"Definitely, definitely need to start bringing a flashlight along with me." Juniper thought as she looked through the crack in the door. Darkness on the other side, broad, ominous shapes crouched in the shadows beyond. She hesitated a bit, considering her options . . . she didn't hear any low, shuffling sounds, breathing, or speech from the room as she peeked through the door, it didn't seem as if anything was moving.

Come on, Juniper, don't be such a chicken shit she though, squaring her jaw. She gave the door a full push inward, her hand groping the wall alongside the entrance and looking for a light switch as she did so. She wasn't going to get anywhere if she let her imagination slow her down.

Stealing herself for the worse a white light flicked on here dispelling the dark shadows that had collected here had melted away and Juni found that this was a large storage room, the ominous shapes little more than a collection of cleaninging supples and a large empty vat or rather cyclinder that was empty yet cracked, either her to be replaced or to store it until it could be dcisposed of.

The crates her contained rags, cleaning supplies and empty beakers and jars. There were supplies here that would stock the chem lab it looked like, well minus the chemicals though she did find that their were things here like scalpels, scissors and evn sealed up syringes.

Juniper let out a relieved sigh as the light turned on and revealed the contents of the room. Nothing to be scared of here, well, unless you were phobic about needles. She glanced back over her shoulder into the adjoining hallway, a bit of horror movie logic creeping up on her. Sometimes directors liked to hit you with a real scare just as you were coming down from the tension built up from a false scare. She shifted her eyes a bit left and right, as if daring something in the still hallway to move, and then closed the door behind her. At least with the hatch-like configuration she didn't have to worry about light escaping under the edge of the door.

She looked around for a bit, her eyes weighing the potential value of everything in the storage room. A bottle of industrial cleaner might let her settle the score with the slime ball out front. Beakers . . . no, she wasn't mixing anything just yet, and they were too small for anything much. The jars though, she picked one up and checked the heft, trying to get a feel for how thick the glass was. If she filled this up with holy water, she might have a serviceable ranged attack. Maybe a good opening gambit, make Rena think that she didn't know about the security measures against her, but that she'd tried to lure her here for a reason.

She noted the syringes and nodded, good, that would save her a trip. She looked around for something to start gathering items into, a satchel or a bag of some kind, and rather kicked herself for not bringing her own. She also looked for some tape, intending to stick the syringes to her outer thigh under the hem of her short skirt before the battle. A secret weapon worked best when it was actually secreted away.

Looking around, Juni was unable to find any containers here rather than the crates that housed many of the supplies that had been kept here. Her breath still was frosty unnaturally for it still had not seemed to go for it, chilly enough to work against her nipples and stir them into hardened points that jutted out against the fabric of her shirt.

She did manage to find a roll of duct tape and secured some of the unused syringes to her skirt though testing the weight of the jars and how thick they were the jars she found wer not uniform. Some seemed to thick, others would suit though if thrown against a solid object they would shatter into shards spilling their contends out.

When sealed closed the door behind her emitted no light. Fortunately the hall was lined out in a way where nothing could sneak up on her, On the right of the corridor was the ladder she had discended in the left two doors one with a keypad, the second of which. At the end of the corridor was a door opposite of her currently, all had still been cast in that dim light.

"Dammit, if only I hadn't lost my jacket." Juniper sighed, pressing her fingers to her forehead. She could've used it to fashion something to carry all the useful things stored here in. Maybe she'd luck out and find a store of spare uniforms or something while she was nosing around. She pointed at the jars that looked like they'd make good fodder for sacred molotovs, "I'll be back for you, my pretties."

She almost left right then. Almost. But then inspiration struck her and she returned to the shelves, casting her eyes about for some kind of fine powder. Maybe she didn't know the code for the door, but whoever had used it left would've left fatty residue and body oils on the surface of the buttons, which was to say, finger prints. She just needed something light enough to stick to that residue, and while she might not be able to lift a print, she could determine which numbers were used in the door code. It would be a start.

She turned to go though as she gazed down that long hallway inspiration hit. There was the ladder back to the surface and of course the three doors left. She could not determine for a fact but the humming sound, faint at this end of the corridor, was coming from the first door on the left. The door with the key pad was on the left was next and of course she had the door opposite of her some distance away.

But something told her to look and she went back to the shelves to look. Duct tape, rope, other little odds and ends. Then her eyes widened as she found something that might assist her. She had to look in the box to make sure it wasn't an old box being reused but it was as was listed.

Baking soda! There were six unopened boxes of the stuff and she realize that it was used to absorb odors … at least that was the chief guess as to why it would be hear. It did not smell too bad, at least not in this store room though seeing that there was half a box of the stuff left it may have been used to help remove an odor and the excess had been stored here and either forgotten or stored for another time altogether. Now, it came down to the next door she was was going to try to access ...

"Ooh, bundle of rope!" Juniper exclaimed, picking up the length of rope and unraveling it to get an idea of how long it was. Then, she started coiling it back together in broad loops until she could settle it over her shoulder and across her body like a sash. One never knew when they'd need a good length of rope. Once it was in place she tied a loose knot between the dangling ends to keep it secure, though still loose enough for her to take it off without having to untie the knot.

"Score!" Juniper said, picking up one of the boxes of baking soda. This would do quite nicely. Oh, she wouldn't need the whole box, but what else was she going to do? Just grab a handful and leave the open box in the storage area? Finally, she picked up the roll of duct tape and pulled out a strip, looping it around the rope knot on her chest and fixing the roll in place. There were supposed to be a million uses for this stuff, so she could only imagine it would be handy to have around.

She paused in front of the door with the keypad on it, rubbing her chin as she looked for some kind of digital display that might tell her how many digits long the code was. Then, she poured a bit into her hand and opened her palm flat, bracing the wrist with her other hand. She brought her head down and blew gently over the pile of powder in her hand, sending a cloud of the lightest debris towards the keypad and watching to see how it collected.

"Okay Juni, your lucky numbers are . . . "

She passed by the first door on the left beyond which was probably a generator giving the pulse of machinery there. She moved up to the key pad and was in luck, a siple three digit combination though the same number might be reused multiple times.

But it had appeared that no one thought this place would be discovered seeing how easy the code was so it was obvious that whoever worked at this facility was probably forgetful but at the same time there was no need to keep the door opened to, a simple measure probably meant to delay more than stop intruders.

It might have been alaramed though there didn't seem to be anything real fancy about it and the baking soda picked up on oil of only the number 1, 2, 3 … 6 different combinations so this wouldn't take long, was it this easy? Or was the door alarmed to trip if the wrong code was inputted first.

She had to consider for a moment whether she was going to mess around with it or check out one of the two other doors first ...

A three digit code, huh? Juniper rubbed her chin for a moment and considered the keypad in front of her. If she'd set the place up, she'd have put the good stuff behind a lock. Of course, if she'd set the place up, she also would've tied the keypad to a console somewhere else that would set off a silent alarm the moment someone put in the wrong code. No finger prints on the pound or asterix keys, so it's not a code in multiple parts. They only got down here every few years, apparently, so it'd have to be something simple that they could recall without much effort.

She checked the keys again . . . could it be? 284? Or, she supposed, 285 was actually the page from Latin and You that had born the diagram she'd used to find this place. Either one, if she could draw that line of deduction she'd go ahead and try it. Otherwise, she'd nose around some more and see if she couldn't pick up a few more hints from around the place.

(The numbers were 1, 2 and 3 just to clear that up so I'll make some logical deductions off of that)

There had been no logical pattern that she could deduce and not wanted to trigger an alarm incase it was set up to report back unauthoried use she left it alone for the time being. Perhaps there was another clue in one of the two reaining rooms. They were both fairly close to where she was but the logical one was what she considered to store the generator only because if there was soeone or rather soething there it wouldn't be capable of sneaking up on her.

The room was dark and after a tense moment she turned the lights on. Sure enough a generator was here running power throughout the place she assumed. There was also a dull green machine here, some sort of generator though there were lights on there seemed to be no way of turning it one. It may have had it's own power supply independent of the generator too. The only clue as to what it was had been a yellow sticker on the side of it with tomorrows date on it … an inhibitor? There was no way to tell.

One other room left save for the locked one. When she cracked this one opened just a hair though whit light spilled out. Soeone was in there!

Two voices though there were only a few words that she picked up on … GOOD … NO … YES … EXCELLENT … the voice was masculine, middle aged and she heard the accent before given her father's origins. It was Russian, their was no mistaking that … the second voice was faint and barely audible. In any case she could not make out what they were saying only that it belonged to a female.

(Ah, I thought we were counting up the number of possible combinations there. Whoops)

Juniper crouched at the door for a few long moments, hand clenching and unclenching as she listened to the two people inside discussing . . . something. She strained her ears, but couldn't make out any of the details, which just made her investigative instincts tingle in frustration. Alas, it would have to stay a mystery for the time being, this wasn't the time for distractions.

Taking on two full grown adults in an open room was a bit more than she felt comfortable attempting. She needed some way to lure one of them away . . . she looked around, waiting for inspiration to strike her. Finally her eyes traced over the generator room again and she paused. Her eyes lightly rolled up as she considered.

Eh, worth a shot she finally decided. She slipped her way down to the hum of the generator room, looking this way and that as she considered her options. A fuse box would be ideal, particularly if she could find the fuse for that particular room. Enough of a disturbance for someone to go check it out, but no so major as to set off any warning sirens elsewhere on the campus. Failing that, well, there was always the options of a little deliberate sabotage. Open up a panel on the side of the generator, turn it off, and then swipe something that looked important before she hammered the panel back into place.

Either way, the plan was to stand off to the side, hiding in such a way that the door would hide her as someone came in to investigate. If they came alone, catch them around the throat with the garrote, but if the pair of them arrived she'd simply skirt out behind them and lock them both in the room, winding the rope through the door handle and looping it through the loose grate work of the hallway before securing it with a sailor's knot. Idly she considered that this might not work so well if she was dancing with a pair of monsters instead of humans . . . but then, if she were dealing with monsters, she didn't really want to be trapped in a generator room with them anyway.

Returning to the generator room she struck on the plan of cutting the power. There was was a fuse box though as she tripped it the generator operated back up power for the effected areas automatically kicking on though it was a partial success and made sense that the fuses were trip. If the back ups went out that would have made her targets suspicious so she took to hiding figuring that someone would come to check the fuses. Someone did though as the door opened the person did not step into the room as if their sharp mind picked up on the fact that the light was now on when it should have been off.

He cursed in Russian, spun and went to return to the room he had just left. Apparently he had no walkie talkie on him and did not shout out to the other for whatever reason that wasn;t quite clear to Juni though he had his back towards her … instead of using the garrot in the generator room she had to step into the hall swiftly and use it then.

A garrot was one of those weapons that if you didn't surprise your foe from behind it was relatively useless. So the man only had assumed something was amisss and not that she had been hiding in there waiting to strike as she slipped the garrot around his nexk. He gurgled and instinctively grabbed at the cored in efforts to pry his fingers beneath it to breath.

At the same time the Russian leaned forward to force here to bend trying to brake the hold quickly or at least collect more of her on his back before slamming her back into the wall attemptig to jar her loose.

"OOMPH!" The air rushed out of Juniper's lungs as she was slammed back into the wall. Dammit, this was what happened when you tried to choke someone out but didn't get the leverage on them first. The man had a few inches on her, and the weight advantage as well, so while the cord was digging into his neck and she clung to his back, she was still moving in the direction he wanted. Usually this was why she set up for a choke hold with a kick to the back of the knee, get the target to stagger and kneel, then use your weight to keep them down while you pulled hard, but she couldn't get a flawless execution on a moving target like this.

Either way, she had to get control of the situation back or it was going to tumble out of her fingers. She hadn't come this far just to botch it up now. She kicked off the wall with one foot to try and bring the two of them into a stumbling spin, hauling back with her weight as she tried to bring them both to the ground. Ideally, she'd come down on top, but she braced her knees against the small of his back as she hung on tight so that she'd gain leverage even if she ended up flat underneath him.

"Your life is worth less than ash to me, merzavec." she hissed in his ear, hoping it was convincing, "Give me the code for the door, and you wake up from this. Otherwise . . ."

He gurgled, the cord pressing into his throat as she push off the wall. She braced herself for the worse but the results had been optimal as he came crashing to the groun landing on one hand and both knees. With the other he still stuggled to keep the cord from digging too deeply though now she had that leverage she sought. Further more he was attempting from going completely prone and so had only one hand to defend himself rather than the two.

Breathing being cut off the him he could not utter a respnse though at first he frantically tapped her left arm as if he were submitting in a martial arts contest. That did not seem to work as his vision became hazey. It would be unwise to let up now but out of desperation and with the few seconds of consciousness he had left he held a single hand in front of him, three fingers, then one, the unconsciousness. Deaath would follow a few seconds later if she kept the pressure up as he slump forward into the cord not able to resist now as he slumped forward as the arm that was prying him up went inert with the loss of consciousness …

"Good boy." she said, though there was neither a sneer nor a smile on her lips. She let go of the cord with one hand as the man went slack under her, taking a few panting breaths as she stood over him. She swallowed a bit . . . how long had it been since she'd put a man in this kind of condition? The muscle memory was still there, but she'd lost a lot of her edge in the intervening years. Always ready for the worst . . . but how long had it been since someone had pushed her to it? Her hands shook as the adrenaline poured through her system . . . the way her heart was pumping, she felt she could take on another man. Hell, part of her even wanted to.

But this wasn't the time to dawdle. She reached down and rolled the man over, pressing an ear to his chest to make sure that he was still breathing. Once she was satisfied, she looked him up and down for anything of value. Security pass card, lab coat, cigarettes (God in Heaven, did she want a smoke), anything promising. Then, she grabbed hold of his shoulders and dragged him back into the generator room, pulling him into a corner as she took out the duct tape. Wrists bound behind his back, ankles and knees together, legs pulled and arms down until she could get a rough approximation of a hog-tie together she looked at her handiwork for a moment. Then added a strip to his mouth and eyes. The maintenance man would find him soon enough, he'd be fine.

She glanced up at the door. How long until the woman started to wonder what was keeping him? Best not to stick around and find out, she made her way into the hallway intent on slipping through the coded door as quickly as she could before everything went to hell. 3-1-2, easy to remember . . . assuming the man hadn't lied, anyway.