damned_institute | Day 56: Intercom, Late Evening

Despite the rough start and the heavier snowfall, the buses managed to stay on route and on schedule. With minutes to spare, they arrived at the gates of Landel's Institute, back to the waiting arms of the military. All pretenses seemed to drop at this point, and the soldiers again took on their patented gruff exteriors. Patients were filed out of the buses in an orderly manner, eventually being escorted to their rooms for dinner in much the same. There, as promised by the personnel, well-behaved patients found their purchases among their returned possessions. A few even found new faces, though whether they brought as much joy as bought goods remained unseen.

The woman manning the intercom seemed to have missed the notice about the day's trip as her announcement remained no different from the usual. "Attention all subjects and personnel," she said. "Lights Out will commence within the hour."

A pause.

"I repeat, Lights Out will commence within the hour. All personnel: please report to your stations. The General will begin his address once preparations are underway. Thank you."

The intercom clicked off.

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Unfortunately, the day hadn't made Edgeworth's situation any less hazy - the answers he had received had only raised further questions, and the prosecutor was beginning to wonder if he truly had gone insane - and by the time he had been ushered back to his room he felt completely emotionally and physically exhausted. The pat down he had received hadn't been his first, but that fact hadn't made it any more pleasant - if anything, it had made him more uneasy. If night shifts required such intensive protection, why had Anise insisted that they look for items that would have been taken away immediately?

Edgeworth's streaming thoughts came to a halt as the door to a room (his room?) opened, revealing a guard and someone he assumed to be a fellow patient - a man who looked to be about the same age as he was, with hair not unlike his own, wearing an expression of deep confusion that Edgeworth was sure that he had mirrored earlier that morning - and once the prosecutor had been sufficiently herded back into the room the guard offered a final sneer to Locke before exiting the room, the heavy door shutting with a loud click.

A thick, awkward silence permeated through the room at Edgeworth scrutinized his roommate, neither taking a step towards his own bed nor towards the man himself, his brow furrowing lightly in thought as he sized up the situation. Although Edgeworth wanted nothing more in that moment but to remove the horrid clothes he had been given, the uniform remaining on his dresser didn't seem at all favorable - which brought him to the question of why this man was still dressed in a uniform, the contradiction ultimately leading Edgeworth into breaking the ice. "...did they not provide you with any other sort of attire?" he asked carefully in the hopes of hiding his ignorance on the off-chance that the man wasn't new - though the evidence he was providing with the sheer amount of incredulity and confusion on his face didn't seem to give Edgeworth much in the way of doubt.

When he saw the man he assumed to be his 'roommate' walk in, Locke was a bit disappointed. Not that he had anything against this stranger, but he'd really been hoping to see Edgar, Celes, or any of his friends, instead of this guy he didn't know. Granted, he didn't look bad, not like the guard had, but, Locke knew better than to be anything less than cautious in a place he didn't know.

He nearly said something to the guard on his way out, something akin to 'asshole' ran through his mind, but he decided last second it wasn't worth keeping the guy around any longer than it was necessary. Instead, Locke chose to be left alone with the new arrival and his severely analytical stare that quickly put Locke off. The thief was just beginning to wonder if he'd need to say something to break the ice when his cloths came into question.

"'Fraid not. That ass woke me up and I was wearing this thing, in fact, he was really very unhelpful. Don't suppose you know where they stashed my clothes? 'Military' isn't exactly my style."

...it's strange to be on the other side of the coin, Edgeworth thought before he turned away from the other man, his gaze focusing on a bowl of some sort of...odd liquid (was that intended to be food?) that was sitting on his dresser. Frowning, he moved over to the bowl, picking up the spoon sitting inside of it and stirring the mush in a semi-circle before he glanced back over at his roommate. "...I'm afraid I've no idea where they have taken your things," he admitted, dropping the spoon in the bowl, the soft sound of metal clanking against metal filling the room. "Nor do I have any idea what they've done with mine either. Do you know where you are right now?"

Locke followed the guy with his eyes, watching as he messed with a bowl of...something Locke couldn't identify. His stomach churned a little at the thought that it was supposed to be food and decided he wasn't going to be hungry for a while.

"No, I have no idea, I was kinda hopin' that asshole would tell me, but he wasn't in a talking mood. Do you know, Mr....?"

He hoped the guy would give him a name or at least a title so he'd know what to call him, Locke liked to have names for faces, even if he didn't expect to know their owners long.

"Miles Edgeworth," Edgeworth finished reflexively, his attention returning to the gruel before he gingerly picked up the bowl from the table. "I...barely have any idea where we are either, but from what I've gathered today, it seems that we are both victims of a mass abduction. This is an institute for the insane."

Casting a glance at Locke's military uniform, Edgeworth arched a brow, his right hand idly toying with the spoon in the bowl of gruel as he scrutinized the details of the uniform and its accompanying dog tag. "...the reasoning behind that uniform and the presence of soldiers here are a mystery to me, however."

Locke looked over his uniform again, finally taking notice of the dog tag resting against his chest. The name didn't look right. He grabbed it and held it out to get a closer look at what was written.

"A military insane institute...that misnames it's 'patients'. This isn't my name, in fact, I've never even heard of an 'Alex Swanson'."

He dropped it, letting it fall back into place, he looked back at Edgeworth and crossed his arms.

"Don't suppose you've got the same problem with yours?"

Moving his right hand away from the bowl, Edgeworth looped his thumb into the chain holding his dog tag, pulling it up from inside his shirt and offering a glimpse of it to his roommate. "Mine identifies me as James Harrison," he said, letting the chain fall from his thumb. "For whatever reason, it seems that separate identities have been created for us, though I haven't the faintest idea why."

Taking a step back, Edgeworth moved to sit on the edge of his bed, the bowl remaining in his hands. He knew that he needed to eat - night shift awaited them, and Edgeworth had a feeling he would require all the strength he could get - but the meal was less than appetizing, and it left him toying with the spoon a moment longer. "Would you mind telling me your real name?" he asked, moving his spoon to skim the surface of the gruel.

Locke mirrored his movement, going to sit on the bed he'd awoken in, though, without the gruel. He didn't know when he'd eat next, but he'd faced that before and it was a more comforting prospect than eating whatever that was in the bowl.

"Sorry; guess that was kinda rude of me. Locke Cole."

Between the name tags, the uniforms and the guards with a stick-up-their-asses, Locke was finding this place to be more and more unsettling. At least his roommate didn't seem so bad.

Day 56: Intercom, Late Evening

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