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Rick met her at the intersection where Mike had waited and shrugged. "No luck on my end, just locked doors."
Mike pocketed his radio. "Tanrial said she found something. Let's pick up the pace, we spent valuable time there."
"How's Bernon?"
"They found him and someone's taking him back to the tavern. He did get that chopper out of the sky, so we'll have to thank him for that later."
“Thank god for that. Come on.”
Tanrial led the two down the grey corridors, looking over her shoulder occasionally to make sure she was going to the right way and not getting them lost. After five minutes of walking, the stair case symbol appeared and she pointed to it, “Symbol but no staircase.”
"It must be around here somewhere…" Mike muttered, scanning the hall with its many doors. "Maybe it's one of these doors. Be careful, we don't know what else could be behind them."
"What level is this?" Rick asked as he started to snoop around.
"The medbay. So, labs, wards, surgery rooms, storage, stuff like that. Hopefully nothing too dangerous–that'll be on the lowest level."
“Let’s stay away from the lowest level for now,” Tanrial said, running her hands over the walls, “Surely one of the doors is…” She twisted a door handle and pushed it slightly, the door swinging open, “Unlocked.”
The room beyond was indeed a lab, filled with idling computers. At first it seemed empty, but then there came a slight sound from the far side of the room, and they saw two terrified-looking scientists, huddled behind a desk and staring at them wordlessly.
“I don’t think they’ll do any harm to us.” Tanrial muttered, taking a few steps into the room to get a better feel of the place. Everything felt too clean and polished and tidy.
"No…." Mike stared at the scientists with narrowed eyes, thinking. "Maybe they can even help us." He advanced on them, making them scoot backward quickly. "Okay you two, we need to know how to get to the level where Ryker's "kids" are, pronto. You guys are gonna take us there."
"You're here for the children?" one of them whispered. The thought seemed to give him courage. "You monsters! We'll never let you near them!"
"Great," Mike muttered. "So Ryker has these guys fooled too…..Tanrial, can you try talking to them? We'll search this place and guard the door."
Tanrial nodded, “I’ll try, can’t make any promises, though.” She sighed and walked towards the two scientists, seating in a near by chair and crossing her arms, “Right, I know you might not believe me as we look like the bad guys here but… we’re not going to do any harm to Ryker’s ‘kids’ we want to help them.”
The other scientist spoke up. "Your army's attacking us right now! How can you expect us to believe that you're not going to hurt them? If you're here to do good, why aren't you going to Mr. Ryker?"
“Because Ryker isn’t a good person despite what he’s told you. He’s trying to wipe out all pure humans and replace them with those hybrids. It may seem like a good thing but… we need to all exist together, no one race having the most power.”
"No! That's not his plan at all," the first one cried. "You're trying to feed us lies like the scheming magic-users you are. We won't listen to you!"
Mike growled. "I'm a pure-blooded human, you idiots. We're not the ones who've lied to you. Tanrial, this is taking too long, I can hear voices coming. Can you read their minds or something and find out how to get down there?"
(brb)
Tanrial shook her head, “My powers don’t go that far, sorry,” She sighed and stood, “I think we have to resort to trial and error.”
(Okay)
(back ^^)
"Gah. Fine. Let's just lock them in here and get a move on." He cursed. "What a waste of time."
“Mike, calm yourself. Getting angry isn’t going to do anything.” She narrowed her eyes at him.
Mike looked away. "I'm fine. I'm not angry at you. I just don't want this to get screwed up by a couple of misguided crusaders in lab coats." He went back out into the hall and started trying more doors.
Rick shrugged. "I think I'll tie these two up and then catch up with you."
Tanrial nodded to Rick and did the same as Mike, walking into the hall and testing out the doors to see if they were open.
They found a couple more that were unlocked, all either leading to labs or another hallway. Mike glanced at the ceiling as he searched. "I hope James's team is in here by now, although we haven't seen them around. At some point I should check in with the others and see how the fights going. Find anything?"
Tanrial shook her head, “Only boring documents that don’t lead to anything important,” She held up a few files and placed them down with a sigh, “Yourself?”
"Nothing." Mike came back out into the hall, the room behind him a wreck from being thoroughly searched. "There's no directory, no keys, no devices lying around, no feeds from security cameras on any of the computers. Nothing we can use to navigate, in other words. But that sign is still right there, and it's gotta mean something." He glared up at it. "I'd hate to be the new guy who had to work here."
Just then there came the sound of footsteps around the corner. Mike tensed and backed into the lab, reaching for his knife.
Tanrial narrowed her eyes at the door before quickly leaning against the spare piece of wall beside it. One hand went and sat at the dagger by her side.
A minute later, Rick came into view, looking cheerful as ever. "Hey guys, you there? I think I know where to go from here…."
(brb again, gotta have supper)
Tanrial released a breath and stepped into view, “Gosh Rick, you scared us,” She gave him a smile, “But good to know that you know the way… possibly.”
(Alrighty)
Rick grinned. "Sure, turns out it's easy." He walked over to a nearby door, which had been locked, and kicked it open with an explosive bang. "See? Here's the stairs. This way."
Mike looked at him strangely. "How did you find out?"
"Oh, it wasn't hard," Rick said casually. "Only took me a minute to get one o' them scientists to draw me up a little map."
Mike frowned. "Did you hurt them?"
"No no!" Rick gently ripped the door off its hinges and leaned it against the wall. "Just pretended like I was gonna for a minute. Nothing serious."