Jaiden's heavily armored body was a rag doll. The thing had rebuked his attack just as quickly as he made it, ejecting him from the room with ruthless efficiency. Sam's adrenaline-addled mind barely had the time to process the monstrous shape of Ashley's werewolf form surging into Nora's room before the situation spurred her into action.

"Shit,  shit, shit, shit, shit, shit." Sam babbled, diving for her messenger bag. She hated adrenaline. It made her shaky, stupid, and weak. She second-guessed [i]everything[/i]. It made her freeze up, spending more time analyzing options than taking advantage of them. Even if she had been able to react as quickly as the others did, that thing was clearly some kind of combat drone. What was tiny little Sam going to do with her bare fists? She needed [i]weapons.[/i]

Her shaking hand curled around something round and pulled back a baseball-sized sphere of matte-grey metal. It took her a moment to recognize the device for what it was; another tip of the hat to the crippling effect of adrenaline on the inexperienced mind. Pieces of the puzzle began to force their way through the fog of war, and Sam made herself use them to build the start of a plan. She pressed her thumb against the active-capacitance sensor and worked at the settings until she found something useful.

[code]
Online...
Menu: Power, Settings, Activate

Menu Selected

Record Mode, Discharge Mode, Network Mode

Record Mode Activated

Select Record Mode: Frequency, Internal Stresses, Accelerometer Data, GPS Data

Internal Stresses Activated

Menu: Record Mode, Discharge Mode, Network Mode

Network Mode Activated. Syncing...

Sync Complete
[/code]

The entire exchange lasted only a few seconds, as Sam was intimately familiar with her own creations. She had to be; there was no one else to hold accountable if the device failed in the field. Extensive testing was second nature to her. She also knew, from bitter experience, that the internal electromagnetic fields generated by the device could not be a guaranteed success. Non-magnetic alloys existed, after all. She'd had to select carefully from that list to create an outer shell which would not dampen the fields if she needed to use them. That meant that, for her plan to work, she needed an extra measure of insurance to make certain it would work. She grabbed a half-used roll of duct tape and discarded the bag.

Ashley's roar made her freeze in mid-step. She'd been certain that shape was just a stress-induced hallucination, but the roar sounded so vivid, so primal. She almost [i]felt[/i] the vibrations in her chest. From somewhere in the back of her mind, Sam's inner voice reminded her that Jaiden might not be the only hulking beast in this motley crew.

[i]"That, or another assassin. No time to worry about that now."[/i]

She took a deep breath and forced herself to run. Nora's doorway rushed up to meet her, and Sam couldn't help but regret how quickly. She never got the chance to duck inside, however. Multiple red streaks -after-images from the glow of the sensor eyes- blazed across her field of vision as it sailed through the air, smacking into the railing along the edge of the mezzanine. Its magnetized joints buckled as it curled backward over the railing from the force of impact, and Sam -for once- took advantage of the opportunity just as it presented itself. She jerked the end of the duct tape with her teeth, using her left hand as a spindle so that the roll would spin freely, and stuck the metal orb on the standing end, nearest the roll.

The urge to hesitate was stronger now, as she approached arm's reach. Those limbs looked deadly sharp. She clenched her fist and forced herself to lunge for its upper sections as it recovered from the impact of Ashley's throw. This would be her only chance. She had to act. She tagged one of the metal sections with the free end of the tape and, grabbing the other end, swung it hard. The weight of the roll caused it to whip around the drone three times, locking her device in place.

Sam kicked away from the thing, just as the werewolf came bounding out of the room. She did not bother to determine whether it was her or the drone this thing was after, instead retreating back to her room. Her hands would not stop shaking. She finally grasped another of the devices and remotely triggered her little surprise.

As it engaged, however, Sam remembered one crucial detail. In all of the chaos, she had neglected to warn her housemates of the primary function of her Shrieker device. She had just enough time to cover her ears with the noise-cancelling headphones designed to block the noise of the Shriekers before it tore through even the din of battle with a horrendous mechanical screech. The device cycled through every modulation and frequency in its range, finally settling on a particular tone before losing its charge. Sam had her information. She also had a plan of attack.