Insert Flailing

who: Drew, Lina
where: first floo
when: shortly after the PM was sent

Drew had been up reading when the pleasant little chime sounded on his computer that alerted to a new private message. Mildly confused, he got up, rubbing at his absolutely fucking aching eyes, and flopped down onto his computer chair, tapping the mouse negligently with one hand. When the monitor booted up, he navigated to the private messages, and stared. And continued to stare, for a good minute and a half as he read, reread, shut his eyes and rubbed at them again and read a third time. Yep. It still had the words slowly suffocate to death there. Awesome.

Fuckers would let it happen, too. Drew thought to himself, before actual action kicked in and he stood up and rushed to his door. It was a bit of a delayed reaction, sure, but he'd been awake for a criminally long time, he had to be cut some slack, didn't he? He went to Lina's door first, of course. "Hey! Lina! There's problems!" he shouted. She'd be awake. She was always awake at this time. He knew her schedule. Same with the Doc, though he was downstairs now...he thought. Whatever. "Yo, Lina!"

He pounded on her door, and there wasn't any response. Which wasn't cool. He tried the door, and hoped that he wasn't going to be killed for this. She did have a huge knife and a gun, after all. That and she'd already beaten someone's face in. Idly, he thought that he really would prefer a bullet to the back of the head as opposed to face-caving. That had just been wrong. Surprisingly, the door opened, and he was frozen for a second, not sure at all anymore this was a good plan. Maybe she was getting breakfast, and she was going to come back and think he'd done something. Fuck. He might've turned around to head to the kitchen, but noticed that the door was stopped on something. Looking down, he saw a body on the floor in the dim morning light.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit they're going to fucking kill me.... was his first thought as he dropped to one knee, and reached up one flailing hand to try to hit the light. He did by pure accident, flooding the room with light. That right there? Was Lina. "Oh shit, Lina, don't be dead..." he said, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder to shake her.

It wasn't so much the shoulder shaking bit that finally brought Lina around, but much more the Coeus squacking like one angry motherfucker bit. The bird could get loud when he wanted to. And loud birds and severely aching heads were not good things to mix. Her head hurt. A lot. She didn't remember drinking herself into oblivion last night. So...

Someone was shaking her shoulder, and Lina shoved herself into a sitting position in a flash. Her hand was going for the knife on her hip and her neck was really fucking hurting at the sudden movement before she had figured anything out yet. The scientists had moved her or someone was in her room or -- or she was sitting on her bedroom floor, with a pasty white boy looking pale and deeply disturbed staring at her. Drew. That was his name. The scared newbie that she'd probably only scared a lot more. Well, this was new.

Scared a lot more was a good phrase. Considering when Lina moved, he moved too, trying to get back away from her as quickly as possible. This resulted in him slamming himself back against the door jamb, which felt awesome on the back of his head and back. Oh yeah. He was one smooth operator. After the initial groan and wince, he held up both hands. "I didn't hurt you! I just--there's shit going on, and you were down, and I didn't hurt you!" So he was repeating himself. She'd gone for the knife. He saw her hand move, damnit!

Blink. Lina stared at him with a confused and angry looking expression on her face while she tried to figure out what the fuck had happened. She'd been up today already. She'd gotten up, gotten dressed, and headed out for her run... but she never got that far. There had been a flash of pain, and then nothing. "FUCK," she hissed, moving her hand away from the knife and pulling herself to her feet via her bed. She was a little light-headed, but that would pass. Right? "What the fuck happened?"

"I have no idea, there's a pm on the journals talking about people suffocating to death and with really fucked up riddles, and I figured you should know so I came to get you and you were on the floor." Drew rambled out in one breath, then slowly, warily got to his feet. He kept his eyes on her though, for sudden attacking-like movements.

Lina winced and tried to figure out how she was going to manage this when she felt like a run over dog turd. She still felt disoriented, but there wasn't time to be disoriented. She went over to her computer and brought up the journals, looking quickly for a PM. She found it, read it, and promptly started cursing quickly to herself in Greek. Fuck, fuck, fuck... She needed help. Jason! She needed Jason! Dave had a patient, and knowing what was going on was going to freak him out over nothing. It was early for Jason, but technically his brain had to be working better than hers was at the moment.

She turned and headed for the door, and remembered Drew was there. "Okay, I need to get help. Post on the journals for people to come downstairs, and go look in the meat locker. I'll be there in a few."

Drew looked at her like she was insane. "Um...sure. You really think they'd actually listen to me?" he asked first, since that was the first thing that occurred to him. "I could post from your computer, just make it short and sweet, everyone meet in the foyer or whatever..."
...Okay, yeah, most people in the house were lazy. And probably still asleep. She looked over at the clock, cursed to herself in Greek again, and nodded. "Yeah, okay fine, that. We're going to have to wake people up anyway."

"Yes ma'am." Drew said, relieved she was going to go with that suggestion. "I'll do that now, and then go check the locker. See you in like, five." Since she was probably heading upstairs. No, he didn't have creepy insight at all or anything, now did he? Fuck.

Lina proceeded to pass drew, and haul ass up the stairs. She was a bit shaky starting off, but she was ignoring the way she felt and the pounding in her head for now. She didn't have time to feel like shit. Making no attempt to be quiet as she ran up two flights of stairs to the third floor, she stopped at Jason's door and knocked hard.

It ripped Jason out of sleep immediately, and he sat up in a shot, scaring the living shit out of the cat who screeched then immediately fled to parts unknown. He looked around for a minute, then registered it was the door, so he got up, crossing to it and he yanked it open. "What's going on?" he asked, after taking in Katalina.

What a fucking excellent question! "Shit. Shit is going on. Three people are missing and supposedly suffocating to death, and we have to go on an Easter egg hunt in the meat locker. Also, someone tried to turn me into a baby seal and my head hurts like a bitch, so we'll be using your brain for the day." Did she really need to say more?

Jason was going to say something, but instead he reached out, grabbed Katalina, pulling her a little closer and he looked her over just to make sure she wasn't bleeding anywhere from oh, squished skull syndrome. As far as he could tell upon first inspection she wasn't, so he let go, but seriously, she was a higher priority than others right then. "Two seconds." he said, stepping back to go disappear into the closet. "Emma, get up," he added as he pulled jeans and a tshirt over his head, and pulled shoes on really quickly.

Lina fucking scowled for the short examination, but knew better than to say shit right now. She just let him get it over with, and when he headed to the closet, she leaned back against the wall.

The initial knock to the door and following conversation had started the process of waking up Emma, and while she heard some of what they were saying, none of it made sense. Easter? Seals? Meat? She was thinking that no part of that could be good when Jason addressed her, and that was enough to pull her fully out of sleep. She pushed herself into a sitting position, and realized Katalina was in their room. Awesome night to wear pajamas. Thank God. "What's happened?" she asked, getting out of bed and beginning to look worried. Sleepy or not, this was always a bad sign.

"Not sure yet, just c'mon, get dressed, we have an emergency to tend to." Or he did. He didn't know. "If you want to check the pm you can, I think I've got to get downstairs about two minutes ago..." Jason said, looking more to Katalina on that one since she was the one with all the details, he wasn't.

"That." Lina agreed, pointing at Jason as he said it. "Drew's downstairs, read the PM first and head down there." Emma, for her part, just nodded quickly and tried not to look scared, so Lina turned back to Jason. "There's gonna be a clue in the meat locker or something, it's fucked up. I didn't tell Dave. Let's go."

Jason nodded. "See you down there." he said back over his shoulder to Emma, already in full crisis dealing mode, so things were short. Then he shut the door behind himself so Emma didn't have to deal with animals running amok while there was a shit storm to deal with. He was already following his friend, taking the steps two at a time, though he had to look her over again on their way down. The whole someone hitting her obviously didn't sit well, so yeah. He was going to try to make damn sure he didn't see anything like blood. Not that he could do shit about it, but he couldn't help but look for it.

Lina just wanted to haul ass and hurry up, but halfway to the first floor she felt like she'd missed a step - mentally. "FUCK." she hissed. "The thing said three people are missing, suffocating or whatever. It didn't say who." It hadn't occurred to her that Jason could have been one of those three, or that Dave still could. She'd just known that she didn't want Dave going nuts when he couldn't actually leave. "We gotta make sure Dave's still here."

"Then we need a head count. Shit. Okay--I'll call down to check on Dave. You hit the journals and tell people to check their floor and report back only missing people. You said Drew was there, he doing anything useful?" Jason asked, thinking if he wasn't, he'd stop to get whatever 'clue' was in the meat locker.

"I told him to post on my comp and then head over to the meat locker to start looking. And there aren't a lot of morning people here, we can't hope that someone on each floor sees sees it in time. You check on Dave and head to the meat locker, I'll post and get someone in charge of waking people up." Lina answered. She felt like she was starting to get a little more with it, and could only hope that she was. "I'll meet you down there."

Jason stopped right before the head of the stairs that went down to the first floor, and pounded on Hannah's door with one closed fist, hard enough to rattle it. "Hannah!" he called. "Wake up, you're needed!" No, he didn't particularly care if she headed up the list of everyone's favorite enemy, nor did he give a fuck if she was blind. what she could do was bitch up a fucking storm, and he was absolutely positive that if she was given the task of 'wake everyone's ass up and make people do a head count' she'd get it done fast. That and well. If fate was a fucker today, she might be one of the three.

For a moment, Lina stopped dead and stared at Jason, clearly giving him the are you fucking CRAZY?!!?! look. And then that seemed to dawn on her all at once. If anyone could wake up an entire house, who better than bitch tits and the amazing demon dog? "...Good plan. See you in five."

It was much earlier than Hannah's normal wakeup - and to be honest, if it had been anyone other than Jason (or possibly Cortez) who'd come banging on her door, she would've just ignored them. But Anubis was up and feeling alert, so Hannah groaned slightly before dragging her disgruntled ass out of bed and pulling the door open. "What?" she said with a scowl. "You know it's, like, the ass-end of morning, right?"

"Yeah, I do, I need you to get up and get everyone on this floor the fuck out of bed, there's an emergency going down." Jason said, glad that she had answered. "I need your phone, too. There was a PM on the journals or some bullshit, apparently three people are missing." he gave her the rundown fast.

Hannah was still not quite awake for the chaos, and the expression of confusion on her face was nearly comedic. "What the fuck?" she asked, stepping back so he could come inside while she checked her computer. "Phone's there," she pointed out as she pulled up her message inbox. The computerized voice reading the rhyming clue was creepy as hell. "Oh, that's just fucking special," she snarled. "Can't people start doing this shit at a decent goddamn hour? Waking up fucking early makes me distinctly not happy." And while true, her bitching was mostly just a cover job for the instant worry that one of the missing people was Cortez. She decided to call him before she went on her wakeup spree.

Jason thought to himself that it hadn't exactly been at a great hour when he'd pulled her ass in out of the freezing cold that winter, but didn't say anything about it. "We need shit done now." he said. "You going to do this for me?" he asked, already dialing the medical level, and tapping his thumb incessantly against the side of her nightstand, nervous energy making him fidget.

"No, I figured I'd crawl back into bed for a bit of a nap and let you guys take it from there," Hannah said, rolling her eyes as she grabbed some clothes from the closet and went into the bathroom to change. She emerged a moment or two later fully dressed. "I mean, you seem to have it so together and all."

"Hannah...not the time." Jason said, then listened to the tone in his ear. C'mon, c'mon c'mon, doc. Answer the fucking phone. You don't get to be gone here. he thought. Willing his friend to answer the phone had better goddamn well work. Katalina was already a little fucked up, Dave better not be too.

It took Dave a few to answer the phone. He was up and about, but not in his office and the delay was caused by the short walk before he picked up. "Hello?" he asked, wondering if he should start worrying now, or wait til he'd found out what the bad news actually was first.

Jason couldn't help it, he shut his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. "Trouble, Doc. I guess there's shit on the computer, people missing. Everyone accounted for down there? We know you can't leave, but--" Had to check you were okay. By the way Katalina was hit, but I'm so not telling you that right now, you can bitch later. She'd kill me.

"There's just me and Rain here. What's going on?" he asked, sitting down at his computer as they talked and logging in to check the messages. He caught the first one - the anonymous one. "Fuck...."

"Yeah, pretty much. I've got to go, Dave, I have to go help figure out what the fuck is going on, but be prepared. You can probably organize part of the head count from there, can't you?" Jason asked. "This is going to be a fuck up here, but we'll try to do what we can. there's the walkies...I'll need to send someone down to grab them...sorry thinking out loud here, we just needed to know you were there and not out dying somewhere." That would have fucked with their days. Oh and the rest of their lives.

"Sure - look, considering the hour, did you want me to ring everyone's rooms, figure it's the quickest way to wake them up..." he suggested.

"Yes, second floor's getting covered already, but start from the attic and work your way down. Tell people if anyone's missing to report it immediately." Jason said. "I'll have someone bring you a walkie too, so we can keep in contact." He rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to tell himself he wasn't getting a headache right now, because he couldn't afford one. So far his brain thought he was full of shit on that one.

"Don't bother with the walkie - I don't want to risk the fact that it might interfere with the monitors I have down here. I'm still having to keep an eye on Rain's condition. To be honest, it probably wouldn't make a difference, but I'm not willing to risk it. Especially not here - I don't trust them," Dave told him in a stunning display of complete paranoia.

"Dave, you'll need to know if anyone needs--" Jason started, but cut himself off. "Fine. We'll work with what we've got. Talk to you later." he said, and hung up, because he needed to be downstairs. He really did. And He wasn't going to argue with the doctor over medical equipment he didn't know fuckall about. He looked back to Hannah, and stepped out of her way. "I'm heading downstairs, get it done as quick as you can, alright?"

"Aye aye, Captain," Hannah said, throwing him a salute as she stepped forward to grab the phone. "I'll get started in just a second. Go... do whatever the fuck it is you need to do. Play that fucked up scavenger-hunt game or whatever."

Jason quirked a faint smile at her, then mussed her hair on impulse as he headed out. "I'll do that. Thank you." he said, then rushed downstairs, to get back to the massive stupidity that was living in this house.

"Hey, watch the hair," Hannah grumbled, swatting at his hand. "And if you die," she yelled after him as she dialed, "I'm going to fucking kill you!"

~*~

Drew shot off the amazingly articulate PM to the house, then ran towards the freezer. After all, he'd known what that whole clue thing meant. Sure, he hadn't been on duty when the incident had occurred, but that didn't mean he didn't know about it. So he ran into the freezer, and looked around, over where Nic had been trussed up. Sliding on the floor and falling flat on his back for a second, he scrambled back to his feet, slid his way over and started looking at the hooks. Where was the note? Then he started looking at the meat hanging there, and immediately started moving it around, pushing bits aside and some came off the hooks to fall onto the floor. I'm going to find a body, or an arm, or some other god awful bullshit and it's going to--there!

He saw the note, and rushed to grab it, only thinking after he had it in hand that he was an idiot. He'd been so worried about what the fuck was going on, it hadn't occurred to him til right then that it could have been a trap. Send someone to the meat locker then lock them in. Or y'know. Worse. There were meat hooks in there. Which was worse, bleeding out being suspended by the kidneys from a meat hook, or slowly freezing to death?

What is wrong with you, Shepherd?!? Good freaking christ on a pogostick!

He turned, this time slipping and falling over a few times as he kept trying to run from The Locker of Impending Freezing Cold Ass Hellish Doom but he finally got his ass out of there, and was thinking to himself that shoes? Were totally awesome and he really needed to start wearing them all the time. Shivering, he got back to the foyer, sliding to a halt as he practically crashed into the banister from wet socks on marble floors. But he had the note!

He stopped to read it, partially out of breath.

Congratulations on finding this silly little clue. The next one rests inside the room where voting once was due.

"God, this is stupid!!" he groaned, slumping against the banister and looking around for everyone else. He started pounding on doors on the first floor. "Hey! Everyone wake up! There's!! Death! And other shit! C'mon!"

Lina had just finished putting up her post when she heard Drew yelling out in the foyer. She hurried out the door, and banged her fist on the piano keys a few times to really get the point across. Cira was probably going to have a fucking heart attack, but... well, shit happened. "What did you find?" she demanded. He'd said death. Did that mean a body? Already?

Drew made a little jump and half tried to hand the note over to Lina, slipping again, and he just hopped on one foot to tug his sock off while still trying to hold the note over to her. "Um--voting room?" he suggested. "Voting! Thing, I don't know, here!" He dropped one sock without falling and cracking his damn head open, and yanked the other off when she took the note from him.

Lina took the note and read it quickly, that what the fuck expression coming back. Voting. When the fuck did they vote that wasn't over the computers? They voted at meetings - not recently, but they had in the past. That could be the dining room or the theater. Lina had gotten the security position through a vote, but that had been on the computers. They'd supposedly had to vote someone into the mirror room too, but that hadn't actually happened. Fuck, and there had been the time with the bugs. The scientists had left everyone these gay little button boxes in their mailboxes.

Okay, great. So what the fuck did that mean? It was either in one of the other rooms, or hidden somewhere in the bigass foyer? Or possibly someone's mailbox? After a brief round of more swearing in Greek, Lina looked up at Drew again. "Look through the theater for another clue, there's a few places this one can be." Easier for her to search the foyer while she waited for people to show up.

"Wait, shouldn't we be lookin in the--" he started, thinking that the theater wasn't where they needed to be, and he caught himself just before he rambled off and got himself into a situation he really couldn't be in. He had this terrified, rabbit in the headlights look for a second, eyes wide as saucers before he snapped his jaw shut again. "I'm gone!" he cried, and dashed off for the theater before she could ask him what the fuck he'd been about to go on about. Yeah. That was almost bad.

Kaylin hadn't gotten the first PM, as she had a habit of ignoring her computer until after breakfast. She'd gotten up early as usual, intending to head down for her swim - which is why she was surprised to hear the chaos as she made her way to increasingly lower floors. Swimming was forgotten by the time she hit the first floor and saw a man go streaking past her into the theater, and she beelined for the first (and only) person she saw - Lina. "What's going on?" she asked, face a mask of confusion. "Is someone hurt?"

"We don't know yet." Lina answered, looking around the mailboxes for anything a clue could be hiding in. She looked over at Kaylin, remembering that she'd volunteered a lot when Greg was missing. Well, that was good. "We found the first 'clue', and it said the next one is where there was a vote. I sent Drew to check the theater, I'm checking in here, I need you to check the dining room - but I don't think it will be there." she said, stressing that last part. "We never actually voted in there, we just had a meeting. Go do a quick check, and then join the group here or in the theater."

~*~

Sally appeared downstairs a lot sooner than her initial flail would have suggested, resolutely pulling herself together and dressing quickly and sensibly before heading to the foyer. Once there, though, she wasn't sure what to do next and ended up hovering near the group of people in the hope that someone would notice her and tell her what to do.

Erich had been awake at the time the PM had been sent and had been in the process of dressing to go for his morning run. With one final tug on his shoelaces, he hurried downstairs to the foyer to see what was going on. Chaos, apparently.

Always one to state the obvious, Erich looked around for someone who seemed to know what the hell was happening and stated rather bluntly, "What the hell's going on?"

About that time Morgan stumbled out of her room still in her PJs, looking mussed and annoyed. What was with all the noise. Didn't they know people were trying to sleep?

Blinking in confusion she stood just outside her door and stared as everyone ran around. Obviously she'd missed something and she cursed herself for sleeping when something much more interesting had been going on.

Leighton limped down the stairs in a huff. Not a good way to start off the morning. People were missing, he'd tried to help and gotten yelled at for it, and now he had no idea what to do. He'd heard some other guy ask what was going on and decided to answer as he approached a blob of people.

"I don't think anyone knows what's going on at the moment. Besides the fact that there are some people missing," he said. "We'd better get a move on, though, if they're suffocating..."

Drew came dashing back in from the theater. "Nothing, Lina..." he said breathlessly. "Nothing, nothing. Sorry. Where next?" he asked. Because I technically don't know where the last vote was, really.

Kaylin returned from her hurried but thorough search of the dining room a moment later. "Nothing in there, either," she said. "The last vote I remember doing was on the computers. And the only other one I can remember was when they gave us those boxes with the buttons to push during the bug infestation."

Lina had just yanked a piece of paper out from under one of the mailboxes.

Doing well! It's obvious that you are not a fool; your next goal is a floating bed used in the downstairs pool.

"Oh for fucks sake already... POOL!" How many of these fucking things were there going to be?

Kaylin glanced over to read the clue for herself, then dashed off for the basement access through the kitchen. A floating bed could only mean a raft, so that's where she started looking.

Cara looked out of her room, confused and rather annoyed. Her dogs were freaking out, and while collie dogs were friendly, that didn't mean someone wanted to wake up to two dogs licking their bare toes and being generally hyperactive. There were bits of cotton string about, and the corpse of a sock, too, and Cara rubbed the bridge of her nose.

So she'd gotten dressed quickly, and went to take the dogs out. Her computer was blinking, but the needs of the dogs would have to come first or she'd spend the day scrubbing her carpet and picking up sock bits. Which wasn't particularly fun. Anyway, she let Cira turn the doorhandle - she seemed to enjoy being able to let them all out - and ended up in the foyer with a few other people who looked sleepy, confused, alarmed, and several other emotional states. Cara hesitated, then decided to continue with her original plan, which was letting the dogs out.

She came back shortly, and took out a pad of paper from her pocket, and a pencil. When was the last time she actually wrote anything? Cara didn't know, but didn't want to miss anything either, and scribbled down a question. What the hell is going on now?, which she presented to Leighton because... well, he was there.

Leighton was startled when a girl accompanied by a dog stuck a pad of paper in his face. The chaos ensuing down here was nothing short of... well, chaos. There were people presumably finding clues and/or people/bodies. From what he'd heard there were multiple people missing. Seeing as he couldn't exactly jump on his horse and run all over the place, he'd ind of stayed in the back.

He glanced at the girl, then took the pad of paper and her pencil and began to write her a message:

I'm not sure, exactly. From the bits and pieces I've gathered, there are three people missing that we know of so far. I think I heard someone say that a girl was supposed to be outside by a memorial? I didn't really know what they were talking about. I've been trying to find a way I can help, but with my leg, I'm afraid I can't go running around this place like they are.

He handed the pad and pencil back to her and pointed at his cane to explain. He wasn't sure why he was miming or writing for this girl, but he was going to go with it.

Cara read the note while Cira and then the other dog came over to sniff at Leighton, because Leighton was there and needed to be smelled. She frowned and scratched her nose - the stitching on her arms clearly visible - then nodded to him, and then touched her forehead in a little bit of a salute, as a thank you. From under her shirt, she pulled out a dog whistled and gave it a quick, sharp blast, to reign in the two happy hounds and went to go find out if she could do something useful. Which wasn't particularly likely, but she'd give it a shot. Stupid injuries, preventing her from doing things...

~*~

"Pool?" Nic asked, his running coming to a stop at Lina, though every part of him wanted to keep going towards the kitchen. "Meat locker?" he asked, breathing hard. He'd just run down four flights of stairs in record time. "Zhen's missing. Gone. Where?" He knew she wouldn't have lots of time for an explanation, but he needed to be caught up on things. He watched as Kaylin took off towards the basement, then turned back to look at Lina. "Should we follow? Give me something to do."

He had to have something. He couldn't sit still. He couldn't not help. That would only make things worse and that was the last thing he needed when Zhen was missing. His mind kept ticking back to how cold he'd been, how each minute was closer to death. Zhen would be feeling that now... wherever she was.

Oh, great. Lina had just been about to take off with Kaylin when Nic stopped her and told her about Zhen. "We did the meat locker already, now there's supposed to be something downstairs at the pool." She handed Nic the latest clue, and gestured to the people starting to gather in the foyer. Many of them had probably been woken up, and didn't know what was going on yet. "Keep everyone updated, we'll be back when we get the next one."

With that, she took off after Kaylin, racing through the kitchen and down the stairs. Only to find that why, look at that, there was a raft in the center of the giant, olympic sized pool. Fanfuckingtastic. Cursing to herself, Lina started pushing her shoes off.

"I've got it," Kaylin said, seeing Lina preparing to get in. She was likely the strongest swimmer of the bunch, considering she did it daily - and since she'd gotten pulled into the search on her way for her daily swim, she even had a suit on. Pulling off her track pants and t-shirt, she dove in to grab the raft. A quick inspection showed the clue taped to the bottom, and Kaylin pulled it off to read, treading water all the while.

Time's running out! You're slowing up, but don't just sit and fume. Find your next clue where plants grow big in a hot and humid room.

Kaylin read it out, swimming quickly towards the side of the pool as she did so. "Greenhouse," she called out, reading the clue aloud for Lina's sake. "Fifth floor, it's got to be the greenhouse."

Fuck. They were starting to get vaguer. The greenhouse was a big place, with lots of places to hide a small bit of paper. "I'll meet you up there then." With that, she hauled ass up the stairs, through kitchen to the foyer, and grabbed Nic. "The next clue's in the greenhouse. We need people searching in the greenhouse."

Jason was back downstairs, looking for Katalina. "Dave's fine, he's doing a headcount from the medical level and phoning everyone from the attic down, what's going on now?" he asked.

Lina didn't actually start heading upstairs yet, she saw Jason and made a beeline for him. "We've found a few clues, they're simple enough. Zhen's definitely missing, and the next clue is in the greenhouse."

"Greenhouse," Kaylin said nearly simultaneously as she emerged into the foyer a bit behind Lina, having had to pause to pull on her clothes. She was still wet, but that wasn't important. "We've found two clues. The next one's somewhere in the greenhouse."

"Greenhouse," he said, loud enough for anyone who wanted to help to hear. He wasn't going to waste time asking. There just wasn't time. If he passed anyone on the stairs, who were still making their way down, they were welcome to come join him. "Come on," he said, taking off towards the stairs. "We're looking for clues?" he asked. "Wish we had the walkie-talkies."

But was there time to waste looking for them? Not now there wasn't. In the future, they needed an intercom system... for insanity like this. By the time they made it to the greenhouse, Nic was out of breath, but that didn't stop him. Immediately, he was searching.

Jason frowned for a second. "Okay look, if the clues are going to be all the fuck over, it's stupid for everyone to go running up and down the stairs, we should call or have the walkies, and get people doing this quicker. He looked around and looked to Kaylin and Nic. "You two. Hit the Greenhouse, then call down when you get the clue, unless it's for some inane reason between you and here again. Someone else'll run down and grab all the walkies, and we'll get them to people."

Oh god bless the boy's working brain. Lina felt like a complete and total screaming moron, but at least she partially had an excuse today. She looked at Jason like she damn near could have hugged him (you know, if Lina was actually capable of that), and nodded. "I can do that."

Drew was catching back up with current events, the confusion of people sort of overwhelming him for a second there. "Walkie talkies? Erm. Wait, you should kinda be here, where are they, I can get them?" He knew where they were. So he wouldn't even have to look around.

Resisting the urge to bash her head and non-working brain against the wall, Lina pointed at Drew and nodded. "Security level, closet behind the desk."

Kim stepped into the mass hysteria in her pjs--barely able to shave before she left. She was still swallowing down hormones with her water bottle. Her feet were in fluffy slippers.

She looked worse for the wear and was obviously bewildered.

"C-can I do anything?" she asked, still trying to make sense of it all. Everyone was obviously doing their best to accomplish something.

Lina didn't recognize this chick, but, small detail! "They're looking for a clue in the greenhouse, can you go help them out? Attic, fifth floor."

"Fifth floor...Attic. I'm there," she replied. "Kim, by the way. Attic--right."

As she left she mumbled, "Elevator only goes to the third floor. Attic is on the fifth floor. Stairs it is. Who the hell keeps a greenhouse on the fifth floor? Who the hell has an elevator that only goes the third floor? Who the hell traps a bunch of people in a house for their sick enjoyment? Who the hell applies for such a stupid experiment?"

Drew came running up and almost crashed into Kim. And nearly dropped all of the walkies he had in his arms. "Wait! Here!" he said, out of breath as he handed one to her. He almost dropped his entire load again, but thankfully didn't.

~*~

The only advantage Nic had in being sent to search the greenhouse was that he and Dan had spent over an hour there the day before. He flicked on the lights and immediately began to look for something out of place as he ran up and down the rows. "Take the other side," he called back to Kaylin. They could cover more ground this way.

Kaylin had spent her fair share of time in the greenhouse, and she made it upstairs shortly after Nic. Pushing soaking blonde hair out of her face, she took the side indicated and scanned the pots there. "Check underneath and slide your hands into the dirt, too," she said. "I wouldn't put it past whoever did this to bury the clue."

"Will do," Nic said, immediately checking under every pot he came across. The motions were hurried, but careful not to miss anything along the way. "Don't bother with dirt that hasn't been upset recently. How big are these clues?" he asked. If they were going to find this in any reasonable amount of time, they had to assume the clues were set up in the last twenty-four hours, which meant the dirt would be visibly stirred if the clue had been buried.

"Check everything," Kaylin argued gently. "Dirt can be re-packed to look undisturbed if they dug carefully enough the first time. The one in the pool was fairly large, about normal computer-paper sized, but they're not necessarily all the same size." She was quickly developing a system - she'd slide her hands around a pot, lift it to check underneath, then dip all four fingers into the dirt to feel for paper. So far, she was coming up empty.

"We could be here for hours," Nic said, fear in his voice that he just hated. Hated. Still, he altered his approach, eyes roaming around in between each plant. If there was something around the room, he wanted to be able to see it. Just in case.

"They'll send more people to help," Kaylin said, trying to be reassuring despite the mounting tension and fear she was feeling. "Just keep looking."

Still clad in her Hugh Hefner robe, Heidi had made it to the foyer then watched the leading group. They weren't panicking. They were taking action. That's who she needed to be around so she wouldn't panic herself.

"Extra pair of eyes here." She called out, following the pair to the greenhouse. She stayed in the middle while Nic and Kaylin headed to either side, looking for any odd thing she could find. This was nerve wracking, to say the least. But she was determined not to fall short. She wanted to show she was a valuable addition to this place. Please let everyone be ok. Just keep looking...

"We're looking for a clue," Nic told her, looking back to see... one of his neighbors. Well, it was good she hadn't made it down to the foyer. They needed the help. "Take a row that we're not on. It's a piece of paper. Yell if you see anything," he said, trying to keep calm himself. Calm was good. Calm was not thinking about Zhen suffocating somewhere while he stuck his hands in potted plants.

Heidi nodded and immediately went to an empty row. Piece of paper, hell, this was going to be a pain in the ass. Trying not to show her discomfort, Heidi started looking everywhere. Without gloves, she wasn't going to touch the dirt...she saw no disinfectant visible so the tools were probably all dirty...gah! don't think about it! Taking a deep breath, Heidi hesitantly grabbed a small shovel and starting prodding through the dirt between all the plants. So far nothing. It would not be cool if she got sick digging dirt all day.

"Make sure you look beneath the pots, too," Kaylin called over helpfully. They all needed to be on the same page while searching or they might accidentally overlook it.

"We need more people," Nic said, shaking his head. This wasn't going fast enough! Nic set a plant down sideways, marking his place. "I'm just gonna jog around, just to see if there's anything obvious," he said, and proceeded to head down the isle to the end, making the rounds as quickly as possible.

Under a potted iris:
Victim one took the path strewn with flowers fair. Get her fast or there'll be another memorial there.

It was near the back of the greenhouse that Nic spotted something... different. Nothing was knocked over. Nothing was obviously missing or messed up. But the iris in the midst of the rosebushes stood out like a sore thumb. It wasn't wrong necessarily, but it wasn't right enough that Nic could ignore it. Going on instinct, he went for the pot, turning it over. "FOUND IT!" he yelled, already running towards Kaylin and Heidi at the front as he unfolded the clue.

Kaylin abandoned her search as Nic came running over, brushing dirt off her hands. "What does it say?" she asked, peering over in an attempt to read the magazine-cutout words.

"Victim one took the path strewn with flowers fair. Get her fast or there'll be another memorial there. The memorial service-- I didn't go. Where was it held?!" Nic asked, already running out the greenhouse door, this time towards the first phone he could find.

"Outside," Kaylin said, already heading for the stairs. "On one of the paths. They'll know downstairs." Kaylin could probably even find it herself; it was getting light enough to see outside. Without waiting for Nic, she started down to the first floor.

Kim was heading upstairs when she noticed a group of people coming toward her. She stopped and caught her breath, waiting for them to come nearer to her instead of wasting her energy coming to them.

"I'm going to assume that whatever clue we're looking for has been found?" Kim said, trying to catch the eye of whoever was the most outspoken.

Nic turned to the woman on the stairs, noticing that she'd brought a walkie talkie with her. That was much better than trying to call someone downstairs and hoping they heard the phone. "It's been found," he said, taking the walkie talkie from her. "Back downstairs!" he called out, halfway instructing her to follow.

Oh fuck were mornings not good for Kim. It was enough for her to keep tabs on who was saying what and remembering names as they were spewed out. And that was just because there were lives in danger.

"I'm...I think I'm just gonna follow you guys, k?" Kim said in a small voice, patting down behind them. She consoled herself with the fact that she'd at least been able to bring a form of communication.

"Lina? You there?" Nic asked, waiting for some kind of an answer before continuing on. "The clue reads 'Victim one took the path strewn with flowers fair. Get her fast or there'll be another memorial there.

Jason actually was the one who answered. "Yeah, that would be it. See you there." He looked to everyone in the foyer, to address them all. "The trails, where the memorial was, let's move." He headed for the back door.

Fuck. Lina looked around the room, where a handful of people had gathered, and then back to Drew. "Run a walkie down to Dave, then find a few more people willing to come out and join us." Newbie wanted to be efficient and helpful, well, she was gonna take him up on that. Then she ran after Jason.

"Wait, can't. Dave said no walkies down there, because of Rain's medical equipment or some bullshit. So, just because we need things to be more fucking conveluded, we'll need someone to sit in the living room with one to take the elevator down to let him know when we find-" bodies. "-whatever we're going to find." Yes, Jason wasn't overjoyed by the situation, but oh well.

Oh for fucks sake. Really now. Could this morning get any more stupidly complicated? If someone tried really, really hard? Scowling and resisting the urge to kick the wall, Lina nodded. "Okay! Zoe's a nurse." Fuck, Zoe could be missing. "Well, if you can find Zoe, have her play go-between. If not, uh..." She took a look around, saw people waiting for something to do, and pointed to Sally. Perfect.

"Right." Jason stopped, then looked over to Sally. He crossed over to her, took her hand, and put a walkie in it. "Go to the living room, and wait for us to call in with the condition of whoever we find out there. Dave doesn't want walkies on the medical level, so we need a go between." he said. "We'll radio in as soon as we know anything." Then he turned to keep going out the back door, wanting to get there as quick as possible. If they got to the first one on time, well. There were still two others to find. Perfect. This was such an awesome day.

Now was not the time to be edgy around Kales - there were more important things. And so Sally just took the walkie talkie off him with a nod and headed into the living room.

~*~

Drew saw people being ordered around and running off, and he piped up after Kales and Lina. "I'll just!! Stay here then! And...home base or something!" GAAAAHHHHHHHHH cue flaming panic mode. He couldn't be home fucking base. What the fuck was he, anyways, twelve? Home base?

He still had a whole bunch of walkies, too, which he set to turning on and making sure they were on the same channels. It was useful, right?

After checking over the third floor, and being forced to try and look in stranger's rooms (that was not happy), Emma realized that two guys were missing from the third floor. One of their doors had even been unlocked. She only knew who they were from the meetings, but with their names in mind, she ran down to the foyer. She didn't see Jason or Lina, but she did see a guy standing in the middle of the foyer with a bunch of walkie-talkies. He'd probably been left in charge of something, right? She hurried over to him. "Where are J-Kales and Katalina?"

Drew of course looked a bit like a rabbit in the headlights that he was being asked official sounding questions. "Huh? Wait! Them! Out on the trails! Erm...memorial-place-thing flowers or some shit, here, have a walkie." he rambled, handing her one of them.

Trails? Oh, great. Because anytime people were dragged out there was a wonderful sign, wasn't it? I am not thinking that! Emma just took the walkie and clicked to talk. "Baby? Katalina? Dorian and Calvin are missing from the third floor, Calvin's door was open."

Drew sort of stood back and let her do that, mind going over the missing people. Dorian. Drug addict there to avoid jail time. Generally fucked up. Calvin, hypochondriac, he'll be absolutely ecstatic to be strung up somewhere suffocating to death. Excellent.

Jason answered a moment later after a burst of static. "Dorian and Calvin? Okay, let Dave know, he's got a head count going, and find a person or two to go room to room just to make sure no one's hiding out somewhere, or just stayed in another room."

"Okay, I'll do that now. Be careful out there." She didn't say that part overwhelmingly loudly, mostly because she knew Jason wouldn't appreciate that, but it had to be said.

"I will, get moving. Get the room checks rolling as soon as you can, get it done as fast as you can." Jason said, then signed off.

Emma lowered the walkie and looked at Drew, not sure if she should say something or not. She wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing. Or if he was just home base. "Uh, be right back. Thanks." she said, gesturing to the walkie before turning to run towards the living room.

"Hey, wait! Take walkies for people doing the search!" Drew called after her, following to hand her another one, then after thinking about it, he gave her a second.

Stuffing one in each pocket of her pants and holding on to the other one, Emma nodded and gave a small, frazzled and worried smile. "Thanks. I'll check back in soon." And off she went to tell Dave.

Running past the new man and into the living room, Emma saw, to her horror, that they had put someone new in. And pulled the 'deal with it' crap again. His luggage was all over the living room. What horrible timing. No time to deal with that now! She noticed Sally though, and while she hadn't seen her in a while, she hoped she could count on her for a favor. "Sally!"

Having been given a walkie talkie by Kales and pushed in the direction of the living room, Sally at least felt like she had some kind of purpose in this mess, even if it did mean standing around and looking a little lost - but she was good at that. She heard her name called and turned to Emma. "Hi - what's up?" she asked her.

"What are you doing? Are you busy?" Emma asked her quickly. Please, please, please...

"I'm - Kales told me to stay in here to relay messages down to Dave," she told her. "So - I guess... Right now - not really. As long as I can still do that. What do you need?"

"Oh thank God." Emma said. How convenient was that? She loved her boyfriend. "Can you tell Dave that Calvin and Dorian are missing from the third floor, and we're doing a public search just in case someone slept somewhere else last night?" Nevermind the fact that Emma was going to have to organize said search, and she wasn't at all sure how well people were going to listen to her. She was going to try.

"Of course, I'll do that right now," Sally promised, heading towards the elevator to go down to the medical level. Remembering what had been said about walkie talkies, she set it down on the elevator floor before she emerged out into the medical level.

“Dave?” Sally called as she headed out. She hadn’t really spent very much time down here and the place was creepy-quiet apart from the muted sound of electronics and the occasional ‘beep’ from another room.

The doctor heard the call and headed out into the waiting area. “Sally – greta – that solves a lot of problems. Look, I’ve been calling round, I have a list of who’s answered, a few non-answers, but we’ve also got one definite missing,” he said, hurriedly.

“I’ve been sent down with two people missing from the third floor – Calvin and Dorian,” Sally told him, just in case either of them was on the list.

“Shit – that makes three people missing,” Dave swore. “I hit a call with someone who said that they were in Zhen’s room and she definitely wasn’t there. Can you let them know up there?” he asked, assuming that they didn’t already know or they would have passed that along.

“Sure – I’ll go do that now,” Sally told him heading back to the elevator. Three people – this was getting worse and worse.

Collecting her walkie talkie from the elevator floor as she headed back out into the living room, Sally made a beeline for Emma, moving fast. "Okay - Dave says he has another missing person. Zhen - from the attic," she told the other girl.

Emma had found a small sheet of paper to write out and divide places that still needed to be checked, and was about to start rounding people up when Sally approached her. Upon hearing that Zhen was missing, Emma felt a bit like the floor fell out from under her. Heart hitting her stomach, she just stared at Sally for a moment. For a moment all she wanted to do was get on the radio and ask Jason if it was true, and they were out there looking for her friend, and she had to try to find a way to reign herself in to the task at hand. Zhen could have fallen asleep somewhere else. That would not at all be a surprising thing. She nodded and took a breath. "I'm going to get people to check the public rooms. I'll let you know when I find anything else out." she said, holding her walkie up. When. Most definitely when. Not if.

"You okay?" Sally asked her - because she definitely didn't look like she was okay. And, fine, they were in the middle of an emergency, but people had to be able to hold it togehter - which Sally knew could be considered laughable coming from someone like her.

Even if Emma could have allowed herself to open up with Sally, she was of the opinion that now was not the time. She just nodded quickly. "I'm fine." I'm not the one that's missing. "Thanks, Sally. I'll see you later." Not wanting to stand around and discuss it further, she hurried away and through the foyer.

Hannah made it downstairs about that time, having roused as many as she could. She beelined on Emma and Sally mostly because those were the first voices she could pick out. "Zania's not in her room," she announced. "That's all I got. But she could be with Gavin for all I know; she just didn't answer her door."

~*~

High stress situations, the waivers had said. Experimental living environment. Forced interaction. No outside intervention.

Davis, who had never been one to read the fine print - it was always someone else's job - had assumed it would more or less be like a reality show without the TV audience. Lots of people whining about someone not making coffee or doing dishes, and mandatory journal entries detailing who was sleeping with who and why someone was an asshole.

He did NOT expect to wake up groggy and confused with an aching back and knee on a sofa with no immediate memory of how he got there, and the sound of not-so-distant milling voices - none of which seemed to sound particularly happy.

It was possible that this had not been his best decision ever.

He levered himself up off the couch, testing his knee before straightening it, as he always did, and reaching to run his fingers through his hair - more from agitation than out of any attempt to smooth it down. There wasn't anyone standing immediately nearby that he saw, but he still felt fuzzy, so there was a possibility a nearby lamp might actually be a person with a very narrow head. "What the hell is going on?" He asked the room at large. And possibly the lamp, though his head was beginning to clear a bit, so he was reasonably certain it was a lamp, now.

By the time he'd gotten situated though, the voices had faded further away, and the lamp and room were both unresponsive. He grunted, looking around absently for his things and then walking, a bit stiffly, toward where he though he'd last heard people, walking a bit stiffly as his knee woke up.

He had no idea where, exactly, he was when he finally saw a person to go with the disembodied voices. A panicked-looking kid, to be exact. Davis wondered where he'd woken up. Somewhere less pleasant than a sofa, by the look of him. "What the hell is going on?" he asked. Again. It felt more satisfying when there was someone there capable of answering. He paused, and then added belatedly. "And who are you?" A housemate, presumably. Then again, he might have been kidnapped by rabid vampires for all he knew, since he'd woken up on the damn sofa and he hadn't read the contract, but still doubted that sort of thing was in it.

Drew was looking over, and ohhhh hey newbie. Oh fuck, newbie he didn't know, hadn't ever read the file on fuck fuck fuck. Sure he knew that would happen eventually but still! shit! And he still hadn't said anything! "Hi?" he suggested. "Um, I'm Drew, we're in the middle of a liiiiittle crisis here, people are missing and possibly dead so you might wanna just come riiight out of the way here..." he said, starting to tug the guy to the foyer. The foyer was out of the way. And there was less potentially fatal things in there. In theory.

Davis preferred when hands-on was his idea, not someone else's, and he gave the kid an arch sort of look. "Dead?" He checked Drew's pupils. "Mushrooms?" he guessed, but he stepped to the side, shrugging off the touch but moving as the boy directed. "Where, exactly, am I?" No harm in making sure. This wasn't the wake-up he'd expected from scientist-sponsored communal living. Maybe he'd been kidnapped. If so, they were bound to be disappointed. It was hard to pay ransom from frozen accounts.

"You know, that is an awesome question? And I'll let you know just the second I find out, unfortunately, none of us know that, so you're just gonna have to wait, dude. Wait, mushrooms? Eh? Nevermind! Emergency. Three people are missing, and we're trying to find them before they die. It's like a really fucked up real life version of a survival horror complete with shiny clues in stupid locations." Drew told him, looking around to see if there was anyone else that needed direction.

Davis wondered if part of the experience was having your questions answered by a spastic teenage monkey. If so, that didn't bode well. "People are missing. From you don't know where. And they may die?" he surmised. "Can't you just alert the people in charge?" Assuming he was where he thought he should be. And that the kid wasn't high out of his mind, or clinically insane. He hadn't ruled out either of those yet.

"In charge?" Drew said, looking back at Davis. "...uh, no one's really in charge. Well there are, kind of, there's the shrink and the...Lina and the doctor, and they know, and they're dealing with it. That's as good as you're going to get." He paused. "We also know where they're missing from, we just don't know where they've been put."

Shrink and doctor were promising. Those wouldn't be there if it was a kidnapping. Or . . . something. "Maybe they just left? Snuck out for a drink or something?" Davis suggested. The rules said no outside interaction or something, but how could they really enforce that? It wasn't like they could be really prisoners.

Staring at Davis like he was the stupidest motherfucker on the planet, Drew had to take a moment to blink at him. "...snuck out for a drink." he repeated. "Okay are you just this dumb? Or suffering memory loss? Or did you just not pay any attention to what you signed yourself up for?"

Davis drew himself up straighter, narrowing his eyes. He was far from stupid - but he'd spent a lifetime being entitled and spoiled. Rules had never strictly applied to him unless he chose to let him. The idea of anything voluntarily signed up for actually having real control over him was foreign. "I skimmed," he answered flatly. "And the memory loss is possible, since I have no idea how I got here."

"Awesome." Drew said. "Okay Skimmer McGee, why don't you go sit your ass down out of the way and the rest of us'll actually be useful, and not asking dumbshit questions about stuff you really should've figured out before you got here." he finished, annoyed. Gah! First a guy he didn't know anything about, and now he was an asshole who hadn't even bothered to read the contract? Wow was this guy a winner! Woohoo!

Bizarrely, Davis' first thought was what the hell "Skimmer McGee" was supposed to mean. It sounded like something a redneck would name his seventh son after he'd swigged a few beers and spit the bottlecaps at his wife for an evening. His second thought was that the little monkey needed a kick in the ass, a good lay, and a dose of reality. Especially that first one. "You look like a paragon of usefulness. Standing around bug-eyed. Are you always this spastic, or just when you're delusional?"

"Actually, right now I'm not delusional." He didn't think. Drew was almost positive he'd know if he were hallucinating at this point. "You might be. But reserve judgment on delusions for when you know what the hell you're doing, pal, now...I dunno, go for a walk? Or something? I know! Go look for the bar that the missing people might've snuck off to get a drink at. Good luck with that."

"So you are sometimes delusional? Are there some sort of experimental drugs as part of this program? If so, I don't want yours." A drink sounded like a good idea . . . or actually walking around and figuring what the hell was gong on for himself, instead of relying on an argumentative monkey. "You have excellent people skills. They'll come in handy in future careers in customer service. When you find your dead people, you should practice saying 'do you want fries with that?'" Davis offered absently, scanning around a little before picking a direction he hadn't gone in and turning to go, stiff gait loosening slowly as his knee warmed up.

Drew frowned after him, then just totally ignored the dude, since as long as he wasn't there asking dumb questions? Drew could get back to...whatever he was doing. Which wasn't actually that much, but it was theoretically useful just in case. Or something.

Erich just stood in the center of the foyer, watching everyone run around in a panic, arms crossed and looking annoyed. If he'd had any illusions about Lina's leadership ability or whether the house could come together to solve a crisis, they were completely gone now.

"Right, everyone who isn't currently doing something come here. We'll split up and search the house and grounds while everyone else is following the 'clues'."