damned_institute | Day 55: Cafeteria

Entry tags:

Day 55: Cafeteria

A night spent inside his room had done nothing to ease his jitters. Peter couldn't stop worrying. Over Brainy, what he thought of him now that he knew about what he'd done to Grell, and where he was going for the night. If he'd be safe. If Indy and the others would be safe, trucking on down to the basement. (Not frigging likely, considering 'basement' was synonymous for 'giant ass doom pit'.) If that ominous intercom announcement had meant anything. Peter had spent hours staring into the dark after that, his stomach churning his supper into butter over the horrific possibilities. Whatever punishment that arose for the food fight was a mystery. It didn't seem to infect him, unless it was a particularly trying case of insomnia. No matter how badly Peter tried, he couldn't find the will to sleep. Much of the night had been spent making notations and doodles in his journal by flashlight, peppered with long stretches of staring at the dark.

Honestly, he'd rather be taking another crack at the Hall of Hallucinations instead of rolling around in his bed. Paranoia was his only company the whole night.

Morning felt like a blessing by the time it came. He wasn't sure when sleep had finally overtaken him, but as he blinked his way into life he couldn't help feeling a bit...off.

It was really quiet. Peter's face scrunched under the light, and he stretched underneath the covers. There was a zip of cotton on cotton, and his shirt half dragged itself out from under the belt.

His eyes shot open. Belt? The covers flipped back, and Peter gaped down at his form on the bed. ...Belt?!

What the frigging hell was this? Peter jolted to his feet, patting himself down. He looked like some kind of air cadet. There were freaking epaulettes on his shoulders (was that even what they were called?), boots on his feet and a beret on the dresser. A single pin was nestled into the front, looking freshly polished as it glinted in the light. Peter snatched the hat up and stared. Two letters were inscribed on the pin. Nothing more, nothing less.

"SC..."

Special Counseling? Peter's expression took a turn for the frantic. What else could it stand for? He tried to run through a few candidates, but nothing stuck. Nothing applied so neatly without being ridiculous, because it clearly didn't stand for Super Cuckoo or Spider Cadet. Was he supposed to wear this like some stupid badge of honour? God, just brand it across his forehead, why don't you? My name is Peter Parker and I totally snapped a guy's arm for Mother Landel's. Hail the Smiley!

Peter pressed the beret against his face and groaned into the fabric. This was it. They weren't playing games anymore. They were finally turning this into death match boot camp and sending them off to war. Shit. Shit he was going to be in the frigging army in some messed up alternate universe, and he didn't even know what the frick they were fighting against or why they were fighting. If they were pulling magical whatsits out of every book and TV show known to man, then who knew what wacky threat they were up against. Aliens? If it was aliens, he was quitting. He was going to curl up on the ground hugging a grenade and pull the pin. Just no. No. This was not happening. This could not be frigging happening.

Except that it was. The person who whipped open the door that morning wasn't the affably sour Nurse Rachel, but a hulking, thickly built man who looked like he consumed a toddler a meal solely to fuel his pecs. Peter couldn't even find the breath to argue as he was told to tuck in his shirt and put on his boots and come to the cafeteria. He left just as another soldier brushed past them to collect Brainy, and Peter abruptly realized that in his confusion he'd forgotten to check if the boy was okay.

Too late for that now. Peter tried to match pace with the burly man, fumbling to put his snazzy new beret on and watching with wary eyes as other patients were dragged by. Things seemed even bleaker as they hit the cafeteria. The buffet was empty. The scent of food was lacking. Soldiers packed along the borders of the room so neatly you would think they were part of a particularly tacky wall paper. And worst of all? Buckets. Mops and rags and brooms, all piled in the center of the room.

The lady officer's speech was entirely unnecessary at that point. Peter withered where he stood as she told them their duty. It was like a scolding from Aunt May, if someone gave her a gun and a license to use it. Except the joke only made things worse - now he just wanted his Aunt. The force of his loneliness bowled him over like a wrecking ball. He might never see Aunt May again. Peter's gaze fell to the floor and he clenched his fists.

Was this it? Was his life really over? Escape never seemed so far away.

There was no protest from him as they were sent to work. Ashen and queasy, Peter stumbled towards the cleaning supplies and selected a bucket and a rag. He couldn't even bemoan his lack of breakfast. His nerves were making it impossible to even think about food.

They needed to get out tonight. Everyone. Somehow...

[Lion!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hm. Never been there." It meant nothing to him, but Badd was no master of geography. For all he knew it existed somewhere in Africa and was populated by more than crazy people who really liked to clean floors. He took Guy's advice and perched himself on the seat opposite Guy, cleaning the table as an excuse to get off the floor. It wasn't even that dirty in here, he had a feeling cleanliness would be decided by the general's mood rather than any objective standard.

As Badd scrubbed he looked around the cafeteria at the huddled masses of cleaners and the ne'er-do-wells standing at attention with empty hands. No Kay, they hadn't knocked her out and taken her back in again. Badd felt a small weight rise off his chest at missing her face in the crowd.

That wasn't much of a response, but Guy wasn't surprised to hear that the man was ignorant of Auldrant. He'd long ago gotten used to the idea of people being from a number of different worlds, and so he only nodded, moving up to clean over the top of the bench.

This guy wasn't contributing that much to the conversation, which made Guy wonder if he should just ask the question he'd had sitting in the back of his mind for a while now. He'd noticed how the stranger was looking around and wondered if he was searching out someone in particular, but it was just as possible that he was merely taking in the odd sight of all of the other patients in new uniforms wiping down the large room.

"I've never heard of any of those places you mentioned, either," he admitted after a long pause had grown between them. "Is it on Earth?" It felt a bit surreal to be engaging in small talk when there was so much else going on, but it wasn't like complaining about the changes they'd been put through was going to get them anywhere.

"Yes," Badd snapped back. "And if Auldrant isn't we're not going to have much less to converse about. I only talk to people from this planet." Cripes. Another reason it was good that Kay was gone, she was extremely eager to believe silly things and he wasn't sure if she could put up with the pressure from all the crazy people around here.

The next stroke of his rag nearly scrubbed the paint from the top of the table. He wondered if they were even going to feed the populace today, or just starve them until tomorrow morning in order to make them more pliant. Normal prisons had regulations on them, no matter how shoddily they were followed, but Badd doubted there was any ethics board overseeing this operation.

Necks were going to snap when he blew this open and got back to Los Angeles.

That sudden response caused Guy to pause in his work for a moment as he lifted the sponge away from where he'd been scrubbing it. It had just been so blunt, and he wasn't about to lie and say he was from Earth when he really didn't know that much about the world. Everything he knew he'd learned through Landel's or from Claude, and that wasn't that much to go on.

The man's attitude made it clear that he didn't believe that other planets existed, but Guy wasn't going to just deny where he came from in order to have a conversation with him.

"I guess you picked the wrong person to talk to, then," he replied, but despite his words his tone was rather calm. He sighed and got back to cleaning, figuring that the man could move on and chat with someone else if he was going to be picky.

What was that, his third in two days? Badd had stopped keeping track.

"Guess I did. I have enough trouble dealing with the maniacs around here who don't think they're from space and have enough sense to be reasoned wtih." Nothing to do now but watch the guards and watch for Kay, making half-hearted attempts to clean in the meanwhile. Badd shifted to the next chair over and started cleaning that portion of the table. At least Guy wasn't violent or babbling and was willing to actually put a bit of elbow grease into his cleaning for the benefit of Aguilar's ego.

Guy was still baffled by how this man was more or less calling him crazy to his face, since he usually expected people to have at least some modicum of good manners. More than that, Guy didn't really think there was anything about his behavior that came off as mentally unstable. He'd come to believe in the existence of other worlds, after all, though in a way it had been easier for him seeing how he knew for certain that this place wasn't Auldrant. The fact that no one here had heard of Kimlasca or Malkuth had been a big clue.

"I'm not... from space," he said as he wrinkled his brow slightly. He knew all about space travel after talking to Claude, who was from Earth. Clearly this man was further back in time if he saw that as crazy talk. "I didn't even realize there were worlds other than my own until I came here. And doesn't it stand out to you that so many people are telling you the same story?" It wouldn't make sense for everyone to be insane in the same exact way, after all. If this guy was truly going along with what the nurses had been telling him, then he had a long way to go. As Guy kept working, he idly wondered what class the man was.

Oh, just from another world, not space. That really made all the difference.

"If you put a bunch of crazy people in the same box they're going to start spreading their crazy ideas to each other. It's not surprising. Besides, you're the first person who's from...wherever it is that you think you're from. Everyone's got their own personal delusion." Badd moved another seat to the left, scowling. It was a matter to wonder--how many people here were sincerely crazy, how many were sane, how many were sane playing crazy, and how many had come in sane and been driven mad by this place.

This guy didn't seem like the sort who was going to change his mind easily. Guy couldn't fault him that much. If someone wished enough for things to be normal, then it was very easy for them to convince themselves that it was so. But he was eventually going to have to face the facts. It wasn't Guy's job to make that happen, and yet he also felt a need to defend himself against claims that seemed to be getting more and more ridiculous.

"I'm not the only one here from Auldrant," he said with a shake of his head. "If you meet a young girl named Anise or a teenager named Tear, go ahead and ask them. They can tell you all about it." Normally Guy enjoyed exchanging facts about different worlds with other people, but he wasn't exactly in the mood to do so with someone who seemed to be mocking him.

What also surprised him was just how rude the man was being. Had he actually been crazy, this was no way to treat someone with that sort of disability, was it?

Badd might have asked why all Guy's friends seemed to be named after random nouns, but he worked with a guy named Gumshoe so he didn't really have much room to talk.

"You're really assuming I care," Badd said dismissively. "I don't. Wasting my time talking to people who can't understand even the bare bones of reality isn't going to be conducive to finding the truth about this place." What was needed was truth, hard evidence, and this place seemed to change so fast that trying to hang on to anything was pointless. He'd talk with Javert again tonight and see what leads he'd come up with. Now that Kay was out of the picture he could devote the bulk of his brainpower to piecing together Landel and Aguilar's schemes.

...damn. The best thing about going to jail had been a reprieve from decades of detectivework and vigilantism aimed at taking down the criminal populace and here he was stuck right back in the thick of it against his will. Necks and snapping, he'd make sure of it, he'd planned on enjoying his retirement if he was lucky enough to make it that far.

The dismissive way the man was acting was grating at Guy more and more as he continued to work at the conversation. It was probably a better idea to just stop talking and agree to disagree, but he also knew that he was level-headed enough to keep up with this discussion without losing his temper. He could only imagine how Luke or even Anise might have behaved if they came across this man.

"You're free to do that," he said as he shrugged and kept working, having moved to the top of the table by now. There weren't even many food stains, but he continued to work even things that looked like the hint of a stain out of the tabletop.

"But you're only harming yourself. The grand majority of people here are from places other than Earth or from times that you aren't used to." Claude, for instance, was from Earth -- and yet this guy probably wouldn't give him the time of day just because he'd been into space. It was honestly a bit xenophobic. "If you really want to find the truth of this place, you'll have to talk to your fellow prisoners. You're cutting out important contacts because you're assuming we're insane."

Wasn't it just as likely that they were telling the truth? But the man refused to open his mind up even slightly.

"I had another crazy person say the exact same thing to me yesterday, oddly enough." And there was the time travel. "There's enough sane people around that I think I can manage without listening to the mad ramblings of someone who thinks monsters come out at night to eat their livers or that the government is putting drugs in their waffles." He hadn't seen that particular kid again since their first meeting, come to think of it. Maybe he was released for being too crazy to be useful.

It had even spread to Kay, which had just made Badd uncomfortable. She wasn't the most sensible of girls but even just a few days here had made her talk about time travel and people who shouldn't be able to be here.

Though he would never admit it, it was one of the other reasons that Badd flat-out refused to even consider Guy's testimony. If he started believing even a small crazy thing he might get sucked into their lies and madness and believe the entire fish story.

So it sounded like this man really was new if he hadn't even run into any monsters yet. Guy actually felt kind of bad for him. His world view was so solid at the moment, but that was bound to change soon. What was the man going to do then? He was going to have to adapt eventually, but with how sure he was of his own beliefs, it wasn't likely to be easy.

The mention about the food being drugged stood out considering what the man on the radio had said the night before. Guy still didn't know if that was what had been responsible for his friends' odd behavior, but maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that they were being deprived of breakfast now.

"Hmm, all right," he said after he'd taken some time to think it over. "In that case, I wish you good luck." There really wasn't much more to say. Any warnings he tried to give or theories he tried to discuss were going to be ignored, so at this point it was best to just focus on the task at hand and hope that this man got a reality check sooner rather than later.

"Hope you get back to your home planet," Badd sniped back. "No idea why all you people think I'm so desperate for your advice when you're the ones deliberately pissing off the guards and getting your faces beaten in." He'd heard the meatbag guy, only an obvious maniac would do something that stupid.

And now look where they were. Nobody here seemed to quite get the concept of 'undercover', save possibly Lana. She was probably the only one he could really rely on--Gumshoe was trustworthy, of course, but utterly useless half the time and you could never be sure which half it was. Badd felt sorry for the poor guy but he had priorities here.

That was really taking it too far. Guy heaved out a sigh and set down his sponge. It was one thing for the man to assume that everyone who was different from him was crazy. It was another to start flinging around accusations like that.

"I didn't participate in the food fight at all. The second I realized what was happening, I made sure to get out of the room. Please don't lump me into a group like that." The generalization that was going on was honestly pretty astounding, and it almost made Guy wish that the man hadn't walked up to him in the first place. It was pretty hard to get to him most of the time, but he was actually starting to reach the end of his rope with this man.

So it was a good thing that the same officer from earlier in the shift suddenly stalked into the middle of the room and announced that their task was done. Off to the courtyard, then? He was glad to hear it; he needed some fresh air after all this.

He glanced over at the man, wondering if he should wish him luck again, but he didn't see much point. The man hadn't accepted the sentiment in the first place, and so Guy merely wiped off his hands and headed toward one of the doors that would lead outside.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Day 55: Cafeteria

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject