- xxxxxxxwell, a button? astrid peered under the lip of her board and yup, there it was. she grinned - she shouldn't, the discovery was all aurora's - and pushed it with a finger. it hummed to life. well, it didn't hum; boards were very quiet. but astrid had always imagined a kind of electric buzz coming from it, levitating it from the ground into the air and at the mercy of its waiting rider. of course the board couldn't see her now. she didn't have her ring. but she would be able to push it along, gliding it over the floor towards the doorway. she turned as aurora spoke to her. "sure thing, i can get the door. it'd probably be best if you checked them, yeah." she tugged lightly on her board to keep it from drifting further away, sending it moving slightly towards aurora, not hard enough to do any real damage to anything. then she reached into her pocket for the screwdriver and headed on over to the panel by the door. screwdrivers sure were rusty, but they were convenient and easy to carry around, despite being rather sharp on one end. astrid's had belonged to her father. she'd found it in their storage room one day, covered with dust, and had claimed it as her own. she still didn't know if her dad had yet missed it or not. astrid hadn't really been in contact with her parents since she'd left for the dorms. she supposed they were still in that same uniform house, slowly turning crumbly. she shuddered at the thought - and with pity for her parents. how would they feel if she went missing and they were notified? they'd be disappointed in her, astrid knew. and that was something astrid did not want to do. she'd never wanted to disappoint anyone, ever. that was her fear. it was her fear that somehow, in some way, she would not be good enough for the people around her, and be shunned as a consequence. but nobody pretty had to go through that, and her resolve strengthened.
xxxxxxxthe panel opened easily. it took only a few casual turns of the screwdirver to open it, and astrid tucked the tool away before swinging open the panel, slowly, so it wouldn't creak. her eyebrows raised slightly. this was complicated. it was possibly the most complicated security system astrid had ever seen. obviously uglies were not supposed to be in here. she peered at the wires threading around diodes and resistors and NPNs, raking the tangled mess with her eyes. slowly but surely her mind began to make sense of the mess of electrical components. taking a breath, she wrapped her hand in her jacket and reached for a red-brown-red resistor. astrid yanked and hoped for the best. sparks flew, blinding astrid's vision and making her wince away, but she heard the door click open. the bad thing? all the lights in their area went out. they were left in total darkness save for the sliver of light leaking into the warehouse through the bottom of the door. "whoops," she muttered. they had very little time to get out before someone noticed the blackout. that hadn't been the control panel for the only the door - it'd controlled all the lighting in a sector. astrid felt some pride at having been able to take it down. she made for the door, waving her arms around in front of her to try and avoid hitting anything. her head kept ducking automatically, giving her a crick in the neck. but she made it to the door without tripping - thank god. she shoved on the bar that pushed outwards and light streamed into the pitch black, making her wince and close her eyes again. but now aurora could hopefully see well enough to get the boards out. "aurora?" she hissed, peering back into the blackness. with her vision blinded by the glare of the sunlight astrid couldn't see a thing in the inky blackness. she only hoped aurora and the boards were okay.
