damned_institute | Day 55: Intercom, Evening

Snow doubled in number as the day transitioned into the evening hours. Unfortunately, none of the patients were allowed the time to enjoy the weather changes. They were instead greeted by the telltale jingle of the intercom, signaling their cue to return indoors.

Once again, they heard the voice of a familiar female. She sounded unchanged from her previous announcements, her intonation as clear and as flat as ever.

"Attention all subjects and personnel. All subjects are to return to their assigned rooms for their evening meal. Lights Out will commence shortly after."

The woman paused, seemingly for effect.

"All personnel: you are to report to your stations. Thank you."

The intercom clicked off.

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What the hell was Taylor even... Prussia hadn't expected a real answer to his question, but he certainly hadn't expected a snide one. He shot his roommate a glare, and then turned to stash the sword in the closet, where it belonged until nightfall.

"I meant now that the military's all moved in," he clarified. "They've done away with a lot of the pretense, so if there's a reason they let us out of our rooms at night and let us keep weapons, maybe they'll finally get to the point now that they're not parading this place as a hospital." He didn't expect a rush of answers from their new overseers at once—he'd be content with just clarification about what kind of 'improvements' in the prisoner population the man on the intercom last night was looking for—but any little bit would be a start.

There had been one and only one thing decent about the hospital set-up: the food. Now that the panic over the sword being out had passed, Prussia was sharply reminded that he hadn't been allowed to eat at all today, and the pink glop that he'd seen everyone eating at lunch... didn't look that great. Nevertheless, he took a seat at his desk and picked up a spoon, giving the gruel one last skeptical look before he dug in.

Gloomy and touchy. Great. Being an asshole to one's roommates worked better in a free-market economy. They were stuck with each other indefinitely, and Gil had just stopped fondling a sword.

"I did have a point. Field trip tomorrow. Time before last there was blood everywhere. Cloudy with a chance of zombies." He licked a finger and stuck it up in the air, unscientifically testing non-existent wind.

"You think they're going to still drag us down there? The change of scenery did them all good in the classic psychological bullshit ways. Too much of the same walls and they'd all be crazy, soldiers included.

He'd heard something about the 'zombies' before, but if that really had happened, it had been before his arrival... and he hadn't heard anything about 'blood everywhere'. Still, the mention of the events—and especially the fact that Taylor had been getting at something instead of just being flippant—did a lot to even out Prussia's temper. Were those kinds of things connected to going to town? When he'd been there last week, there had been that weird teleporting after getting back...

The pink gruel, on the other hand, was even worse than he'd been expecting. He grimaced as he swallowed, and then paused before going for another spoonful, glancing over at Taylor.

"Maybe. I would think the soldiers are even less concerned about potential escape than the nurses were... And unlike the nurses, they could just shoot whoever tries to make a break for it." Their guards today had certainly been heavily armed enough that just a few of them positioned around town would do a lot to discourage would-be escapees. "I guess it'll depend on what their plans for us are."

"Kinda blew the lid right off the loony-bin cover story. Guess they don't need a better one." Guns were pretty fucking persuasive. About the only things that worked against them was money and lawsuits. The first was harder to come by than guns, and the latter was a problem of jurisdiction.

The surfeit of lawyers might turn into a feeding frenzy if they ever got a shot. Cops, too. They'd have to take turns putting handcuffs on whoever was in the hot seat when they finally got there. Landel, probably. What the fuck was an administrator good for if you couldn't turn him into a scapegoat -- that's how they all thought.

"Just hope we're more use alive." Depressing thought. "And maybe the townies won't like being invaded any more than we did."

Prussia gave a short laugh at the mention of the old cover story. "The 'loony-bin' story was never a very convincing one to start with," he commented, his lips finally starting to spread into a grin. "At least this new set-up makes a lot more sense."

Granted, he still wasn't sure what this military was after—maybe they were all shanghaied recruits like he'd speculated earlier, or maybe they were just prisoners, or maybe there was some other goal entirely—but now that the old game of make-believe was over, if they weren't of any use alive, they'd probably be finding that out sooner rather than later. There was that thing in the broadcast last night about getting back their investments, but there had also been the gas yesterday...

An uncomfortable feeling found its way into the pit of his stomach, and Prussia was suddenly reminded of why he had wanted to talk to West so badly.

"Everyone would already be dead if they wanted us dead," he added hurriedly, trying to convince himself of it. "It's not like they haven't had the chance."

The thought of how the townspeople would react to the new military presence was an interesting one... "Do you think the townsfolk even know that this isn't really a hospital? They sure were acting like it was before."

Yeah. Shit, if they didn't want live lab rats they wouldn't have beamed them all in here in the first place. Whatever the plan was, it ran on breathing victims, not congealing tissue cultures. The mental hospital story lasted exactly as long as it took the sun to set. Maybe a little longer, if the dream bullshit on the bulletin was too subtle for some of the elementary-school set.

"Never let on, if they did." He yawned and stretched. "Except for, you know, turning into flesh-eating monsters at night, getting themselves smeared all over town, and then coming back to life. The usual."

"They don't notice a lot of things. I don't just mean the usual boob-tube junkie misinformation. Take a good look around town. See what isn't there." Post office. Library. School. The stores were straight off a Hollywood middle-America set, but half the things a real town needed had been forgotten. If the patients couldn't kill a few hours hanging out in it, it just didn't exist. The entire town had about as much life in it as Astroturf. A few bacteria here and there, maybe some mildew.

Taylor certainly had a confusing way of putting things, but his answer about the townsfolk caught Prussia's attention.

Something was seriously weird about that town. Taylor was right about things being missing—he hadn't given much thought to anything beyond the missing books, but there could have been a lot more, too. If they did go back, he was going to have a good look around (hopefully without the rain this time).

"They didn't have any history books," he said, staring at his gruel. "Or—periodicals. Not that I could find, at least."

He finally shoved aside the gruel, and turned towards Taylor. "But what the hell did you mean before? The people in town... turned into monsters?" Maybe it was metaphorical. Maybe Taylor was just joking. Something like that was really unbelievable, and Prussia wasn't going to buy it.

...Not without explanation, at least.

Edited 2011-04-03 23:34 (UTC)

S.T. hadn't gone through the bookshelves, but he'd spent half a day, that first time, trying to track down a Doyleton Gazette or whatever passed for local news.

NOTED GENERAL UHERS IN NEW ERA AT INSTITUTE: WILL PEACE PREVAIL?

Not a fucking chance. Only question was whether the townies liked the new bastard better than the old bastard.

"Yeah. Night fell, and everyone went all George Romero. We took down a lot of them.

"They were back the next week." There was undead and there was un-dead. Pavement-streaked zombies back to nothing more biting than sarcastic comments about the lunatics when they knew damn well three of them were in the store. Etc.

Edited 2011-04-07 02:03 (UTC)

Day 55: Intercom, Evening

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