Investigate

The moment the door closed, Lois dropped her arms and began hunting around the room. She didn't see any cameras, and hoped that no one was watching—but if there were cameras, they'd probably be pointed toward where people were expected to be, not where they weren't expected to be; and as a reporter, Lois had a habit of going places where people weren't expected.

At a closer look, the room was a lot more complicated than it appeared at first glance. The walls and floors had a lot of seams that spoke of hidden panels, doors, and the like, but no visible access latches for maintenance...like a soundstage. This was a room where things happened to people...and a durable one: all the sun lamps were bolted to the walls and the floor, the metal power cables disappearing through discreet holes in the wall.

Yet the place wasn't a prison cell, either. Not quite. Lois grimaced at the plug in her ass, as she crept along the far wall. She ran her hand along a seam in the wall...there was a notch there, about right for a fingernail. The reporter placed her thumbnail in the gap and gave a tentative push...and the panel popped out, showing a small touchscreen display.

CHAMBER STATUS: RED

PLEASE ENTER NUMBER: __

The underscored number blinked softly. There was a bare alphanumeric keypad beneath that. Lois wasn't sure what was going on, but she breathed on the screen, and caught...yes, there were smudges where fingerprint smudges on the numbers. Someone had used this before, either for maintenance or...something. The right number might unlock the door or require a tech to come in... Something.

Lois could see that the numbers 2 and 1 were smudged. Given a two-number combination... 21 or 12. Not a lot to go on...but it was either this, or wait for something else to happen. And Lois was tired of waiting. Making a decision, she tapped in a two-digit code.