(continued from this thread)

Sometimes, Kaitlyn decided that the white tiles on the floor of the Sanctuary's hallways were actually lava. Only the colored tiles were safe to step on; stepping anywhere else would surely spell instant death. This turned the mundane task of walking straight down the hallway into a complicated mess of jumping, hopping, sidestepping, and tip-toeing an erratic path anywhere she had to go.

Tonight, however, her sock-covered feet padded indiscriminately over colored and white tiles alike, a small flashlight illuminating the way in front of her. The little redhead didn't have time for lava now. She was about to go on a spy mission with another Order member.

Finally finding the door labeled '283,' Kaitlyn stopped and knocked on it with her flashlight.

No response.

She knocked again almost half a minute later, and the door soon opened to reveal a pale man with greasy black hair and a dirty T-shirt that probably used to be white. Dark circles under his not-entirely-open eyes suggested that he wanted to be asleep right now. "It's midnight..." he groaned, "what?"

"...Deirdra in this room?" Kaitlyn asked in a whisper.

He sighed. "Uh... Deirdra? Blond scorpion chick?"

The kid nodded.

"I wish..." he said under his breath. Eyes faintly glowing, he looked down the hallway, and Kaitlyn followed his gaze. One of the doors was briefly illuminated with a subdued violet light. "Check there. That's her room."

"...Oh. I thought this was her room."

The man yawned. "Nope. Can I go back to sleep now?"

"Yeah." The door to his room closed in her face.

With that, Kaitlyn tiptoed to the correct door and started knocking.

Deirdra stood in front of her full length mirror clad completely in black. She turned left and right, preening, trying to decide if she liked her appearance or not. It may only be a spy mission, but the woman never liked to be anywhere without looking as nice as possible. Even if she might only be seen by a young girl, there was still a chance that someone could stumble across them. Her top came to her midriff and was tight enough to show her slight curves. The black sweatpants she wore were clingy, but still easy to move around in. She had decided to go barefoot though, considering their object was to be sneaky. Heels were not sneaky, no matter how cute they were.

The blond had her hair pulled back into a ponytail to keep her line of vision clear. Deirdra was content until her bangs fell down into her eyes. She walked over to her top dresser drawer where she kept hair supplies and dug around until she found a bobby pin. Making her way back to the large mirror, she pinned her bangs back. They could be hard to tame, so she grabbed a bottle of hairspray and attacked it thoroughly. Once she was absolutely sure her hair wouldn’t interfere with their mission, she woman smiled happily to herself. “Ready. Man, why does looking good have to take so long?”

As she stood looking at all her hard work, she heard a knock at the door. She turned around quickly and walked to the entrance way to her room. She opened it and smiled at Kaitlyn. “Hey there. Good to see you. I hope finding my room was no problem.” The blond stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind her. “Let’s see what we can find, shall we?” With that, the scorpion woman made her way towards where Lisa’s desk was. She hoped they’d find something. She didn’t want the girl to be disappointed. Deirdra glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Kaitlyn. Besides, she wouldn’t mind knowing someone else’s business anyway. She had always liked being well informed, it made it easier to predict people’s movements. After all, Deirdra Sykes did have trust issues.

Deirdra was kinda like a person from TV. No matter what she was going to do, she always looked pretty. She also led a secret life in a secret organization where she participated in secret missions. Order members and their missions were all very secretive and glamorous, and Kaitlyn got to know people like Deirdra and be a part of some of those missions.

There was a spring in the kid's step as Deirdra led her through the Sanctuary's quiet corridors, then through the door to the stairwell. But when she saw the ground floor, she started to worry.

The lights were still on, and other residents could still be seen walking around in the hallways. Kaitlyn's plans were already falling apart. As the two nearly barefoot, strangely dressed Orderlings navigated the labyrinth of the Sanctuary's ground floor, the younger one looked up at her elder and whispered, "What are we gonna do now? I didn't think anyone else would be up."

The blond smiled as she walked along. She could feel the presence of the girl behind her. She seemed like a decently happy child. It was a bit odd to see, because she must’ve had a hard time considering she had come to the Sanctuary. Deirdra couldn’t imagine discovering a mutation at such a young age. She had been 13 when she discovered her own, and that seemed like an early age to her. At the time, the blond wasn’t ready to have something as big as a body-altering ability to pop into her life. Still, it had happened and she had made the decision to leave home. What’s done is done.

Deirdra listened, still looking around as Kaitlyn expressed her concern. “Hmm, that’s a good question. I suppose there are a few options. Maybe one of us can distract them as the other looks around.” The blond watched as the other mutants walked around, minding their own business. “Or maybe we can lie to them.” She smirked and turned to Kaitlyn. “We could tell them that something’s going on, so they should move elsewhere. What do you think?”

"Uh..." Kaitlyn tried to think quickly. The desk was in the foyer., smack dab in the middle of the Sanctuary's main entranceway, right behind the golden doors. Tricking everyone else into staying away wasn't much of an option. Deirdra or Kaitlyn would have to distract them somehow.

The kid whispered the first idea that came into her head: "Could you act like you're doing Lisa's job? I'd hide under the desk and look around while you did that, so you'd be the distraction." At the time, she thought that this was an absolutely brilliant plan.

The Orderlings rounded another corner and found themselves in the Foyer. There were a few comfortable-looking chairs here to help mutants sit and wait, though why anyoune would ever have to sit and wait in the Foyer was anyone's guess. Still, though all of the chairs were empty, the Foyer was not: a bald man sat cross-legged on the ceiling, staring unblinkingly at the golden doors from his upside-down perch. If he noticed the barefoot duo's arrival, he didn't seem to acknowledge it.

Deirdra raised an eyebrow as she pondered Kaitlyn’s plan. “Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to try. Though, if someone realizes what we’re up to, we could be in big trouble. Someone may know that only Lisa works the desk or may ask about Lori about me working the desk.” The blond glanced at the child and shrugged.

As the pair walked into the main area, a man was sitting upside down on the ceiling. Huh, well that’s something new that I’ve never seen before. They continued to make their way to the desk, but the scorpion-woman kept some of her attention on the odd man. She wasn’t sure what he was up to or if he was harmless, but she wasn’t willing to risk it.

The blond stepped up to the desk and glanced around before starting her adventure behind desk. She gestured for Kaitlyn to get behind and underneath it so she wouldn’t be seen. Since Deirdra had worked as a secretary, the first thing she did was grab a pen and something that looked like a chart. If she pretended to write, it may look less like she was doing something wrong and more like she was doing some sort of work.

There was something decidedly eerie about the upside-down man. Kaitlyn spent about ten seconds staring at him before finally ducking behind Lisa's desk and getting to work.

The desk had three drawers, and the ten-year-old quickly discovered that the bottom two were locked. In the unlocked top drawer, she found a small stack of papers, which she took with her to her hiding spot down next to Deirdra's feet. Shuffling noises made their way through the mostly silent room as hazel eyes scanned for Order intel.

This went on for the next few uneventful minutes. Then, one of the golden doors opened, and in walked a young black man with a gray hoodie with the hood up, concealing his ears, and an incredibly baggy pair of jeans. Upon noticing the man on the ceiling, he stopped in his tracks and stared.

After a long pause, he asked"What the hell are you doin' up there?"

No response. Not even a blink.

"Christ." He shrugged, then made his way to the front desk, where Deirdra was sitting. "Aight, I need a place to stay for a while. Y'all still have any rooms?"

Kaitlyn had stopped shuffling through the papers by this point, instead staying perfectly still, holding her breath, and waiting for the man to leave.

Deirdra continued to look down and pretend to scribble things down as she felt Kaitlyn shift about by her feet. The blond acted as if she noticed nothing and only glanced up once when a man in a sweatshirt walked in. She gave him a quick smile and then went back to writing random things on her notepad. She really hoped that he didn’t try to talk to her and listened as the new-comer yelled at the man who sat on the ceiling.

She found the weird upside-down man pretty good at ignoring everything around him. Deirdra could only wish she was so oblivious to things. The blond would lose concentration easily if she was aggravated or something around her mad her really angry. The odd mutant definitely had determination and the scorpion-woman admired that.

All hopes of the man in the sweatshirt leaving or already having a room were dashed. He approached the desk and asked for somewhere to stay. The blond’s pen stopped moving instantly and she looked up to make eye contact. She felt Kaitlyn stop moving completely and Deirdra wondered what she should do. Maybe she should just tell him to come back another time? Or..? Or..or maybe she could get rid of him all together.

The blond set the pen down onto her notepad and batted her eyelashes at the man. “So..you have nowhere to go, hmm? I can’t exactly just get you a room. I’m not the boss around here, you see. It turns out she happens to be a bit busy today, but if you came by at a later date you might be able to catch her. As for where you can stay tonight, I happen to know that there’s a shelter a couple blocks away.” The woman extended her arm across the desk and pointed in the direction of the shelter. “I could even show you there, if you’d like. Unfortunately, I think we’re also pretty filled up. I wouldn’t count on any openings soon, even if you did come back.”

Hoodie guy gave Deirdra a worried look. "Can I... uh... well, I don't need a bed or a room or anything, I need somewhere safe. The people that --"

His head jerked around to face the golden doors. Slowly removing his hoodie, he revealed a pair of large, pointy ears, the tips of which bent themselves towards the door and started twitching erratically. When he finally spoke to Deirdra again, some of the color had gone from his face, and his voice was trembling.

"Th-this is the safest place I know about. And the guy doin the weird trance thing on your ceiling, Ben, he's ahh... sorta an old friend of mine. I guess he'd care enough to let me sleep on his floor or... something. If you told me where his room was, I could ask him if he'd share rooms... I'm pretty desperate right now."

The man's ears twitched again. Hidden under the desk, Kaitlyn shuffled through the papers, and soon a list of names and room numbers found its way onto Deirdra's lap, accompanied by a few pokes to her knee. There were three different Benjamins with three different surnames on this list.

The man with the hoodie had pulled down the actual hood part. He had ears that reminded Deirdra of an elf or some sort of faerie-thing. When they started twitching, the blond felt herself smile slightly. He obviously had very good hearing, which would probably be pretty nice to have. Or maybe, it would be really loud and hard to sleep or concentrate on anything. She couldn’t really be sure, considering she didn’t have any experience with the mutation.

He was obviously nervous about something. It seemed like he was expecting someone to walk in any minute. The scorpion-woman narrowed her eyes slightly in suspicion. What if he just brought trouble to the Sanctuary? Who knows, maybe he had done something to make someone else mad. At the same time, Deirdra had been in trouble before and received help from other mutants. She couldn’t just kick him out, at least not in good conscience. She gently bit her bottom lip.

The elf-eared mutant informed the blond that the man hanging from the ceiling was named Ben. That, and that he was in some sort of trance. Deirdra glanced up at the odd mutant on the ceiling and then back at the other mutant. “Ben…” She didn’t know a Ben! What was she going to say? What if he told someone that they had been snooping and they were caught? Maybe digging around in Lisa’s business wasn’t a good idea, after all.

The woman was about to go into panic mode when a stack of papers were put on her lap. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise and then she was poked a couple times. A small sigh of relief escaped her lips and she pretended to file through some drawers. She peeked up at the new comer and grinned. “I’m new to this, would you please remind me of that man’s last name?” She batted her blue eyes in a flirty way and ran a hand through her hair.

For a moment, Elf-ears looked confused. Then, a wave of understanding washed over him. Fear and desperation fled his eyes, giving him the chance to let out a light chuckle.

"Yeah, I think you gotta be new." He put on his most charming smile. His fist knocked on the top of the desk, and Kaitlyn began to hold her breath. "Listen – I wouldn't think any less of you for whatever you have under there. I mean, we're all mutants here. I'm sure that whatever's down there, it wouldn't --" Ears twitched, and their owner's head swiveled around to face the golden doors.

"Right. Well, I'd like to get to know you sometime," he continued, turning his attention back to Deirdra, "But Maybe later. His name's Ben Carpenter... and mine's Gerald." Something about the way he was looking at the blond gave the impression that he wanted to hear more than just Ben's room number.

Kaitlyn's eyebrows furrowed. Something very strange was going on here, but the kid couldn't quite put her finger on it.

The man, who now clarified himself as Gerald, seemed to be flirting or...something. Deirdra wasn't sure what he was trying to do, but it made her a bit suspicious. He seemed to know Kaitlyn, or at least something, was under the desk. The woman glanced up at the mutant sitting on the ceiling, now known as Ben Carpenter.

Her eyes flitted back down to look at Gerald's face. He had said he'd like to get to know her sometime, but he was on edge and didn't actually seem too interested at the moment. When he looked at the doors, the blond narrowed her eyes as she tried to figure out what was going on. Something was off. Something about him.

"So...you want to stay in Ben's room, have I got that right?" The man on the ceiling didn't really move in any sort of response to having another person in his bedroom. Either he didn't care, or he couldn't hear. She glanced at his list. There was a Ben Carpenter on it. Maybe he wasn't lying, but he seemed too twitchy to not be up to something.

The blond was quiet for a moment and stared at the room number next to the name. "May I ask why you're acting so unusual? I'm not a big fan of inviting unknown problems into all these mutants' homes." She wasn't sure if she should've even bothered asking, but it couldn't make anything much worse at this point. They were already cornered.

"Well," Gerald explained, "I was getting shot at earlier, so I'm pretty jumpy right now. You would be, too, and it doesn't take much for me to jump right now, because of my ears. And I can't be the only one who's hearing all those noises that Ben's dream-self-thing is making over there. I mean, I know I'm safe here, but..."

He turned his head again and looked at the man on the ceiling. Ben was being just as calm and quiet as he'd been the whole time Kaitlyn and Deirdra had been there.

"Okay, I even felt that one," Gerald commented. "Jesus."

Kaitlyn shifted uncomfortably beneath the desk, still trying to make as little noise as possible.

Gerald wasn't making much sense to Deirdra, so she ran her fingers through her blond hair and leaned against the desk. "I'm not quite sure what to do here. I don't really have the authority to let you stay. You see, I'm the tail-end of a shift. The person whose shift this is, had to leave. There was some sort of problem or something."

Kaitlyn had to be getting stiff and she felt the small girl shift ever-so slightly. The scorpion-woman walked out from behind the desk to give her some room. She glanced up at the unusual man hanging from the ceiling. She didn't understand what it was the Gerald heard or felt from him, but she didn't sense anything.

"Well, you do seem to know him." She narrowed her eyes at him and glared. "If you cause any trouble, there will be a punishment. If need be, I will dispatch it myself." She waved her hand in the direction of Ben's room.