Day 56: Intercom, Late Evening

[damned-intercom.livejournal.com]

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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[lovecraftcomplex]

There was another girl, about her age, sounding about as confused as Rose had felt all day.

She'd just jumped out at her like she was expecting a ghastly doombeast. This was kind of embarrassing. One hand went to her throat.

"Neither do you. They've taken it along with everything else. Or so I have gathered." Total reset. Everyone back to square one. It wasn't anything like waking up on LOLAR. It wasn't anything like waking up at all, if her previous experiences waking up could be called normal.

This was a subject of heated debate. Her dreams had confounded many a lesser psychologist. Good thing she had a ringside seat.

"Did you just wake up?" Newness would explain the confusion. So would a number of intellectual deficits, but she could afford to be generous.

[unit67.livejournal.com]

Lily gasped as her hand went to her neck, but it was just as the other girl had said: no cool touch of metal, no hard edges. Her fingers remained there for much longer than might have seemed reasonable to someone who hadn't spent their whole lives bound by the collar, but her own skin was something she'd never felt. Soft, like all skin. She swallowed, aware of each small muscle, and her hand found scar tissue at the back of her neck. Nothing unusual there: she knew the rough white line that traced down the skin over her synthetic spine and up past her hairline. But the collar...

If it was gone, why could she still hear the quiet murmuring of the dark voice?

Instead of the collar, she touched two thin chains: one made of very small connected metal beads and dangling a silver tag, while the other was smooth to the touch. Lily tried to look at it, but it wasn't long enough to see and didn't fit over her head. She wanted a mirror. She wanted to know what she looked like without the thick band of steel.

"They took it?" she asked, hand still at the side of her neck. Her small voice was filled with wonder; Lily obviously held no grudge over the theft. "Who?"

She didn't think the collar could be removed--not without killing her. But Lily was dysfunctional, perhaps incompatible, and they might have removed it for that purpose, to free her from the wakeless fits and blood. The thought was absurd, though. All of the children would be killing practice for the next generation, just like the generation before had been killing practice for them.

"Yeah," Lily said softly, answering the second question as she looked around the white room. "What is this place? Where are the others?"

[lovecraftcomplex]

A collar? She'd encountered stranger fashion choices before, but the girl didn't seem upset at the loss. Quite the opposite. Like she'd been set free. Entirely, thoroughly, just like that. Fascinating.

"In order, yes, the minions of a man known as General Aguilar, a pale imitation of a psychiatric institution, and I don't know."

She made a conscious effort to smile, and waited until she thought the girl had matched answers back to questions. This was easier over PesterChum. "I'm Rose Lalonde. What's your name?"

[unit67.livejournal.com]

It did take Lily a few seconds to connect all of the answers to their questions, and once she'd accomplished the task, her expression of confusion remained until it broke into a grin. Rose Lalonde. She was friendly, maybe even a friend. At the very least, she seemed willing to help Lily understand, and Lily quickly forgot how strange it was to meet someone she hadn't known for her entire life.

"I'm Lily," she said. Was she supposed to have two names too? Lily looked up briefly as she considered it, but despite her efforts, couldn't come up with anything else to offer. They were both named after flowers, she thought. She wondered what a rose looked like.

General Aguilar. The name meant nothing in itself, but she understood that it could signify some kind of overthrow, something important. Lily felt a vague affection toward the man who'd removed her collar, but she recognized the emotion as childish. After all, the voice in her mind remained, and she didn't know what had become of the others.

Lily shifted her weight anxiously. "I have to find my friends," she explained. "Something might have happened."

[lovecraftcomplex]

"I think we can categorically say that, indeed, something has happened. The question remains, was it supposed to happen? Will it keep happening?" She gave the question a moment's mock consideration.

"I haven't been able to find my friends, either. They haven't shown up here, and I haven't been able to get a computer or a connection." This troubled her more than she was willing to let on; they were all helpless without her advice. Except maybe Jade, who sometimes knew a lot more than her silly demeanor might suggest.

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