Will had fled the moment the door had opened, plans crumbling before his eyes. It didn't mater if the small horde of inoculated were rescuers or a crackdown squad, plan F was scuppered. No coyote meant no grating, and following everyone else would have just drawn attention. Nope, Plan G was the way to go, simple, self reliant, and the rest of the motley lot would serve as a good distraction.

Within minutes Will had found his way to the infirmary, judging by the sudden appearance of a couple of economy sized bottles of methylated spirits on his senses, and stuck his nose to the ground. Wrinkling his nose in distaste as he snuffled about like an animal he searched for his own scent. It took a while, smoke still coated the vents, but foxes were pungent and he tracked down the clip of bullets he'd thrown in there the week before.

"Excellent," he growled, taking the little metal box between the jaws, and wincing as he tasted his own dried blood still coating the damned thing.

Now, he just had to find the nearest lab and pick up some iron oxide.

When Abel burst into forward movement and pushed the door open before disappearing into the newly unlocked room, Caleb realized a few things: One, Abel obviously knew this room. And two, Heather was preparing to change into her liger form, which was probably a good precaution in opening ANY locked door in this place, recognized by Abel or not. But it was a turn of events that made him feel slightly conflicted, as the only way he would be useful in a fight would be as a human and he still didn’t feel right putting a sixteen-year-old between himself and danger. So he stayed there between her and the door, looking into the room and seeing an unfamiliar coyote and a little black girl whom his friend had pounced upon.

Sabra said something in a language he didn’t recognize, followed by a whisper that he couldn’t make out. And then, in a louder voice, "I'm glad you found Mr. Crow!"

Caleb smiled despite himself.

Maybe he just smelled the girl, Caleb mused as he looked around the main room of the suite warily. But the way the two canines were barking and growling at each other seemed like they were talking, kind of like how Caden and Heather had started to come up with simple signals for ideas when they were all training together. So this was probably where his friend had spent the last few days. At least it wasn’t the main cage room.

“Is there anyone else in here?” he addressed the question to Sabra, the only person with a mouth in the room.

((Edited for coding... apparently I still forget that standard HTML doesn't work on these forums x.x; ))

Mr. Crow was smiling and looking pretty relaxed, which Sabra found reassuring. Everyone else seemed filled with a frantic kind of energy, which made Sabra nervous without understanding why. When her parents got like that, it was usually because something was going wrong.

But there was Mr. Crow, calm as you please. "Is there anyone else in here?" he asked, obviously talking to her.

She glanced around reflexively.

"Well, Mr. Will - he's our meanyface fox man - he blowed up the roof and ran away through the ceiling without us. And Mr. Ethan, he's off training or something. That," she pointed at the coyote before remembering that pointing was rude and turning the gesture into a little flap of her hand, "is Mr. Damien. He wasn't going to leave without me," she added, for Mr. Rook's sake.

Heather let her body relax at the sight of the small girl who was enthusiastically hugging the wolf, or 'Mr. Rook' if that wasn't just a nickname she had given him. A bit further in was a coyote, but neither the girl nor the wolf seemed threatened by him.

I'm glad you found Mr. Crow! Okay, she knew Caleb then, probably from the cage room. Her voice sounded familiar and Heather could only hope she was right, otherwise there were two kids stuck down here.

At Caleb's inquiry she explained about the other occupants, two of which weren't there (Though judging from 'he blowed the roof' Will had gotten a pretty useful power). And Mr. Damien got some serious points for staying behind to guard her.

Heather shifted slightly, going from crouching on all fours to kneeling at the girl's eye-level. "My name's Heather. Are you the girl who was singing 'You are my Sunshine' with me that first day?" Heaven help the scientists if the answer was 'No'.

<Affirmative. Gone alone; can't follow now.>

Abel bristled, then nodded. As infuriating as Will's tendency to throw everyone else (including a seven-year-old) to the wayside was, this time he had done them all a favor.

"Is there anyone else in here?" Caleb asked.

"Well, Mr. Will - he's our meanyface fox man - he blowed up the roof and ran away through the ceiling without us."

Abel's eyes glinted. As much has he enjoyed the name Sabra had chosen for him, her moniker for Will was by far his favorite.

"And Mr. Ethan, he's off training or something. That is Mr. Damien. He wasn't going to leave without me."

Abel's ears tilted back in embarrassment, but then his inner Caleb reminded him not to construe every comment as a chastisement. So instead, he looked Damien in the eye and nodded, not needing their usual signal to convey his thanks. Though Abel had been wary of him after their first day in the block, and the coyote had something of a habit of enabling Will's craziness, he had a protector's heart, and his seven-year-old etiquette had already improved greatly.

Then he turned back to Sabra and nudged her forearm with the side of his muzzle. <And say, and Kayje no here.>

But then one of Caleb's companions cut him off, kneeling in front of Sabra.

"My name's Heather. Are you the girl who was singing 'You are my Sunshine' with me that first day?"

Abel's posture lifted and his ears perked up. He looked at Sabra with a bright smile in his eyes. <Friend!>


((Note: I edited my previous post to add Abel's reaction to some of Sabra's dialogue, which I couldn't put in this post without disrupting the timeline. None of it requires reaction from other characters, it's just Abel-internal stuff.))

Sabra nodded understanding to Mr. Rook's reminder to say something about Mr. Kayje being gone, but was interrupted by a woman stepping from behind Mr. Crow. The woman walked over to kneel near her.

"My name's Heather," the woman said, sounding friendly. "Are you the girl who was singing 'You are my Sunshine' with me that first day?"

She glanced at Mr. Rook, trying to gauge her friend's reaction to the lady. His eyes were smiling and his ears were happy. He gave the sound that meant friend: it was a sound she had made up, wanting it to be within her vocal range as well as the boys'. It probably didn't sound much like "friend" to anyone else, though. Still, she grinned at Mr. Rook, giving him her best gap-toothed smile.

She turned back to smile at the woman-friend.

"Yes I am," she said. "Thank you. Mr. Rook says you can be our friend." She turned suddenly shy, looking down at the floor and putting her hand on Mr. Rook's shoulder. "You know, if you want."

((I know this suggestion is a bit meta, but seeing as Block B is supposed to be full of NPCs who have possibly been groomed as Circe allies, should we skip trying to open it? Or simply just have neither of the keycards work?))

"Well, Mr. Will - he's our meanyface fox man - he blowed up the roof and ran away through the ceiling without us.” That might very well explain the dull thud-ing noise Caleb had heard earlier; if that were the case, why was there no alarm? But Sabra kept on talking, and Caleb tried his best to ignore the way his stomach was slowly tying itself into a knot.

“And Mr. Ethan, he's off training or something. That," the little girl gestured at the unfamiliar coyote, "is Mr. Damien. He wasn't going to leave without me.”

Whether that last comment was meant as a light rebuke to his friend or not didn’t matter; Rook’s ears went back, and Caleb barely managed not to laugh. Heather stepped forward and knelt in front of the child, introducing herself. The two girls made nice, talking about friends, and he turned his attention on the other canine in this new group.

“Good to meet you, Damien. I’m Caleb.” He grinned, nodding a greeting at the coyote before leaning back into the hall to look both directions. It was still empty.

“There’s at least one more block like this we can try to open; other than that...” there’re the cages, he finished silently. Or trying for the surface.

The coward in him wanted to avoid the room that they had been trapped in originally. The protective older brother in him hoped that when, not if, they found it again the guards would be missing or at least easily subdued. The rest of him, the part he was trying to ignore, picked at the knot in his stomach with cold fingers. Why no alarm? Why weren’t there any guards around? Was no one actually watching the security cameras in their suites?

Maybe something had happened to distract their captors. Had something gone wrong elsewhere in the facility? If so... what?

But one thought kept running through his head, no matter how he tried to push it away: they were running out of time. It was all he could do not to let his expression show just how worried he actually was.

“We should keep moving.”

((I'm about to do something here that maybe shouldn't have worked, but I'm going to do it anyway. If I take it too far, feel free to hand me the Scissors of Shame. ))

Damien simply looked as everybody else gathered together near the door, speaking of various things. Nodding back to Abel and the newcomer, Caleb, in turn, the coyote relaxed himself, allowing the stuff he'd collected as ammunition to drift gently to the floor around him.

As the conversation turned toward the present, the coyote listened intently. With half the main floor already stored in his instinctive maps, he already had a rough idea of where not to go, but that didn't put them as group much closer to escape than they were, and even if Will's antics hadn't set off an alarm, Damien had little doubt that there would be guards to deal with eventually. A plan was required, and some form of counter-measures against attack need to be prepared.

*Well,* the coyote thought, *now's as good a time as any to try it.* Releasing his hold on his ammo, Damien cast his magnetism to the wall, latching onto the steel bolts holding one of the aluminum panels in place. Taking it carefully, one at a time, he unscrewed the bolts from the wall, leaving them in the panel itself; that way, he could carry the whole thing by its corners.

Pulling the panel into the air above his own body, Damien lowered it until it rested on his back, still supported by his magnetic force. Now came the tricky part; taking a steadying breath, the coyote braced himself against the floor, realigned his magnetic force to his feet, and pulled at the bolts to force them downward.

The aluminum pressing against his back felt like he was subjecting himself to a low-power trash compactor, but Damien toughed it out, and the thin sheet of metal soon bent around the coyote's body, forming a loose shell over his back and shoulders.

Holding the shell there, the coyote picked up the cable again. <Friends have way-out idea?> he barked, trusting Sabra to translate.

“There’s at least one more block like this we can try to open; other than that... We should keep moving.”

Sabra was distracted from trying to make friends with Miss Heather by Mr. Crow's remark. He was sounding a little less calm.

Before she could express her own opinion, she was again distracted; this time by Mr. Damien ripping out a wall panel to create armor. She felt one of her protectors reach out to poke at the tinny shell. It wasn't a bad idea... She regarded the wall thoughtfully, but her protectors didn't seem inclined to burden themselves.

Mr. Damien barked.

"Mr. Damien wants to know if you have a way out," she translated dutifully, glancing over Miss Heather's head to look at Mr. Crow. She smiled; translating felt homey and natural. This was an odd language, but not too complicated. She sometimes had trouble distinguishing sound-signals, but the words themselves weren't hard.

"Mr. Damien wants to know if you have a way out,"

"I don't think there's a real plan yet. Offhand I think we should go back to the cage room and bolster our ranks. There will probably be a token guard, but I think we can subdue them. We rescue anyone remaining trapped in there and interrogate the guards for the way to the nearest exit. Caleb was camping in the mountains, so he'll probably take charge of the survival stuff until we find civilization, or at least a ranger station with a satellite telephone, at which point I can have the FBI here in under an hour." Not that I've been obsessively plotting this for the last week or anything

She then sent a beaming smile at the small girl. "And I would love to be friends. I'm afraid I never heard your name, though."

The coyote nodded at him, and Caleb smiled faintly, trying to dispel his own nervousness... which became a bit of a moot point when Damien ripped the metallic paneling off the wall and bent it around his body. Did he just... make... armor? Caleb's mind boggled a bit, briefly, before he found himself laughing.

That was the coolest thing ever. And power over metal would probably end up being useful.

"Mr. Damien wants to know if you have a way out," Sabra said, and Caleb turned his laughter into a cough while trying to think of a diplomatic way to say 'no.' Thankfully, Heather spared him the need to respond right away.

"I don't think there's a real plan yet. Offhand I think we should go back to the cage room and bolster our ranks. There will probably be a token guard, but I think we can subdue them. We rescue anyone remaining trapped in there and interrogate the guards for the way to the nearest exit. Caleb was camping in the mountains, so he'll probably take charge of the survival stuff until we find civilization, or at least a ranger station with a satellite telephone, at which point I can have the FBI here in under an hour."

He had never actually said he would take over the survival stuff, as Heather suggested--in fact, the suggestion only served to bring to mind that disasterous first attempt at creating a matchless fire. Caleb felt himself redden slightly, and he looked at Rook somewhat sheepishly. While he knew a thing or two about living in the woods, his friend would be the go-to guy in that regard. Which would be easy enough to sort out later, when they had escaped the facility and Abel re-assumed his human form.

Of course, the idea of a large group of them eluding notice out in the woods was a bit daunting... but less so than the idea of finding enough food for all of the escaped prisoners. But, he reasoned, he and Rook could figure that out when they crossed that bridge. He didn't doubt his friend's abilities in the least, and would be thankful for any and all advice he could give.

As for the FBI... Caleb still wasn't sure on the wisdom of involving the government. He wasn't entirely convinced they weren't a part of this project. But he held his tongue for the time being. That was another bridge they could simply wait to cross.

Heather was smiling at Sabra, asking the girl for her name. Caleb smiled and turned back toward the hallway. There was another hand-labeled door on the other side of the branched hallway they had found the break room in, between this one--C--and his own--A.

May as well be a bit more methodical about this, he thought, and, stepping into the open, he headed toward B-Block.

Sabra was surprised when Miss Heather started to answer her question. She had rather thought that Mr. Crow was the leader.

"I don't think there's a real plan yet. Offhand I think we should go back to the cage room and bolster our ranks."

Sabra wasn't sure what bolster meant, or why someone would need to go to the cage room in order to effect how important they were. It seemed a weird thing. 'Bolster our ranks' Sabra repeated in her head, hoping to remember to ask Mr. Rook about it later.

"There will probably be a token guard, but I think we can subdue them."

Miss Heather had a weird way of talking, that was for sure! Sabra ignored token as a word that made sense in context. Subdue, however, sounded like it meant something important.

"We rescue anyone remaining trapped in there and interrogate the guards for the way to the nearest exit."

Oooh! She knew interrogate! That meant to ask mean questions in lots of ways until the truth came out.

"Caleb was camping in the mountains," - that was Mr. Crow's name! Mr. Caleb. She mentally corrected herself.

"...so he'll probably take charge of the survival stuff until we find civilization, or at least a ranger station with a satellite telephone, at which point I can have the FBI here in under an hour."

Mr. Caleb turned and walked out the door. Sabra wondered where he was going.

"And I would love to be friends," continued Miss Heather, who appeared to be able to talk almost as much as Sabra, "I'm afraid I never heard your name, though."

Sabra frowned. "I'm Sabriyya. Or Sabra. And Mr. Kayje said he'll have the FBI here as soon as we get him a sample of the magic potion, because they already know we're here!"

Suddenly she remembered - Mr. Kayje had told them not to tell. She slapped her hands over her mouth, eyes going huge. She didn't mean to ruin the secret! She glanced around quickly to see if anyone was going to get mad at her.

Damien looked at Heather, wagging his tail slightly as she outlined her ideas. She had clearly taken some time to think things through, or else was just really good at improvising. Either way, it seemed a good plan, at least on the surface.

Caleb seemed disinclined to agree, however; when his part was mentioned, he looked sheepishly at Abel, then simply turned toward the hallway, offering no explanation as he left the room.

Dragging his cable behind him like a tail extension, Damien deftly slipped around the legs of those in his way and followed Caleb out the door. The coyote didn't know what Caleb intended, but he hoped that if something went wrong, he would be able to protect this would-be wilderness guide.

[OOC: Will's thoughts included for any mind readers that might be nearby ]

Will rolled onto his back, placing both feet against the vent. "Now this is going to hurt," he thought to himself, before forcing himself to shift. For a moment the pain was blinding but the initial rush faded and Will found his human form swelling out to fill the cramped duct. Despite the laws of physics having taken a back seat in the last few days, a five and a half foot tall human would not fit in a three foot duck. Something had to give, and just as he thought he was going to break a leg there was a sudden ping, followed by a clatter as the vent went flying into the room.

Gasping in pain Will forced himself back into his fox form and lay there for a moment, panting. Transformations, as it turned out, were not designed as crowbars. With a groan he stood up and shook himself, then froze. "Ugh, Will, stop behaving like an animal," he chided himself, before picking up the clip of bullets and leaping into the room.

The room in question was a small store room, just off one of the main labs, which was deserted as far as Will could tell. He rubbed his hands together as soon as they reformed, grinning like a kid in a candy store. Forget cooking bullets and setting fires, this was where he could do some real damage. Within moments he'd managed to find an empty two liter flask, twenty foot of magnesium ribbon and two bottles, one filled with aluminum powder and the other with iron oxide.

Humming to himself "I'm mixing the thermite," to the tune of Popeye the Sailor Man, he began to stir the two powders together.

((Oh… major fail in writing my last reply. x.x Lemme make a quick post and then I’ll step out of the way for a bit again.))

Caleb realized he had a companion--the coyote from Abel’s suite had followed him into the hall. And then he realized somewhat belatedly that he had never offered any explanation before wandering away from the group. Oops.

“There’s at least one more room like yours, between here and mine,” he commented toward the coyote. “If we can get it open, we can maybe rendezvous back with the others and figure things out from there, instead of trailing through the hall with a small army.”

*Given where this little party is going,* Damien thought, *I'd rather have the small army than be caught without allies... Though I suppose it's the best of both right now; our allies are just in the next room, after all.*

Nodding to Caleb as the stray thought passed through his mind, Damien nevertheless readied his cable to attack if whoever or whatever was behind this door proved to be hostile; and even knowing he wouldn't be understood, the coyote still barked a simple message for Caleb.

<Damien no leave friend.>

Sabra smiled her adorable smile and turned to the girl.

"Yes I am," she said, almost business-like. "Thank you. Mr. Rook says you can be our friend. You know, if you want." Her formal tone fell off into timidness a bit toward the end, and Abel chuckled to himself, turning so that his tail would brush the backs of Sabra's legs as it wagged. The "let's be friends" contact seemed cute when it came from children, but it only gained in risk and importance as you got older. Good practice, this.

He looked at the the girl--Heather--wondering if she could recognize his smile the way Sabra had learned to. He nodded at her.

Then Caleb spoke up, and Abel's focus snapped to him.

“There’s at least one more block like this we can try to open." He seemed...not distracted, but elsewhere. His mind was covering a lot more ground than his mouth. "Other than that...we should keep moving.”

Right. A plan. Abel had been rather caught up in the moment--seeking out the inoculates in the hallway, finding his way back, making sure Sabra was safe--but that wasn't enough. Not with so much at stake. Even something as simple as sleeping in the woods required attention to so many details even beyond immediately-observable things like game trails and cover--you had to think ahead, had to think of everything at once. And that was just to lay down and sleep. This...this was so far beyond that. This was so far beyond anything he had ever had to fit in is brain. Some part of him recognized that this was what he had been practicing for on all those excursions, all those cold nights--so that in an inconceivably difficult situation, when someone needed his help, he'd be able to deliver.

Thank God Caleb was here.

Damien reacted, wrenching a piece of plating from the wall and folding it over himself like an origami turtle. Abel watched with his head tilted, at once bemused and astonished.

<Friends have way-out idea?>

Sabra translated, and surprisingly not Caleb but Heather responded.

"I don't think there's a real plan yet. Offhand I think we should go back to the cage room and bolster our ranks. There will probably be a token guard, but I think we can subdue them. We rescue anyone remaining trapped in there and interrogate the guards for the way to the nearest exit."

A sound plan, but even so, it set his tail curling ever so slightly between his legs. This...was big. He had no idea this would be happening when he woke up this morning. And suddenly they were trying to break out a whole prison full of people, and fight...fight their way out of a compound they didn't understand using abilities they didn't understand to get out into a wilderness that few of them understood...

It made his head swim a little. He felt small.

"Caleb was camping in the mountains, so he'll probably take charge of the survival stuff until we find civilization, or at least a ranger station with a satellite telephone..."

Abel met Caleb's gaze, and his eyes glinted in response to his friend's meek expression. Don't even try, Caleb, I've seen what you can do. We're in good hands.

"...at which point I can have the FBI here in under an hour."

Abel's ears snapped to attention, and he turned back to Heather. A little late for that, actually...hope you weren't expecting a cavalry charge. He resisted the impulse to glower. He had been less than impressed with Kayje's explanation of how the FBI was handling the situation. While it had been some small consolation that the government (or at least, not the whole government) was behind this mess, the fact that they'd let all this happen to them...

He was going to start snarling again. That would upset Sabra. Had to think of something else--

"...and Mr. Kayje said he'll have the FBI here as soon as we get him a sample of the magic potion, because they already know we're here!"

Abel pulled his head back a little, then let out a low, warbling whine and leaned forward, brushing Sabra's elbow with his nose. She reacted even as he did, covering her mouth in a belated attempt to keep the secret in.

He should have caught her sooner. He should have cut her off. It wasn't that he didn't trust Heather--although a horrible little piece of his brain pointed out that she could be a mole, and this all could be a set up, more testing and toying and lying and mindscrewing--but still. He glanced, his breath catching, at the bits of cable loosed by the explosion and Damien's treatment of the wall plating, and the mirrors just visible through the open bedroom doors...could anyone have heard?

Caleb stepped out of the room--apparently by "we need to keep moving" he meant now, which was good. Really, it was moot whether anyone had been eavesdropping to hear Sabra's slip. Will had set off a bomb in the ventilation, and they were all together with another group of prisoners which Abel was pretty certain wasn't supposed to happen, and they were all plotting escape. If anyone had been eavesdropping, they were probably already halfway here with rifles loaded.

He grunted at Heather and tossed his head behind her toward the doorway.

<Friend leave, follow, yes?>

((Attempting NPCs… x.x eesh.))

Damien barked something at him, making a motion that was as close to a human nod as a dog could manage. It was a bit hidden by his aluminum carapace, but Caleb saw enough to assume that the other prisoner was agreeing with him. The barking was similar to back in C Block, and he assumed his companion was trying to tell him something. What that was, however… I’m gonna have to learn, or else always have a translator.

“Cool,” was all he said, giving a bit of an uncertain half-smile before raising his gaze to the hallway in front of him again. It felt sort of like the times Japanese customers had come into the store he worked in. Language barriers were just plain awkard.

By the time Sabra had blurted out something about Kayje and the FBI, and Abel was trying to get the rest of their small group mobile, Caleb was already most of the way to B-Block. He felt on edge, full of nervous energy; not only should ‘they’ keep moving, but Caleb wasn’t sure he could stop moving. Sitting still wasn’t his strong suit. It wasn’t how he dealt with problems. And so he strode along at a nice clip, almost jogging, glancing around every few seconds and waiting to see guards coming around a corner. And yet it was almost more disturbing when no one showed.

Caleb stopped in front of the door labeled B, pulling the pair of keycards out of his pocket as he did so. Separating keycard no.2--the one that had worked on C Block--, he slid it through the sensor next to the door and was rewarded by a flash of green and the sound of a lock disengaging.

“So far, so good.”

He glanced at the coyote-turtle, and then pushed the door open.

Inside the room was a thoroughly average teenaged boy, who was on his feet and looking toward the door a bit uncertainly. Caleb only vaguely recognized him from the cage room, but that was hardly a surprise; he still regretted brushing off the kid in the cage next to him. And it wasn’t like he’d spent much time looking at the other prisoners beyond Abel and, by necessity, the girl between them.

Two suites filled with prisoners said that the third was likely to hold the same. Caution warred with survival, and while Caleb wanted to ask him some questions, he still wasn’t doing well with the whole slowing-down thing. They had to keep moving. So, going on a bit of faith, Caleb waded right in to why exactly he was standing in the doorway.

“Hi,” he grinned, hopefully disarmingly. “I’m Caleb. We’re getting out of here.”

He was surprised when the kid didn’t react entirely favorably. Sure, he seemed excited for a moment, even relieved. But then the guarded expression came back when he looked out into what he could see of the hallway.

“…Out. Like, for more training?”

“No, out-of-this-hellhole out. We’re escaping.”

“Is that safe?”

That's the question of the day.

“Sure.” The kid looked at the door again, then frowned at him.

“The closest thing we’re getting to a cavalry is here.” It was hard for Caleb to keep the exasperation from his voice. “Let’s go.”

“No,” came another voice, and Caleb realized a woman had been standing in one of the bedroom doorways and listening to the conversation. She was pretty, olive skin and dark, curly hair, but young. Maybe a few years behind Caden, he mused as she continued speaking. Her eyes flashed, her gaze sweeping from Caleb to Damien. “If he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t have to. Besides, why should we trust you?”

Caden was a bit surprised when Caleb completely passed the door labeled "B". Caden followed, slightly perturbed, and was about to mention that, considering they had been in a room labeled "A", there was a high chance that people were in a similar situation inside "B" - they should at least try to open it and see if any other prisoners were in there.
But then Caden reached the door labeled "C" and managed to open it instead. After a quick confrontation, it turned out he (and apparently the wolf that had been trailing them) had friends in here. Hmm. Lucky, I guess. Either that or some sort of insane intuition.
With so many people now present and talking, he got a little uncomfortable and wandered a bit further down the hall. He found a door labeled "D", but it was already open and the room(s) inside seemed completely uninhabited.
He wandered back just as Caleb (finally) was opening "B". He started talking to someone in the room before Caden got close enough. As he got to the door, though, he caught the end of the conversation.
"...doesn’t want to, he doesn’t have to. Besides, why should we trust you?”
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Caden interjected calmly. "If you're happy with being a science experiment and don't have someone to get back to, you can stay. The rest of us are getting out."
"Oh, it's not that bad," the woman said, "and have you tried aski-"
"I'm coming," the teenage boy said suddenly, though he looked around the room uncertainly and was still for a moment before finally getting his feet moving to the door.
The woman gave an exasperated sigh. "Geez, Brandon... Fine, I'm coming with you."
"Wait, what's going on here?" Another teenage boy, this one somewhat Hispanic-looking, had appeared in another bedroom doorway, a housecat twining around his ankles. He approached the door slowly, gears obviously turning in his head. "...Are there no guards or supervisors here?"
"Nope," Caden said simply. "Someone made a mistake, and we're getting out of here."
The boy got to the door, and one by one looked straight at the four people there in turn. Then, without warning, he suddenly jumped out of the door and bolted down the hall toward "A" suite and the rec room they had explored earlier.
"Austin!" the woman called, reproach in her voice.
"He's not going to fare so well on his own - I'll follow," Caden said, and shifted into his cheetah form right there. He didn't sprint after the boy - no use wasting energy - but a cheetah's nice jog was still faster than he could run normally.

((OOC: Language warning for Heather. Been a while since I had her go off like this, so I thought I'd throw that out)

"Don't worry Sabriyya, I won't tell anyone that you told." Heather winked co-conspiratorially. "And now that I know Kayje is a good guy, I can be careful not to hurt him if we have to fight our way out. But I think we need to catch up to the others."

She arrived in the new room midway in time to hear “…Out. Like, for more training?” Her heart swelled at the thought of new recruits. Slowly and surely they were gaining an army. Her inner euphoria was squelched by the addition of a woman's voice saying "No". At "It's not so bad" Heather's eyes saw only red.

The past week had taught her a lot of control, and that was all that kept her from lashing out at the woman then and there. Instead she waited until after the boy(Austin?) had run past and grabbed the woman's wrist on the way. She quickly made sure Sabriyya was otherwise occupied before opening her mouth.

"Are you freaking insane?" She hissed. "'It's not that bad'? We're goddamn prisoners who've been fucking kidnapped and experimented on. How the hell is that not so bad? We do what they want when they want and nothing. Oh sure, co-operate and they won't hurt you - much. But since your shit for brains hasn't figured this out, allow me to explain. We saw their faces. With as many felonies as they committed, that means we don't get let go when they're done. That means we die and are autopsied so they can figure out more about whatever frankenstien procedure they put us through. Is there a chance we're going to die attempting this: Yes, a chance. But if we don't those fucking bastards are going to kill us: 100% certainty. So if you want to stay here like the sheep you are feel free. But I have a brother, Caleb has a sister, and that little girl over there has parents and we're not resigned to never seeing them again."

Dropping her wrist Heather stormed off after Caden, not particularly caring about whatever the woman has to say.