Hold Still! (Tag Rayon)

Corporate Espionage. While not necessarily her favorite past time, when the money paid as good as this job however, Iris tended to take it and run. Or in this case, crawl through air ducts pretending she was a monster as the spiders fled for their lives. Pausing for a moment, she reached her hand out to a tiny hole that looked nothing more like a rivet in the side of the air duct. A rivet in absolutely the wrong place to be of any good for stabilization that was. Her black nailed finger, tiny spiders glittering along it's edges, touched the side of the raised rivet and Iris focused her negation ability into the rivet. In the air before her flashed a red laser for a moment and then it died away completely. With so much technology run on mana in this new era, Iris' special talents were in high demand amongst the various crime factions. She could turn off the sensors without setting off the alarms, it would as if they were simply turned off without damaging any of the systems themselves.

Something bumped into her from behind, sending her forward a few inches and directly into the space the laser had previously been protecting. Turning onto her side she tilted her head to look back down the air duct. "Rayon! Watch where you're going!" She hissed back to her partner in crime. Choosing to bring Ray along meant she'd have to share the bounty from the job, but it paid so well she honestly didn't mind sharing with her friend. "If I hadn't just turned off that sensor you could have just ruined everything." Iris turned back to continue crawling down the duct. She was mentally counting the number of vents they passed so she'd know which one they'd need to open. If everything went according to plan, they'd be able to get in and back out again without anyone ever knowing something was wrong till the prototype was discovered missing in the morning. These corporations were waging a type of cold war stalemate, always trying to best each other, and Iris was perfectly fine profiting from their possessive tendencies.

Her vampiric eyes were perfectly capable of seeing in the dark, she was a predator after all, a monster created to hunt her prey using stealth and deceit. "My gods this is making me hungry, they better come through with their promise of food after this. Though I guess they really wouldn't have a choice considering they wouldn't like me if I run out of juice." She giggled softly at her own joke about her frenzy state should she over use her powers on this job. It was debatable if Rayon would be spared or not, seeing as he wasn't human. So long as he didn't get in her way she figured he should be fine. Finally reaching the proper vent, Iris rolled over onto her side, crouching in the duct in front of the vent so Rayon could join her. As they were both so small in stature it was easy for them to both crouch before the grate...if a bit uncomfortable.

Searching through her pockets for a moment, Iris pulled out the specialized screwdriver they'd been given for this job. It was designed to fit through the slats in the vent so she could unscrew it from the inside without dropping the screws and possibly setting off the pressure plates in the floor. If their information was correct, the security panel that controlled the pressure plates would be just below this vent. "Alright, time to see if those eggheads were telling the truth." Iris gave a soft sigh as she began to unscrew the vent. It only took her a few moments, and on the last screw she hooked her fingers into the vent to keep it from falling off. She pulled it inside the duct and stuck her head out far enough to scan the room. This far into the building, there would have only been cameras in the hallways, and not the labs so she was safe from being seen by security.

"It's clear, now just hold onto my feet so I can lower myself out and shut off the mana to the panel. If I touch the floor it'll set the whole thing off." Iris told him. With so much use of her power, her normally dark eyes were glowing a soft green, the first sign of her impending hunger, but seeing as Rayon didn't smell like food, he didn't need to worry she'd be tempted to feed on him.

Crawling down narrow ducts and praying to Terra that they weren’t heard was not Ray’s idea of a good Friday night, or any night for that matter. The fact that it was a vent belonging to one of the corporations did nothing to improve his outlook on the subject, however he had to admit that the fact that Iris went first did improve the view. “Focus on the credits Ray just think about the credits,” he grumbled under his breath. The truth was, if he had been offered under any other circumstances he would have passed, credits be damned, but it was Iris that had brought the job to him and that changed things. They had worked on more than a few jobs together now and, while the term partners was to exclusive for how they worked, Ray knew that Iris was trustable. He knew she wouldn’t turn on him or stiff him his cut and if the worst were to happen she wouldn’t sell him out, and in this line of work that was really saying something.

“Ooff,” he grunted and then drawing in breath quickly as he awaited the sirens and the pounding of running feet that would mean a series of very unpleasant things was going to be happening to him. Fortunately, all he heard was Iris snapping at him for the blunder. “Sorry,” he whispered sheepishly. “Okay, new plan; focus on the job, think about the credits latter,” he mumbled. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down. So what if this job was dangerous, it was no more dangerous than a dozen others he had been on in the past after all, dead was dead. His biggest concern was Iris. Somehow he doubted his you’ll-never-take-me-alive attitude was one she would share. What’s more, while he could off himself if it came to either that or death by torture, Ray didn’t think he had it in himself to mercy kill Iris, not that she would probably let him.

The quiet giggle from up ahead did nothing to ease Ray’s frayed nerves. Iris was spontaneous at the best of times and when she got manic there was no telling what she might do. It was that very unpredictability that actually made him want to come along, more than anything else he felt like he had to watch her back. Crawling up alongside of her made him uncomfortably aware of how good she looked even in her work cloths. He lay on his side watching as she manipulated the screws through the grate. “Okay now for the easy part,” he says flashing a wry grin at her, his fangs peeking out from between his lips.

Taking a deep breath, Ray braced himself as Iris slid down into the hole in the vent. Reaching out, he grabbed onto her around her waist and began lowering her slowly toward the floor. Had she been any taller Ray wasn’t sure he could have anchored her. It was only than that he looked down and saw the location of the control panel three feet away from her outstretched hand. “Shit chicky, I think… I’m going to have to swing you.”

Was glad she wore her lace up boots instead of her normal flats, less chance of them slipping off her feet and ruining everything. Course, who in their right mind would be crawling around in a vent in flats, that was like begging for trouble. Cause...you know...she totally wasn't. She stuck her tongue out at Ray, wrinkling her nose cutely at his joke. Crawling out of the vent on her tummy, she let Ray lower her down, trusting him to keep a good hold on her so she wouldn't fall and mess everything up. Reaching her hand out for the control panel, she realized that whoever had given them their intel for tonight had made a fatal error...Iris was shorter then the average human after all. Heaving a sigh, she reached back and made sure her messy ponytail was still in place.

"Alright, let's do this. If you drop me, I am going to break your fingers." Iris told him. Keeping her hand out stretched, she waited for Ray to swing her to the side, catching her lithe fingers on the control panel to stabilize herself and keep from swinging back the other way. It put a bit of a strain on her body to be at such an angle but she ignored it. Prying the cover off with er nails, she stuck it in her mouth for safe keeping and let her fingers roam along the many tiny wires inside. She was searching for the feel of Mana and when she found it, she closed her glowing green eyes and concentrated. The floor beneath them flashed for a moment and then a barely audible, well...to her barely audible, hum turned off. Heaving a sigh of relief, she pushed the cover back in place and then used the panel to lower herself to the floor. Once Ray let go of her, she'd flip backwards and land on her feet, pausing for a moment to make sure no alarms were sounding. "These corporations will never learn." She blew a strand of curly hair out of her eyes and then dug around in her pocket for the schematics of the prototype they were supposed to be looking for.

"Is it just me or does this thing look like a space ship?" Once Ray had joined her, she held the slightly crumpled schematic out to him so he could see what she was looking at and hopefully agree with her. The room itself looked like a generic lab space, workbenches and tables taking up most of the space, some covered with drop clothes, probably to hide whatever the scientists were working on. "Well, lets find the space ship so we can get the hell out of here and on to the getting paid part." It was supposed to be small enough so it could be easily carried back through the vents but Iris wondered if their intel might have been a tad wrong about some other things along the way.