so there's no drive to create an inclusive society on that level. I suppose it's possible empathy is a solely human quirk." she waved that last thought off roughly.

"Whatever, that's my baggage. Don't worry, it won't effect my work." she was sure she'd adapt. In point of fact, that was the problem. Humanity's ability to adapt to their environment was one of their points of pride, unfortunately it lead to things like Stockholm Syndrome and long-term jailbirds who could no longer function in regular society. She huffed a bit, she was not going to live her life solely at someone else's convenience.

She was glad that he seemed to agree with her regarding the syringe. Unfortunately, it still required her to find the reservoire of sanctified water. . .and, she supposed, a syringe somewhere other than the nurse's office. She supposed the schools science labs would be the place to look there, she wasn't chancing the boat ride out to NICE to raid their drawers.

“Yes, that has always been the aim of things and while continue to be long after we both are dead. Some times though in nature something interesting happens … from one mind I once say that the student watched on of those documentaries that captured the bizarre on tape.

A Great White Shark was hunting a seal but rather than doing what was expected the seal went right after the shark … a bad day, whatever the case. Maybe the seal got sick of swimming away all the time or did it thrice already that day.

Whatever the case the shark was baffled enough, confused it same off. I wouldn't expect it to work all the time but there are proven occassions where the natural order of matters are flipped upside down for a little while at least. The next shrak that seal dealt with that day probably ate him for all anyone knows.”

So there might be a little hope after all, not likely though he tossed her something with that.

“It just might be that humans rationalize things this way or try to make sense with things based on their own species. I cannot say for certain though I have found that several species contain a measure of empathy. The vast majority have have come across don't. Callous things for the most part and I once was one of them …

“My exposure in being around humans has corrupted me the others would say. More contact through human brainwaves changed my thinking more or less. I was banished to here essentially, or at least I was the thought at the time that the thoughts of other monsters in close proximity to me would restore my defaults in a way but for the most part I keep out of the business of the others which reminds me …

“I took the liberty of deleting your file from Rena's access, and my own but that is only a minor inconvience. I also have your hard file, well at least the copy that they have at the infirmary. Your file is still out there but Rena doesn't have the file with her access so it should be a little while before she figures out who you are. The SOLOMON access has both files as does all the access codes of other uses as far as I am aware.

He had not felt her dwelling on the syring so he made no recommendations as to where to look for one or some holy water. He had been glad that he himself had not trouble her though.

“Since that access will last up until midnight tonight and half the day has expired I still owe you two codes. That can be exchanged for the photos. Seeing that your time with that code is limited I'll leave you to it.”

"Heh, what is will always be? I never expected such defeatist talk to come from someone who's been around as long as you. I only have my own world's history to judge by, but there have certainly been larger upsets than that, with longer reaching consequences." she said with a bit of a smirk, apparently his words had helped a bit, "Though it takes more than spirit, it requires cunning and resourcefulness." though she didn't say it aloud, she added And usually some outside aid to even the odds a bit.

She settled her elbows on her desk and looked over at him, taking her mind of her research as he shared a little bit about himself. He did seem to be a bit of an aberration on the island, though admittedly her sample size was pretty small, and she was indeed making judgements based primarily on data that he himself had supplied her with. It always paid to keep perspective. She supposed it made sense that if a telepath spent enough time among a race they might pick up on some of that race's traits. In that regard, she wondered if Shokushu was really the best place to exile him, certainly there were a wide variety of creatures who might influence him, but the monster to student ratio was still sharply in favor of the human factor. Perhaps that had been a choice for his comfort? No, she doubted that, not if his people were supposed to be a callous as he implied. More likely he was supposed to reclaim a predatory mindset and a ready stock of playthings would only help.

"I thought that might've been you. Thanks, you probably bought me a lot of time with that particular stunt. I really didn't think they'd bother with hard copies, just needlessly wasted space and resources." she said with a bit of a shrug, "I guess you took the time to read over it. Anything pique your curiosity? I can answer a few questions in confidence."

"I hope you don't think I'm brushing you off, it's just, like you said. Time is short, and there's still much to do."

Aegir chuckled a bit. "I suppose I am just jaded there having been around longer than the entirity of your species. Though without spirit you can have all the cunning and resourcefulness but it does you no good if you don't use them."

He was unawared of her mental state though, or if his words actually helped any. Without his telepathic ability he was at a disadvantage here unless something seemed fairly obvious. He still had been only partially successful with it.

"]There are not too may hard copies from what I understaned though the infirmary has some incase the computers ever crash they can at least look up medical information.

There were some things in the file I was interested about but since time is short for that passcode and there is so much you stilll have to do I will only ask you about your interests … wehen we met I was distracted in mining the information you had governing Rena rather than looking at the hole. When you arrived here on the island though I got some preliminary information from your mind but I noted the likes of classical music, is that performing or listening too? Just curious and I figured that would steal too much time away from you in getting a quick answer from you."

"I find that people without spirit don't develop cunning and resourcefulness. They tend to be content to take what the world hands them." she waved a hand dismissively, "I never much saw the appeal myself, but I guess there must be some trade-off I'm not aware of." She shrugged her shoulders slightly. It was funny, he didn't seem quite as self assured as she remembered from last night, like he was having a little trouble keeping a read on her trains of thought. She hadn't really expected him to stay out of her mind, he'd already proved twice over that he had a light touch and she'd never know how much he was seeing in her head unless he decided to tip his hand.

She leaned back in her seat a bit and raised her eyebrows a bit at his question. She hadn't really expected that to catch his attention. She ran a hand through her hair and organized her thoughts for a moment.

"I don't actually play an instrument. Mom signed me up for a semester of dance, but me and the instructor didn't exactly hit it off, so that was as far as it went." she chuckled a bit, remembering her first act of vandalism, a petty act to get back at the old bat who'd caused her so much grief, "But I did come out of it with an appreciation for orchestral music. So much modern music relies on a vocalist to tell you what a song is about. The classics let you feel it out for yourself, experience it and come away with something that ultimately tells you as much about yourself as the composer."

"Why, you like classical?" she asked, "I kinda had you pegged for something with more bass, like maybe jazz. Something whose rhythms would travel deeper into the water." though, she admitted, she'd overestimated the importance of aquatic living with Aegir before, and he didn't have a body that seemed terribly suited towards dancing.

Aegir of course wasn't as confident around her as he was the other night. He agreed in staying out of her head for the most part and was unable to glean those little insights that made matters easier for him in the long run. Hence why he needed help with the camera. With that ability to rifle through her head now gone he had to learn the time and trued method. Had she left him alone he would have figured it out simply by absorbing the thoughts of other students.

Aegir had an interest in music, for a time it had been a weakness of his though he still apprciated hearing it, a melody from an instrument a song … at one stage he was even seeking out girls with musical aptitude just to listen to them sing or play.

“Indeed. The classical stuff is easier on the ear too.” He grinned at the mention of jazz music. Ella had gotten him over that particular hindrance that music brought to him.

“I like both actually. I would have to say that at this stage I admire jazz a bit more but it's more in what it did for me in the past. The story is an indepth one so I will spare you of it until another time if you are interested.”

He was too slow to be any good at dancing though he had no issues with coordinating his limps. He smiled a little then flicked his eyes to the computer. Her search had been narrowed at least and he began towards the door.

“Tomorrow another login and password … but look up those inhibitors. I doubt you will find them all of course but even with the basics you should see a glaring error that I doubt will exist for much longer either. Juni ...” Aegir paused for amoment then padded her on the shoulder again. “Good luck.”

"Heh, I'll need it. But thanks." she said, thumbing her nose as she settled back into her chair. She didn't much like using her own IP address for this kind of search, it left breadcrumbs that network security might conceivably trace back to her. Idly, she considered that at some point she would have to make the effort to make a secure connection to the network in some obscure place on campus, just so she could relax a bit and stop spending so much time skulking about.

Okay little database, speak to me of Inhibitors. she thought to herself, What do they Inhibit? Why does Aegir think they represent a hurdle to my little scheme?

As she started poking through the Shokushu file, Juniper gave one end of her tie a little tug, sliding it out from around her neck and tossing it over her bed. After a few moments, the vest came off and joined it, and she was working the buttons of her blouse as she read. It was her room, after all, there was no reason for her to lounge about in an over-starched uniform if she didn't want to.

There were several hits to her security and inhibitor search. The top search was what she read now as she began to strip off some unneccary clothes to make herself a bit more comfortable.

She read on about the inhibitors finding that they were rather vague at best and she had assumed that the details in the files would be greater at a higher security access that had access to more files.

She read on about the basics, that the inhibitors affected the students and iminished their capabilities, whether phsyical or magical it seemed. They send a wave of invisible energy through their locations on the island.

Most were hidden in areas she could not access and the inhibitors seemed to affect everything within a thousand yards of them and ven pressed through slabs of bedrock.

There were boring logs about upkeep and replacement, many be in isolate areas it seemed that they only need a bit of fine tuning every so often since many were so inaccessible.

She came by a maintence schedule for them too and one was soon approaching. She had only noticed it because all the other maintence schedules had been cast in years, with the nearest other scheduled one for maintence being two years removed from now.

But there it was … a maintence schedule for an inhibitor that was perhaps one of the oldest that would be offline from 3 to 4 in the morning when it was very unlikely that a student wouldn't be around. To make matters far more complicated it was somehere towards the center of the island so it was a good distance from the campus, perhaps a ten minute run? Without a map of the island to go by then it was damned difficult to work out just by description alone.

The inhibitors weren't listed on any maps in any of the immediate files and she wondered if this was what Aegir was hinting at with lookin gat the inhibitors closely. It had been her close look at inhibitor maintence schedules that allowed even this much to be discovered.

Juniper ran her tongue along her teeth, raising an eyebrow slightly as she read on. There wasn't a lot of information to be found on these inhibitors, it was more of a primer than any kind of technical manual. Which, honestly, was probably for the best, since a technical manual would've included all manner of jargon and scientific knowledge well outside of her grasp. Still, she opened and closed her hand a few times, looking at it. Were her body and mind being effected by this energy field? She didn't feel any slower, either physically or mentally. But, maybe she'd underestimated how much the drug Rose had pumped Renna had done. Maybe she wasn't moving as well as she should have been . . . and maybe that was responsible for her tumble through the window.

It was an insidious notion. By design, she'd never notice that she was pulling a punch, or pumping her legs less eagerly, or that she was mentally glossing over important details. Was that how they kept the 90% in line? Were the inhibitors just worked so insidiously into their minds that they believed the staff's bullshit about hazing and pranks being responsible for the repeated sightings of monsters about the building? Well, she'd have a baseline for comparison soon . . . 3-4 AM tonight.

She rubbed her chin in thought. What to do, what to do. The Inhibitors sounded like they incorporated a lot of delicate, difficult to replace components. If she could waylay the maintenance crew, she might be able to take one of the inhibitors out of play, at least for a little while. . . she shook her head a bit. That plan seemed risky, if she had cohorts, or a system to relay the information to the other 10% maybe she could've turned that interruption into something of value. No, what this really meant was that Juniper had an hour wide window of opportunity, a brief gap where she'd be faster, stronger, and sharper than anticipated. If she was going to make a move against Rena, that was when her odds of success would be highest.

"I guess you'll be seeing me tomorrow after all." she muttered, scrubbing her fingers through her hair as she mulled that over. She noted the specific number of the Inhibitor and tried to pull up more information on it. If she could figure out which parts of the campus that particular unit was responsible for dampening, she could determine if she'd be striding right into the bitch's lair, or if she'd have to try and lure her somewhere for a showdown. Any of the guards would do for that purpose, but that was risky. She could use Rose instead . . . but she didn't want to risk another student if she could at all avoid it.

There were a few more things she'd need to gather as well. She sent out a general query for Holy Water, as well as trying to dig up the specifics on the reservoir that connected to the infirmary. She'd need to turn some valves if she wanted that particular trump card in play. She also brought up an equipment search, trying to get a read on which supply closets or medicine cabinets would have a stock of syringes. For the sake of thoroughness, she tried to bring up personnel records on the man responsible for Inhibitors maintenance, as well as the duty rotation for security tonight. And, because she was curious, she ran a search for maps of the islands, topographical data which she could extrapolate a map from, or aerial photography. The fact that they weren't generally available aws starting to make her wonder what they were hiding.

Syringes she found could be located in the infirmary and in a few of the science labs. Easy enough to procure those should she need them at some point. She had managed to follow distrubition logs as to were how much of this and that had been allocated to each department. It was easy enough to follow the paper trail though he had to assume they were locked up too not that that was a real obstacle with her skill set.

Holy water was a different matter all together. The bulk seemed to be set in storage to ware house 7 whatever that was though the name seemed to be obvious enough. There were other buildings that got it too and there were thoughts obviously of them having similar security measures to that of the infirmary which had a few drums of the stuff allocated to it.

Looking further Juni even found that there were means of enabling the security system that she could use from this terminal actually switching from conventional water to holy water and there were even commands in place to set shutters down over the windows, such measures that wouldn't necessarily stop Rena but would slow her down considerably as she was forced to weaken herself as she pried the shutter off as she was being belt with holy water.

But maps of the island seemed to match up to Ireland turned on it's side. She got more than a few images of various parts of the island and from what she could figure out the inhibitor in question was off the campus but near enough to jog or run too especially now that she was unhindered by smoking but it was the other inhibitors that would serve to slow her down so could she get there tonight.

No familiar names amongst the security details either just that they had small teams assigned to each building on the campus and one dedicated to the grounds. Gus and Casanova were off tonight, she had already seen them so that made sene.

Mitch Fournier, 63, hired way back in '73. So he was her for what, 39 years! Was the campus that old? Did he know what was going on here? Or was he just a regular old handiman? He went to a nondescript school, was apprenticed to a nondescript company for about ten years before getting her own business and later joining the team at Shokushu since their pension plan was real good and they were paying a lot of money to him.

With this access she could set the defenses on the infirmary to dose holy water but still needed a means of tripping the sprinklers too. The shudders could be set to close either manually on sight or triggered remotely from a computer to activate at a certain time so she had options at least.

"Oh ho, what have we here?" Juniper mused to herself, arching her eyebrows. It seemed that Mr. Solomon, he may have been low on the totem pole, but he knew enough to get access to the Infirmary's failsafe controls. And it looked like she'd be able to set everything remotely to trigger via timers. If she went down this route, it'd be an all-or-nothing strategy. She couldn't hope to take Rena in a fair fight, and she'd have to be in the infirmary to to trigger the sprinklers. A cage match, essentially. She rubbed her knee gently, feeling the way it was healing, that suited her well enough. Running was not quite as viable an option it had been last night.

Idly, she considered that she could have settled up with Aegir. If he hadn't been bullshitting her earlier as Gigi, that would sort her leg right out. Could she really afford to give Rena a handicap? No, that would be no good, sex before competition would dull her edge . . . at least that's what Coach had always said. If this worked, she would have stacked the deck pretty well in her favor, that would have to be enough.

Juniper turned her head to one side as she looked at the photo of Shokushu Island. Sure enough, the shape matched up roughly with the coasts of Ireland. She had no clue what the odds of that were, slim she imagined, but it was definitely interesting. She reached back into her vest pocket and unfolded the rough copy of the "Latin and You" diagram, looking at it for a moment. She copied the image and pasted it into the default graphics program on her computer, before pressing the page to the monitor so that the map would shine through the white page. She had to resize the picture a few times to get the scale right, but settling the longest line on the appropriate coast gave her a reference point, and from there she slightly turned the page until the lines matched up as well as she could make them. From there, she used the "Curved Line" tool to draw the lines from the diagram onto the map in bright red and mashed the "Print" button on her computer, examining the nexus points on her monitor as the printer did it's work.