Day 55: Cafeteria

[tightsofmight]

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!]

Comments

/applause

[gald_digger]

When someone answered the question that had been directed at nobody, Anise froze. Somebody heard her talking like that? Ack... Anise wasn't supposed to show that side of herself to others, especially not to strangers!

Eager to cover up her little slip-up, Anise snatched one of the buckets of soap water and shot up to her full height, making the water slosh precariously against the edges of the bucket. To the man who'd replied to her, she offered a sweet, cutesy smile. "Eheh... I guess that's true. They're pretty scary, huh?"

It was then that she got a look at the stranger, with his thin build and dark circles under his eyes. His posture kind of sucked, too. He didn't look like the healthiest guy, to be sure. His uniform was the same one that Anise and all the other patients had been forced into, but she found her eyes drawn to the little badge on his hat. M-U...?

"Hey, you got one too!" Anise tapped one of the pins on her own beret to show what she was talking about. It seemed like some patients had none, some had one, and a few had two like she did... so they probably meant something. "What do you suppose they're for?" If she'd had more than a second or two to look at her own, Anise might have been able to decipher them, but with so much to take in this morning, and the hurry that the soldiers were in, it was only now that she had a chance to think about it.

[ryuuzaki]

L watched the girl snatch up a bucket, a simpering smile materializing on her face. Early teens, dark hair in pigtails. He had the impression, supported by her hairstyle, that the look she aimed at him had been calculated for maximum innocence and adorability. He resisted the impulse to offer an equally fake smile in return; in a lighter mood, a less fraught situation, he might have gone through with it. It was his first moment of amusement in a while.

"Scary?" L's gaze slid to the side, to the nearest line of soldiers. "I don't know about that. Are you afraid of them?" If she was, she wouldn't have said what she said. She resents them, but she isn't afraid--not yet. "There's a difference between wariness and fear, hm?"

He moved towards a table, preparing to wipe it. This was a more tedious exercise than regular grunt work would have been; the cafeteria wasn't very dirty to begin with. Amazing that they had been issued real cleaning supplies rather than old toothbrushes, since the goal seemed to be to bring the patients to their knees in a literal way.

"The pins? I can't be sure." He had gleaned that his own pin probably referred to the sleep study after glancing at other patients as they were marched through the halls. Some of their pins said "SC," which had only one meaning, and which was something that happened at night. The sleep studies were listed on the weekly schedule as CM-US, and also happened at night, so it had led him to the conclusion that the pin on his beret referred to the implantation of the device in his brain, and the sophisticated mind games that had been part of the procedure.

The girl also had a pin that said "SC," which meant there was more to her than her unprepossessing appearance; it hinted at why she might not fear the soldiers. The other pin she wore depicted a sword and shield. "I think you've been a Special Counseling patient." He didn't phrase it as a question. "Have you done anything at night that involved a sword and a shield?"

A glance across the room showed him that Edgar was talking to Lunge. Good.

[gald_digger]

Are you afraid of them? Anise tilted her head, somewhat surprised at the question. "Well, yeah..." Didn't he believe her? Anise was laying the cuteness on pretty thick, too... "I mean, that thing with the gas yesterday was pretty scary, right?" Maybe that didn't mean she was always scared of them, but being scared sometimes was still technically being scared.

When the man started cleaning a table, Anise took the other side of the same table, keeping herself within talking distance. Her eyes widened when he guessed that she had been taken for special counseling, and after a moment, she nodded and lowered her head, looking down at the surface she was scrubbing.

So was his pin for something similar? Anise had to think about it a little, but she did kind of remember the experiments having a name with those letters in it... That was something people usually didn't like to talk about, though, so she didn't bring it up. She didn't have much of a chance to, anyway, because the stranger was quick to ask another question.

A sword and a shield...

At first, Anise hadn't thought much about it, since a sword and a shield tended to be a universal symbol for any kind of combat, or even a weapon shop or something. But with the way this guy worded his question, she realized it could have a more literal meaning.

The sword and the shield in the basement!

Those two artifacts that Sync had dragged her along to find. For a moment, Anise's breathing stopped, and her scrubbing came to a pause too. The things she experienced down there were sure to haunt her for a long time... but she couldn't talk about them. If she couldn't warn people about the worst part of the basement, it was best not to share any information at all. Looking up from the table, Anise tilted her head once again and hummed, as if she was still trying to remember.

"No, I don't think so. It's probably symbolic or something." It was a lie, but there were some times when lying really was the best thing for everyone. At least, Anise believed so.

[ryuuzaki]

"I wouldn't know," he replied, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of his voice. "I wasn't here." After a pause, he added, "I can't say that I found it comforting."

He held the cleaning rag at arm's length, using his fingertips to swirl it on the table. I shouldn't have to do these things myself, he thought. He was capable, in that he was able-bodied, but it brought his firm opinion back into focus: his skills were being wasted here, in what seemed to be training for work for which he had no real aptitude or interest. No one would ever look at him and think that he was a good candidate for any kind of on-the-ground combat (Is that what they want us for?), let alone petty custodial duties, but apart from that, he was better at issuing orders than following them.

Landel might be a childish control freak, but if Aguilar was squandering L's time and energy in this way, there was at least one level on which the General was the greater fool.

When L asked the girl about the sword and shield, she was obviously taken aback. Her motion slowed, and she seemed to hold her breath; then, she paused to think of something to say.

L felt a sharp pain in his head when she spoke again, so sharp that he winced and lost his grip on the cleaning rag. The bucket, resting on a seat, would have fallen to the ground and splashed everywhere if he had still been holding it. His vision narrowed to tunnels with what seemed like shimmering around the edges. Migraine aura, he supposed, and recognized it as one of the promised effects of the experiment. If this happens to me while I'm eating, I'm in trouble. He felt nauseated even on an empty stomach.

He couldn't focus well yet, as the pain receded, but he did his best to level the girl with a long, troubled stare. "You're lying to me," he said, weary. "Why?"

A sharp glance from a nearby soldier caused him to collect his rag and start wiping again.

[gald_digger]

He wasn't here? Could he be new? That didn't really seem right, though, especially if he had one of those badge things. He was probably just lucky enough to sleep through that morning.

Anise expected her little fib to go unnoticed, but what she definitely didn't expect was for the guy to flinch and freeze up, like he was in a lot of pain. "H-hey, are you okay!?" Dropping her own rag, Anise rushed to the other side of the table. Considering her first impression of him was that he looked almost sickly, it wouldn't surprise her if he did have health problems... but what was that? A headache?

Before she reached him, however, he looked back to her with an odd, suspicious look; one that made her stop in her tracks.

You're lying to me. He couldn't really know that. How could he say that with such conviction? And shouldn't he be worrying about himself? Whatever that was just now, it looked like it really hurt.

Anise's face was a mixture of concern, confusion, and defensiveness as she tried to deny the accusation. "What are you talking about? That's weird. Why would I lie about something like that?" In the end, she just parroted his own question back to him. Actually answering it would have been an admission of guilt, after all.