xp_logs | Sooraya and Garrison: danger room training (Backdated)

This one is backdated... a lot

Sooraya moved a little hesitantly as she entered the Danger Room, her eyes shooting back and forth nervously. It was not the Danger Room that had her spooked, as she had trained there plenty of times already. But it was the first time she was training in her trainee uniform and somehow that made things far more real.

She quickly gave her dark grey jacket a tug so it would fall more neatly. Clarice had helped her to design it, looking for a cross between the necessary functionality and her own sense of Islamic modesty with a looser style of jacket and something similar to a sports hijab covering her head. She met the eyes of the other person in the room and gave him a smile. "Good morning Mr. K... Dominion." She blushed a little at her slip up.

"Morning." Kane said, around the cup of coffee he was drinking. It had been a long night programming the new scenarios into the DR computer. "You ready to get started?"

"I am ready." Sooraya nodded. She gave her jacket yet another tug. "It's been a while since I really trained though."

"Well, we're going to start you slow. Movement, mostly. The room is going to give you a series of buttons you need to push to move on to the next challenge. Each button will require a different puzzle on how to reach it using your sand form. Your job is to figure out how to get to each of them, and maintain enough cohesion to reform at the button."

Sooraya tilted her head. Puzzles sounded like something she could do, but the last part was a little confusing. "Do you mean I need to retake my full human form or to just form a tendril for example with enough cohesion to push the button?"

"It's entirely up to you how you want to push your button." Kane paused for a second. "Or, you know, that but sounding a lot less like the innuendo laden chorus in a pop song. Er. Right." He reached out, and a screen lit up against what was seemingly thin air. " Difficulty will increase with each stage, and time is a factor. You ready? Last chance to run for the door and take up an exciting career in mink farming instead."

"I am ready." Sooraya focused, waiting for the room to change around her. Suddenly everything became dark and when the room lighted up. Sooraya was confronted with a wall in front of her, many openings the size of fist dotting the surface. It was obvious she needed to enter through one of them, but which was the right one?

She examined them quickly, finally spotting one that seemed to have something red glistering inside. But no, that was too obvious...

Kane was hidden behind a holographic buffer, with the remote controls of the room around him. Normally he worked from the control booth, but with newer recruits, he liked to be in the room.

The wall had a hundred holes, some with all sorts of lures to entice you in. The key was to test her senses and probing abilities, as only five of the holes led to the button beyond, and more than a third led to a nasty electrical shock that would put her back on the floor

Sooraya tilted her head, taking a few moments to consider. Many of them, with the glistering light and other lures were obviously not it. It would be something unassuming and not too obvious, she suspected. Quickly she located three of them fixing the locations firmly in her head.

With a simple thought she reverted to her sand form, her uniform reverting to small particles with her and reforming in a something like broad band you could wear on your wrist. She sent a questioning slim tentacle of sand into the first of the hole.

And had to pull it back very quickly as electricity surged trough it and almost threw her back in her human form. Regrouping for a moment she sent another questioning tendril into the second of her possible options.

Kane switched on the second trap inside, and noted as the impellers came on in the inner half. They sent intermittent bursts of air through the pipes, which would confuse and disperse her sand form somewhat if she went through the wrong holes. But if she was careful, she might be able to sense them beforehand

Okay, no electrical shock. That was at least an advantage and a good start. Noticing the clock, she made a decision and entered the hole fully. Quickly she made her way through the long tunnel before she encountered a split in three directions in the way. There were not signals in which route to take, so she simply picked one. If it did not work, she could always double back and try again.

As soon she entered her chosen pipe, she stopped though. Something was making the air shake inside the pipe and that made some of the particles her form was made of vibrate as well. Soon they became stronger and Sooraya withdrew, hiding in the pipe she that was 'safe'. Just a few moments after withdrawing a huge gush of escaped from it, dispersing rather harmlessly. That pipe was obviously not an option and Sooraya moved quickly into her second option.

The Danger Room's sensors gave him a clear picture of her efforts, and Kane smiled as she moved through carefully. It was encouraging to see that her sandform control was getting to the point that she could use small amounts as a radar of sorts for threats ahead

The second option Sooraya choose led to a dead end and knowing time was running out, she quickly doubled back and entered the last option. Faced with yet another split, she simple send two tendrils forward, exploring them both at the same time and was surprised when the two melted again to one whole.

There it was... the red button! Sooraya almost wanted to rush forward and smacked it with a tendril, but something made her hold back. Moving cautiously she stopped suddenly as three barriers slammed down. She waited for a bit to see what would happened and soon the first barrier lifted up, but the other two stayed down.

What to do? Risk getting trapped or gamble? The decision was almost made for her when the first barrier came down again, but suddenly she could see the second on rising behind it. Quickly she rushed forward, just managing to get through before the first barrier closed completely and waited for the third barrier to rise.

Kane touched the sensors, and saw her in the passageway. The third barrier didn't rise, and now behind her, the second barrier came down, trapping her in the space. He touched a button, and water started to fill the chamber behind it, and slowly, the barrier began to creep towards her, squeezing her in. The barrier ahead of her had a weak point, if she could find it in time

This was what she had secretly feared when she started to move through the barriers, but doubling back also was not an option because of the time limit. And this was a puzzle... So there should be a possibility to get trough. Ignoring the barrier closing in on her as much as possible, Sooraya spread out her sand form, exploring the walls, ceiling and barriers of the small space carefully.

There... it was small... oh so small, but something just at the top of the barrier started to give. She increased the pressure, and suddenly a small bit popped out. But it was so small...

Still it was enough. Sooraya formed herself into a long, thin snake and worked her way outside. She didn't hesitate till all of her had 'crawled' to the hole, but once enough sand had been gathered she formed a tight tendril that quickly hit the big red button.

The system froze, and around her, pieces of the trap moved or simply melted away in the remarkable technology that the Danger Room used to manage the simulations. Kane came back into view for a moment, typing away on the suspended glowing interfaces.

"Well done, Sooraya. A good little lesson that all things are not what they seem." He brought up another screen, and the lights came up on the other side of the room. It was a massive aquarium, it seemed, with the water moving quickly in a circular current around the midde. Suspended at the end of a long beam, directly in the centre, was a red button.

"Second half of your test. Same rules, Sooraya. Press the button in the middle of the tank."

Sooraya, who had barely reformed in her human form when the aquarium appeared, eyed him a little from the corner of her eyes. Water was something she was not that fond of and one of her weakness with her powers. She stepped a little closer, again taking a moment to study the puzzle. Swimming or another approach to through the water was out, at least at first sight. That left an approach through the air, hovering over the water, but that was far too obvious.

Trial and error had given her a good start though in the previous puzzle, so she tilted her head, contemplating her approach. Perhaps she could not approach from every angle, but a path might have left open. Or shifting sectors that were left safe. Only one way to find out. So once more Sooraya shifted and approached the tank. A variety of long tendrils lashed out from the sand cloud, testing the various area's of the air above the tank, often returning to double check.

The water seemed as expected - locked in the cubic box, filled nearly to the brim. It was moving clockwise, and a brief touch showed that it was moving too fast to try and funnel her sandform through it quickly enough to hit the button before it discombobulated her. The only thing beyond the sheer walls and the water was the long metal pipe that extended from the top into the center of the aquarium, at the end of which the button waited

That metal pipe... it was impossible to approach through water or air, so to use the metal pipe was the next most likely option. Sooraya tilted her head the other way, carefully studying the pipe. Could it be hollow? But then she'd still need a way to cross the water to get to it.

"I cannot go over, around or through the water. That leaves... under the water?" Sooraya thought out loud. A small grin crossed her face when she looked in the direction Dominion should be standing. "You thought the first one was too easy, Dominion?" She muttered softly, though he could not hear her.

"You heard the rules, Sooraya. You need to push the button however you can." Kane said over the intercom, watching the younger woman try to work through the options

Standing there was not going to help her though. With a quick gestures she dissolved once, flowing out over the ground surrounding the tank, exploring the area for any ways to slip under it. There was a crack, but it was of so small a space. Still, it was the only solution she had found so far. So carefully she slipped in the space with only a part of her body or sand mass, exploring the area carefully.

The crack led into the tube, as she'd hoped, but to her surprise, stopped dead a foot upwards, blocked by a sealed gasket from which the power supply emerged. Backtracking, the only thing that she could find were the spaces for the jambs in the locking system for the top of the tank.

Sooraya was about to head back out, but then she considered the system in front of her... If she could destroy the locking system, she could open up the tank and approach the button from above and just hit it. But how to do that? Again she took the time, now to investigate how the locking mechanism worked. Various small tendrils flowed out, examining the mechanism from all sides.

One of the tendrils encountered a small switch. Sooraya examined the bright red switch for a moment. Could it be an emergency switch? It was a gamble, but it was about the only recourse she had left. Poised to rush out if needed, she hit the switch with a tendril.

The locking mechanism started to rumble... and there was a definite metallic sound as the latches opened, and the top of the tank yawned open slightly. Enough to slip through in her sand form.

Sooraya quickly pulled back, anxious to see if hitting the switch had had any effect. When she saw the open tank,she smiled if she had had a face. It would still be pretty tight fit about the water and she had to be careful not to get stuck...

With utmost delicacy the sand poured in, carefully just hovering above the churning water. When Sooraya was in the tank completely, she quickly moved towards the button, already forming a tendril to hit the button. With one first smack, she hit the red button, ending the exercise.

The lights came up in the Danger Room, and as Sooraya pulled herself free, the room began to retract into its default mode. As she began to reform, Kane tossed a towel at her

She had just reformed when she caught the towel and she quickly wiped her face down. "Thank you." Sooraya said she walked over to where he was standing. "I hope I did okay? That last one was hard."

"It was meant to be. However, it was also very easy, when you think about it from another perspective." Kane brought the scenario back up and walked over to the tank of rushing water. While it was moving fast enough to challenge her sand form, when he stuck his arm in, it was clear that it didn't have enough force to seriously deter a person. "Your objective was just to push the button. If you'd simply changed out of your sand form, you could have done it in ten seconds. That's an important part of our training, Sooraya. To understand that your powers are part of you, but they're not always the best solution."

Sooraya blinked. And she blinked again... looking from Garrison's arm in the water to the button. "I never even realized... I was so stuck on the idea I had to use my powers that I forgot that there are also other ways. Talk about being trapped in one way of thinking..."

"Thus endth the lesson." Kane said. "That's part of what the Danger Room is for; making you look at situations from every angle and figure out the easiest, safest, and most effiecent way to meet your goal."

"Thanks, Mr. Kane. It was good lesson." Sooraya said with a smile. "I'll try to keep it in mind."