This time of day was always the most hectic in the Facility, scientists and other workers were walking or almost running around just to finish any last minute details for the day before the Facility was shut down for another night. The biggest thing was getting the reports up to the Division which ran this place, and the whole reason why Esha was caged up down here to begin with. She was the Division's favorite 'specimen' as they called her, the only hybrid that had survived so far which was the entire reason she was stuck here under constant guard thanks to them. The Division expected daily reports on her status, something the scientists here took very seriously and as such the very last hours on their work day was usually the craziest.
"At least this is more entertaining then the earlier parts of the day." Esha thought to herself as she sat in her small cage while watching everyone walk around in an obvious hurry, her fox ears twitching at even the slightest sounds. The usual round of tests were over for today and so here she was stuck doing absolutely nothing until everything was shut down and the scientists had left. Not that she could complain about that because she would much rather be in here then dragged off to undergo some new, and often painful, testing. Then again today hadn't been as bad as usual, at least they didn't make her do the maze test again. That one was the worst out of all of them, getting shocked for one wrong turn was not what Esha could call fun in any situation. Then again avoiding it one day almost always guaranteed she'd be stuck doing it tomorrow, and she was not looking forward to that at all.
"I will be so glad to get out of this place." Esha said to herself as she let herself fall back onto the cold floor and just stared up at the ceiling of the cage. If she ever got out of here then she was never going near another cage again, she'd had enough of being stuck in one to last a lifetime. That is if she could get out of here without getting caught again, and even that was questionable despite all the previous planning.The Facility itself had such tight security that even getting out of a room without being noticed was near impossible, unless you knew how the security here worked and that's the one advantage she had out of all this. Not that she was the only one, and she couldn't actually get away with this escape plan until he gave the go ahead. That is whenever he decided to show up, and that could take a while.

brad woke up with a start, gazing at the alarm clock "damnit" he swore as he jumped out of bed and ran for the bathroom.
he didn't have time to shower but he did any ways, jumping into the water just long enough to get wet, then lathering himself up followed by rinseing. he got out and toweled imself off he looked in the mirror rubbing his face he decided against shaving.
after qickly dressing he ran out grabbin his lab coat that he had thrown across the arm of the chair late last night. he didnt know how he had pulled it off but somehow he had convinced his superiors that he was ready for a project of his own, one that required him to work nights and although some of the scientists that had been there longer complained, his supervisor gave him a small project, studying the mating habits of land turtles.
brad screeched into the parking lot startling the guard who was sleeping in his car he jumped from the car, running for the front door. he glanced at his watch "4:05 damn they are gonna can me from this project for sure." he reached the front door and after fiddling with the badge scanner, flung it open and rushed inside almost bumping into his boss.
"your late" he said "if I hadn't liked your father so much i would have your ass for this, so get upstairs and we'll discuss this more tomorrow"
he walked up the stairs to the third floor, he glanced to the left and right making sure no one was watching he opened the door and walked down the maze of corridors that made up the interior of the building until he found the door he was looking for.
he took a deep breath to relax himself then opened the door. as he entered the room he could see scientist scurrying around like ants, trying to finish up last minute paperwork so they could get home. on the otherside of the room sat a giant glass pane window and a single door looking out onto the experimental floor. he walked to the windowand placed his hand upon the glass, he dared not enter the room and bring undo attention to himself so he waited and watched.

"You sure you've got everything set for tomorrow's run?"

"Yes I told you a thousand times already it's all set and ready to go."

"Alright alright calm down, I'm just making sure. I don't want the Division on our heads because we botched another test on their new pet."

The two scientists just continued with the current conversation not really paying attention to anything else as they cleared things up here and scurried out of the room. Although all Esha had to hear was the word test and she groaned inwardly at what that would mean.
"If there's one thing I wish, it'd be to have a pain on/off switch." Esha said as she curled up on the cage floor. It wasn't the best place to sleep that was for sure, but since the floor was all she had it would do for now. By now she was use to sleeping on the floor anyway, not that she would get much sleep anyway because by the time she actually got to sleep someone would be waking her up and dragging her off to who knew where in this god forsaken building. At least most of the scientists were gone by now, because the lights in her small room had been cut off and only a few adjoining rooms had lights on. The only way she knew that was because she could see through the glass windows that lined the wall of her prison and most of the rooms were empty save for the usual crowd that worked the night shift. Although that wasn't many, and they were mostly new people and a few starters who were working their way up the ranks. Actually hardly even of them even knew she existed, not that it would matter because they'd treat her just the same as the rest of them if they knew.

brad waited for the last scientist to leave, he was sitting at a computer busily typing up his daily report. sitting next to him was his scanner card.
as the man turned to pull some papers off the printer brad grabbed the card sliding it in his pocket he faded back into a dark corner and waited for the lone scientist to finish.
although it was only about thirty minutes later that the man finally got up to leave it seemed like hours. brads heart was racing in his chest and he thought for sure it would give him away. "if only they knew why i took the night shift" he thought
the man finally stood, stretching his arms into the air and standing on his tiptoes and after a good stretch to relieve his aching bones the scientist bent down wiggling the mouse a little and clicked a few times to send his report and finally log of for the day. he turned and grabbed his coat and walked out of the room.
Brad stood tere silently for moments to make sre he was truely alone before ventureing out. he withdrew the keycard from his pocket and ran it across the scanner for the experimental room he quickly pulled the door open and slid inside.
he turned around and saw her laying there on the floor. he wanted to run to her but thought better of it because his footsteps on this empty floor might trigger the sound sensor alarm. he tiptoed to her cage tapping on it lightly to get her attention.

Esha had almost fallen asleep when her ears twitched at the familiar sound of the door sliding open. Her first idea was to ignore it since it was probably just another scientist walking in here to make sure she was still locked in her cage before leaving, but then it hit her. Only one scientist ever came out here during the night shift, especially when everyone else was gone or far enough away that they wouldn't realize he was there.
At that thought she quickly sat up and gazed out into the dark room, the only light coming from the now open doorway and that was partially blocked by someone who was walking inside. However, she didn't say a word or even make a move towards the bars of her cage until she was sure she wasn't wrong in her guess as to who was there. If they thought she was still asleep then that made it easier for her to figure out who was there and why, then again if it was her friend then there was no problem there. Well as long as he didn't get caught there was no problem, and so far it hadn't been to difficult keeping their meetings hidden.
It wasn't until he actually tapped on her cage that she knew exactly who was there, and she silently moved towards the side of the cage closest to him.

"You know I was starting to wonder if you were going to show up tonight." Esha said as she looked up at him through the cage bars. She really hated having these bars between them, but for now it's not like she had much of a choice on that. She was stuck in here until someone either let her loose or one of them figured out how to get the cage open.

he took her hand gently in his "I hope they weren't too cruel on you today" he said. the light meant to shine into the cage reflected off her soft skin giving her an angelic look. he just stod there staring at her for many moments before finally snapping back, realizing that the night guard would be by any minute for his rounds, and if luck had it wouldn't be by again for many hours.
Brad looked at the lock, a device similar to the one he had used to get into the room but he knew that the card he had would no work as only a select few were allowed into her cage.
he stood there contemplating the problem when he tripped over an extension cord pulling it unplugged from the wall. he heard a slight click as the door disengaged. he smiled sheepishly "if only I had know it would be that easy. of all the technology we have in this building and we are operating locks off wall power" he laughed then stopped suddenly clamping his hands over his mouth hoping he hadn't been too loud to set off the alarm

As luck would have it, no alarms went off so it seemed they avoided that scenario for now. Although now all they had to worry about was the night guard, and he was an idiot anyway that didn't pay much attention to anything. Esha knew that for a fact because she had tried picking the lock on her cage door one time, and he never even noticed even as he walked right by the room. Not that she was very succesful in that endeavor but it did prove a point that she could use to her advantage one day.

"Well they didn't toss me in the maze again, so I guess today wasn't as bad as it could have been." She said, making sure to keep her voice low just to be safe. While it did take a lot of noise for the alarms to go off, she didn't want to take any chances. The longer they could go without being found out the better off they were, and it meant the more time they had to figure out how they were going to get out of here without getting caught.

an idea popped into brads head. "i need you to stay here for a moment, i'll be right back." and he quickly walked to the door.
he quickly decended two flights of stairs then down a hallway stopping before a door that said lost and found. he flung the door open and quickly flipped through the multitude of miscelaneous items that were scattered around the shelves and floor.
he finally found what he was looking for. an old detroit lions beenie cap. "this should work."
he quickly made his way back the way he had came taking the steps in bounds of three. he finally got back in the room with esha.
"ok" he gasped, fighting to get his breath back, "heres what we are gonna do" he hands her the benie cap and a lab coat. "I am going to go to my work station and cause a power outage, you will have about 5 minutes to get out of the building before the back up generator kicks on. I want you to take my car and drive it to my house on 1545 benson way, I think I told you how to get there already I hope." he spent several more minutes going over his plan in great detail explaining how they would make it look like the power went out giving you an opportunity to escape, keeping suspicious eyes off me.
he took her hand once more looking deep into her eyes he said "good luck and i'll see you in my house when I get off"

It was times like this Esha was extremely glad she had a very good memory. She could literally recall everything word for word and knew exactly what to do even before he finished explaining the plan itself. Although with how fast she was going to have to move, well she could say that was the only benefit to being forced to run almost impossibly fast. Getting out in 5 minutes wouldn't be the hard part, the more difficult thing would be staying out of attention range long enough to get to her destination.
"Alright, I'm ready to make a break for it when the power kicks off." She said as she adjusted the hat so it covered her ears and some of her face. After she had slid the lab coat on she twisted her tail around her waist so it wouldn't be as noticeable, even though the lab coat was long enough to hide her tail she still didn't want to take any chances on that one. Now if the lock on her cage would just shut down once the power kicked off then she'd be free to make a run for it, and if this worked like they were hoping it would then that's exactly what would happen.

brad was sitting at his workstation busily typing away, he was sweating profusly thinking off all that could go wrong and he was glad that the other scientist had called in sick tonight. "what if they know already, what if they catch her again?" he knew that if this didn't work he would have a hard time even finding a job flipping burgers in Iceland, for this company had a large hand all over the world, but his thoughts were not about him. all he could think about was esha, and what kind of torture they would put her through if she got caught. he wanted to jump from his seat and run to her but knew it wuld onl cause more harm than good.

he glanced at his watch, 5 minutes to midnight, it was time. he got up from his seat and went to a big cabinet full of all sorts of specialized tools, guages, and measuring equipment. he dug around till he found what he was looking for.
the tool he held was a specialized tool used to regulate electrical current. it plugged into the wall on one end and the other had an empty female adapter, from which various attachments could be used.
he plugged the socket into the wall then dug through another drawer pulling out one of the adapters. which he inserted into the opposit socket. he pluged the two halves together and the meter instantly came to life bouncing around as the electricity coursed through it and back into the other socket. he grabbed a meter and twisted the knob sending a power surge through the wire. the lights flickered as the power coursed through them then all was black.

Although she was sitting there counting off minutes in her head, Esha had all of her attention focused on the window just across from her cage. As soon as the lights went off she would know that was her signal to bust out of here and get moving, and already she was getting anxious. If she hadn't had it wrapped around her waist she knew her tail would have been twitching because of her anticipation, but at the same time she was well aware of all that could go wrong. If she was seen by even one person then it'd be all over, because once she was spotted and the alarms were hit then she would have very little if any chance of getting away from here. However, she didn't have much of an opportunity to think on all that could happen should she get caught again seeing as the lights flickered then suddenly went out plunging everything into darkness.
As she fiddled with the cage door trying to get it open, she could see the dim emergency lights flip on. Those wouldn't be much of a problem to get past because they only offered enough light to see by, otherwise they were dim enough that as long as she stuck to the shadows she would be okay. Finally, due to the power surge affecting the lock on the cage door, she was able to get it open just enough that she could squeeze through and once she was out that's when the real countdown start.

"Okay four minutes and sixy seconds, that's all I have to get out of here. Time to put my speed to good use." Esha thought to herself as she managed to slide open the door to the experiment room, and now all she had to do was find her way out of here. Despite it's appearance the Facility itself wasn't to much of a maze, and of course the exit signs helped things along tremendously. She just followed the glowing red signs while sticking to the darker parts of the hallway, but once she actually got outside she was almost tempted to stop and at least get a feel for what it was like being outside the Facility for once in her life. However she didn't give herself that opportunity yet as she raced towards the right vehicle, which she had seen from pictures enough times that she immediately knew the right one to go to.

the minutes ticked by slowly, minutes seeming like hours, hours seeming like days. the emergency power had clicked on a little quicker that usual, starting as a loud thump as the motor started its rotation then a humming as it picked up more speed, lights began popping to life one at a time. power outages at the lab was always slow because company policy mandated that all priority two work and below was to cease using any type of electronic devices until power could be restored, thus leaving enough power for the critical experiments to continue working.
given the current circumstance, brad couldn't even sit down, bu he forced himself to work, never fully concentrating on his work his mind drifting to all the different senarios. in a corner of the room a parrot squawked breaking him from his trance. he walked over and mindlessly grabbed a cracker, forcing it on the parrot.

the morning shift slowly shuffled into the building exchanging stories of top notch parties they had attended, or romantic dates. brad listened to see if there was any word about Eshas' escape, did she make it, did they catch her before she could get out of the building? the answer came in the form of a loud mouth co-worker named larry. "good morning ya'll. did ya hear bout the shit that went down here last night?" before any one could respond he blurted out " that pointy eared freak show scaped her cage and they can't find her. apparently the power went out all around the block."
relief flooded over him. at least he knew she had escaped the grasp of the scientists, for now.
he walked down the hall quickly, he got down to the parking lot and started toward his car then stopped. he had forgotten he had given it to Esha to escape. with his car gone that was another good sign. so far everything was working perfectly, almost to perfectly

he jogged the three blocks to his house. reaching the front door he reached in his pocket and grabbed his keys. he pulled them out and after fumbling around he inserted it into the lock and gave it a twist. he heard the lock clink as the levers unlocked and his heart started to pound. this was the moment he had been waitig for

While the chances of her getting caught again until she reached her destination had been very very high, Esha had managed to make it without incident and right then she was curled up asleep on the couch. The white lab coat was still draped over her and the hat she had used to hide her ears was now on the floor right next to where she was sleeping. Also she'd been smart enough to leave the blinds on the nearby window closed so at least that lowered her chances of being noticed to some degree.
Not even the sound of the door being opened and closed woke her up, although her ears did twitch slightly at the sound. Considering she hadn't slept any at all the night before, and she had never slept anywhere but on the floor before now, she was literally out like a light and at least for now she didn't have to worry about being chased down. Well okay at least until word spread around she didn't need to worry, and she knew how fast news got around back at the Facility.

excitement, joy, exhileration, these were all the things he felt when he closed the door and saw her laying there asleep on the couch. he walked over to the linen closet and pulled out a blanket and walked over to her gently laying the blanket across her.
exhaustion finally overwhelmed him. after making sure that esha was going to be alright for a while he retreated to his room.

he slid his shoes off, rubbing his feet. although it hadn't been a very far run, he hadn't thought to put on comfortable shoes to walk home in. he slipped out of his shirt and pants hanging them neatly over the chair, he climbed under his sheets and fluffed up his pillow and was startled when the phone rang. his hand rushed to the phone to answer it, but paused hovering inches above the receiver. "hi you've reached brad, I can't come to the phone so leave a message." "brad this is Steve I am just calling to remind you about the science convention in california tomorrow, you rushed out in such a hurry i couldn't tell you. was there something wrong? any ways let me know how it goes." he buried his face in the pillow, he had forgotten about the convention but it would be a good way to get esha out of town for a while till things calmed down. he finally drifted off to sleep

The only way Esha knew how long she had been asleep was by glancing at the clock that was hanging up on the wall nearby once she was awake enough to tell what she was looking at. It had to have been several hours at least since she got here, but instead of getting up off the couch she just buried herself further underneath the blanket while thinking over this completely new scenario she was now involved in. She was actually no longer in her cage, and she was no longer in the Facility either. Unless they managed to catch her they couldn't test her or just observe her like some lab rat that many of the scientists called her. For now she was free from them, and as exciting as that sounded she was a little bewildered by it all as well.
Up until now she had never been allowed outside the Facility, and she literally had no idea what to do now. The outside world, as she had come to call it, was completely new to her and she wasn't sure what to think of this. It was rather overwhelming to say the least, and she knew being what she was certainly didn't help. She was pretty sure it wasn't common place to see a woman with fox ears and a tail walking around, well her tail was easy to hide as long as she wore long skirts or a long coat but her ears might be a little bit of a challenge. Oh well guess she would just have to get use to wearing hats a lot, but at least that seemed like a small price to pay for being free from the Facility for however long she could stay out of their range.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The entire Facility was in a totaly and complete uproar over the discovery that their prized 'specimen' had escaped, but most were worried how the Division would react once they found out what had happened. It just hadn't seemed possible she could escape during a simple power outage, yet here they were with no specimen and one very furious head scientist shrieking around for answers.

"I don't care how you do it but I want number seven brought back here ASAP, do you hear me?! Use whatever it takes but find that speciment and get it back here NOW!" Dr. Elain Khadri yelled into the phone before slamming it down on and stalking over to her office window. She didn't want to hear any sorry excuses for last night's incident, or as to why no one was working any faster on getting her precious pet back here where it belonged.
"The Division is going to have my head over this. How did it even get out to begin with." Elain thought as she tried to figure out a likely explanation, but as of yet she was coming up with nothing as she continued watching the scientists scurry about in their rush to try and figure out this whole mess and get it straightened out as quickly as possible.

brad woke, stretched and flipped his legs over the bed. he groggily walked into the bathroom and after relieving himself and brushing his teeth he began packing his bag for the trip. he didn't want to go out and wake up esha just yet. he would need to go to the store to get some items but other than that he planned on relaxing. his stomach started to rumble and he realized that he hadn't eaten since yesterday morning.

after sliding on his running shorts he walked out into the living room. esha was still sleeping so he made his way to the kitchen and started preparing a meal for them. bacon, eggs and hashbrowns. he hoped that this was the kind of food she ate otherwise he would have to improvise.

"Crud.....must have fallen asleep again." Esha thought to herself when she woke up to the sound of footsteps, and it took a few minutes for her to remember where she was at the moment. Well since lying on the couch all day wasn't going to do much she managed to get herself disentangled from the blanket before rubbing her eyes to hopefully help herself wake up more then she was at the current moment.

"Great I can only imagine what I look like right now." Esha mutter under her breath as she attempt to fix the plain black dress she was wearing so it didn't look as if she had run then spent the entire night sleeping in it. Although she could only do so much and her efforts were only minimally successful. Well no one could blame her for trying and who knows, maybe she could find something else to wear with this new bit of freedom she now had. Although that was a bit if right there, but it was a start at any rate.

brad looked up from his cooking when esha sat up. although it had been a while since he had seen her in the light and had never seen her in the natural light of the sun, he couldn't help but stare at her beauty. her skin shined like an emerald as what little sunlight could manage to break the thresh hold of the curtains. her ear twitched slightly as she stood up and began running her hand across her dress trying to smooth it out

"good morning" he said trying to make her feel more at ease breakfast is almost done. i don't know if they let you shower in the facility but theres a shower in my room and I put some clothes out for you. they may be a little big but we'll worry about that later. please make yourself at home."

Esha almost jumped when Brad suddenly spoke up, seeing as she hadn't noticed he was even up yet to begin with. Okay well yeah she guessed he was because of the footsteps but she hadn't know he was in the adjoining room.
"Okay......I guess I'll see if I can make myself look less grungy then I already do." She said with a slight laugh to her voice considering how random her comment sounded. Although really that was all she could think of to say at the moment, since she was still a little skittsh from him startling her. Not only that but being in new surroundings made her a little edgy, but once she got use to being here then that would wear off rather quickly.

"I'll be back, and if I start taking to long just come pound on the door or something." Esha told him before vanishing into the small bathroom. Since she didn't have to worry about hiding her tail here she uncurled it from around her waist and used her hands to smooth out the fur on her ears and tail a little before she pulled off her dress and stepped underneath the water.
"Okay so what are you going to do now? You can't stick around here forever or else the Division is going to find you and drag you right back to the Facility again. They'll probably chain you up to the cage just to make sure you don't escape again." She thought to herself and she literally had to force herself not to think of those memories or the possibility of what would happen if she were caught again. As long as she was careful then maybe she wouldn't have that to worry about, but then again how long could she go running? No one could run forever unless they were very good at hiding, and even she wasn't sure how long she could keep herself hidden.
Either way it was something to think about as she glanced out before stepping out of the bathroom and pulling on the clothes she found lying on the bed. She actually didn't mind that they were a little big on her, just having something besides that same black dress was enough of a change for her. Now she just had to worry about not letting anyone see her tail or ears, but for now she wasn't going to worry about that since as far as she knew she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

brad knocked on the door, which slid open slightly. esha was just pulling the shirt over her head. he turned his head so as to not make her feel uncomfortable even though he guessed that after all these years of testing she would probably be used to it. he could feel the warm misty air from the remaining heat from the shower against his cheek. when he chanced a glance again esha was standing staring at her reflection in the mirror.

brad walked up behind her and brushed a lock of hair from her eyes "what are you thinking about" he asked raising his brow in a pure look of curiosity. he could probably guess at what she was thinking , unsure thoughts about her future or if she will even have a future. he placed his hand on her shoulder as a sign of comfort