Blood of The Rose
Chapter 11: Blood Withdrawal
Santa Monica Medical Clinic

The stairwell in the back of the clinic was deserted as always when the brunette entered through the back door. One of these nights she was going to go explore downstairs, see what the blood bank had to offer. Though I'm more likely to be making withdrawals, not deposits, Ruby giggled to herself.

She continued on and around the bend to the stairs leading upwards. Her silver eyes probed the dark corners for any signs of surveillance cameras, but like everywhere so far they were conspicuously absent. Probably not gonna be that lucky up in the secure areas, though…

At the top was a metal door with a small shatter-proof window. She crouched down and peeked over the edge, just in time to catch the back of a roving security guard as he headed away.

"Well, that figures," she muttered under her breath. She quickly slipped her tools out and got to work on the lock, not noticing how her tongue poked out as it always did when she was concentrating intently. Fortunately, it only took her a minute to spring the lock, and she moved quickly to stow her lockpicking tools, slip inside, and gently close the door behind her. A long corridor stretched out before her, dimly lit with a few doors on either side before an intersection halfway down.

The first door she came to while creeping as stealthily as possible was labeled Maintenance. It was, of course, also locked. With a sigh she withdrew her picks once more, but this time fumbled them. With an inaudible squawk, Ruby managed to catch the metal instruments before they hit the concrete floor, slipped out the ones she needed, and got to work. Just as she heard the sound of approaching footsteps the lock clicked open, and she managed to dart inside and shut it behind her silently. The brunette leaned up against the door and blew out a relieved breath.

"I don't know if I miss the adrenaline rushes or not," she mused to herself in a whisper.

Looking around, she didn't see anything noteworthy to help her really, a few shelves of linens and boxes of cleaning supplies. But then her eyes rested upon an open grate overhead.

"Whelp," she shrugged, "might as well go see what skulking can do for me up there."

She clambered up the grate, poking her head up and into the aluminum vents above. "Reeeally hope this doesn't run over that guard's head," she murmured. She paused then, and had to cover her mouth to muffle her giggling as a memory resurfaced. One of her very favorite shows, Mythbusters, had an episode once where they were trying to use magnets to climb through an air vent much like this one, only Jaime's entry was a bit less than stealthy. "Thor, the God of Thunder, is trying to enter my building!" she squeaked out breathlessly.

It took her a good five minutes to calm herself back down before she could pull herself up and into the venting. "I am such a giant fucking nerd," she sighed to herself amusedly.

If you got it, own up to it.

After a more concerted effort at stealth, Ruby soon found herself peering down the vent grating and into another room. It looked to have several shelves and cabinets, but more importantly, a security camera directly below her.

"Right," she sighed with a nod. "Gotta disable that somehow." She turned and began to scuttle further down, humming to herself softly. "Don't mind me, I'm just a really big mouse in the air vents… with fangs… I'mma mouse, I'mma mouse, I'mma sneaky lil' vampire mouse..."

Ruby giggle-snorted to herself quietly as she stopped at the next grate, similar to the last and complete with another surveillance camera. Directly across from it, however, was finally a room that looked to be clear.

"With all this, I coulda just gone down the hallway," she grumbled mildly, popping the last vent cover open and dropping silently into the room.

On a counter rested another ancient-looking computer, one that actually seemed to be running DOS, remarkably enough. The shock of seeing the venerable operating system, so far before her time, was enough to almost make her miss the chair as she tried to sit upon it. Shaking her head in bewilderment, she caught both herself and the chair, scooted in, and read the glowing green text presented on the black screen before her.

S.M.M.C. Secure Console
Health and Safety
Central Information Services

"Right, now we're gettin' somewhere…" There were two menu items presented before her, 'cs door' and 'cs cabinet'.

Shrugging, the brunette tried the first menu item, which naturally required a password. "See," she sighed irritably. "This is why I shoulda paid more attention in my CompSci classes…" Her roving gaze rested upon a sticky note on the wall across from her with two words on it:

dosage
paige

"Orrr we could go with the tried and true method of seriously pathetic security policies," she shrugged with a grin. The first word on the paper served as the password for the 'cs door' entry, granting her access to the menu with a command to remotely open the magnetic lock on the door. Ruby grinned as she typed in the command, backtracking then to the main menu and the 'cs cabinet' entry. Sure enough, the second word on the sticky note served as the password there too, and she was able to unlock the Controlled Substances cabinet. This time, however, a warning flashed up on the screen after she'd completed her work.

Cabinet unlocked. Controlled Substances camera enabled for your security.

"Terrific," Ruby sighed. "Whelp, now to find where the cameras are controlled from."

She leaned up against the door with her ear intently pressed against the surface. Just on the other side, footsteps passed before trailing off once more. With a soft grunt, she carefully eased the door open and glanced around the hallway as she entered it.

There was one unlocked door directly next to the one she was in. It looked to be a break room with old pizza boxes and empty donut trays. Ruby quietly closed the door without going in, sneaking over towards the next door in line.

And then she caught the sound of footsteps approaching once more. In a panic, the fledgling scurried down the hallway in the opposite direction from the approaching guard and towards the elevator. The lights were out completely in this broad foyer, though there was nothing to hide behind.

Any second now and the guard would be rounding the corner. Unable to see any other recourse, Ruby scooted herself back into a dark corner and crouched down, attempting to be completely still like she saw Weiss do that one time in Mercurio's apartment. No breathing, no fidgeting, like a statue.

She stared as the security guard strolled right on by. Since she'd not made any movement to draw the eye to, he didn't even see Ruby as he passed. As soon as the guard was out of sight, the brunette slunk forward once more.

That was entirely too close...

Around the corner was a locked door labeled Prescriptions, but she skipped over that one, knowing it would be monitored. The next one, however, read Security on the door. Ruby grinned widely and tested the door handle. Of course, it was locked.

Lockpicks in hand, Ruby quickly set to work. It took a few tries but she managed to slip inside before the guard walked around once more. Inside the room was a console of six screens monitoring various rooms in the clinic, including the Prescriptions and Controlled Substances, according to the labels on the screens. Another text-only workstation was set up next to the monitors, and the brunette quickly pulled up to it, unsure of how long she had until the guard decided to stop inside there for whatever reason.

S.M.M.C. Secure Console
Health and Safety
Security

She quickly pulled up the camera menu item, typing it in, but then she was confronted with yet another password prompt. Ruby shook her head dismally. There's no way a security station would be that careless…

She lifted up the keyboard sitting on the counter, finding nothing but dust and an inordinate amount of lint, causing her to wrinkle her nose. However, she noticed an actual keyboard tray resting unused below the countertop and pulled it out. Sure enough, sitting there in plain sight was a sticky note with the word optometry written on it.

Ruby giggled to herself quietly. "Cute." She typed it in, next selecting the Controlled Substances Camera 1 to disable. The screen to the right of her went dark, and then she noticed the warning on the monitor in front of her.

Controlled Substances camera disabled. For security purposes, all other cameras have automatically been enabled.

"Weird, but okay," she shrugged. Moving quickly, the fledgling vampire scurried over to the door, risking a peek outside. And then she was forced to stifle a startled eep as she spied the back of the guard just now walking away from her.

With slow, cautious movements she closed the door most of the way, peering out the crack until she was certain he was gone. Ruby then darted back outside, quietly closing the door behind her.

Either I'm getting better at sneaking, or I'm just really fucking lucky tonight… Annnd now I just jinxed myself, nice.

Right down the hallway from where she came was another room, this one with large shatterproof windows. It had a sign on the door marking it as Controlled Substances. Ruby sighed as she eyed the windows that offered her no concealment whatsoever. "Yep, there goes my luck, better make this speedy-fast…"

The brunette slipped into the room, singing a nonsensical tune quietly under her breath. "Zip speedy, speedin' around, can't catch me 'cause I'm zip speedy…"

A large metal cabinet at the end of the room was also unlocked, but first she checked to make sure the overhead camera had its light off. Reassured, Ruby opened the door and immediately found the bag of blood. It looked much the same as any other blood bag there except that it was helpfully labeled 'Werewolf', with cutesy little cartoon fangs drawn under the word. Giggling to herself, Ruby slipped the bag up and under her hoodie, hightailing it back out of the room and into the hallway.

She tried to cling to every semblance of stealth remaining to her that evening, sneaking around the side hallway and glancing around each corner, but she was unable to spy the guard. Coming to a decision, Ruby made a break for it, racing across the hallway and towards the stairwell door. Her hand was just touching the door handle when she heard a startled male voice call out, "Hey, you!"

"Fuck a chicken butt!" Ruby hurtled down the steps and out the door before the guard could even try to pursue. The brunette, now out in the alleyway, looped around the building and paused at the edge of Main Street, peering around wildly.

"Well, that could have gone better. And seriously? Fuck a chicken butt? That's gonna be my last words?" Ruby sighed and shook her head, grumbling to herself about the need to work harder on the snappy comebacks for situations like when she's discovered by a security guard after breaking into a clinic.

With one more cautious glance around, Ruby crossed the street and entered the apartment building where her Haven lay. She paused at the mailboxes, opening hers and depositing the Werewolf blood. Then she stumbled wearily up the stairs, rubbing at her eyes.

As she pushed her way into the apartment, Weiss looked up from where she sat at the desk, reading something from her phone once more. "Well," the platinum-haired vampire deadpanned. "You look rather run-down."

"Yeah… it was a little more exciting than I was expecting…"

"Were you caught?"

"Not exactly… I mean, yeah I got seen, but I already had the blood and was right by the stairwell. He shouldn't have even gotten a good look at me, and I know none of the cameras saw me." Ruby dropped the mailbox key onto the surface of the desk before stretching with her arms above her head, bringing them down with a squeak of noise. "But it all turned out okay in the end, I guess."

"Well, it would indeed seem as if it could have gone smoother, but I agree, it should count as a success."

Ruby nodded her head tiredly, covering up her mouth as she yawned. "Sun coming up soon?"

"Soon enough," Weiss replied, returning her nod with far more aplomb. "Tired?"

"Yeah," the brunette fledgling mumbled sleepily. "Been a long day, or night, or whatever. Gonna try and sleep now."

The platinum-haired girl just watched her with a small smile on her face as Ruby lay down on her back, stretching out on the worn mattress. She stared up at the ceiling, blinking her eyes uncertainly for perhaps a full minute.

"There's no way I can sleep with the sun still down, is there."

"Sorry, no."

Ruby sighed despondently. "Son of a fart vapor."

Her companion actually snorted at that, holding a hand over her mouth. Ruby looked over at her incredulously. "You just laughed."

Weiss shook her head adamantly, long white ponytail swishing around as she tried to deny it, but her pale blue eyes were still crinkled in mirth. After a few moments she managed to compose herself while Ruby just looked on amusedly. Clearing her throat, the other fledgling rose gracefully, walked over to the bed and lay next to the brunette.

Another full minute passed in silence before Weiss spoke up in a murmur. "Fart vapor? Really?"

Ruby giggled lightly. "Hey, I'm a work in progress."

"I'll say you are," Weiss smiled softly.

She opened her mouth to retort, but stilled as she felt it this time, the sun cresting the horizon. "Oh…" she murmured before everything went dark once more.

A/N: So as work has become even more insane than usual, as in working 10-hour days this week (joy), I'm short on free time during the day. Hence, the evening posts this week. But hey, at least I'm getting them out early instead of late, right? I really liked this chapter, hope you enjoy the humor in it.

There's a bit of a theme building up here regarding Ruby's 'hacking' skills. In the game, when you go to hack a password, you just hit a key combo and let it go. I thought it'd be funnier for Ruby to just be able to break into all of these systems because nobody can ever remember their password so they write it down somewhere. As an IT professional, I can authoritatively state that this is far more likely than you'd think.

Props for my diligent Beta and collaborator, Live to anger the World (who cracked up a satisfactory number of times proofreading this), and for my lovely reviewers: Sharkdude5, carpenter656, AntonSlavik020, SirSpangler, zerosabers, kaiju62, djjohns94, and AndJrew76.

Stay shiny!