She has to cross reference her map again "Moved to another room. To your four o clock and a hundred metres away."

Great.  Love it for me.  "Four o'clock, one zero zero meters.  Copy."  She looks at the room, does some mental geometry, and realizes following those directions is going to lead her into a wall.  Unless she spontaneously discovers the ability to tunnel through unidentified dungeon metal, that's a non-starter.

She picks the hallway that looks closest, only to find that it's a 'storage facility' for coffins.  "Confirming, zero vics near me?"  It's perilously close to breaking her rule about not questioning her sensor, but she doesn't know Secours from a hole in the ground, and awakening isn't gated behind a room-temperature IQ.

"Confirmed." She's mildly annoyed but trying to keep a neutral tone of voice, to avoid starting an argument. They ain't got time for that. Plus it involves unnecessarily engaging with human contact.

"Copy."  Great, there's fifty of these fuckin' coffins in here and not a single one with a vic in. Great.  She frowns, then attempts a different hallway.  This one leads to a different assembly line and - Oh.  Fuuuuuuuuck.

GOOD NEWS!  You found your victim!

Unfortunately, he is currently in the arms of an assembly line, which is carefully stress-testing his tolerances.  He is not having a good day, although he also may not be conscious right now.  It's really not clear.

None of this tag ever crosses Carol's conscious mind.  She's too keyed up on adrenaline to think in words.  But.  If she were to verbalize, this is what would come out.

Firstly, she can't shoot the goop arms or the nail arms.  Her vic is right the fuck there, sitting like a useless lump.  Worse than useless, really, since he's getting in the way.  The grabby arms ABSOLUTELY CANNOT be shot, because they're grabbing her victim.

Secondly, she needs to take out the goop arms.  Those aren't interacting with her victim, so that's great.

Thirdly, same with the nails, but she needs to be extremely careful not to let the victim get nailed.  She can get nailed a little, she can take it.

Fourth off, she needs to not get grabbed by the manipulator arms.  Because if she does and they're strong enough to hold her, it's all over.

This time, the fight takes about twenty-five seconds.  But she experiences closer to a minute and a half.  She's constantly picking and choosing what potential futures she wants to inhabit, .613 seconds at a time.  She rejects any where the victim cries out in pain or gets more injured than he already was, and one future where she gets nailed in the earlobe.

She's pretty fucking backlashed.  Not so much that she can't cope, but she's not currently experiencing the normal suite of human emotional responses right now.  Which is exactly what she wanted.

She hates how fucking gingerly she has to retrieve the vic from the remains of the assembly line.  It's a real pain in the ass, when she could just sling him like a sack of potatoes.  But no, Ehler-whatevertheshititwas has to get in the way of clearing this pieceashit dungeon.

"Last check on vic, before we board him?"

"Unconscious but stable. Medical team is on standby." Hopefully they have an actual ambulance waiting for him outside the portal but shes' leaving that aspect to the medical team.

Thanks, I never would have realized he wasn't talking without you.  Best Sensor to date.  "Copy."  It's frustrating that the medical team needs her to stick around and get this poor schmuck boarded and collared, but she does it, silently stewing in her own dissatisfaction.

Deep breath.  Let it go.

"Okay.  Next vic?"

"Currently in a storage room. On the other side of the place."

Yeah she's kind of annoyed about this one too.

"That's the closest to my position?"  Carol's backlash-induced irritation is aligned with what she would have felt anyway.  A little tinge has made it into her voice, which isn't a great sign.

She's as noted blissfully unaware of tone of voice but she can make a guess on this one. "At the moment, yes. If we're lucky the next will come back around the front by the time you're done with this one."

"Copy."  Nothing for it but to make her way into an extremely full storage room.  And, perhaps unsurprisingly, there are manipulator arms.  Thankfully, no nailguns or goop-throwers this time.  "Still in here?"

"Yes. At your eleven o-clock, slightly above you."

Love that for me.  Right next to the grabbers, and it's not in a position where I can knock it away.

For these, she doesn't use her path to destruction.  She uses two hands, one combat knife, esper coordination, and one elbow.  And several months of knife-fighting class.

Perhaps twenty seconds and one sore forearm later, they're dead and she's still alive.  "Hey, hon, I'll be with you in a second, okay?  Just gotta get you out."  Fucking grabbers.  That left a mark for sure.  Nothing broken, at least.  

Muffled probably-affirmative noises.

She prybars the vic caaarefully out.  This one's less lively than the enthusiastic one, which is mostly a good sign.  "Hey, hon, you okay?  I've got'cha a snack bar, and some water?  Or you can have some of my esperade if you promise not to tell the medics."  She winks, like it's their little secret.

"No, please, - I mean, thank you.  I'm - I couldn't drink another ounce.  Can we get out of here, I have to go so bad, I'm so sorry!"

The freed vic just about books it for the exit.  Their escort has to trot a bit in order to catch up.

"Should be two more, by my count?  Do you need a break?"

"I can do one more but not two more. I think it makes more sense to take a break now." Going in again for exactly one person feels like a disproportionately large hassle.

She could do two more an emergency. It wouldn't even be that bad as emergency measures go.  But you have to save emergency measures for emergencies or you'll run yourself into the ground.

"Copy.  Say when ready."

She's not so badly-off that she can't keep up a good face.  She jokes and laughs with the rescue squad, playfully 'apologizing' to the looting team for not leaving them enough to work with.  But she makes her way back to her guiding tent, alone.

And the mask drops off her face like wrapping paper coming off an eight-year-old's Christmas gift.  She doesn't sulk.  That's not her style.  And she doesn't have a local guide, so she can't even guide in her fucking guiding tent.  She's just saving everyone else from having to interact with her while she's got a load of backlash on.

And she can walk her ass out to the guiding tent, after one of her helpers ensures she doesn't have to walk through or close to any knots of people.

At this level she lies on her stomach on the bed with her legs loosely tied to the frame to discourage her from reflexibly kicking her partner if he accidentally moves too fast for her and her partner sits with his bare legs on either side of hers. She attempts to ignore him, and listens to soothing music.

She'll be in for about twenty minutes of this until she feels like she's had enough guiding to cover her for the remaining victims. 

When summoned, Carol takes a moment to fix her face, as it were.  It's so fucking annoying that she doesn't want anyone to get hurt by her inability to exercise basic emotional control, that a fucking teenager might be expected to have mastered.

But she can do her fucking job, even though she's irrationally pissed-off by the color of her own tank-top that she picked out for herself this morning.  "Next vic?"  Her voice comes out very Customer Service.  Can I get you anything else?  Have a nice day!  The falseness makes her want to gag.

Next victim is on the packing line, having been around at least once already. It actually is closer then the last one at least.