Episode 511: A Matter Of Leverage, Part Four

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Rina can see them from the safety of the alcove we’re in. There is one mounted over the door to the elevator corridor and one on the wall opposite it. She also notices that the cameras aren’t in motion but fixed. The field of view on the cameras is likely a wide cone as a consequence. That makes for some blind spots, on those sections the cones can’t cover. Unfortunately, given their placement, none are within reach and the second we step clear of the alcove leading to our cell, we’ll be seen. The trick it to find a way to move around without being seen.

Nika: Crap.
Rina: Got some blind spots but not where our door is. Yob tvoyu mat’.
Nika: Okay. (to Arden) Which door did you want to hit?
Arden: Let someone else decide.
Joshua: I want the lab.
Nika: Where’s the lab?
Joshua: Right to our left.

He points to the door to our left, just past our alcove, the one they’d dragged the straitjacketed man from, the one whose door is marked ‘Surgery’.

Nika: See if it has a key card lock or anything on it.
Rina: No, wait. Wait. Air vents. The cameras can’t see anything in the air vents but I’ll bet you they all connect.
Joshua: (to self) Why is it always air vents?
Arden: I’m not sure I can fit in the air vents.
Nika: From this point to that point—(gestures from our alcove to the elevator corridor)—we’re not going to get to the air vents.

Actually, we might. There’s an air vent in our alcove. About yea-high off the floor. We can get into it, though we’ll have to get on each other’s shoulders to reach it. Arden’s armed with the Tongue Depressors of Doom and he has the best chance of getting that vent cover off. He’s also over 6 feet tall and 180 pounds. We cut his weight in half by having him stand on the shoulders of two people, a foot on each. Kiera and Joshua are the closest together in height and they get Arden up there. He pops the vent cover off and hands it carefully down. Nika takes it and sets it aside. Sure enough, there’s just enough room for a person to squeeze inside.

Arden goes first, hands in front. The vent goes straight back for a little bit, then turns to the right and rises on a slope—the room with the cameras has a higher ceiling than our alcove and the vent rises to match it. The rest of us make to follow.

Rina: I’ll go last.
Joshua: No. You’re wounded and you’re five-one. I’m going last. There’s no argument about it. No argument.
Rina: Then I’m going next to last.
Joshua: Fine.
Nika: What the hell for?
Joshua: Don’t argue with her. I said no argument and I meant you, too.
Nika: Whatever.
Kiera: Somebody give me a foot up.

Kiera gets her boost. Nika follows next and helps Rina in after her. Joshua brings up the rear. We eel through the air vent, go around the corner of it to the stub that feeds into the room marked “Surgery”. Arden scrutinizes the room through the vent and finds no evidence of cameras. It’s safe to go in. The vent cover is screwed into place, rather than being held on by clips, and we have to back up a bit to let Arden reverse his position to kick it out. It takes three kicks, all of which reverberate through the vent, but once that’s done, he drops into the room beyond. All but Joshua do the same, who chooses to stay behind to watch our rear. Eager for tools and weapons, the rest of us scour the room.

It really is a surgery, complete with table and equipment. Arden quickly cobbles together a rudimentary med kit, good for first aid and not much else. Kiera goes straight for the syringes and loads them up with fast-acting local anesthetics. Rina gets creative with the scalpels and hemostats—makeshift screwdrivers and clamps, anyone? To say nothing of affording her some wicked sharp knives. We find oxy tanks and briefly debate making a bomb out of them to blow in our wake, but decide against it. There is also evidence of blood in this room, as if someone has had minor surgery.

Kiera: How unsterile.
Rina: Amateurs.
Kiera: How completely unsterile.

We don’t linger. Our work done here, we climb back into the vent and carry on to the next room down the line. Arden declines the lead position, giving to Joshua who’s still in the ductwork. Rina climbs in first, and the others follow. The vent continues another twenty or so feet past the surgery to another stub on the left. Looking through the vent cover, we see it’s the bathroom, which jives with what Joshua surmised of the little girl’s trip across the staging room.

Rina: Anyone need to go? Now would be a good time.

Kiera takes her up on it and with a little rearranging of the marching order, and some judicious application of a scalpel to the screws, Rina gets that cover open and Kiera drops down inside. Rina follows and in a few minutes everyone’s back up inside. Like the surgery, there aren’t any cameras. We push on for the next room down the line. The vent runs all the way to the corner of the staging room and turns right before we reach another stub on the left. Joshua’s still in the lead and he looks carefully inside.

It’s a bunk room with eight bunk beds. Only two seem to be occupied. There are two women in there. They appear to be wearing hospital scrubs but their expressions clearly mark them as prisoners, like us. One is a middle-aged blonde. She looks like she’s been through an ordeal and not accustomed to doing hard labor, and looks knackered lying on her bunk. The other woman looks like she’s got her mind on something else, perhaps planning her escape as she lies there. She is also middle aged and has a somewhat more stoic look to her. Joshua takes a chance and whispers through the vent.

Joshua: (quiet) Hello.

The first woman looks puzzled at the sound. The second woman’s reaction is more wary, quasi-trained. Military, perhaps?

First Woman: Someone there?

The second woman moves quickly to the vent and looks up. She keeps her voice to a whisper too.

Second Woman: Who’s up there?
Joshua: (whispering back) Five of us. We’re looking for a way out.
Second Woman: You found a way up in there … Where are you planning to go?
Joshua: We don’t know. Out.
Second Woman: Do you have weapons?
Joshua: Makeshift stuff. Nothing—
Second Woman: You’re prisoners?
Joshua: Yeah.
Second Woman: We’re prisoners, too.
Joshua: Kinda figured. Are you the hostages or are you the … the targets of the hostages?
Second Woman: Oh. We heard about that. I think we’re more run-of-the-mill prisoners. I’ve been—We’ve been interrogated.
Joshua: About? No, I’m sorry. I know why they’ve got me, but I just don’t know what else they’re trying to do here.
Second Woman: I think I’ve been accused of Independent sympathies. As has the doctor. Our professor.
Joshua: Um, all right. We’re trying to get out of here. The more the better, to be honest.
Second Woman: Do you have tools? Can open this and we go with you? Or are you planning to overcome the guards and taking over? Give us a weapon.
Joshua: Do you know how many—I don’t know how many guards there are. We’ve seen six.
Second Woman: I think there’s about a dozen armed guards and maybe ten support personnel and a couple of doctors and some technical people. They’re well armed and armored. And there’s … the woman who seems to lead. There’s … there’s something wrong with her.
Joshua: Yes. She’s a psychopath. Don’t mess with her.

He squirms to look back and whispers to Rina.

Joshua: Pass the screwdriver.
Rina: Careful. It’s got an edge.

She hands him one of her scalpels, cover attached. Then hands him a hemostat for a clamp to hold the vent grill so it won’t clang noisily to the floor once it’s free. Joshua threads the scalpel through the grill to the woman below.

Joshua: That’s basically all we’ve got. Back that way is the surgery.
Second Woman: Yeah that sounds about right. (starts unscrewing)
Joshua: We’re going straight.
Second Woman: To where the men are?
Joshua: Men? We don’t know who’s here, so if there are men—
Second Woman: They occasionally let us converse. Um … (thinks) … Ben, Emmett, and Sorren should be in the other room. There’s another level. I think there’s some people down there. They’ve been here longer than us.
Joshua: Who’s the little girl?
Second Woman: Oh, ah … I think they called her N.J.
Joshua: So she doesn’t belong to the …?
Second Woman: She belongs to someone downstairs. Every now and then they let her mother up. I think it’s her mother, or maybe just someone who takes care of her. It’s hard to see. We don’t have a really good angle on that side.
Joshua: Okay. We’re heading toward the men. It’s your choice if you want to crawl into the vent, cuz if you get caught—just like if we get caught—she’ll kill us. She wants me and she’s willing to kill me, so she’ll kill you without a second thought.
Second Woman: Well, they wanted information from us.
Joshua: I still don’t think she wouldn’t kill you. But you’ve maybe a better shot than anything we’ve else got.

The first screw is off, the second one’s almost there.

Second Woman: So what’s your plan?
Joshua: Our plan is gathering information. We’ve only seen this level and I’ve seen a level below, but …

The woman thinks for a moment.

Second Woman: Okay, so it’s about … two hours before our evening meal. And there seems to be a bit of activity … I think we’ve got a couple of hours before they’ll be here, but if we set off an alarm, they’ll be on us quickly.
Joshua: You know their patterns better than we do, obviously. Is there a quiet guard period? Is there one? They seem very professional. They patrolling at odd hours or … ?
Second Woman: They seem pretty confident that there’s nowhere to go really if you escape. You know where you are, right?
Joshua: Yeah. St. Albans. We have a mule and a way off.
Second Woman: How long have you been here?
Joshua: A day.
Second Woman: You just got here. You came here? Did they bring you or did you …?
Joshua: Came here. Looking for …
Second Woman: They captured you.
Joshua: Yeah.

The third and fourth screw join the first and the second and the woman looks up at Joshua.

Second Woman: Can you come down here and talk to us?
Joshua: Sure.

Joshua eases the grill down to the woman, holding it by the makeshift clamp, then drops down into the room. Rina follows him and recovers her hemostat from the grill. Arden’s out next. Kiera and Nika stay in the vent, but Nika pokes her head out.

Nika: Did you say something about other prisoners?
Rina: Mm-hm. There’s three men. Next room down. There’s more people downstairs.
Nika: How many do we have prisoner total? Do we know?
Rina: (to the woman) How many people are here?
Second Woman: We didn’t even know you were here. There’s us two, three men, and I think there’s …
Arden: The little girl.
Second Woman: The little girl.
Rina: Her mother, the caretaker.
Joshua: Let her make the count.
Second Woman: There’s … five more, maybe?
Nika: (to the woman) How do you get downstairs from here?
Second Woman: There’s an elevator.
Nika: Back around the corner over that way, right?

She nods her head in the direction we’d been taken by the guards.

Second Woman: Yes. I don’t know if the air vents go down that way.
Nika: Okay.
Rina: (to Nika) Elevator shaft.
Nika: Do you have a … floor plan in your head of this place? Have you been here long enough to know what the floor plan in this place looks like?
Second Woman: For this area? For this level, yes.
Nika: Just this level?
Second Woman: Yes, that’s all I’ve got.
Nika: Okay. So you didn’t work here?
Second Woman: No. I’m a … ah, hell. They can’t hurt me any more than they’ve …

The woman straightens and lifts her chin.

Second Woman: I’m Captain LaSalle of the IAV Nelson.
First Woman: (sitting up) I’m … Lindsay Frost of Stamford University, Bellerophon.
Nika: All right. You came in on a ship …
Joshua: No. Well … eventually.
Cpt. LaSalle: I was … escorted off my own vessel. Brought here by Parliamentary agents.
Nika: Oh, wonderful.
Cpt. LaSalle: I wasn’t officially accused of treason but effectively … (gestures to the room)
Rina: What fleet were you attached to?
Cpt. LaSalle: (evenly) I haven’t given them any information. I’m not going to start here.
Nika: Yeah, no. (to Rina) This is not the time or place for that. (to LaSalle) All I was going for with that was if you came here on a ship, did you come here with your entire crew? That was the only thing I wanted to know.
Cpt. LaSalle: No. I was taken off my ship.
Nika: Okay. So, there’s the two of you, there’s three men next door. What’s in the room after that? Do you know?
Cpt. LaSalle: They’re in the room in the far corner. The room next door to us is a room I think for the guards.
Nika: Oh, fabulous.

It’s right in our path through the vents.

Rina: We’ll be very careful.
Joshua: We’ll just drop right in on them.
Kiera: (sourly, from the vent) Yeah, cuz they keep their weapons on them at all times.
Nika: And you said there were how many guards?
Cpt. LaSalle: A dozen. Maybe thirteen.
Nika: Well … (thinks) … There’s five of us. Five of you. That gives us pretty much one-to-one odds.
Kiera: Yeah, but—weapons.
Nika: The guys in the barracks are highly unlikely to be carrying them.
Kiera: They might be.
Rina: (grim) They might have their gun racks right next to the freakin’ door.
Kiera: Which would be very handy.
Nika: Yeah.
Kiera: Well, let’s go look.
Joshua: (to Nika) Okay, the two of you—.
Nika: Right. We’ll be back. We’re gonna check on the guys and see if we can get past the soldiers and get a head count there.

Nika climbs back into the vent with Kiera and the both of them scoot further down the vent. They manage to go quietly, with nothing but an occasional scrape of their boots on the metal. Like all the other vents investigated so far, the stub slopes down into the rooms they empty into and easing cautiously down the first stub on the left, Nika sees it does indeed lead to the barracks. There six pairs of bunk beds, for a total of 12 sleepers and luck is with her—only two guards are currently using the lower bunks. She can’t quite tell from the angle but she thinks they’re either sleeping or resting. It’s quiet in there, whatever the case. She very carefully eases back into the main vent with Kiera and puts her mouth to the redhead’s ear.

Nika: (whispering) I think there’s a couple guards sleeping.
Kiera: (ditto) Any equipment?

Nika thinks back. There were footlockers in the room and possibly closets. She passes that information on and very quietly goes forward to the next room down the line. Again she has to go downhill to the vent grill and she puts her eye to it and surveys the room beyond.

It’s set up similar to the room on the other side of the barracks. She hears snoring. At least two men LaSalle mentioned are visible, just sitting on their beds. They are clad similarly to the women in the other cell, decked out in scrubs. Nika eases back to tell Kiera what she’s found. Kiera nods and goes back to the grill on the barracks, to keep an eye on the sleeping guards there and give Nika a heads up in case there’s movement. Nika goes back to the male prisoner’s grill and hisses through it.

Nika: Ss-sst! Hey.

One of them looks up. He whispers.

Man #1: Who’s there? Captain?
Nika: I’m a Captain. Not your Captain but might be good enough for now. Are you one of Captain LaSalle’s?
Man #1: She’s one of the other prisoners. She should be back down that way you’re coming.
Nika: Yeah. I got it. What other guys are with you?
Man #1: There’s Ben and Sorren. I’m Emmett. They’re mechanics.
Nika: Okay.
Emmett: Who are you? You’re not—are you a rescue party? Are you Alliance?
Nika: No.
Emmett: (cautiously) Are you … not-Alliance?
Nika: Not Alliance but pretty much covered at this moment. So, the question is, uhm … (how to put this?) … I think if we all work together we have enough to overwhelm the guards.
Emmett: Oh … Those guys are trained fighters. I’m just a newspaperman.
Nika: A newspaperman.

Isn’t the pen supposed to be mightier than the sword. Then again, the guards aren’t packing swords but assault rifles, so maybe that adage doesn’t apply.

Emmett: But wait—!

Emmet scrambles over to the sleeping guy and shakes him.

Emmet: Sorren. Wake up.
Sorren:' (blinking) … what … ?
Emmett: There’s people here to rescue us.

That wakes Sorren up right quick. Back in the vent, Kiera’s scooted back to Nika and is whispering in her ear.

Kiera: Captain, how do you feel about me going and just killing the other two guards in their sleep?
Nika: You think you can do it?
Kiera: Yeah.
Nika: Go do it.
Kiera: Really?
Nika: Yes.
Kiera: Lemme get the grate open.
Nika: Stop, stop. He’s waking Sorren up. Let’s go down there.

Nika starts getting the grill off with her scalpel.

Nika: We’re gonna backpedal to the barracks next door and two guys’re sleeping in their bunks.
Emmett: Sorren, what was your idea?
Sorren: Well, are they here? Did they come to rescue us? Do they have weapons and things? (to the grill) What is your plan? What do you have? What do you have?

Sorren has a faint accent, hard to place.

Sorren: We had a crazy plan. But I don’t know …
Nika: Well, it can’t be any crazier than ours, so talk.
Sorren: I’m an engineer. I used to … ah … do some work on installations similar to this. I believe it works on a single power source to run the system. If it has batteries, those batteries are too old to be functional anymore. That means we should be able to deactivate their power and that would turn off all their sensors. And since this wasn’t designed as a prison, I believe it will automatically unlock all the doors on the system, on all the floors.

By now, Nika’s got the grill off, has handed it to one of the men, and is hanging halfway out of the vent.

Nika: Where’s the power system?
Sorren: We know that one of the lower levels is another cell block such as this, but they talked about there being ‘levels’ and I would suspect it being at the lowest level.
Nika: Do you know anything about the floor plan of this area?
Sorren: Not other than this floor.
Nika: Are the elevators key-carded or anything in this area?
Sorren: They’re monitored, so it will be tricky but—
Nika: How about riding the top of it?
Sorren: We thought perhaps that might work or the air vent might go down there as well.
Nika: Ehhnnn … Climbing the air vents down in that direction … but riding the elevator down might work.

Nika thinks for a beat. The elevator we rode down to this level had two more buttons on it past this floor—one marked four and another marked five. We’re currently on level three, level two above had only the decontamination chamber. Level one had the garage cavern and the way out. If the level immediately below us is another prisoner area like this one, then the power system must be on level five. Assuming it doesn’t lead us to yet another elevator that starts at level five and goes farther down.

The elevator we rode down doesn’t seem to have a camera inside it but there are cameras mounted opposite the elevator doors on every level we’ve walked out on. If we take the elevators down anywhere, either as passengers inside or outside of it, we’re going to be seen if we exit by the elevator doors.

Kiera: Either way, Captain, we need to go quick. We’ve only got a two hour window before things pick up again.

Less, even, since we’ve been a little while gathering all this information. So where would the air shaft to the lower levels be? Common sense would dictate it being closer to the elevators rather than farther, but this place is huge and Sorren says it might take several shafts sunk through the levels to adequately ventilate it. Since we haven’t encountered one such vertical shaft on this level already, it’s a fair bet the shaft is farther ahead. Kiera repeats her warning—the clock is ticking.

Nika: All right. You said you thought you can do it?
Sorren: Well, we thought if we could get into the air vents we might find a way down there.
Nika: You wanna go?
Sorren: I don’t even know—it’s probably a fusion plant. I might probably turn it off if I could get down there safely but it’s … (deep breath) … I don’t know. I’m willing to try.
Nika: What do you got to lose?

All the men look at her.

Sorren: Well, I don’t know what will become of my wife if I do this.
Nika: Where is your wife?
Sorren: She is … working … for them.
Kiera: Can you tell us how to turn it off. Or does it matter? We don’t need to know to turn it off well, we just need to break it and make it turn off.

Rina would probably know how to do it.

Nika: (to Kiera) We can go and break it. Let’s go. (to Sorren, et. al.) You guys don’t need to be implicated.
Kiera: Let’s go. We’re running out of time.
Nika: So we need to get to the elevator shaft, bypass the next prison level, and down to the bottom level … Okay, back over to the girls. Let them know we need to continue this way.

She sends Kiera back to Rina and the others, it being safer, and she stays with Sorren and the other men. Kiera scrunches back through the vent to the other cell and hisses at the people below.

Kiera: Rina! We need to go. They think that if we can disable the power plant—never mind. Get your butt up here.
Rina: All right. Somebody give me a leg up.

Kiera reaches down to pull her up. Rina uses a bunk bed for a ladder and makes it in there. It requires stretching on her part.

Rina: Arghhh. Bozhe moi, that hurts.
Kiera: (claps hand over Rina’s mouth, hisses) Guard. Right there! (points next door)

Nika’s crawled back far enough to monitor if the guards have heard anything. They don’t seem to have heard anything. She gives her crewmates the thumbs up.

Kiera: (whispering) Go, go, go!
Rina: (ditto) All right.

The three women crawl forward again, pass the room with the three men. About ten feet past the turn they encounter a t-intersection with more venting going to the right, and the current vent going straight. The right-hand run seems to be crossing the far end of the staging area, crossing over the doorway of the corridor leading to the elevators. The run going straight seems very likely to parallel the corridor. There’s not enough light to see very far down either one, no telling where either ends up. We already know what’s in the staging area to the right. We take the parallel. If we have to double back from a dead end, we’ll double back.

To the right is another stub, leading down to a small mess/kitchen area. Following the main run of the vent around the corner of the mess, we encounter a vertical shaft going down. This is what we’ve been looking for and we backtrack to gather the others.

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