Cheshire Smile by 2nd Star to the Right

Disclaimer: Nothing to do with the Gundams belongs to me (but Karu and Ari do!)

CHAPTER THREE... of escapes and hotwiring

Exactly four minutes after the mandatory lights-out enforced at the asylum, two lighters flickered on, throwing odd shadows around the small white cell, which, admittedly, was slightly more comfortable than their last.

Ari watched her best friend mouth words hopelessly; their voices were completely gone thanks to their recent singing hobby.

She giggled as she watched Karu grow more and more frustrated at her inability to communicate, Karu was terrible at reading lips.

Finally she tossed the squeaking girl a folder containing several sheets of paper as well as emergency instructions and a couple pens. The packet had been issued along with their patient's uniforms and other necessities, standard issue, when they arrived.

Karu started scribbling immediately: That was beyond amazing! You rock my world!

They passed the paper back and forth laughing hoarsely at their notes:

Ha, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I had no idea you were so good at sounding like Gilligan.

Oh, you know, we all have our secret talents.

I suppose one of your secrets talents would be getting us out of here?

You did manage the last one nicely; I'll take care of this fix as soon as I get something to eat. I've been saying I'm hungry for hours and you still haven't fed me! I expect better treatment!

Ari hummed and handed the paper back to Karu, "here, eat that, it'd be better if no one read it and saw that we don't belong in the crazy-house. Or at least that I don't…"

She dodged Karu's light punch and got to work on picking the chain that held her foot to the bedpost, another standard issue for uncontrollable patients in this hospital.

By the time Karu had finished off the paper and undone her own lock they had communicated a plan (lots of gesturing and some drawing on the wall was involved.)

It became obvious that this was about the best place that anyone could choose to store them, Karu knew the House of Mercy Asylum rather well from all of her anonymous patient contributions.

She had been exploring, or as she nicknamed her bad habit of prying into everything that she shouldn't, spelunking, on several occasions in the last couple years and assured Ari, with over exaggerated facial expressions and a couple resigned thumbs up, that she knew where the patients' personal items, including clothes, would be stored, and they wouldn't have much trouble liberating their old things.

A good thing since Ari flatly refused to escape in a medical gown. She felt that even if they were being held in an insane asylum, she still had to preserve what little dignity she could scrape up. Karu agreed while thinking that dignity is something of a luxury if you've spent eleven hours singing in the back of an armored truck.

Phase one of their plan went relatively smoothly. Ari picked the door lock and let Karu lead the way, both still shielding lighters, to the storage units.

Since they had only been admitted that day, their things were on top, waiting for inspection by the Asylum's doctors.

Ari wanted to change right then and there, but listened when Karu explained that their robes would provide evidence and probably DNA, leaving them around would certainly stir up trouble, and the place was too clean to hide them anywhere.

There were also cameras pointed in every direction. At this point Ari felt like hitting something, she managed to squeak out in her music- abused voice, "You mean they've been watching us? Won't they just put us back in the cell and take everything away again? We'll be right back where we started!"

Karu patted her head and whispered comfortingly, "put your clothes on under the robe, and you know I'm too lazy to re-do all that work! You must be really tired, ooh…that's right, they did get you two days before me… how is it possible I didn't notice? I'm sorry."

"It's ok, you were preoccupied with looking for the newest spy- we both knew it was about time for one to show up."

"By the way, they were using their own people! Ow, my throat really hurts; anyway, the guy who got me mentioned that the spy was only there to throw me off the track. Something about my knowing their pattern and not expecting another spy for a month or so. They really played us, Ari."

Karu had been leading the way down a seemingly random series of hallways, she pointed as they passed one room and hissed, "That's why I wasn't worried about the cameras, when I went to get my packet and robe and stuff this morning I passed a water cooler, that one there I think, and I slipped some stuff into it."

"You poisoned their water supply…"

Ari stared at the cooler, not moving until her friend tugged her on snickering, "only a bit…"

They finally stopped in front of a long window, Karu tapping her finger on the dirty glass, "I'm thinking the red one!"

Below in a double row of army vehicles a shiny new, red jeep wrangler was closest to the garage door, and Karu was grinning dangerously.

It took longer than the girls would have liked but they finally found the right stairs that led to the garage (Karu was no help since she had never thought to explore the garage before.) Once they were in the warehouse, it wasn't hard to find the shiny jeep they had spotted from the window upstairs.

After about fifteen minutes, half an argument, and a crash course in hotwiring they were ready to go.

Karu had rewired the alarm system while Ari picked the locks on the garage door.

Ari, riding shotgun because she had a better head for directions, worked out a plan on a map she had found in the glove compartment.

Karu hopped into the driver's seat, grinning, and whispered (both of their voices were still just barely audible) "whatcha got for me co-captain?"

A small hideout in the woods several miles from the Mercy Asylum quieted as their leader, turned up the volume on his monitor. A girl's voice filtered through the speakers, sounding a bit worse for wear.

She proceeded to give directions to the one who had called her "co-captain." They would drive out of the asylum taking about three miles' worth of tiny back-roads to avoid the traffic on the main road leading from the Asylum. There they would hook into the woods where Karu lived, and stay there the night.

The man in the hideout began throwing some things into a backpack, "Perfect! We will meet them there."

thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and merry christmas, even if you don't celebrate it,

Star