Checking the door the motors were in deed blown and set partially opened. She could stick her arm through, sprinklers rained down water into the shaft from the bottom of the elevator. The elevator was some ways up there, stopped between floors as she contemplated tipping her hand for a second.

Going back to one of the computers she found that the monitor had been blown out so the only way out of here was down into the lab. She would have to cross the room where all the clones had been though she doubted that those computers could help her any. There was the one in the office though off that room that could help.

Barring that there was the elevator there that lead back up to the room that monster guarded with the test tubes, the maturing new patch of clones complete with Ortix replicas. She had to now decide how she was going to get out of here. What option she would use as the radio crackled to life once more causing her to wonder about the effective ranges of such things.

'RENA ARE YOU THERE. OVER.”

"Nobody here but the dead and mad." Juniper responded in a soft sing-song as she leaned down to pluck Rena's ID card from her coat lapel, though she didn't pick up the walk-talkie to transmit the taunt. It seemed that Rena's little brain-worms didn't provide any feedback to their carriers . . . that was certainly convenient. It seemed that her options were limited . . . extremely limited. She made quick steps towards the elevator, lifting her arm to take the brunt of her momentum as she crashed into the door. She winced a bit . . . oh, but this was a bad idea.

Don't look down, don't look down. . . Juniper reached her arm into the open elevator shaft, squeezing her shoulder through after it. She wouldn't be able to get the other elevator open, so this was the only escape route she had access to. Looking up to make sure that the elevator wasn't going anywhere, she tried to squeeze her head through and look to see if there was a service ladder or if she'd have to brave using the elevator cable like a fireman's pole.

Either way, staying put wasn't an option. For the first time she could recall, she thanked God that she wasn't curvier as she sucked in her breath and reached for her method of egress. She was plotting out her course in her head . . . Aegir had told her to move quickly and stay near the walls, that would be easy enough. But which computer to use . . . the office was tempting. But, she considered the screen saver that she'd seen there before, and the state she'd left the nurse from hell in upstairs. As soon as word got out, someone was going to have some very cross words for her. She'd try to get up to the clone growth chamber first, the misty guardian was supposed to be elsewhere tonight after all.

The radio crackled given Juni at least some measure in comfort that these things could not communicate in other more nefarious ways. Rena laid motionless on the ground but she did not have much time. The guards had not been gone for long meaning that they were not far so she through herself at the partially opened elevator.

They had been designed to thwart Rena and she would not have had a chance on opening the other. As it was she had to squeeze and wiggle against it, had to work her way into the shaft where water reigned down as well from sprinklers on the bottom of the elevator.

Eventually those sprinkles stopped first, their water supply limited though the ones in the room still poured down water to fill that shaft.

She managed it though how much time had it taken to get into the shaft? Finding a later that ran along the side of the wall she soon met her next obstacle as she climbed up the wet ladder.

The elevator itself. It did have a lower and upper hatch but like most elevators they were locked and simply for maintenance purposes only.

So she had to think rather quickly to bypass this obstacle or admit that she was stuck here now. The elevator filled the shaft so she had to deal with it in some fashion seeing that it filled the shaft well almost. She might be … yes, she was able to squeeze past it though whatever maintenance men they used her must have been small. She could only pray that the elevator did not begin to move as she squeezed by it. At first it did not appear that she would be able to squeeze on by but adrenaline was surging through her and there was little she could have done if she couldn't have fit,

As it were the elevator pressed up against her as her wet body squeezed on by. It occured to her that the maintenance her did not have to be human though, or, given her encounter with Lurker and Ortix even solid for that matter though in such case they would have trouble manipulating tools to fix the matter that was a problem.

Finally she got to the top of that shaft but met with the problem of strong doors barring her way. Doors that separated her from freedom for the strength of a human was no match in opening them and yet … yet they opened a hair on their own revealing the back of a plain wooden door ...

Juniper grit her teeth and hissed. Saying that she climbed the ladder almost seemed to generous, her head turned sideways and her cheek brushing against every rung, she had to wiggle and squirm for every inch, her breasts pressed hard against her chest every step she managed forward. She would've half expected to have more room to maneuver in an air vent . . . but she had come too far to stop just yet. If there was anything good to be said the situation, it was that the water-slicked elevator car made it slightly easier for her to slide along the metallic car, while still pressing her closely enough to the ladder that she couldn't really slip and fall on the wet rungs.

She took a deep breath as she got her shoulders above the elevator car, her first full breath in what felt like the longest minutes of her life. Grabbing hold of the highest rung she could manage with both hands, she let her legs dangle just long enough for her to get her hips passed the car, and finally she could begin to climbing regularly again. The door didn't concern her too much, she believed that the mechanism would be exposed on this side, possibly with an emergency hand crank or something she could use. She blinked, slightly, however, as she saw the doors overhead open crack a bit in front of her.

"Shit." Juniper grit her teeth. There was exactly one reason she could think of for those doors to open on their own, and that was to let the security guards look down into the elevator shaft. She cast her eyes around for someplace to hide, but she wasn't seeing much. She looked up at the top of the elevator shaft to see if there would be enough room for her to squeeze against the roof if the elevator car started comming back up behind her.

It had been harrowing thus far and it seemed that the tension had not let up. Getting past the elevator took longer than she thought and it seemed that security had returned. They were on the top level but she looked to see if there was additional space.

Some sprinklers up here too, it seemed the administration had been quiet thorough in dealing with Rena if she every became a problem. They probably had measures in place against every guest too.

“Shit. The elevator's not out there.”

She could hear the repeated click of a call button being depressed which had been beyond the simple door alongside the elevator one. The elevator was hidden unless someone opened the door and saw the obvious door.

“It's not coming up, call maintenance.” Said another.

“You call them. The elevator was working fine just awhile ago it might be locked out I'll see what I can do with getting it back up here while you deal with maintenance.”

Lucky for her once the doors were opened it was obvious that the elevator wasn't on this level and thus they did not peer into the shaft. Lucky further that there looked to be be enough space for her ...

Juniper kept her breathing shallow as she clung tightly to the ladder again, anything to keep her profile down while the two guards discussed the situation amongst themselves. She pressed her forehead against the cool, wet metal of the ladder rung as she strained her hearing to make out their plans. It sounded like one of them was going to be heading out to contact maintenance . . . so, just her, and one security guard. She took a slightly deeper breath and winced at the pressure against her ribs. More manageable, but not something she should take too lightly.

Juniper reached out from the ladder and grabbed hold of the lower lip of the elevator door, swallowing a bit as she fought down a wave of vertigo. She braced herself with a foot and shifted the other hand over to the lip. She took a deep breath . . . oh, but this was a bad idea.

"Meow." she gave a plaintive little mew from the elevator shaft, her legs tensing as she got ready to move. "Meow." it was the third oldest trick in the book. She'd lure the guard over, and then when he leaned in to look, she'd pounce and pull him off balance and into the elevator shaft. She didn't think the fall down to the elevator car would kill him, though it would definitely hurt. All she had to do was make sure that she didn't fall down after him, and be on her way he could get in touch with the other guard going to check with maintenance.

She could hear the clanking of the keys on a computer as the guard worked up what he could with resetting the system. He was literate enough with the computer to at least give it a try before maintenance got here and she soon realized that the other guard had a radio as well and wouldn't be far. Perhaps he was going to make the long trip to access the other elevator. She could only hope. But there was a meow and the guard kept working clacking away at keys.

A second and the guard stopped. She heard the cessation of those keys and realized that he must not have heard her the first time around but she had time to tense as she heard him move over to the elevator. He strained with opening the doors wider, taking a second using leverage and a crown bar to widen the space a little.

She heard him curse a little, the door was being stubborn to the point that he quickly gave up. He was curious but not curious enough to spend five or ten minutes on that door. She hear the dropping of the crow bar as he moved back over to the computer though resetting the system would prove to be more effective than trying to use brute force.

With a few key strokes he reset the doors, closing them then opening them wide after an emergency over ride. Getting the doors was far easier than resetting the elevator, or perhaps it was reset too though now with the doors opened he wandered back to look down the elevator shaft only to find himself being suddenly grabbed.

He grabbed uselessly at the wall to keep his balance but surprise pulled him forth as he fell part way down that elevator shaft landing with a sicking thud and a crack as he landed, a scream given the compound fracture that poked out of his leg.

He was a spry young Hispanic man from what she could tell.

Juniper cringed when she heard the crash of the guard's body hitting the elevator car, followed immediately by a howl of pain. It sounded like he'd landed badly, and it wasn't exactly a soft surface he'd landed on to begin with. This one she felt a little guilty about, so far as she knew the guy was just doing his job, but Juniper had drawn her line in the sand and she reminded herself that security guards were pretty firmly on the wrong side of it. She didn't look back, not wanting to give the guy a chance to identify her if she could avoid it, and grabbed onto the elevator door to pull herself up with a grunt of effort.

There was a soft scraping sound as she bent over to scoop up the crowbar on the tile floor of the infirmary, one never knew when a tool would come in handy after all. She glanced over towards the computer for a moment to make sure that the guard hadn't left his radio sitting on the desk while he'd been working with the computer. If so, she'd detour just enough to drop it down to him. She imagined that it could take the fall, they built them pretty rugged after all, and she didn't want the man to be trapped on top of the elevator car when they reset it. A bit of sympathy for the devil, she supposed.

She pushed her way out into the hallway, moving as quickly as she could manage. Her head was feeling much clearer now that she'd had a few minutes to recover, but she didn't trust herself to run just yet. She was running a little behind schedule, but so far the plan was still intact. She opened the locker she'd hid in earlier to reclaim the small black bag with her camera in it and made a bee-line for the stairs.

The guard had fallen with his radio Juniper found. He was logged in to over rides of the elevator attempting to reset them given the snippets of the earlier conversation. The man had to be in too much pain from the initial impact to call for help right away but as the pain lessened in his mind there was no doubt that he would

The hall outside had been cleared. The other security guard was gone to who cares where, he wasn't there and that was good news for her as she moved through the darkened hall to the locker she had been hidden in earlier.

Retrieving her bag it was definitely time to go. Her plan had a few hitches in it but nothing that she failed to recover from so far.

The night air was crisp and while she was able to use the camera to find her way it was just as well that she did not have to use the flashlight given the security patrol on the grounds looking for curfew violators.

So, with the camera she was able to make her way from the campus to the grotto … well sort of … for half way there she attracted the attention of something else as was the case with any student wandering around at night.

It had recognized her from earlier too though she had not recognized it, not yet any way as such memories of the lab had not returned to her.

He had been moving along closer to the dorms for personnel business but the golem let that business slip away in light of the opportunity that now presented it self. The golem had not been present when Aegir said he would take her either and to thing she was so close to the grotto now.

Tin Man shifted his attention. His night vision was active so everything looked green and white. He set his eyes upon her as he made the internal adjustments to his gears and what programs to enable.
Unlike beings like Ortix or Lurker he could not sneak about worth a damn. The beach sand would mute some of the heavy foot falls though she still probably hear them along with the grinding of gears. So he had to make a few adjustments enabling the rocket boosters that would allow him to cut the distance between the two.

Nights out on the island always seemed so deathly quiet to Juniper. There was no rumbling traffic, or blaring radios, or gaggles of bored, drunk friends ruminating loudly about what to do with the rest of their night. Even for the wilderness, things seemed so still as to be somehow wrong, without even the cry of sea birds or the chirp of insects permeating the darkness. Juniper almost cringed at the sound of her shoes sliding through the tall stands of grass, worried that someone might hear, until she finally found her way onto the sand.

With one hand, she kept the small camera up to her face. The fat, white moon hanging in the sky overhead and the twinkling stars that surrounded it provided plenty of light for her lens to magnify, the world in front of her picked out in a slightly grainy black and white relief as she made her way along the beach. The moonlight reflecting off of the waves of the ocean snapped and sparked like fireworks as she swung her head from one side to the other. It was good to be able to see, but focusing through the lens meant that she had little to no peripheral vision to work with.

She had to admit, she probably cut a bit of a strange figure as she strode out through the night. Her clothes in tatters with long singed holes in some places and a bevy of tiny speckles burned throughout the surface. the already short Shokushu skirt having been singed immodestly shorter from when she'd settled her weight on top of Rena. The belt, at least, was still intact, the arsenal of holy water not entirely spent, and while the blade had been badly compromised Juniper felt it had at least one good stab still left in it. In her other hand, however, she still held the crowbar, choking up just under the hooked head in case she needed something with a little more reach.

She slowed a step, something had caught in her ear but she hadn't been able to recognize it. That was just what she needed, she was almost in the home stretch, but she couldn't very well lead whatever had picked up her scent back to Aegir's grotto. She swept the camera in a slow arch hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever it was that she'd heard above the rolling waves, hoping for a moment that it was just her imagination.

It was not her imagination unfortunately. She turned and saw it as it activated the rockets in it's legs. The golem streaking forward. It was huge, and despite it's name ironically Tin Man did not comprise of any time.

But a lone student out and about was too good to pass up/

It's arms comprised of thick cables ending in metal clamp like fingers. It's eyes a simple visor though it's body vented steam as it moved along with smoke from the rockets amongst the enormous roar of their activation.

Tin Man was not constructed for stealth. He went straight for the kill and seeing that this was not the woods or any other place where their were heavy obstacles to avoid he cut the distance down regardless if she ran or not. With the rockets he was just too damn quick.

TARGET AQUIRED. INITIATE STAGE ONE. The metallic creature wasted no time in trying to close with her. It pressed in without concern or fear of any sort know that her resistance would be futile at best.

"WHAT THE HELL!?!" it may not have been the most unique expression, but Juniper couldn't think of anything more fitting at the fireball of steam and light that was glaring at her through her camera as the rocket-asssited monster rushed her. Instincts pressed the shutter on the camera, she could try and clean up the image with a computer later, but for now she had far more pressing matters. Crushing, really.

She wanted to run, but she wasn't quite foolish enough to think she could outpace this thing in a straight sprint as she pulled the camera away, white clouds and orange flames giving it a sinister cast under the moonlight. She bent at the knees instead, her eyes narrowing as she licked her lips . . . she wished she had something she could use like a bull fighter to attract it's attention. It took the mechanism scant moments to cross the broad open ground between them, but when Juniper remembered it later it'd certainly seem like forever, waiting for the right moment to act. If she jumped too soon, it would have a chance to correct it's course, if she jumped too late . . . well, it'd slam into her at speeds she didn't particularly care to think about.

NOW! Juniper dove to the side and tucked into a roll, letting it carry her closer to the water's edge. It's metallic exterior, the flaming jets, the plumes of steam . . . if she could just get to the water she thought she might be able to escape. As she came upright again, a gear clicked into place in her brain, the image on a blueprint from Gigi's nonexistent cave lining up with the silhouette she could make out and the glowing visor.

"Tinman!?" she asked incredulously. Well . . . why not? The blob had proven to be real, as had Aegir . . . if Tinman was also real that meant she'd have to keep her eyes out for a giant as well in the future.

She evaded it as it recalculated it's trajectory, computerized images flashing on internal monitors.

REORIENTATE SIX DEGREES TO THE EAST. WIND SPEED 2 MILES OUT OF THE SOUTH WEST. THREAT ASSESSMENT 2%.

Then she moved closer to the water.

THREAT ASSESSMENT 9%

It landed on the sand, turning and lumbering forward in a cacophony of clatters and whirls at it moved forth.

Then she called to it in the din of the night as it processed how much coolant it had. Near full, she had been his last replenishing of such fluids though it swept it's gaze over her. It had been programmed with a male personality, of course Tinman was a bit misleading, a Wizard of Oz reference. For it was no more male than it had been comprised of tin.

It ruffled through recently accessed data files.

AFFIRMITIVE, NUMBER 6199-23B

It seemed banter was not going to stop it as it methodically came forth.

"Would that be your number, or mine?" she asked, taking a step backwards.

Juniper did a quick threat assessment of her own as Tinman's landing kicked up a huge plume of grit and sand into the air, his lumbering form reorienting to focus on her as his movements were accompanied with an ambient of whirring mechanisms. The only thing she had on her that might hurt this thing was the crowbar, and she didn't much care for her odds in that regard. So, not wanting it to weigh her down, she tossed it to the side and turned on her heel.

The waterline was pretty much her only hope. She sincerely doubted that this thing could swim, after all, and after a display like that she was hoping it wouldn't want salt water in it's intakes, or to risk microfractures from it's heated metallic exterior contacting the cold water of the sea. She didn't really know how fast he would be, but her own footsteps would be bogged down by the sand and the waves before she could properly make a dive for the deeper part of the water. She threaded the strap of her camera through her arm and hung it over her shoulder, hoping to keep it close despite the oncoming swim.

Tinman advanced as she timidly stepped towards the edge of the ocean.

YOUR DESIGNATION.

It confirmed as it kicked in those rockets again hoping to catch her before she got into the ocean. He normally wouldn't be on the beach if it hadn't been for the doctor sending him out here to collect some samples before he went on to other nightly activities. If not for the scientist it would have never come.

But she was too close to the water for it to prevent her from reaching the water and it pulled up short of the water edge.

RECALCULATING. THREAT ASSEMENT 73% INIATATE OPTION A … SUCCESS RATE 82% RISK OF ACTUAL DEATH … ACCEPTABLE. OPTION B … SUCCESS RATE 94% … INIATING.

Tinman backed up just a little as to not to get itself wet. But it did not leave either. Tinman was tireless and as long as it had coolant it could afford to wait. It did not need to eat. It did not get tired or bored. She could not stay out there forever ...