#moebiusquest

Back in the building, Trace finally finished dragging the unconscious janitor to the men's restroom, where he was out of the way. They weighed more than he did, and it was difficult work for the glimneon, who did not exercise much and mostly subsisted on a diet of junk food. Once the janitor was stowed in the bathroom, Trace took a minute to have a breather and dry the mopwater off his suit. "I can't believe how much trouble one janitor has been." He glared down at the offending aqualine, suppressing the desire to kick him again. Either way, he turned towards the door to leave. "Now I can finally get back to wor-" The voice of his team's overwatch, Redshift, came in through his headset. "Trace, the guard heard your fight and came upstairs, found the aqualine's stuff. He's going to come looking for them in a second." Trace expelled a breath in frustration. "Aw, come on! I don't want to have to deal with a gorm, especially that one!" He'd only seen them for a few moments, but they had seemed really surly, which usually meant they would want to beat him up if they found him. Redshift's reply was dry and unsympathetic. He must be annoyed that Trace had gotten into a fight. "Then you're going to have to either take the elevator or slip past him to the stairs, Trace." Trace turned off his microphone and tried to decide which would be better. The guard would soon know someone was in the building due to the knocked out janitor, so the best he could hope for was to avoid being found by him. If he could sneaking past him to the Stairs, it might take them a while to figure out where he was now, but they also might catch him, he didn't know if they had heat sensors or something, some gorm did, and those would see right through his stealth suit. On the other hand, taking the Lift (and probably disable it afterwards) meant he would have some breathing room to avoid the guard without having to sneak past him, but they would almost certainly hear the lift and know someone had used it, and would soon come up the stairs after him.

Glimneons are a species by http://yark-wark.tumblr.com/ ! Also featured in that Moebius Acquisitions comic I’m doing.

 > use one of your grenades. Temporal? That sounds useful. Blame the noise produced on his ladder falling over. > Try a (quiet) Parley! Point out that he doesn't look super enthusiastic about his job and they probably don't pay well so maybe he can just let you go and give you a towel, please? Trace is not going to use his grenades right now! He is not in sufficient danger to justify using such an expensive tool! However, trying to talk his way out seemed like a reasonable first course of action. So he spoke up, trying to sound as friendly as possible. "Okay, listen. I can tell working here isn't your favorite thing, so how about we just walk our separate ways and I leave you be. Maybe after you tell me where the towels are?" Spume stared at the thief for a moment, then raised his mop slightly with a snort, his deep voice amused. "Are you serious? Catching an invisible thief in the act is the most exciting thing that's happened since I started working here. If I apprehend you, I might even get a pay raise. Not a chance am I just going to let you walk off." It sounds like this aqualine actually wants to capture Trace and is ready put up a fight. Fights are not Trace's specialty. He could try to go in with the stun glove immediately, and catch them by surprise. But it might not hurt to come up with a less head on approach to taking on the aqualine, just in case... after all, Spume did have what amounts to a crude quarterstaff in his hands.

Trace grinned, slipping in behind him and to the side of the ladder. The thief reached up to snag the ID, but found the janitor's waist to be somewhat out or of reach from his elevated position. He strained to reach it a few times, but after several failed attempts, it occurred to him that he could just climb up the other side of the ladder and grab it from there. Snickering silently to himself, Trace carefully climbed up the janitor's ladder, making sure he didn't jostle it. He was about to reach for the ID, when the janitor moved his arm, and a dripping mass of nasty, nearly opaque mopwater lifted out of his nearby mop bucket, hovering in the air. The thief paused, considering the floating mopwater. He wondered, briefly, why the aqualine needed mopwater to change a light... he'd never seen someone replace a bulb with water. Fortunately, Spume didn't keep him waiting for an answer. "Ackplbbth!"

Either way, he wouldn't be needing that ID anymore. Maybe he had a wallet that could be liberated as victory spoils, too.. 

Right as Trace stepped out from the fire stair doorway, a total beast of a gorm came out through the opposite door, staring straight at where the glimneon was standing. Trace had a moment of panic, but then remembered that he was still using his stealth function, and that this gorm was probably looking through him, not at him. The gorm had definitely seen the door closing behind him though, because they stopped, staring at the doorway the thief had just vacated. They lowered the can of coffee they were holding slightly, and Trace could practically hear gears turning in the security guard's head. For all he knew, gorm might have gears in their head for real, anyway. What a weird species. The janitor came around the corner, busy with his mop and bucket, but clearly drawn to the sound of the doors opening. The aqualine glanced up for a moment at gorm, then nodded to them in recognition. "Hey, Pach." The gorm tore his intense gaze from the closed door, and Trace took the opportunity to shuffle out from behind the front of it, just in case the security gorm decided to go downstairs. "Spume." The gorm turned back to the doorway Trace had just vacated, and took a drink from the canned coffee he had. "Was someone else just up here?" "Nope." The security gorm nodded and stepped forward, opening the door with a swipe of his arm, and heading downstairs without another word. Trace had a decision to make, now. The only security guard in the building had seen something suspicious, and that would probably put him on alert, especially when he found no one downstairs or having just left the building. Fortunately, the glimneon was in an idea position to help him forget that. One burst from the Stun Glove and 'Pach' would conveniently forget his experience with the door, along with the last couple minutes, negating potential problems with raised alert this early on in the heist. That would drain a significant portion of his Stealth Suit's charge, however, which he might end up needing later. Especially if he ended up having an altercation with the security guard for something unrelated to mysterious open doors. Maybe the gorm would even pointlessly search the lower floor for an intruder while Trace worked upstairs, possibly giving him more time to get the job done.

> Open door to check out the employee lounge. Open it really slow tho. So it could be mistaken for the door just being loose or something > Lets gather some info while we're here and then execute the perfect plan > Do check out what's in that room. Will the ID work on the door despite being invisible? The keycard is safely stored within a pocket in Trace's suit, but the stealth field does not extend far from his body. If he takes any of his tools out or picks up objects, they will not be concealed unless he completely covers them with his hands. That aside, the keycards work via a magnetic principle, so even if they were invisible, it should be no problem to use them to open doors. Deciding to hold off on the stairs for now, Trace unlocks the door leading deeper into the first floor, slipping quietly inside. As it turned out, someone was already here! An aqualine he assumed was a janitor - given they had a mop - was walking into the open elevator, distracted by a small holotablet device. They did not notice the door across the hall open. Trace was considering trying to slip into the elevator with him, but his eyes moved to the right wall, and he stopped, staring. He had never seen something so hideous. It was worse even than that carpet from the previous room. The glimneon was fairly sure it was supposed to be some kind of artwork... but whoever had made it clearly had no idea how color theory worked, or wanted to offend the eyes of everyone. Why would anyone hang this atrocity on the wall of a workplace? Were they actually trying to torture their own employees with decor? The elevator door closed while Trace was busy boggling at the horrifying abstract art and questioning just now nefarious this junk food company actually was. He finally managed to pull his gaze from it, and took a closer look at the room around him. There were three doors, and the blue double doors to the right side of the hall looked to only open from the other side. The purple door had been swinging shut when he came in, so it was probably a janitor closet of some kind. The greenish door was anyone's guess, but this didn't look like where one would find an employee lounge. He could explore either of them first, or turn back The elevator was probably out for now, after it had recently been taken up a floor. Really, anything that got him out of vision range of the Terrible Abstract Art would make him happy, though.

-There was a set of stairs leading down to the fire exit he was loitering around the corner from, but that was almost certain to require keycards or similar to progress up through. That would only take him to the second floor, though, which was mostly offices, and he would have to find a keycard on one of the night shift members that could get him to the third floor from there.  This would be a slower route with more potential night shift employees on the way, but the one most guaranteed to succeed. Probably.