Lobster Food Inc.

[Sam Stein! A mighty excellent name. Whoever thought of that is a genius!]

{ Somehow I thought you might think so :p }

"Why thank you. The best performance is a natural one, don't you think??"

Sam looked up thoughfully. Normally, she didn't have as much information about her missions ahead of time. So welcome a change was it, that she dare not risk jinxing it by trying to figure out too much.

"Just one question. And one suggestion. The question is: do you know which recipe we are looking for or should I just grab the whole container of 'em??"

He leaned on the elevator wall. "Definitely."

Crossing his arms, he looked at her. "Just grab them all. Client didn't specify. Although he did say that it's... rather written in a special paper. We'll know when we see it."

He smiled. "Suggestion is?"

Dwyrin hoped there wasn't an obscene amount of paper to sort through in order to find this recipe-that's-not-a-recipe.

The elevator was almost to the sixth floor. She turned to face him, fully, but stayed silent until the elevator bell chimed to indicate that they were at the right floor. "The suggestion; Don't die," she said before turning to walk into the hallway outside the sliding doors.

He waved bye to her as she walked away, till the elevator doors closed. Zane smirked to himself. "No plans to," he said and waited till he reached his floor. "I've got a lot to live for."

Going out of the elevator, the smell of fish made him sigh. Well, let's see what I can find.

After an hour or so of messing around with chemicals she had only minimal knowledge of - probably killing all the lobsters here within short order - she had begun her search in earnest. Fortunately, she had seen nothing suspicious under any of the water she encountered - not that she ventured very far into it - and she was sure she had been thorough enough. But she had found a couple other things on her way down. Glad she had decided to take the stairs, she headed for the fourth floor.

He hadn't really done anything with what he was 'supposed' to do - as a chemist. Rather, he had just been talking and trying to get some information from people, under the pretense of being just a new guy and wanted to get his info right.

Most were rather unfriendly but there were a few who were quite helpful.

And after an hour of listening to people talk about the layout of the company, background and such, he decided to go to the break room. He took the elevator.

The fourth floor was where the first problem occured. Thus far, she had successfully avoided the attention of most other people in the building. It's one of the things she was good at - blending into the backround. But as she walked through the door from the stairwell, two men nearly collided with her. Impossible to avoid. She stepped back, allowing them to pass, but was suprised when they did not.

The one on the left - whom her mind subconsciously identified as 'Stretch', due to his tall, lanky frame - apologized curteously, then paused and asked her who she was. She though her explanation was perfect.

Apparently not.
The other man - Blue - reached into his pocket a bit too quickly for her liking and at the same time Stretch grabbed her wrist, feeling the daggers in her sleeves. She brought the other hand up, slamming the heel of her palm into Stretch's chin, jarring his teeth and sending him sprawling. She dropped to the ground and swept Blue from his feet, before stomping on his solar plexus to drive his wind from him. Both men were down. That could have gone much worse, I suppose...

She sighed, inwardly and ran for the break room.

As Zane got off the fourth floor, he headed towards the break room.

I'm bored. I wonder if she had any more luck than me? He supposed it was good, that he was undetected and was able to avoid suspicions. But he couldn't help but feel bored at all. The people back at the fish department wouldn't stop talking about... fish.

He was near the break room when he saw Dwyrin running towards it; in reaction to that, he brisked walk and entered the room.

It looked cozy enough, except the lobster design was rather nerving. "Sam?"

She met Zane at the door and grabbed his sleeve, pulling him from the room. She took a right - away from the doorway she had left two people laying in. "They'll know we're here, soon. But there's a kitchen on the fifth floor - and that's where we're most likely to find anything." They rounded a corner and she pulled him into a random room, then closed the door and looked at him, asking, "Did you find anything??"

"You got find out, hm?" he said as he let her drag him into a random room. "That's not good."

He looked at her. "Well, apparently there are three vaults here, Dwy," he started and gestured with his hands. "The recipe is any of the three. One at the top, one at the bottom and one underwater."

The room they got into was a storage room and he rummaged through the things in a box. "This building is under heavy surveillance and we're going to have to kill the networking so as to buy as time."

He pulled out a few janitor uniforms and handed her one. "We'll have to act fast; and we're not going to separate this time. Too risky."

"It wasn't my fault," she told him defensively.

She nodded her agreement. Changing immediately this time, she looked to Mikel/Zane and asked, "Where should we have to go for this networking business??" She would save thinking about the possibility of swimming for later.

He laughed at her tone. "I wasn't saying it was your fault."

He kept his back to her, and changed. "The surveillance room is at the twelfth floor. Incidentally, the top floor is the next - where one of the three vaults are."

Zane stood up and gave her a cap. "We should make full use of the surveillance room. Like, see where the other vaults are - particularly the underwater one."

"The top floor should be a cinch," she observed, pulling the hat onto her head.

At that very moment she decided it would be best to let him know ahead of time, so she laid it out flat. "About that underwater vault. I won't be going."

He blinked, her statement making him pause. "Hm, why?"

His pause made her stop, as well. She looked down once more to finish adjusting her green uniform and said, "Swimming isn't my strong point."

He blinked again before he laughed. "No kidding?" he grinned. And he fixed his cap over his head, hiding some of the strands of his hair that was in the way. "But sure. I can deal with that; we'll work something out when we get there."

He gripped the door knob and nodded at her, then went out.

Raising an eyebrow at his grin, she decided he wasn't poking fun at her, and trusted his assessment of his ability to do something if needed. She follwed him out the door and was relieved to not see people gathered in the hallway.

"All right, let's go," he said and headed for the elevator. When they got in safe, the people not seemingly interested in two janitors, he quickly closed the doors. "It's good you gave me a head's up on the can't swim part."

He pushed the buttons to the 12th floor.

"And why is that??" she asked him, watching the floor numbers above the door light up.

"Because," he turned to her. "I would've thrown you in the water if needed, had you not warned me--," he broke into a grin, not saying he quickly assumed everybody knew how to swim.

Perhaps, now he was poking fun at her. She briefly imagined being hurled into the water with no warning, and supressed a shudder. "It would have gone badly," she stated, flatly.

All of a sudden, the elevator stopped.
The lights flickered then went out.

"I wouldn't have meant it," he quickly defended himself. If it would've been convenient, he would. But he didn't want to drown anyone - that was to say, he didn't think anyone would drown at all. But he just met the first person he has to remind himself to not throw in the water.

The elevator stopped. "Have we been found out already?"

"Maybe. It's not like I moved those two guys. Someone may have seen them," she mumbled, looking at the panels in the elevator ceiling. They didn't look like they were meant to come out.

Whether people were aware of their presence - and doing something about it - or not, she didn't like the idea of them being trapped here. She pulled two seemingly random hunks of metal out of her pockets, and slipped the ring off her finger, pressing it between her palms. Combining the two pieces, she stretched the metal into a sort of short, sturdy pole with a hooked end. A quick glance at her work showed her it would not break. She plunged the hooked side up through one of the ceiling panels and wrenched her arm downward, again. The panel came free and slid off the end of her tool, clattering to the floor.

She looked back to Zane. "Going up??"

He nodded. "You sure have a handy ring, hm?" he said as he went up through the panel, getting out. Holding on to wires, he helped Dwyrin get out of the elevator.

Zane looked up, seeing the structure and the outline of the walls - two more floors and it's the 12th. It would've been a lot easier going down...

A short distance up, there was an entrance to vents - he supposed it was. And not after, some red things were crawling out of it.