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As the began doing drills again, Vin's face hardened into the now-familiar "this-isn't-right" expression. "That does it," he said so only Ellen could hear. "When lunchtime comes, let's break some rules. Let's sneak out of the mess hall, figure out what those things are, then find a way to leave this stupid place."
Ellen grinned. "Sounds great."
The rest of the morning passed quickly, and it was almost a surprise to hear the noon bell ring. Sully took his sweet time letting them go, but eventually they were allowed to go get some lunch. Vin redid his ponytail as he walked, having cooled down a bit by now.
"Okay," he conceded, "so maybe we should have something to eat before we…do anything else. Just a quick bite or two."
"Yeah. You suppose I'll get to try out my hacking skills?" Ellen asked, cracking her knuckles.
Vin glanced sharply at the barracks where the animals were being kept as they passed. "Not sure. Can you hack a keypad? I think there's one on the door."
"Depends on the type, but yeah, I think so."
"Cool." Vin joined the line waiting for food. "Let's eat really fast, I want to have plenty of time to snoop around before anyone gets suspicious."
Ellen nodded. They quickly filled their plates and sat down. Ellen immediately started wolfing down her food.
Vin did the same and was done in minutes. "Man, that stuff gets old quick. Okay, anybody watching us?"
Ellen glanced around. "Nope."
"Okay, act natural." Vin stood up and began making his way towards the door.
Ellen followed, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. She fingered what she had in them, making a mental note to empty her pockets later.
They made it out into the yard without being stopped. Almost everyone was in the mess hall eating, so the rest of the camp was mostly deserted. Vin sidled over to the animal's barracks and stood by the door. "Okay, see what you can do. I'll keep watch."
Ellen peered at the keypad. "Mm. Good." She muttered, fishing about her pockets. She pulled out a bobby pin and inserted it in the key hole. She glanced about before twisting it and giving it a solid smack on the top. A few seconds later, she had the door open. She stood to the side. "After you good sir."
"Nice work." Vin stepped slowly inside. "Close the door quick, before anybody sees us."
Ellen nodded and closed the door quickly. She turned around. "Let's see what screwy things are in here."
The inside of the barracks was quite dark until Vin found the light switch. The electric bulbs in the low ceiling didn't illuminate every detail, but it was enough to see by. The barracks was all one large, long room, lined on either side by metal bars so that only a narrow walkways down the center remained. It looked more like a badly-kept prison, or even a kennel, than a barracks.
As the lights came on, there came sounds of things stirring behind the bars on both sides. On their right, a woman with pure white skin and curling ram horns hissed at them from a nest of dirty straw. Her lower half was that of a huge white snake, and she had very long fangs.
"And what do you want?" she said in a low voice.
"I have no words." Ellen muttered, staring at the snake woman. "Vin, we are in deep schist."
Vin cautiously approached the bars. "Who are you? What's your name?"
The woman looked at him with contempt. "What do you care? Nobody else has asked my name. Why would you?"
"Because….because I don't like this, and I didn't know it was going on. We're not the people who brought you here." Vin shook his head. "Why did they bring you?"
"Beats me." She looked them over calculatingly. "Fine. My name's Scream. Yours?"
"That's an awful name." Ellen said. "How did you end up here?"
Her lips rippled, revealing her teeth again. "I bet my name's better than whatever yours is, human." Then she let out a breath and leaned back, seeming suddenly very tired. "I don't wanna talk to you anymore. I feel funny, like I ate something bad."
Vin's jaw tightened. "One more question. Do you know what happened to the big black lion that got loose this morning?"
Her eyes flickered with interest. "Oh, that hottie? They caught him and knocked him back out. He's at the end of this room, I think. He's pretty strong. Nobody else has had any luck fighting back so far. Why don't you go talk to him? He woke up not too long ago."
Ellen frowned. "Last time we saw him, he didn't seem to be in a talking mood."
But Scream was already asleep, snoring gently.
Vin turned away. "Let's try him. It sounds like this guy might be better at resisting whatever they drugged these creatures with. He might remember more details of whatever happened."
"But can he actually talk? He's a freaking lion."
"Let's just go see. I don't want to leave this place yet."