Ravela walked into the hospital, followed by her teenage accomplice. She strolled down the ground floor halls, eventually spotting where the staff lockers were.
There was no need to rush. Ravela hoped that her relaxed approach conveyed the importance of the right pace in all things. Just in case it was lost on the girl, she planned on having an after-mission debrief to see what the girl learned from this experience.
They didn’t need long to reach the third floor. Still on the staircase, Ravela paused.
“Wait here for twenty seconds, then follow me.” She made a two-fingers-stretched hand gesture near her waist. “If you see this signal while I walk down the hall, It is because the room I just passed is empty. That’s an optional escape. What room number is Beth in?”
Laena took a moment before she answered, “She’s in room 3117.”
“Then watch for the rooms close to Beth’s room carefully for the signal. Linger around the hallway for a bit. You will know when the distraction begins.” Ravela said, then waited for any question the girl may have. “Five minutes from the moment you enter. Do you have a watch?”
The teenager shook her head sheepishly.
Taking off her wrist watch she handed it to Laena. “There, now you can time things right. Don’t lose it, I like that watch. Okay, showtime.”
Ravela walked into the third floor leisurely. They weren’t yet in the right hallway. She wanted to understand the layout better before she steered toward their destination.
Laena followed her after roughly twenty seconds, as Ravela had asked. Soon enough, she entered the hallway with five police officers lining it. Nurses were busy moving patients out of rooms which gave Ravela a good view of most rooms. Some had workers busy fitting some airlock-like door to it in a hasty fashion. This work had a hectic theme, and she could see on the workers' faces that they were trying hard to get everything done in time. One of the rooms that had just vacated its last occupant was completely ignored by workers and nurses alike. After all, they only had so many hands.
Ravela gave the agreed-upon sign. Besides that one room, two more rooms fit the criteria for an undiscovered escape on Laena’s end.
Her eyes shot over to the officer standing before room 3117 for a split second. She glanced over toward the other side of the hallway. A nurse was busy preparing one of the new rooms with the airlock-like door. Ravela chose that room for their distraction.
She started levitating things inside the room after she had passed by. The metal trays, bedpan, and other utensils banged against the walls. Ravela got the expected reaction from the nurse who saw the objects in the room developing a will of their own. The woman screamed murder and ran out of the room that was haunted by a ghost.
Just as Ravela planned, the two officers closest to the commotion went to investigate. Ravela started harassing the police officers in the room with all the floating things and closed the door behind them. This got the attention of the other officer, who, enticed by the loud cursing of their colleagues, made their way to the room Ravela wished to trap them in. As the remaining officers in the hall reached the door, she allowed them to open the door and stomp into the room. When Ravela smacked the door shut again, things became serious.
Laena had used the distraction to slip into Beth’s room, and Ravela kept the door shut and the stuff in the room floating around through continued concentration.
Five minutes wasn’t a lot, but it would give her enough time to know exactly where to look for answers. She walked past more nurses rushing toward the commotion. This floor’s nurse desk was fully deserted, and Ravela approached it with a gleeful expression.
She sorted through the files laid about on the desk. The thin folders were marked by the room the patient stayed in, making it easier to find the right folders.
Ravela opened the folders and found that attached to the patient's general sheets were short one-page descriptions of the nature of their ability and the incident that led to their discovery. Removing these pages of each folder, including Beth’s folder, to not single her out as an oddity that could give away a lead, her eyes fell on a letter printed on bold red paper.
Urgent Notice By the Federal Bureau of Investigation:
“The wing will undergo immediate refitting for further arrivals.
The entire hospital wing will be required to care for the twenty-eight patients properly….”
Ravela stumbled; her concentration faltered for a split second before she regained her composure. This nearly ruined the distraction. Mumbling, “Twenty-eight,” in a bit of a daze.
That was far too many alterations, by her own expectations. She had been wrong about humanity and their odds of surviving an alteration. In her mind, she foresaw a planet full of beings with superpowers. Ravela's eyes twitched. It was something that made her incredibly uncomfortable.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Her attention returned to the red letter. The files for the new patients were sent ahead and stored in room 1002. Ravela checked the clock on the wall.
Only three minutes had passed since the distraction started. Ravela started going through the station desk, finding all the blank paper and stacking it on the desk. The commotion in the hallway was still ongoing, but she knew it would only hold for two more minutes.
Ravela’s plans for scouting had just changed drastically. There was a high-value package waiting for her to remove from room 1002. While she was preparing Laena’s escape distraction, Ravela pondered how many alterations went undiscovered and how many were yet to happen. The potential had her dizzy. At least of these people that have been found, she’d know the rough abilities. She had to know.
Making her way back into the hall where a crowd had gathered, she folded the extracted pages and pushed them into her pants pocket. It was time to be extra unhelpful with the door she held shut.
Joining the crowd of onlookers, Ravela kept her eye on Beth’s room.
As she counted and waited for the five-minute mark, a group of men in suits exited the elevator. Seven men waltzed in, instructing the guys working on the door to hurry up and informing the nurses that the new patients would arrive in less than one hour. Spotting the commotion, three of them made their way over, looking irritated.
“What’s the commotion here? This is supposed to be a secured wing.” One of them asked gruffly.
Ravela let one of the nurses deal with the ego in a suit as her eyes noticed a door crack open. She grinned; the teenager was done early.
Their eyes met, and Ravela started her escape distraction right away. As the door sprung open and five very angry police officers barreled out of their trap, Ravela sent all the papers she had stacked on the station desk in a whirl through the hall.
It was a beautifully executed chaos. Nobody knew up or down in this confusion. Ravela managed the paper storm such that Laena had a clear line to her escape room. Before the girl vanished from Ravela’s sight, their eyes met again, and Ravela gave her a cheeky wink through the whirling papers.
Not using any energy from a crystal in the execution of her plan took a bigger toll on her mind, and she could feel that strain vividly. No sooner did the papers fall to the ground, bereft of their artificial gust of wind, than the door to the room Laena was now in had closed.
Ravela smiled broadly at the chaos she had produced, and seeing that her job on the third floor was done, she turned her back to the mess she had made and walked away with long strides.
Since this plan went off without a hitch, she was optimistic about the next part of her improvised plan. The agents were now distracted by the chaos on the third floor, which gave Ravela some space and time to get into a disguise and raid room 1002.
The files would prove more fruitful intelligence than having to hang out with nurses on the third floor trying to blend in and gather information by gossip.
An evening of hard charade and improvised sneaking around had become a simple ‘Fetch that box and leave’ mission. This would be a walk in the park.
Stepping back on the staircase, she felt enthusiastic about getting served crucial intel on a silver platter. Ravela froze momentarily on the stairs, considering the possibility of that convenient file box being a trap. Dismissing the idea as too wacky, she descended to the ground floor.
While standing on the deserted staircase, Ravela took a long moment to ensure no cameras or people were around. She pulled out the black ring with its orange gem. She put on the ring and took off Ramiel’s ring. Using her ability to make her clothes seem to fit her new stature by folding her shirt on her back with her telekinesis, Ravela stepped out into the ground floor. Her goal lay not far away in the nurses’ dressing room.
She timed the moment to slip into the changing room. Listening for any voices, Ravela held her breath behind the closed door.
Nobody in the locker room? Things have gone smoothly so far. Yet still, she was growing wary of this much hitchlessness. Ravela went into the locker room, searched, and found some fitting nurse uniforms, though she had to unlock some lockers.
When she left the dressing room, Ravela blended in well with the nurses and confidently made her way up to the next floor. She still had a bag with her other clothes with her, which she placed near a fire exit in the staircase. However, she had nothing to replace her training boots with. It made her feel as though her disguise was incomplete. Holding them in place while walking was somewhat annoying, on top of that.
Ravela reached her destination and found the door to room 1002 locked.
‘How cute,’ She thought as she proceeded to pick the lock in seconds with her abilities. Behind the door lay a remarkably unremarkable office. A box was sitting on the only desk, like a present, just waiting for Ravela to pick it up.
Closing the door behind herself, Ravela wasted no time and got to work. She opened the box and pulled a file from it at random.
Opening the file, she started reading the cover page describing the abilities of the patient and the incident that led to their discovery.
Eighteen-year-old man using the indoor swimming pool of his university sports division. The entire pool froze solid while he was swimming in it. At the same time, many kids got stuck and had to be treated for frostbite. Some lost a toe or a finger, but thankfully, nobody died. Meanwhile, that young man could swim through the ice as the water behaved like it was still liquid whenever he moved.
It was a horrible way to discover your alteration, but considering that nobody got stuck with their head under the ice an overall tame discovery.
Ravela wanted to browse more, but the flickering blue and red lights appeared in the street outside the office. A convoy of ambulances arrived just below the window. Ravela realized that her time to read the files had run out, and she had to take the files and leave before the hospital personnel showed up to get the patient files to the right floor.
Putting away the file, she closed the box. Even though her curiosity for the other cases was immense, she refrained from lingering a moment longer.
Picking up her bounty, she walked out of the office and bumped nose-first into the chest of someone much taller than herself.
Ravela stumbled a few steps back into the room, holding onto the box.
“Apologies, I didn’t expect staff to be here already.” A man said in a low yet smooth voice.
Ravela looked up at the man in the suit. The gears in her head had halted with a shriek before kicking into full throttle again.
“The doctors on the third floor said I should get the files. Since it’s my third day here, they said they’d handle those new arrivals.” She smiled widely, giving her voice a highly motivated good-natured but bit too talkative twang, loaned to her by Safora’s intonations. “I think they think I am too darn clumsy to handle patients on my first week. I’m Becca, by the way, and who are you, handsome?”
A woman coughed from the side of the door, injecting herself into the conversation. “We’re with the Federal Bureau. We came here when we learned that they left the files without security.”
Ravela made a surprised face while starting to walk toward the male agent again. “Oh, were they supposed to be guarded? Gee, I hope the nice doctors aren’t in trouble now.”
“I am Agent Buster, and this wonderful partner of mine is Agent Delemere. We’re glad the files are fine.”
“Alright then, agents,” Ravela said, pretending to be still cheerful and carefree Becca. “take care. I’ll be taking these up to the third. See you upstairs. That is if the doctors let me do my job.”
Ravela just kept walking to the stairs. She felt nervous, and the moment the staircase door closed behind her, she heard someone shout in the hallway as though they had just realized they’d been duped.
Ravela started running up the stairs. There wasn’t enough distance for her to switch back into Ramiel and escape.
A game of cat and mouse was about to ensue, and Ravela was at a grave disadvantage. She was but one person and had no clue how many agents were in the building.
It was time to think quickly and get out of the hospital with her cargo, ideally without getting into a huge stand-off with the agents.
She started jumping up the stairs to gain more distance between herself and her pursuers.