There was no time to waist, and Clara would have to get from here to the opposite side of the facility to the main processing entrance to reach a system that handled the prisoners as they entered the Rocky. The fastest way there was also the most exposed – through the courtyard.

Not an ideal situation, Clara thought as she quietly closed the door to the control room leaving the bodies of the three guards and the vampire where they lay. But perhaps she would be lucky and in the confusion outside, no one would be paying attention to the courtyard.

Clara tried to access another system for the prisoner’s name and number. There was no way in. The answer could not be pulled from here. Thinking of the schematics, Clara knew where she would have to go. And she wouldn’t have much time to do it. It certainly wouldn’t take too long in a prison of this capacity for the dead guards around her to be missing, especially on the heightened alert they were under now.

Clara scanned through the list of close to one hundred prisoners once more, this time remembering the prisoner’s location based on his prison number.

Clara eyed the controls, glad to see no alarms went off within the prison to indicate an intruder. These guards had not alerted others to Clara’s presence, and she still had the element of surprise.

Pushing a guard’s body out of the chair, Clara sat down and began scanning the monitors for prisoners. She pulled up a database to determine location, but all prisoners went by a number rather than a name. There was no way she could determine where Randal was with this information. She would need the key to decipher name from number.

She cursed. This was irritating.

The ninja fell to the earth, cutting the last man in two as she did so, his hand grasping a headset yet unable to pull it on.

Clara eyed the control panel and the various alarm signals as the vampire’s body parts fell to the ground behind her, already rapidly aging to the creature’s true age, when a man had to die the day this vampire was born.

Alarms were still going off all around the prison with little to indicate their cause or that they would end soon. But none were going off within the facility indicating an intruder.

Above the vampire and his ruined hand, a figure in black was descending from the ceiling, the air duct a mangled mass of falling metal behind her, one long sword in hand, another long sword being drawn as she fell.

The vampire snarled and leapt at her as the remaining human guard scrambled to remove a headset from the head of one of dead guards. Two swift strokes of her swords and the vampire’s arm, head, torso, and legs were separate pieces. The body parts sprayed out what blood the vampire had in him and continued with momentum past Clara.

The vampire’s heightened abilities enabled him to see the dart with the blue dot streaking toward the only remaining guard yet alive. He shot his hand out to intercept the dart and save the guard from the same fate as his comrades. But Clara had used a different type of dart this time.

Upon impact, the dart exploded, blowing apart half of the vampire’s hand. He screamed, more out of anger than pain. Clearly he had been fooled.

The remaining human turned from his dead friends upon the sound of the explosion and scream. Then he saw something truly terrifying.

The remaining man was panicked, but the vampire was on to her, looking at the air duct where Clara hid. She didn’t have a choice. She loaded the only dart with the blue dot that she had pulled out and blew the dart at the last man, knowing the vampire’s heightened senses would see it.

Then in a flash, she drew her kitana sword, slicing through the air duct as she did.

The vampire reached his hand out and intercepted the dart before it could hit the last man, but this was exactly what Clara had wanted him to do.

Clara placed one end of the blow gun over the new hole she had made, watching through her scope the three men and the vampire twenty feet below her. She aimed and blew a blast of air through the blow gun. A tiny dart struck one man at the controls, and he slumped over.

The two other men went to his aid, but the vampire looked around the room swiftly. There wasn’t much time. Clara immediately blew the next dart, striking the remaining man wearing a headset. He too slumped over, falling out of his chair to the tiled floor.

Clara took the ice pick, twisting it to score the air duct, then pushing it through quietly, keeping an eye on the vampire through the scope as she did so.

No notice. This was very good.

The ninja slowly and silently withdrew a small straw and pouch from her waist, hand awkwardly moving in the tight space of the air duct. She withdrew four tiny darts from the pouch, three with a small red dot and one with a blue dot. She loaded a red one and wriggled her way over the top of the newest hole she had created.

They obviously didn’t have the situation under control, Clara’s havoc still reigning, but they weren’t panicked either. Two sat in chairs and spoke over headsets, running tactical support from the control room utilizing the several monitors covering the wall in front of them. The other two, a man and the vampire, watched the situation develop over the shoulders of the two seated.

Good. This should go fine. Obviously the vampire was the most dangerous. But there was also a reckless strength and power about a vampire, and this could work to Clara’s advantage. She brought up the ice pick again.

Clara took the thick ice pick from her sleeve and placed it, point down, into the thin metal of the air duct, ever so slowly pushing it through.

She pulled out a tiny scope, sliding one end through the small opening she had created and looking through the eyepiece. A control room was twenty feet below her. She twisted a dial and this caused a pulling in one direction and a slackening in the opposite direction, forcing the scope to turn and look around the room. Three men and a vampire, weapons on an opposite wall in a locked case.

Still in the narrow air duct and lying on her side, Clara struggled to pull one hand back and remove her compass from the sleeve she had slid it into. She checked her direction and coordinates. She should be close. Yes, another twenty feet, and she would be there. Barely able to maneuver in the tiny space, the ninja continued to pull herself along, wriggling her way forward. Just a little farther and she would be well on her way to rescuing Randal.

This was the place. Careful to remain silent, Clara pulled a thick ice pick from her sleeve.

Randal smiled again, this time bigger. The rumbling and light shaking had grown.

He forced his eyes open, returning to the reality of his cell and pushing himself to focus on Temmins. The fat man looked around the room, trying to learn why it shook. His eyes blinked, questions and fear in them, not understanding the situation, one lid encrusted in small, gray scales, the cold dampness of the room not helping the skin condition that covered half his face and patches of his bald head.

Randal smiled again. They were coming. They had found him, and they were coming.

Pulling as much as he could from just his hearing, Randal could tell the rumble grew louder. He smiled weakly, a small burst he couldn’t contain. He was hit with a fresh torrent of water.

Then he allowed himself to feel, pulling himself back up to the surface, forcing his mind to return to his body and the present, allowing some of his well practiced ninja skills to rest. The salt and bamboo and cold and wet were excruciating; he pushed away the desire to moan or even scream. But the Special also felt himself slightly jostling back and forth.

Temmins twisted the occasional stalk of bamboo protruding from Randal’s body, pouring salt down into the stalk with a funnel. The wound would burn. He would ask his usual questions. Then proceed to the next random bamboo stalk, twist, pour, and repeat, sometimes adding a stifled, gleeful giggle to the mix.

“Who are you?” Temmins asked again. “What did you want when you attacked Giresun? Who are you working with? Where are your other teammates?”

Then there was a distant explosion. This died away to a low rumble that quickly grew louder. Randal forced himself to return to his senses.

Inside, Randal was strapped to the metal table. Cold water dripped or gushed intermittently on his face. The room was ice cold, and little crystals had formed in Ran’s hair. Temmins asked his usual questions. Who are you? What did you want with Giresun? Who are you working with? Where are your other teammates? Why did you attack Giresun? What was your goal? And then the questions would repeat.

Bamboo stalks still stuck out of several wounds in Randal’s body. Temmins wore slippers and was bundled up in a huge fur coat that dragged along the ground when he walked.

Clara pulled herself through the cold metal vent until she reached the trip laser she had spotted. There she struggled to remove a crystal from her waist. She used this crystal which she had gotten from Helen and Turtle to deflect the device’s laser, careful to place it perfectly so as not to disrupt the signal. She pulled herself slowly forward, afraid to knock loose the crystal and upset the trip laser. First her hands and arms, then head, shoulders, and chest. Then stomach, hips, legs, and finally feet.

She was barely able to slide past, but she made it.

Finally approaching her access point into the prison, Clara held on to the prison wall and withdrew one of her swords. Like a hot knife through butter, Clara’s kitana easily sliced through the metal. She pushed the vent plate inside and pulled her body sideways into the opening, careful not to cut herself on the sharp metal edges. Just ahead, she spotted a trip laser. Barely able to move, the ninja kept her hands in front of her and slowly slid her way toward the device on her side, pulling with her hands and pushing with her toes and feet.

The guards would want to hide this disturbance from the prisoners, but no one inside could have missed the rumble of the explosion and the massive rockslide quickly becoming a massive avalanche. Even now the rumble of the rush of snow was a deep bass at the center of Clara’s chest, deep within her.

The ninja continued to climb directly over the outer gate, over one hundred feet in the air. She looked up. The massive tower kept rising, but another twenty feet up was her goal. An air vent, little bigger than two feet vertical by one foot horizontal.

This was good. This was very good. If the ninja were lucky, the avalanche would have not only rendered the detection devices useless, but also would have killed the two squads of armed guards going to investigate the disturbance. Clara continued her long climb, now angling over the outer gate.

No alarms prison wide went off, but Clara knew the security control tower had to be lit up like a Christmas tree and guards had to be running frantic. They wouldn’t want the prisoners to know there was this great a disturbance, but everyone inside must have felt the explosion.

The magnitude of the chemical blast was astounding, light and heat and noise sensors were all distracted. Sonic reverb, pure adrenaline. The chemical bomb did the first part of its job.

So far, so good. Then the slow rumble of rocks falling, first one, then another, then more. The stone face she had placed the explosives under was collapsing. Clara smiled and continue to scale the huge tower, already over fifty feet in the air. The rockslide gave way to chunks of snow and ice falling away from the mountain and in no time, a massive avalanche was in progress.

The guards hustled toward the fireballs, and Clara continued to climb as quickly as she could. It wasn’t long before the guards left the vicinity, and Clara was forced to freeze once more, waiting for her next distraction.

Several moments later the putty reached critical temperatures from the flames and the normally relatively stable material erupted with an enormous amount of force and flame and sound. The prison wall shook beneath Clara’s grip, and she resumed her climb up the sheer rock wall, knowing that sensors in the building and surrounding area would all be going off at this point.

Clara crossed the road and darted for the relative protection of the huge stone wall of the prison.

The inner gate closed with a heavy creaking slam and the outer gate began to open.

Clara pressed herself up against the wall, disappearing in the blackness. Two squads of armed guards charged out of the prison, the sensors in the area now practically useless for the next two minutes. Clara began scaling the wall, knowing had only a small window of time before the detection might actually pull her motion signal or audio signal out of the many in the area.

The heat given off and the sudden light in the darkness attracted much attention from the sensors, setting off alarms for that vicinity. Clara rose from the snow, her own heat signal so small compared to the light show going on a half mile back from the direction she had come.

The ninja ran toward the road, once again her body stocking a shroud of black, darting through the darkness.

Personnel were dispatched to investigate the disturbance. Interior gates were already opening, guards preparing to leave, waiting for the gate behind them to close so the next one could open.

The sun dipped below the horizon. Clara strapped two kitanas to her back, the long, double edged Eastern swords she preferred fighting with. She placed other weapons around her waist and her legs.

Ahead, there was no way to continue passing the detection devices safely. They were too thick; each backed another up, matching strength to the other’s weakness.

With no warning, two huge fireballs erupted. The paper wrappings had finally dissolved to the point of exposing the wrapped metal plugs to the snow. A chemical reaction caused these to ignite in a dazzling display of sparks and hot flames.

Clara passed several more sensors, some she had to disable, others she passed slowly and remained unnoticed, tunneling through the snow. She eventually came to the back side of the prison and waited below the snow, in a ditch of a narrow, blacktop road that rose several feet. She couldn’t get any closer for fear of losing the snow cover. Cold was setting in, but she forced herself to stay alert, not letting the temperature best her. This was not yet the time. Randal was counting on her. She would get him out. He would do the same for her.

Clara waited, making sure not to rush the placement. She removed two small metal plugs, not letting her skin touch the tarnished rock. Then she covered the plugs with several thin strips of what looked like tan paper, wrapping each tight in several layers. Then she pushed each wrapped plug into the gray goo, a third from each end, and packed everything deep in snow, covering the plugs and the gray putty.

Now she was on a timer. The rest had to happen perfectly. There wasn’t time to waste.

Clara dug her way through the snow, approaching Ultramax Rocky Penitentiary.

Finally Clara came to the place, right up against a rock face. She slowly rose from the snow, her face, eyes, and body stocking white again in the fading sun. There were no sensors in the area, but she was not protected from any possible aerial scans above. Dropping back below snow level, Clara pulled out a large jar of gray putty from her pack. Opening the jar, she began packing the rubbery goo into the base of the rock.

She checked the sky again. The sun would soon arch down below the skyline. Then all hell would break loose.

Clara wanted to rest longer, her body PRACTICALLY screaming the desire, but the ninja still had another couple miles to go. And if Clara the Red Ninja was going to rescue Randal the Special this night from Ultramax Rocky Pen and from Randal’s captor, Giresun, she needed to have everything in place by nightfall. Clara dove back beneath the snow, crawling through the tunnel she had created earlier, until changing direction and continuing to dig her way closer to the Rocky, stopping occasionally to reference her compass, verify direction and destination, and determine how much further before her next drop.

So instead of resting her aching body, Clara pushed the pain away and removed a large package made of fabric and frame from her backpack. Originally black, the item changed to white facing the slowly setting sunlight.

Clara quickly buried the item in the snow, then tied off a rope to rapidly descend back to the cave’s bottom. Once safely beneath the overhang, she collapsed, finally allowing her body to rest. She slept for half an hour, then warmed herself with a chemical warming packet, ate more jerky to refresh herself and chewed on some snow, her own water frozen.

At the edge of the outcropping, Clara pulled her body up further, using the claw to create traction and handholds, careful not to make a mistake or lose her grip. The snow had built up significantly at the top of the outcropping, and Clara was once again pulling herself through it, this time much happier when she finally had her feet beneath her again. She wanted to lay on the top of the rock in the snow, just letting her tired body regain some strength, but at any moment, an automated patrolling aircraft could fly overhead and reveal her position.