Day 56: Bus 1

[tightsofmight]

Previously, on Peter Parker's Sucky Life:

Pain, pain, fourth wall bulldozing, fire and pain, and teeny useless swords.

Yeah, so Peter wasn't feeling so hot today. It was a marked improvement on waking up after getting shanked by Grell, but this was in no way a good morning. They had all made it through the basement trials and got their dinky rewards, but man did they pay a hefty price for it. All of them. (Scott and the others had to fight robot raptors? What the hell...) Peter rose from his bed oh so delicately and with much wincing, thanking whoever it was that carried them back to bed every night for putting him belly down on his mattress.

His back, oh god. Peter seethed and hissed and grunted in pain. It felt like it was scabbing over, and the bandages yanked at the tender skin with every minute muscle spasm, every move he made. Cripes. Better his back than his arms or legs, but still. It was going to make things so difficult if they got stuck in Doyleton all over again.

Brainy was so thoroughly wrapped in his blankets on the other side of the room that Peter couldn't make heads or tails of his current state. But he'd stayed in the whole night, right? He should be fine.

Sometimes he just needed extra convincing of that. Considering the guy's track record and all.

From the sounds of it, this Aguilar guy wasn't changing too much of the routine. Being field trip day, Peter had wondered how the new man in charge would handle it (or how General Lieutenant Burger would, apparently). If he planned on letting them out at all. The announcement squashed that theory, and so did the orderly tromping in with a second-hand change of clothes. The burly man passed him the goods without so much as a word, stomping right back outside to wait behind the door. Guess they weren't going in military gear.

...Orderly? Peter pushed the door open again after performing the hastiest change of clothes he could manage in his state, peering at the man. That guy was in an army uniform yesterday. He remembered him. His buzz cut was uneven and he had a pointy old mole on the back of his neck.

"Uh. Are you going incognito?"

He was suddenly on the end of such a pointed look Peter could swear he was talking to Nick Fury. If Nick Fury was white and still had both eyes. "...Right. Okay. Lead the way, hombre."

So undercover it was. The people of Doyleton didn't know this was a military operation. Briefly, he wondered what the advantages of revealing that to the townsfolk could be, but then he remembered how they'd all up and morphed into the living dead at sundown. Put to rest any usefulness they might have had. They were just puppets, the same as the rest of the creepy crawlies in this hellhole.

Though that did beg the question as to why you would have to hide your secrets from puppets in the first place.

He was bequeathed with the usual paper bag lunch and packet of coupons, though he was still surprised to find himself a $15 gift card in the mix. Intercom Dude wasn't kidding about that?

He had money?

...What would he even do with money in Doyleton? What was fifteen dollars and worth buying that wasn't a gourmet burger? Peter boggled at the card as he clambered onto the bus. He'd never gone through the town with any inclination to window shop, so he couldn't even say what was available. He might actually have to look around. Even something simple might be a big help.

The orderly-formerly-known-as-Private-Dwight followed him on tucked a pillow into his seat for him. "Sit down. And don't do anything stupid. You'll heal a lot faster if you don't agitate it."

Peter fidgeted, but quietly settled into the pillow. This was kind of awkward. "Um. Thank you. I deeply appreciate your concern." The man nodded, and was gone.

Peter was the only one on the bus so far. The emptiness was kind of creeping him out.

[Reserved for Harvey Dent. WHY AM I TOP POSTING EVERYTHING YOU JERKS.]

Comments

[lovecraftcomplex]

"It's difficult to be certain." He'd been asleep when she'd climbed on the bus, after all. "More than five minutes, less than thirty." That assumed the reveille had been universal, but nothing she'd seen had suggested anything but linear time.

"I take it we're awake now?" It was a measure of adaptability, or a tendency towards psychosis, that this had become a normal question. Her world was gone; survival rested on deciphering the arcane workings of this game, starting with anything and everything she could interrogate, psychoanalyze, dismantle, or blow up. Since she was equipped only with breakfast and her own cunning, the former two would have to suffice.

[falseblack]

More than five, less than thirty. Certainly, he had expended more than he had allotted himself, but at least the amount wasn't overkill. (Six hours, for instance.) Nigredo slid a finger against his temple, quietly noting that the girl's eyes held a similar hue to Albedo's. She was also notably taller, much like everyone else in the world. "Thank you," he said, regaining his polite tone.

"Yes. Otherwise, I would be sleeping for hours," Nigredo continued. He yawned and transferred a hand to cover his open mouth. Yawning in general was impolite, but by now, the boy had learned to disregard certain manners for necessities. Hopefully, his seat companion didn't mind. "Excuse me," he muttered afterward. Just in case she did.

[lovecraftcomplex]

"Do you think we have hours?" If she'd been awake before, and was awake now, how long had she been asleep? Did they have time to fritter away on taking this circuitous route of conversation and bus riding? Was a timer ticking away behind a seat or in a lunch bag, only to appear with timing so precisely awful it could only have been fore-ordained?

The kid -- she thought of him that way, though he couldn't be much her junior, if at all -- was too polite to align with her limited experience with Time players and/or trolls, but they'd been too busy working out the details of their own session to worry about the grand workings of the general case. This...may have been an oversight.

Nevertheless, there were things more pressing than psychoanalyzing her seatmate. Recreation took a back seat to survival, at least when she couldn't multi-task.

"Scratch that." Speculation was less useful than fact; she could draw her own conclusions. "Do you know where we are? Where we're going?" And why are we in this handbasket, Lalonde? Bluh. Just when they'd started to get a handle on this game, it all got blown out of the air in spectacular fashion, and she was starting from scratch, her only ally (so far) one of the damn trolls.

Next up was where she could find a replacement laptop and an internet connection, but she hadn't seen a shred of technology since she'd arrived here. John and the others were just going to have to wait.

[falseblack]

Nigredo couldn't tell if she aimed the question to be sarcastic or not. From the way it was presented, however, it seemed pretty unlikely. She was probably a new arrival; available time was typically disregarded by older patients. The query, therefore, fit the hypothesis. "I don't know," he answered truthfully. "Time flows strangely here. 'Sometimes it feels like weeks before the next day arrives, and at times, you can sleep for days at a time with no reason.'" Quoting Sync was unwanted, but unfortunately, it happened to be the best explanation. Fortunately, the girl decided to shift subjects, allowing Nigredo throw aside the disgust that churned beneath his calm visage.

She was indeed quite new, at least new enough to have never gone on this weekly venture. The boy tipped his head to the front as he prepared the standard explanation. "Unfortunately, yes," he began. "Right now, we're sitting on a bus in front of Landel's Institute. Soon, we'll be going to a nearby town they call Doyleton."

On cue, the bus's engine started and began to slowly roll out. Nigredo ignored the fact to point out the obvious. "I take it that you just arrived."

[lovecraftcomplex]

Sarcasm was usually a safe assumption when Rose was speaking, but it had been a genuine question. Uncontrollable narcolepsy seemed pretty normal, but it was odd that he didn't remember it, or find meaning in the patterns. There'd been reasons, though not always good ones, when she'd fallen asleep, and Jade had her own methods of coping.

Landel's Institute. Doyleton. Neither of those were familiar. Where was Google when she needed it? Nevertheless, she tucked away the names for further research.

"That would be an astute observation." Now the sarcasm was unmistakable. "I take it you didn't?"

[falseblack]

She probably didn't believe him. Who could blame her? The place changed enough that from his vantage, what cemented eventually came undone. Though, that deadpanned sarcasm came off a level or two closer to insulting, even as he deserved it. Now, why was that so eerily familiar?

"Correct," Nigredo replied, his voice bland. "I can answer any questions you have if you'd like." They had the first part of the morning to do so, after all. It would be better than sitting in awkward silence as the boy tried to figure out exactly what about her was somewhat recognizable.

[lovecraftcomplex]

She opened the journal she'd been given to a clean page. They were all clean pages, due to the information-parched desert they stood upon, but no matter.

Where to begin? It seemed time was not, extraordinarily, of the essence. "Why don't you begin at the beginning. Namely, how you arrived here?"

She went to put a subject line on the page -- Morning 1: Interview with ____ ______, when an oversight reared its ugly head. "Ah, please forgive my dreadful lapse in manners." Was that laying it on too thick? Perhaps. "My name is Rose Lalonde."

[falseblack]

...This had the feeling of formality. Note-taking usually brought that, though Nigredo conceded his assessment was a little unfair. He wasn't used to the idea, he supposed. The fact that most needed a reminder of what had transpired. In contrast, the boy could remember anything with minimal effort, as far as awareness was active.

He watched quietly as Rose set to work with her writing and her question. "I'm Nigredo." Just Nigredo. It was not worth throwing out his proper name. "To be honest, I don't know how I arrived. I was unconscious during the transition." He sighed inwardly. Delving into the full story was simply setting up for unwanted inquires. By now, he understood. Many did not appreciate child soldiers. "Before here, I was...traveling with my family."

That was one way to explain the Conflict.

[lovecraftcomplex]

To say that wasn't exactly what Rose had expected to hear would be a vast understatement. The vastness of which she was perfectly positioned to measure. If she had the time. Which she didn't.

She made a few notes, though what use they would be was uncertain.

Nigredo. transition between waking and sleep -- coincidence? family (multiple guardians?) There was a gold mine there, from that ever-so-fleeting hesitation. Just the barest hiccup in the warp and weft of conversation, a tiny snag from which entire armies could be unraveled. Pity she didn't have the time to aim her pointed questions towards that inscrutable aperture.

"I'd love to find out why your family sparks such a defensive reaction. But I'm afraid that's going to have to wait. Meteors, end of the world, you know. Sound familiar?" She gave that remark only enough time to add a little dramatics, before continuing. Nigredo's hair, in contrast to his reserved demeanor, was reminding her of something.

"Actually, I was wondering where I could find a laptop. I should check on John before he runs off and does something rash. Again."

[falseblack]

Oh. No wonder. Rose bore a striking metaphorical resemblance to Citrine (granted, the short blonde hair didn't help dissuade that image), and Nigredo had to suppress a groan. Love his sister, he did without hesitation, but there were reasons he could not spend all of his time with her like he could with Rubedo and Albedo. One of them being annoyingly accurate observations and the lack of delay in delivering the facts.

Thankfully, the girl didn't seem to want to discuss his slip-up in detail. The variant was more than happy to oblige with the subject change. Happy, except her next words did not exactly make much sense. Meteors were a common phenomena across the Federation while the "end of the world" had occurred thousands of years in the past.

Or in the future, whichever. Nigredo could hardly tell the difference anymore.

"No, it doesn't," he answered evenly. Not in his lifetime, at least. Her next statement made no more sense than the last but for other reasons. Nigredo blinked, his mind scanning memories and ultimately finding nothing. "What do you mean by 'laptop'?" Was that some sort of obscure device?

[lovecraftcomplex]

Huh. That was interesting. From the notes she'd compared with the people she was increasingly willing to give some credence to their alternate-universe hypothesis, the meteors weren't optional.

Were some of them locals? Or could the game manifest itself to technologically challenged populations? Some sort of collaborative storytelling, perhaps?

Maybe it was just a difficulty with vocabulary.

"Laptop? You see, there are these little boxes in which electrons go whirling around and in this migratory dance we call the internet, occasionally people talk to each other. Sometimes they even call each other friends."

Not that she knew his number offhand. It was saved on her phone. And her laptop. Obviously.

[falseblack]

Obscure happened to be the correct assessment. The description brought to mind the devices that existed before connection gears, in an era where holographic interface and the U.M.N. had yet to surface. Nigredo was vaguely tempted to mention something about history and the thousands of years between them, but he figured that would be rude. As long as he understood what she meant, the details supposedly didn't matter. It would only serve to confuse, no?

Even if he was tempted...

"Oh, I see what you mean," Nigredo stated simply. "No, you won't find those here. If you did, I doubt our caretakers would let you touch them." The child crossed his arms and leaned back against the seat. "They're not fond of communication to the outside world." Whatever "outside world" happened to be.

[lovecraftcomplex]

Offshoot reality was looking more and more likely. Oh, fuck. How many of these were there, before they could get back to playing properly? Maybe they'd all gotten stacked here, some timenexus clusterbomb of ultimate plotdigression nonsense. That sounded about right.

If that was the case, she had some exploring to do.

Alternatively, this kid was lying either of his own accord or on the sufferance of their captors.

The next question would not tell her which it was, but it would serve either way.

"Do you know what they are fond of us doing? Is there a purpose to this trip, or is it more window dressing?"

[falseblack]

He watched her for a long minute as the bus rumbled in its movements, green eyes vacant for a boy deep in thought. Rose's question should have been uncomplicated, but Nigredo couldn't help the pause. What did they praise in regards to their actions? General Aguilar had his own appraisal for the patient body, but Dr. Landel... How was the child supposed to explain something he would likely never know?

"Do I know?" he repeated, apathetic. "Not really. They haven't given much away, and what they tell us are contradictions." Dramatic. His brother was seeping into his phrases. "I don't even know why we're going on this trip."

Nigredo sighed, closing his eyes briefly. "They probably want to keep up appearances by making us go to Doyleton," he finally said. "We're supposed to be mental patients in this world, after all."