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The Tigress's Maze

November 16th Prompt: Prison Escape

The rat was still running through the maze, and doubtlessly thought that he had found the escape to his prison. Tatyana shook her head, the tigress walking around the hologram table as she followed the beeping dot of light with the tip of her finger down the main corridor.

"A turn left...then right...then - ah."

The tigress shook her head as the rat broke pattern. A pinch of her white and black fingers zoomed in, turning the light to a proper shape. The dot grew legs, turned into a blue-white representation of a two-legged rat, one that had desperately dodged the tranquilizing nets fired from some of the drones coming down another hallway.

Setting a pattern. Intelligent...but...

She shook her head, leaning over the hologram. From here, it was little different to looking down at a less intelligent, more feral rat in a less grandiose maze. He was so small, and while there were ways out - for there had to be, for a facility of this size, and for the safety of her various subjects - they weren't where he likely imagined. He had temporarily fooled her and the drones by setting them down a pattern of behavior, making a break down one of the side corridors, but that did not mean that he was safe. Not by a long shot.

The white-black tigress didn't have to state any orders. She tapped the icons for the drones and kept them on their current path, moving to the intersection where the rat had declined to make another turn. That would cut off his retreat. As for blocking off his attempt at escape...

Tatyana walked around the table, lifting her hand and drawing the hologram up with her. The underground facility that was her unfortunate responsibility loomed higher, showing off level upon level. Her escaping prisoner was three floors down from any of the tertiary exits from the lab, let alone the secondary or main ones. Unless he was considerably more self-deluded or desperate than her tests had indicated, he likely didn't have any plans of actually escaping. Not yet, at least.

No, he plans to evade the drones and find a blind spot in the security system, wait for the alert to die down, and then continue up...

Tatyana shook her head. Considering the rat's lack of knowledge of the facility, it would not have been a completely unworkable plan. In fact, it would have been quite an intelligent one, provided that he was trying to escape a prison run by the administration that had come before her. They would have been more than willing to allow someone to run off and die, replacing them with another subject.

She was not them.

She did not allow that.

As a precaution, she sealed all elevators leading out of the testing level that the rat ran through, then opened one staircase. It was the only one at the end of the hall that he was running through, the only way forward or out.

And just to make sure...

Sliding her hands between the floors, she sealed the stairs with a pair of steel slabs more than two feet thick. Even one of the super-powered subjects from the lower levels would not be able to rip through those.

The miniature rat paused at the door to the staircase, his head whipping over her shoulder. Tatyana leaned over the table, knitting her fingers together and resting her chin on them.

"What will you do, Mr...Nicolai?" she muttered, glancing at the file that appeared beside his glowing icon. "Flee? Fight? Or will you surprise me?"

For all that the attempt at escaping her facility had come as a surprise, the process of corralling the rat had turned into a test all its own, one that defined the limitations of her security forces as well as the way that a panicked escapee could still throw a few surprises her way. She'd already made notes of her own flaws in falling into patterns while dealing with him, and how he had managed to turn that against her. Likewise, she had already slated several of the drones for upgrades in both speed and accuracy; they should not have been outrun with their smaller size and tight turning radius, and yet both had happened.

The rat could have done several things, she knew. He could have lunged for the staircase and tried to seize a drone as it came through, utilizing its parts and weapons to try and cut through the steel layers. Likewise, he could have kept running, turning away from the door and leading the drones on a further chase, hoping to find that one of the facility labs would have something that he - or another prisoner, perhaps - might have used. There were certainly options for those with a keen mind.

Instead, he slowed, panting, and -

"Ah...yes..."

She remembered this subject, now. He was part of the Retention Group, those that were being tested to see how one could improve their memory. From the look of things, he was one of those fitted with a visual-memory module; what he saw, he remembered.

It was almost amusing how he stopped and leaned against the doorframe. Even panting for breath, he looked almost smug. Tatyana knew what he was thinking: he'd made it this far, learning how it worked, and now, he could find his way back again, even faster. He had outrun her drones this time, and next time, he'd be even better.

Tatyana shook her head. It felt almost a shame to break his illusions, but...well, one must do what one must do.

After all, there was a reason that each floor in the facility was separated from the others by at least five feet of solid steel.

The drones stopped in one of the intersections, and the various cells, labs, and storage chambers that Mr. Nicolai had run past began to move. They shifted position, slotting out, changing place. They rearranged themselves, changing the shapes of the halls, the lengths of the corridor, and more. In less than a minute, the entire level bore no resemblance to its previous shape. She knew: she had rearranged it herself from the map room.

She tapped the hologram of the building, her voice bellowing through the loudspeakers in the hall.

"If this attempt at an escape is finished, Mr. Nicolai, I would appreciate your surrender at this moment. You are overdue for a memory download, as well as for further retention tests. I will be extending your test load for this, and the longer you keep running, the longer that extension becomes."