damned_institute | Day 63: Bus 3 (Morning)

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Day 63: Bus 3 (Morning)

Searching for files really wasn't the most exciting way to spend a night, but at least he had Sangamon had managed something and had also somehow avoided getting into any real trouble. While the lack of some sort of conflict meant that it had almost felt boring in comparison, Harvey was pretty sure he could go without seeing one of those rotted faces for the rest of his life.

Yeah, the memory of one of those dogs tearing through Zex's throat hadn't quite left his mind yet. It probably wasn't going to anytime soon, either.

It was clear that Landel was trying to stir up shit among the patients, though, with how he was going on about this so-called sickness. It was obvious from the start that this was something that had been administered to certain patients, but that didn't mean it wouldn't spread. But Harvey's guess was that it wouldn't. This whole charade had clearly been designed to force a wedge between the patients, and he was pretty sure it was going to work.

Other than the fact that he'd slept all day yesterday, though, Harvey felt fine. As fine as someone with half his face burned off could feel, anyway. But the point was that he felt normal for him, which probably meant he'd been lucky enough to steer clear of this weird illness. The coin had apparently landed on the clean side this time.

Sleeping a whole day away meant that it was already time to head into Doyleton yet again. Harvey couldn't say he was that excited. The town hadn't given him much to do, and while a change of scenery was probably good for his mental health, the way the townspeople treated them more or less canceled that out. Still, there was nothing for it, so he didn't put up a fuss as he changed into his clothes for the day. This time he had a pair of black pants, a shirt that was a little too close to purple for his liking, and a gray-colored zip-up windbreaker to wear over it.

As usual, there was the sack lunch and coupons to collect (did they really have to be treated like grade-schoolers?), but it looked like the allowance was going to be a staple from now on. Harvey stepped up onto one of the buses with a sigh, but it looked like he'd picked the one that was emptiest (so far, anyway). Focusing on that silver lining, he went to sit down in the back and started to peel open the brown bag with his breakfast in it.

[For Shiina!]

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Aigis knew this routine and fell into it like clockwork. She took the offered clothing, a faded pink top, grungy-colored jeans and a bright green windbreaker, took the offered lunch bag and found a seat in the last bus. She didn't complain or resist. There was no point. She merely sat in her seat, facing forward, hoping against hope that she would merely cease to exist.

She wasn't going to get better. What Landel had said in his last intercom announcement of the night had been the truth, a rare truth from a mad man. There was no way Aigis could live with herself now. She was a danger to all of them, friend and foe alike. She would change, wouldn't she? She was going to kill them, maim them, until every ounce of kindness left inside her was drained dry, leaving her an empty shell. A vicious monster.

How would she ever atone? Soon there would be no time life. What then? Her heart rate increased for a short moment, then returned to normal again. Nothing more than a monster.

[Aidou~]

Was it any surprise that trying to get a foothold over the Institute was like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill? Aidou could multitask with the best of them, but what was being asked of him was too much. Getting his powers back, finding a way to bring down the Institute, figuring out how it all worked… that was enough to deal with by itself. But now that he knew the Coliseum existed, there were the elimination matches to contend with on top of the missions, the experiments, the drug testing, the other vampires… Not to mention that people were transforming into rampaging beasts. Who could forget that part?

Worry for the others around him was something he had refused to let himself feel, but he couldn’t stop a shiver of horror for those who were infected. Those like Aigis, who had accepted the reality of the situation enough to ask that she be dispatched if she became a threat. Aidou had no moral qualms about killing those who were dangerous--even if it meant killing his own kind--but this was different. This was a violation that went much deeper.

Being uninfected himself, he couldn’t say for sure, but he had to wonder… Was the fear of turning into one of the hospital’s monsters the same fear Kiryu had had? Of changing into something you despised above all else? If so, he thought he could understand the primal disgust the sick prisoners must be feeling. Of course, there’d been rumors of people turning into beasts before, but that had been temporary, a single night’s nightmare. Landel had given no hint that this “cold” was no less than permanent. Still, the bastard seemed to have more interest in preserving his test subjects than permanently maiming them. Maybe the transformations were not to last?

Objectively speaking, one ‘maybe’ was one too many. Hoping for a good ending was just asking for disappointment.

The matter at the moment was figuring out who was infected--the rest could come later. Out of those he knew, who was going to change? Sasuke? Ritsuka? The small note board in town was useless for passing messages, so without seeing them for himself, he could only guess. He did know of at least one person who was showing symptoms, though, and he followed that person onto their bus with his lunch sack in tow.

His acquaintance with Aigis had been thorny before, but now it was almost ludicrously tangled. Last week she was hunting you, and now she’s the threat. Or she would be, soon. Whenever the transformation took root.

The entire trip was starting to remind him far too much of the zombie attack, and he didn’t like it.

As he stopped to stand over her seat, he said, “How is it now?” No need to explain what he meant; that part seemed fairly obvious, all things considered.

Aigis did not expect to see Aidou so early after last night, but perhaps he really was taking her request seriously. This was not a laughing matter. She felt secure in that she could trust him with the proper etiquette concerning the matter at hand. He was no fool.

No, what really struck her as odd was the fact that he sought her out. He had not done such a thing since the last trip to Doyleton where he had taken her into a back alley and practically threatened her for silence. That had shown to her his most fearsome side. Now, his words seemed almost concerned, but that was an illusion. It bared repeating; Aidou was no fool.

Aigis moved back into her seat against the window, making room in case he chose to sit. Then she exposed her hand for him to behold. It was almost completely covered in red and seemed intent on taking over her whole body. She muttered only one word in response. "Worse."

Due to the cool weather, his nurse had provided him with another zip-up jacket which he had zipped closed over his less than appropriate shirt. Paired with a pair of grey pants, the sight he made with the jacket on was relatively less embarrassing than some of the outfits they’d forced him to wear before. All the better; it wasn’t right to be discussing such matters while looking like a buffoon.

The sight of the worsening skin rash prickled the back of his neck, but he kept his expression collected. The zombie infection had been horrifying on the inside and the outside, but this particular change made its mark internally. Redness on the skin was nothing compared to what it must’ve been doing to the rest of her body, the part neither of them could see. That was more insidious, in a way.

Riding on the bus with someone wasn’t something Aidou jumped for joy at, but if he couldn’t be in Aigis’ company now, when he could he? Their tumultuous dealings with each other had effectively been overshadowed by the girl’s infection. The possibility of one’s demise had the power to do that. With that in mind, he took the aisle seat beside her. There was a mutual benefit in it, he supposed--she blocked some of the sunlight from reaching him, and he blocked the sight of her exposed skin from the rest of the bus.

There were things they needed to talk about, anyway.

“And the other symptoms?”

Aigis felt grateful Aidou took the seat. She almost expected him to leave, but he had proved her wrong again. How curious he was, she thought.

She shook her head, but a chill overtook her and had her hunching her shoulders. "None. No more than before, at least."

Aigis knew she should eat something, but she couldn't find it in herself to open her paper bag. Maybe if she allowed herself to starve she would be weak enough when the transformation occurred and would not manage to get far before she was cut down. Or else she would be ravenous and all the more blood-thirsty. So many things could go wrong from here on out and no where she looked yielded any guarantees.

It was like looking up at Tartarus and knowing that no matter how high they climbed, or how many Shadows they defeated, the End was inevitably going to crush them all.

He exhaled sharply, his eyes on her reddened hand. “Well, tell me if something changes. I can check you again later if need be, but you still have the smell of blood on you. It seems the same.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t go around asking everyone to prick their fingers and let him conduct the vampiric version of a litmus test. He glanced around the bus, looking for signs of rashes. Inevitably, though, his gaze was drawn back to the person sitting beside him.

Exactly what was he supposed to say? He barely had the energy to keep himself from snapping at people half the time; he was the wrong person if cheering up was what Aigis needed. “You should stay inside today, if you’re chilled.” His experience with spontaneous transformations was generally limited to vampires, and in those cases managing one’s health only ever slowed down the change into an ex-human. But it couldn’t hurt.

"Mn." Aigis nodded. She was counting on him to do what was necessary if the time came. She wouldn't be withholding important information on the infections' progress from him, at least.

His words were almost... no, they did sound concerned, no matter how nonchalant his tone. Aigis blinked at him, then nodded again. He could be such a strange creature at times. But it was still a warming though, despite the cold delivery. "I will do that, then."

On the surface, things seemed simple enough. Aigis wasn’t arguing with him. But like the veneer of Landel’s Institute, like the infection boiling under her skin, the truth was hidden beneath the surface. There was no such thing as “simple enough.”

Nothing… nothing about the past forty days had been simple.

Sitting back, he crossed his arms, letting silence settle over them while he surveyed the rest of the bus. The noble supposed he should’ve been grateful he wasn’t the one with a rash slowly overtaking his body; he didn’t have to fear the same consequences Aigis no doubt was. All things considered, her reticence was understandable. It also felt… private, in a way, like his presence was intruding on her solitude.

“Before, you asked me about human behaviors,” he started in a low tone. If she wanted to spend the rest of the ride in silence, she could always say so. “The average human would be afraid at the prospect of losing their identity.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Are you scared?”

Aigis looked up when Aidou spoke again. She was still eager to learn, even if she had little time left to put his information to use.

She blinked. Afraid of losing her identity. Aigis' eyes moved forward, boring into the back of the seat in front of them. She swallowed, dredging up a memory she wish she could bury and forget completely. But that was impossible for her mind. She could always access all of her memories. In that sense, she would always be a computer.

"It would not be the first time I have lost my identity," she admitted in a low mutter. Her eyelids lowered, and bitterness swept into her voice. "Nor would it be the first time someone has used me to terrorize innocents while in that state."

She shook her head. "No, I would not say that I personally feel 'scared.'"

What could he say to that? He knew next to nothing about the girl’s history, other than that she claimed to be a robot and had highly abnormal powers. Aidou preferred remaining in state of deep skeptism toward others, but having witnessed her abilities for himself what could he do except believe her when she divulged something so personal about herself?

He had little reason not to accept her confession as the truth. And by doing so, he also had to recognize the effect the incident had had on her.

"Special Counselling?" he queried. Landel seemed to especially enjoy turning his captives into puppets, and it was all too possible that Aigis had experienced that sadism for herself. After a pause, he added, "Well, either way, you clearly came out of it intact." 'Isn’t that a good thing?' his tone said.

The words "Special Counseling" caused Aigis' eyes to harden. She very well remembered that night and the contempt in her voice was almost palpable.

"Physically, yes." She shook her head. It was just frustrating. "I do not expect you would know what it would feel like to awaken from a thoroughly reprogramming of your mind, only to realize you had just compromised every moral you once held dear."

Her hands tightened on the cheap fabric of her pants. Betrayal. Not only to herself, but to others as well. "And here was not the only place. I once almost executed all the people I hold dearest as a bloody offering to bring about The End."

No. Intact was far from how well she had come out from those awful moments of forced will. She felt sick to her stomach just remembering the look on Minato's face as she held her guns high, aiming them at his chest for the sacrifice.

“I haven’t experienced our captor’s brand of it myself, but I understand it well enough,” replied the vampire. One could live with the reality of being undone from the inside out without personally experiencing it, though he didn’t envy her her firsthand perspective. Not in the slightest. Aidou avoided thinking about it, but in the back of his mind he counted himself lucky he had avoided being chosen for Special Counselling thus far.

To have one’s will violated once would be bad enough. But twice? Aidou gave the girl a wondering look when she revealed she had been a tool for violence before the Institute. “The end” didn’t leave much room for alternate interpretations.

“Even so,” he ventured, “I would hazard this infection is a unique case. The outcome you fear may not come to pass.”

So this was the shadow the girl carried on her heart? The loss of independence?

No, he was wrong. Even if he had others with power above him back home, he was a creature with a free will. He could not so easily be programmed into a different mindset, a different objective. No matter what he believed to be control was back home, it paled in comparison to her situation. But she bit back any verbal retort that rose to her throat. The was no reward in arguing a moot point.

"May or may not. Landel has not been kind enough to supply us with the information to tell which is correct."

Well, she had a point. To believe that Landel would let her get off easily was to have hope, and hope… had its limitations. Too much of it was asking for trouble. But too little of it bordered on defeatism.

“I expect we’ll soon find out. But whatever the case, you won’t be bringing about an end to anything here. Remember that if it brings you comfort.”

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Day 63: Bus 3 (Morning)

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