damned_institute | Day 57: Game Room (Third Shift)

Tifa poked her head in every room down the wall of the Sun Room to find Scott. She needed his room number to openly pilfer the remains of his juice horde. Brunch had been much too distracting to focus on one man when she had booze to discuss with two odd boys.

She tried the Music Room first since that was where they had first met, but it was empty. The Sun Room wasn't very crowded either what with half the patients out in the lobbies waiting for visitors--Oh shit! Maybe he was one of them! Well, if she came across him, awesome. If not, there was always another time to try.

The last room was checked and, "Oh, hey!" There was actually someone in there! It wasn't Scotty, but Zack was just as nice. Tifa moved out of the doorway to get a better look of more than just his porcupine hair. "Meeting someone in here?" she asked, but she figured it was a no what with the single-player came in front of him.

"God, that looks depressing. I'll play with you," she suggested, already gloomy just watching a grown man play by himself.

As he'd guessed, it didn't take long for someone else to enter the room, though he hadn't expected it to be someone he knew. Zack stopped with his dealing and turned in his seat to watch as Tifa walked over. Cloud had said that she was doing fine and that seemed to be the case, which Zack was glad to see.

"Hey," he greeted her. "Nah, I was just looking for something to do." Though now that she mentioned it, sitting alone in a room and playing a game by himself wasn't exactly the most uplifting thing. Good thing she had come to join him.

When she offered to play, he nodded and collected the cards from where they had been spread out on the table, shuffling them once more. "What did you want to play?" He realized that they were once again avoiding everything that they'd heard on that night on Doyleton, but...

Well, now would be the perfect time to discuss it, since they actually had some privacy and they weren't in danger of being eaten by any monsters. He figured that they could work up to it, though.

She took a seat opposite him, crossing her arms on the top of the plastic table. Now, sitting with him, Tifa felt like a fool for making a big deal out of that one night in Doyleton. It was impossible not to feel embarrassed, but avoiding him had not been the right option. She was an adult after all, and adults couldn't play these kinds of games. It needed to be rectified, and now was better than later.

But it didn't have to be now now. Maybe Zack would be better at picking this up--Okay! Maybe just a few rounds of cards and then it would be a good time.

"Good question. I can't remember the last time I played cards... Okay, I think I remember Go Fish, or poker. Poker always works, I guess. Too bad we don't have anything to bet with..." She checked her person and placed the spoils of her efforts onto the table. "I have... one 'aspirin.'" It was supposed to be taken during brunch, but she forgot. "Play your cars right and it could be all yours..."

Edited 2011-07-01 03:27 (UTC)

"Go Fish gets boring pretty fast," Zack replied with a strained smile. Luckily they had another option, seeing how Tifa also knew how to play poker. She was right about the fact that they couldn't bet, which took a lot of the fun out of it, but they could make do.

He frowned when she emptied out a pill onto the table, staring at it for a second or two before meeting the girl's eyes. "Shouldn't you be taking that instead of betting it?" It was in his nature to worry, even if Tifa wasn't and had never been his responsibility. He didn't know if she had it leftover from another time or if there was a wound hidden under her uniform, but either way, it wasn't something she should be tossing away.

"Look, we can bet with imaginary Gil." If they'd had a sheet of paper and a pen, they could have kept track that way, but alas -- they were just going to have to use their imaginations. Though man, now that Zack thought about it, he would have given a lot to have some Gil in hand again. Not because he needed the money, but for the novelty of it. Those magnetized cards just weren't the same.

"I don't like the way it feels... Makes me kinda fuzzy." Which was partially true. After that nice tear gas incident and the new regime change, Tifa wasn't so trusting in any of the medication they began handing out, especially if that rumor about their meal being drugged a few nights back. The bulletin board was chalked full of a lot of crazy ideas, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Regardless, Tifa took it off the table in case a passing "nurse" came along and saw it. She could be accused of selling drugs and then where would that put Zack? He had gotten in trouble once already for her, it didn't need to be repeated.

"That works! Want me to deal?" Tifa was rather certain which way this would go: Zack was going to rake her across the hot coals with that boyish grin of his.

"Fuzzy? I guess so, but better that than being in pain, I'd say. Are you all right?" Tifa was trying to pass this off like it was nothing, but they didn't even have a Cure materia here. Well, there was possibly one that was in Taura's possession, but he didn't have any claim to it, so that didn't help much.

Either way, the girl took the pill back, and while that wasn't a promise that she was going to take it, at least she wasn't trying to pawn it off anymore. When she asked about dealing, Zack quit shuffling and slid the deck across the table to her.

The room was still empty, giving them the perfect chance to talk. The question was how to bring it up, and in the end Zack settled on something else entirely -- something still important, and yet totally unrelated. "Have you seen Yuffie recently? She's usually all over the bulletin board, but not so much these past couple of days..."

"No, I'm fine!" she asserted with her usual serenity. A hand came up to brush the nice blueing bruise that painted her forehead. It was still a bit sensitive, but her nausea and blurred vision had vanished once she had a night's sleep. Now it was simply a headache, and Tifa was fine to let it simmer behind her eyes.

"Head just kinda hurts a bit. I ran into something last night, which will teach me not to forget my flashlight again." It was truth enough that she thought Zack wasn't likely to poke. If he did, well, she would tell him, but either way the deed was done. There was no point in concerning him over her own stupidity, so Zack's change of subjects was welcomed and was jumped on eagerly.

"Yeah I noticed too. Someone even wrote a note to her on the bulletin today and she hasn't responded. It seems hard to believe she would be... gone." Her eyes looked through Zack and quickly readjusted. There was no point in worrying over something that wasn't certain yet. "Maybe she got put in solitary? I mean, I can't see Yuffie just rolling over for these SOLDIERs. Once was enough for me, maybe she hasn't hit that conclusion yet..."

For a second Zack thought that Tifa meant that she had run into a monster and had been injured and he was about to ask for more details, but as she continued to explain he realized that she'd ran into something. That was bound to happen without a flashlight, and while he could have commented on it, he figured it was best to save the girl the embarrassment. He remembered his bad luck from a few nights ago and how he'd constantly been running into things and tripping over himself; he understood how it felt.

An unanswered note seemed even more worrisome, though Zack was willing to hear out Tifa's theory. The military seemed more harsh with their punishments, so if the ninja girl had really kicked up a fuss then it would make sense that she'd been out of contact for a while. "Could be," he said with a nod. "I'll put up another note for her tomorrow just in case."

He was going to try to not let it bother him too much, even though he was already fearing the worst. For now, though, he had Tifa here with him and he needed to focus on that. He waited for her to deal, leaning back in his seat. "Anyway, I wanted to let you know," he started, hoping that he could get the words out, "about what happened in Doyleton and all that... No hard feelings, all right? None of that was our fault, so..."

It hadn't been the best lead-in, but it was something. He'd at least brought it up.

"Sounds good," Tifa encouraged. She considered asking one of the nurses about her friend's whereabouts, but Tifa wasn't too confident in the answer she would be given. This place was one big conspiracy, and now with the military mutiny, it didn't seem likely she could trust anything they said. The senior officers seemed a bit more upfront about their intentions when compared to Landel and his ignorant cast of nurses; however, that didn't make her feel much better. It seemed their hopes would all be placed on Zack's note.

With little else to add to the sudden silence of their loud-mouthed comrade, the young woman finished shuffling the deck and began flinging Zack a set of five cards. Tifa felt fortunate to have something to focus her eyes on besides her friend now that he brought up the other order of business they needed to get off their chests and out in the open. Her heart beat a bit faster, but she kept her face peaceful, as usual.

Once both hands were dealt, Tifa carefully placed the deck in between them and finally acknowledged him. "Yeah... Yeah, no hard feelings. I'm... sorry we put this off so long..." she amended, knowing it was she who allowed this thing to sit between them. "It's just all the more reason we gotta get out of here, right? Anytime you need help, you know... I'll try not to freak out on you next time, okay?" Now, it was okay to laugh at it. Still, she shook her head, remembering how disturbed she had felt when that little girl pawed Zack. He was probably just as scarred by the sight.

It was really for the best that they were having this conversation while doing something else. It meant that it wasn't nearly as tense as if they had just been sitting there, staring at each other and trying to talk this out. Zack took the five cards that he was dealt, finding that he had no pairs but might be lucky and get a straight if he discarded two cards. He decided to think on it a little longer, though, especially since Tifa spoke up soon after and pulled his attention away from the game.

"Hey, don't apologize for that. Both of us were putting it off." Instead they'd decided to get into a food fight and put into solitary. Zack still had no regrets about what he'd done then, even if it meant he'd suffered the day after. Still, it did mean that they had let this go for far too long, and he was glad that they now had this chance, even if it was still kind of awkward.

"You didn't freak out on me," he said with a shake of his head. "I mean... considering the circumstances, I really can't blame you for how you reacted." He had barely kept his composure in response to the things that his shadow had said, after all. "Also, I never really got to bring this up with you before, but Cloud told me about how you helped him find himself again. You know, after I..." Died. Even though he'd come to terms with it as much as one could, it was hard to say the word right then. "What I'm trying to say is... thank you for being there for him when I couldn't." He offered a sad smile, as he'd never wanted Cloud to suffer that way and he wished he'd been there to help. It just hadn't been in the cards.

Speaking of cards, he pulled out two and set them on the table face down, nodding to Tifa to indicate that she could collect them.

Given the option of free time in a place he didn't know was just a mistake waiting to happen. And he was supposed to choose pretty quickly, from the way the man escorting him around was acting. Mikado glanced nervously at the man who at the moment was towering over him in some sort of glower. Of the same stock as Simon.... Though Simon never eluded such clear hostility. "Uh...."

As if Mikado had the mind for it at the moment. A mental institution? That the military was involved in? Experiments, fighting.... Sadly, it was all pretty believable when taken from a certain standpoint, but really. Where had all of this come from? Peter had had a lot to say but the man hadn't answered the main question, and in Mikado's mind, the most important.

How had Mikado gotten here? And why was he even here to begin with?

...And was he supposed to believe the things Peter had said about the night? It was possible, really, that this was a legitimate asylum, and Mikado being here really was a scheme of Namie-san or some other. Ugh, he was moving in circles! There was no way to figure this out at all. Where he wanted to spend the afternoon? Why did that matter more than the answers to this?

Fed up, he agreed to the next option offered. And found himself moved through the room he had been in earlier, now converted to a cheap movie theater, and into a room off to the side. And then, once again, abandoned by himself. He stood there stupidly for a moment, then sighed, shoving a hand through his hair. Sure. A game room. Why not? Nothing else made any sense.

He wandered through the room, though there wasn't a lot of places to go. The majority of everything seemed to host a plethora of choices. Card games, board games--western and eastern. And off to the side a chess board, abandoned halfway through the match. Mikado picked up a knight idly, rolling it between his fingers. Maybe, despite everything, he was still only moving in the spaces allowed to him. And this was his evolution?

...Hard to evolve when you lacked all clear answers, though. He sighed again, dropping the piece back onto the table.

[hello, bff. =)]

Edited 2011-07-01 06:07 (UTC)

To think that Izaya had considered watching the movie... Or, more accurately: to think that he'd considered watching the people watching the movie, without knowing who else had shown his face. He'd spoken about the possibility of visitors earlier—and the first batch had apparently arrived this very shift—but as far as Izaya was concerned, seeing the young man who'd just left the Sun Room was much, much better than any visitor. If he was here, it meant he was here... to stay, just like Celty and Shizuo and Masaomi before him (even if Izaya hadn't seen the latter two in some number of days).

Izaya had even thought about him just yesterday. He'd left a note under the name of Dollars and wondered, and now here he was: Tanaka Taro. Ryuugamine Mikado.

Izaya had already been seated in the back of the makeshift theater when he'd seen the boy's face, and he was on his feet a moment later, following after him into another room. The game room, it turned out to be, and Izaya smiled to himself at the irony of one of the playing-pieces coming in here. He watched from the doorway as Mikado wandered through the room to look at the games before finally stopping at a chess board with an unfinished game sitting upon it.

When the boy picked up a piece, Izaya started towards him. He would have been content to hang back and continue watching Mikado from a distance, but unfortunately in such close quarters Izaya would have been spotted as soon Mikado turned around—an unfortunate disadvantage of not being in the city, where he could observe from afar, unseen. He could have gone back into the Sun Room with the movie and its viewers, but now, with Ryuugamine Mikado before him, the prospect no longer held any interest for him. Even if the game board had changed, but Mikado was still a king amongst pawns.

Izaya heard Mikado sigh—saw the slump of the shoulders—and a piece clattered onto the table just as he drew within arm's reach. It was a knight, and he snatched it deftly from the table. "Shall we play?"

It was hardly a greeting, but it was more than a mere invitation. Izaya watched Mikado out of corner of his eyes as he passed the boy and took a seat at the chessboard. He set the righted knight back in its place—the place it had been in the unfinished game. He had questions, of course—how long had Mikado been here? When had he arrived? What was the situation like back in Ikebukuro?—but everything could be addressed in time.

In retrospect, perhaps, Mikado should have specified when he had repeatedly wished for someone familiar to be here.

The moment the piece clacked on the table, a hand reached around him to snag it gracefully, the owner following suit to slide around into view. There was little allowance for this--the man had not been heard at all, and Mikado, inside his own thoughts, of course, took the sudden appearance with poise and grace. "O-orihara-san?!" ...In his own way. His eyes widened entirely. Of everyone, Izaya was the one Mikado had--

...Least expected. Should he question though? Mikado had been wandering around for half a day and had seen no one else. If both he and Izaya were here, then... If Namie-san knew the man had assisted, maybe....

It was plausible but held too many fractures for him to trust in it fully. For one... Wouldn't she be the type to gloat? At the least about how, in the end, this act could be used as proof her way had won. Or was she just the kind to simply throw others away, like with Harima-san, as soon as they served their purpose?

Circles! Again, circles, and not ones he could escape on his own. And as if in answer to that, here was the one man who would likely know what was going on, if anyone; the man who had assisted him, despite the claims of danger by Masaomi. His mouth opened to speak, when his mind finally registered what Izaya had asked. It worked for a moment instead, the boy silent. "...Shall we...." Play? The game. Chess. Mikado's mind struggled to keep up, even as he moved to sit in the seat opposite, nearly staring. "What?"

Mikado was surprised to see him, Izaya was pleased to note, if his wide eyes and the way he'd stammered his name was any indication. Izaya had been maintaining a low profile—he'd left a note here and there on the board and made a few moves to his own benefit and to prime potential pieces, but he had yet to do anything to really spice things up around here. If that meant his name didn't reach the ears of newcomers like Mikado, all the better.

He idly picked up a different piece in the silence that followed—the black king—and watched Mikado closely as the boy open his mouth silently... and then, finally, responded. Perhaps the surprise had been a little too much, if he was taking this long to process things. Then again, it was something Izaya could understand, at least—until he'd seen Shizuo (or perhaps more accurately, until Shizuo had seen him), he hadn't expected to run into certain people, even if the idea of finding a familiar face hadn't been completely unthought-of. But did that mean that of the people Mikado might have expected, either as a captor or fellow prisoner, Izaya hadn't been one?

—how fortunate, if that were the case. Izaya set the king down, and then moved the black queen beside it as he began to set up a new game from the half-played one.

"Shall we play?" he repeated helpfully, smiling at Mikado. There was much, much more to be played than just a game of chess, but for now, this would do. Ah, but maybe... He paused in the middle of moving a rook to a corner. "Do you know how?"

Izaya said nothing while Mikado floundered, and Mikado finally just took to watching him set up the board. The shock was wearing off, and honestly, maybe he should have expected the one expected least. As... much sense as that made. It would go hand in hand with this place so far, at least. The man smiled over at him, and Mikado was reminded of the first time they had come into contact suddenly. The helpful grin and wild laughter, one after the other.

"...Okay," he finally replied, reaching out to straighten the white king that had fallen over. "I don't... Know anything fancy but I know the basic movements." More or less. There were some techniques he had watched in others, but whether or not he could duplicate them and at the correct moment... Basically, this was probably a loss from the start, and anyway, he had no idea why Izaya was even here.

He hesitated asking. Both of Izaya's presence and the details of this place. Not yet, maybe. If there was anything Mikado knew of the man, and that in itself wasn't much, it was that when Izaya had something to say, he would say it. If there was something beneficial to know, the man would likely share.

Maybe. Hopefully. Mikado would probably end up asking if the other remained in cheerful passivity.

Such an honest answer, or perhaps a modest one? Still, it was enough to know that he wasn't going to need to explain the rules. Izaya resumed setting up the board, humming softly as he moved each piece to its correct position: black on his side, white on Mikado's.

He wanted to know when Mikado had arrived most of all right now, but how to phrase it? Revealing he was at a disadvantage in the breadth of information at his disposal here was something he didn't want to do unless it served to his advantage—and in speaking with Mikado right here, right now, it did not. There had been no reply to his Dollars message yesterday, which he expected meant that the boy had either arrived today or hadn't gone near that particular board yesterday. When had his last note using the name of Dollars been before that? Five days ago? But he'd also used his own name on the bulletin in the meantime, and Mikado had looked genuinely surprised to see him. That was enough to make Izaya believe that he really was new, not simply overlooked.

"Have you spoken to anyone already?" he asked affably while he lined up the pawns. "If not, I could share some information with you, free of charge. This place is rather different from an 'ordinary life' in Tokyo... Oh, but perhaps you'd rather know nothing? After all, even if there's a difference between hearing about things and actually seeing them for yourself, they'll just become 'ordinary' sooner if you know about them beforehand." Of course, in this case the line drawn between knowing and not knowing was also the line between being prepared for danger and unprepared for danger.

The last pawn was put into place. "You get the first move. To spice things up, why don't we place a wager?"

There was something that both comforted him and slightly set him on edge at Izaya's appearance, but Mikado tried to focus more on what was going on. If it was like what Peter had said, then Izaya was possibly stuck here as much as Mikado was at the moment, and he should gain information instead. 'Free of charge,' was never really that trusted, for anything really, but he would take him up on that. Despite what the man added at the end--close enough to what he had said two days ago to make Mikado blink at him, watching.

This was different, though. Mikado held no real power here, or had anything he could call on. His hand moved before he replied, fingers tracing the air above a pawn before settling on the knight he had touched when he first paused at this table, moving it to an opening. Mikado glanced up at Izaya. "I've spoke to a couple of people but a lot of what they said..." Being in America, for starters, half-dead dogs for another. Mental patients. "Didn't make a lot of sense."

He nodded slightly, chin tipping. "I'd rather know in this case, if you're willing, Orihara-san." There were too many mistakes that could be made otherwise. "What kind of wager?"

Mikado had given him confirmation, just as he'd hoped. If the boy had spoken to a couple of people already, that meant he'd already been here long enough to do so—but not yet long enough to have confirmed any of it for himself if he was still doubting their words.

The opening move was an interesting one, and Izaya wondered for a moment whether Mikado did indeed have little knowledge the intricacies of chess, or if there was again something more to him than met the eye. Izaya lifted the black pawn from file the knight had landed in, moving it ahead two spaces. It wasn't until the piece was in place that he began to answer Mikado.

"It wouldn't make much sense," he agreed, "but once you've seen even a fraction of what this place hides... It all becomes much more believable then. In that sense, it's rather like a certain urban legend, I'd think." Should he mention that Celty was here? Mikado would certainly find out in time, but the real shock was that the headless subject of that certain urban legend was no longer quite so headless as before.

"But in short: yes, what you were told is almost certainly true. There are monsters here. There are experiments. The doors will unlock at night, and you're free to roam. Ah, and while it may not seem like it today, the hospital has recently come under military supervision." —To put it delicately.

He watched Mikado from across the chess board, smiling idly. "As for our wager... It'll be boring if the winner of the game and the winner of the wager are one and the same, so I propose that the game's loser may ask one question of the winner, to be answered honestly."

Izaya moved a piece, and Mikado watched it, then moved a pawn of his own forward. The man seemed to agree with what Peter had told him, at the least, and comparing it to an urban legend... to Celty... made it a bit more believable. Mikado frowned in thought. It was more than a little to take in, in all honesty. All of the details known already and... "...Experiments?" The boy's eyes had widened again at the word. And military as well.

"...Orihara-san, I may be wrong, but is this connected to the Yagiri Pharmacy at all?" To the woman that ran it, and grudges she might hold. The more details that were added, the more it seemed likely.

And unlikely as well. If, again, he took Peter's words to heart, there were many others in this predicament. Unless all were just... something to be used and thrown away. Materials in immoral tests. Ahh, it wasn't something so easily found out. And with the added details... Mikado's head hurt.

He rubbed at his temple for a moment, before looking back at Izaya. He didn't know how good Izaya might be at chess, but that he suggested it and asked if Mikado knew the rules hinted that Izaya was at the least familiar. It was more than likely the man would win, so he wondered if the wager meant anything. A question to be answered entirely honestly? There were so many things to think of. The boy nodded in response. "That sounds fine."

Ah, what to do? He'd wondered about it himself—though in his case he'd wondered about Nebula, not the now-defunct Yagiri Pharmacy—but Mikado asking him like this was practically begging for a vague, misleading answer...

But, no. He would continue to deal with Mikado with a certain measure of honesty for now, since he'd even said he would provide some information. However, the limits of what he himself knew gave some flexibility for the boundaries of truth, of facts, of reality.

"It does seem similar, doesn't it?" he said, moving a knight of his own this time. "However, I doubt they're behind this, since Yagiri was gobbled up by another company—ah, but the possibility that that company is involved isn't zero... Still, I've found no evidence to suggest a connection, aside from our presence."

The words were left a little vague, but he meant more people than Mikado might have thought—Izaya himself, Mikado, Celty, Shizuo, Masaomi... Well, the strongest connections to Nebula would have been those who were involved with Celty, so Masaomi as the odd man out (despite his 'friends') put the situation in a slightly different light.

"As for the experiments, all I can tell you are the rumors."

Like he had thought. The Yagiri company had fallen--though what Izaya said had weight. If a program with a virus was placed into a new machine, the virus still existed. And possibly gained potency from the new environment and surroundings. But the man said there was no evidence, though even that wasn't completely zero in possibility. Izaya was one man, and if he was as trapped as Mikado, they were closer to an even standing.

Mikado watched the move, and gave a small grimace as he moved another pawn. Maybe... not so even standing. He had no idea what he was doing at all.

Rumors made things worse, in the end, and Mikado had a mild distaste for secondhand information like that. But finding out first hand was unwanted, for either Izaya or himself. He wouldn't wish things like that on anyone, really. He'd have to settle for what there was. "Okay," he agreed, surpressing a stutter at images of what experimentation there could be. It was possible that it was completely normal--ha, saying normal when it was anything but--or couldn't it be like he had thought before? Things more fantasy than the given reality?

The thought was disturbing, but still, something in him was excited. There was something larger than himself in this, something that held greater meaning than a day to day existence.

Edited 2011-07-11 06:13 (UTC)

Good; he was going to get a chance to spread rumors a little further since the boy had agreed to hear. Of course, since he was telling Mikado all of this personally he couldn't embellish too much—but he'd read about the 'sleep studies' on the bulletin a few times, and there apparently wasn't very much information floating around about them outside of what those taken knew of their own experiments.

"Unfortunately, there's little that can be verified—it seems that those who have been experimented on are reluctant to speak of the procedures, but there are also those who don't actually remember what happened to them after being taken." From the one case he'd heard mention of for the latter, it seemed to be a rare case—but there was the possibility he was the only one who'd ever stepped forward to say so. "But word is that the 'patients' are taken from their rooms in the evening and any number of things might happen after that—there are apparently lingering effects from the 'studies', but the accounts all differ, so it would seem the experiment done is different every time, suited to the victim's particular... peculiarities."

Izaya paused, as if considering what to say next, and in that time, he moved the knight again, capturing a pawn. He rolled the piece between his fingers. "Of course, there are also the animals—I've heard there's a lab for them, and the 'monsters' around here are likely the results of those experiments. There's a possibility the same has happened to humans: some people here go missing after a while, after all."

He set the pawn to the side, and leaned back. "Of course, that is just a rumor. There are people walking around who look completely normal after the experiments, and no one has an extra head—" He cut off suddenly, titling his head and then adding, softly, "Ah, no; that's not quite accurate..."

Mikado watched intently as Izaya spoke, nerves touching his face before dispersing altogether as he stared. Most of what was said was completely believable. Being taken from rooms, having specialized tests.... But the man's emphasis on a word made Mikado wonder completely. It was as if Izaya had guessed Mikado's thoughts to touch on them. His brows drew together slightly. "What kind of peculiarities?"

The question of the animals made more sense now. If Peter had seen some kind of skewed versions of known animals, horrific experiments would explain that well. In fact-- And yep, here started the losing Mikado had thought from the start. He grimaced lightly, then moved a piece on the side out of the line if direct combat. People were taken here, and then went missing from here. It was certainly a bleak picture... And not one that he fully understood yet. "Do you know what the reason for all of it is?"

That encompassed more than just the why of being taken and being experimented on. They were playing chess right now, and outside this room, a group was watching a movie. Why all the weird... normality, when it seemed easier to just lock them in cells? Was it some kind of weird mentality, a kindness for guinea pigs? Mikado breathed out heavily, disturbed by the thought more than anything else. That kind of contrast was just....

What he had been about to think flew from his mind at the man's soft-spoken words. The boy's eyes widened entirely, looking near to the same as when Izaya first appeared. "Someone has an extra head?"

Mikado's question was, unfortunately, one that Izaya did not yet have an exact answer to. While he had gathered, from various posts he'd read, that the experiments may have been tailored to the subject in question, there were precious few details divulged in that forum. If he wanted something with a little more detail, he would likely need to speak directly with one of the subjects—something that he had not yet had the good fortune of. He did, however, have his guesses. "Peculiarities such as whatever might make them stand out amongst others, I would think... Some suitable aspect of mind or of body, or else an abnormality like Shizu-chan's monstrous strength."

Perhaps that was where Shizuo had gone in the past days: he'd been taken in to be dissected. Izaya silently wished the doctors luck cutting through that tough flesh.

"As for the reason... I can't say." The purpose of their captors was one line of speculation Izaya wasn't yet willing to verbalize to someone face-to-face, even if it were for the sake of spreading rumors. There were still too many possibilities—perhaps there was some grand goal at stake here, or perhaps Landel and Aguilar and anyone else involved were like him—so until he knew more to at least narrow things down...

He'd focus on Celty instead. Izaya slid another piece forward. "It's not an extra head so much as...." He trailed off and tilted his head, an almost fond smile on his lips. "There's a headless rider here who's no longer quite so headless."

Even without naming her, Izaya was sure Mikado would realize who he meant.

That explained one thing at least. Experimenting on people above the norm made sense (...that he was thinking it made sense was starting to concern him; none of it made actual sense), but it really didn't explain why the rest of everyone was here. But it would be unfair to press further for answers that Izaya didn't know either.

Though, to be honest, the man had said... an aspect of mind or body. Mikado glanced over to Izaya, cautious. Wasn't what Izaya did something extreme and of the mind? Was that enough for whoever was in charge to gain interest? What exactly would be defined as something interesting enough to--

The boy shook his head, escaping the circle of thoughts that would lead him nowhere at this moment. Mikado stared down at the chessboard, moving a piece forward in the only way he thought possible. So now, what he should do was....

Was forgotten in a moment. Again, for the third time, Mikado's face detailed astonishment in the clearest of ways, but here there was an edge of light joy. He leaned forward slightly. "Really? Celty-san is here, and she's--" Normal. Was she still what she was or just something human and mundane? "Did they do that?"

Who it was that had restored Celty's head was quite the question—one that Izaya himself could as of now only wish he knew the answer to. The facts, as he knew them, were that he'd found himself amongst the 'patient' populace a little earlier than Celty, with no memory of his own abduction. Up until he'd seen the courier with a head (and without so much as a scar to show where it had been attached), that head had been hidden away in his possession. It was certainly possible the head had been stolen from him at the same time as his abduction (which could narrow things down—the list of people who knew he had it was rather short, all things considered), but if it had been surgically attached to Celty's body, shouldn't there have been time needed for healing?

—But then again, despite how she acted at times, Celty Sturluson wasn't human. Perhaps things were different for a dullahan

"She's here, yes," Izaya answered, entirely skipping the question that was bothering him. Mikado's reaction to the news had paid for the mention in full, but wasn't quite payment enough for Izaya to admit his own uncertainties. It also left Izaya wanting to see more: should he mention Masaomi, too? Shizuo? Even if they were truly no longer among the crowd, there was always the possibility of Mikado imagining fate after Izaya's suggestions...

He slid a pawn forward, leaving it exposed as bait. He'd talk about the others later, he decided, after Mikado had gained a little bit of familiarity with this place.

"I'm sure you'll recognize her when you see her," he added.

The calm in which Izaya reaffirmed the fact made it more believable, and Mikado leaned back in his chair, a small smile on his lips. So she was.... Heh. It was interesting, so interesting, and he wondered if she was happy, having found her head like she wanted despite everything that had happened. Was this place maybe okay, then? Hadn't it given her what she wanted?

Mikado glanced up at Izaya's sentence. "Ah..." Recognize her. It'd be strange, he thought, to see two people with Harima-san's (Celty-san's?) face. He nodded, still, slipping a piece forward to capture the pawn Izaya had left unattended. "So there's some interesting things about this place..." he murmured lightly. At this rate, it seemed more exciting than purely something of torment.

There were many, many more interesting things about this place than just those he'd shared with Mikado—but not everyone had or even understood his hobbies, and Izaya knew that well. Still, Mikado's reactions to the various pieces of information he'd shared had been payment enough (in lieu of proper currency), and he wondered how the boy would react from here on out. He'd have to keep a more careful eye on him than he had on Masaomi.

Mikado had also risen up to take the bait. Izaya's fingers moved to his next piece, but he paused before moving it. "I wonder if her head was returned out of kindness or cruelty," he mused aloud. On the one had, it was back in her possession (though perhaps in a different way than before), but he couldn't imagine it had come without a cost. At the very least, it had been stolen from him—and at most? Hmm.

He lifted the piece, moving it to take advantage of the opening Mikado had inadvertently created. "Check."

Free shift came. Scott Pilgrim zipped straight into the Game Room.

A Game Boy was snatched from the shelf. A cartridge was snapped into place. An ass was parked in an armchair. Eyes glazed over as the comforting sounds of Kirby's Dream Land started up.

You were surprised?

[Free]

Kirk spent exactly four minutes in the Sun Room before deciding that he wasn't enough of a masochist right now to watch a film in which the prisoners of a POW camp were executed for trying to escape. Maybe earlier in the day, he'd been in the mood for motorcycle chases and against-all-odds heroism — hell, he'd spent a full ten years of his life trying to emulate twentieth-century hopeless rebels like Steve McQueen. But, as Kirk was learning with each passing day in this place, he wasn't that boy any more.

Or was he? Bones wasn't wrong about his recklessness. He hadn't exactly behaved maturely last shift either. If by pursuing this thing with the basement, he was leading his crew to pain and death... Bones might be right. Or he might be right, and this might get them some answers, finally. Or they both might be right. Who the hell knew.

He had his records to catch up on. Kirk tossed his journal onto an empty couch and flopped down with it, head leaning back over the arm rest. He balanced a ballpoint pen under his nose, and contemplated napping. Really, was there any point? Was anyone ever going to read his logs? No. Maybe. Hopefully. Dammit. "Captain's log," Kirk began, without dislodging the pen. "Stardate... I mean, day fifteen. My crew and I are still captives of Landel's Institute. We... still..."

He couldn't concentrate. Electronic beeps carried on ceaselessly behind him, more tinny and grating than the background noise of a starship. Kirk leaned his head back further to stare at a young man sitting in an armchair, fiddling with some sort of device.

Edited 2011-07-02 20:27 (UTC)

The man with the journal wasn't the only one annoyed by outside noises. As the slow, slightly disjointed speech in the background filtered through the beeps and boops of Scott's pixellated adventure, the first words on the tip of Scott's tongue were: "Hey, cool it, Shatner. Some of us are trying to concentrate." Except he didn't actually say that. Thankfully, Scott's increasingly well-trained fourth wall alarm blared in his ear before he could, and his thick eyebrows shot up. Wait. Didn't someone say... That he was around...?

His thumb smacked down on the pause button. Ever so subtly (read: not very subtly), Scott peered up over the top of the Game Boy, gaze drifting toward the sound of the voice. However, he didn't see anyone familiar-looking. All he saw was another young man staring at him and giving him the standard "turn down the damn game" look. Nothing unusual there. But no sign of the owner of that signature voice. Huh.

"Hey, you didn't just hear someone say something about stardates, did you?" Scott asked the random stranger, who was probably from some dollar-bin horror movie of the week (seriously, man, could you get any more unfamiliar looking?).

Kirk's eyebrows raised in a silent question when the guy took notice of him, although with a pen moustache and his head upside-down, the request of Could you please turn it down? probably wasn't as obvious as it could've been. Reluctantly, he forced himself up into a sitting position, feeling the blood rush strangely in his head.

"What?" Kirk squinted at him, wondering why he was asking. He'd looked younger staring slack-jawed and wrapped up in his game; now Jim reassessed the other man's age to a couple of years older, maybe even the same age as him. His face wasn't familiar, but then, to be fair, Kirk hadn't exactly had time to get acquainted with all four-hundred-plus people serving on the Enterprise.

He'd thought it strange that the only person who'd come here with him were members of the bridge crew. By now, he'd given up on calling for others on the bulletin board. Was it possible that this man came from the twenty-third century?

Or was it... the other thing? "That was me," Kirk answered. Only one way to find out, and right now he was beyond the point of caring if someone felt like telling him he was from a television show. "Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise. You're familiar with the stardate system?"

Scott didn't answer right away. Instead he squinted at the man across from him. Tilted his head. Let the words he had just heard slosh around in his brain a few times. Stared.

"...No you're not." That was all Scott said to start, blinking slowly.

He supposed the guy had a certain resemblance. And Scott never had been the biggest Trek fan. But he was pretty darn sure he would have heard if someone had been playing a young Kirk in one of the newer Star Trek series. All the geeks and nerds would have flipped their s***. Then again, there were people like Harvey in the Institute — clearly who they said they were, but totally unlike the versions Scott was familiar with. Was this one of those cases? Even if it was, though... How? When?

Finally, Scott's fourth wall filter caught up with him and smacked him across the back of the brain. He tensed suddenly, almost dropping the Game Boy. "UH. I mean! No I'm not!" he tried to cover (lamely). "I-I've heard of the stardate system, but I never really figured it out! Yeah, that's it!"

Nice save. That wasn't suspicious at all, he thought to himself.

Edited 2011-07-04 02:21 (UTC)

Kirk stared back, eyes narrowing slightly as the young man finished talking. He didn't need to be a Grandmaster of Bullshit (a made-up-on-the-spot title Kirk claimed along with Handsomest Hero of the Federation and Total Patsy for Speeches about Destiny) to know that this guy was a terrible liar. In this moment, he felt a faint echo of that same bewilderment which had happened when, after an entire day of the most stressful and unbelievable life-altering craziness, an ancient Vulcan in an ice cave told him he was a) Spock from the future, and b) his friend (always and shall be).

Unlike then, he still had the option of getting up and walking away from this conversation. He could pretend he'd never met this person. His life would continue on same as before with... monsters and... gloating voices on the intercom and mind-numbingly repetitive days.

"Okay," Kirk sighed. "I don't know you... but apparently you know me. Or the other me, whatever." Was that it? Was it him this guy was expecting? Finally he'd gotten over being compared to his father, and now he was going to spend the rest of his life getting compared to himself... "For once, I would like someone to not spend five minutes being coy and cryptic with me, so... what is it? Who are you?"

All Scott had to hear was "the other me" to let his fourth wall alarm finally shut off. From the way Kirk was talking, it sounded like he was already well aware that he was widely known to be someone else. Thank goodness. He loved when people came in and ruined stuff before he could; then no one could give him crap for that stuff later on.

"Uh, Scott Pilgrim, for one. No special title," he answered, shifting in the chair and leaning on the arm rest a bit more. He would have used the "Mighty Bassist" title, but he had a feeling that he was going to have to start paying royalties to Guybrush and LucasArts if he used that one too many times more. "And yeah, sorry to disappoint, but it's totally another you that I'm thinking of, if you're who you say you are. And now that that's out of the way, I've gotta know: how did you find out about that? Who told you?" Who mercilessly shattered your fourth wall so I didn't have to?

Edited 2011-07-05 20:04 (UTC)

"Scott Pilgrim," Kirk repeated. No special title meant a civilian, which eliminated Starfleet. The name was no more familiar than the face, but it — along with the guy's accent — pointed at a likely regional origin. Someone from Earth. American. But that didn't narrow things down quite as much as the way Scott suddenly seemed to relax around him.

Totally another you. Did they really look so different? Kirk thought back to the man he'd seen on the night his shadow came to life. The one who wore his uniform like he'd been born into it, who smirked like he knew his smile stopped most humanoids short. Small things, he'd picked out: hazel eyes, slicked back hair, some ten years and ten pounds on him, but his face...

Kirk opened his mouth to ask a question, but Scott beat him to it. Twice. His mouth held, then closed, then opened again to answer: "What?" This conversation, he realized, was going to have a lot of these moments. Kirk shut his eyes for a second, then decided to take it one at a time.

"If you're talking about who told me that I come from an offshoot timeline from the one where angry future Romulans didn't show up twenty-five years ago and ruin my life, then that's... classified information." And still more than he'd shared with anyone since promising Future Spock to keep his existence a secret, but there was something about Scott Pilgrim which made him want to take a chance. He doubted would mean anything to him, if the young man was more familiar with the other Kirk after all, but... maybe.

And anyway, it was only fair to share some answers himself, if he was going to demand them out of Scott. "If you're talking about whatever you're talking about, then... no one." Technically true, anyway. He raised his eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"

Wait, now Scott was confused. What does he mean, "What are you talking about?" Angry future Romulans don't have anything to do with the fourth wall, do they?

And then it hit him.

"...Oh."

They didn't have anything to do with the fourth wall because Kirk's fourth wall was somehow pristine and intact in spite of his knowing about another Kirk. Correction: had been intact. Scott had just put the beginnings of a crack that was sure to send the whole thing crumbling at any moment.

Crapsticks on a crap sandwich.

Uuughhh. No sense in delaying the inevitable, Scott thought. Maybe he could at least make the whole thing sound less insane than it was, if offshoot timelines were involved. "Um. Well, the fact that there's more than one offshoot timeline, apparently," he started, sounding as though he were stumbling around on a pile of words and somehow avoiding the wrong ones by just a hair each time. "Like. One where the Captain Kirk people know is a famous TV star who's played by a guy who looks nothing like you?"

...Yeah, there wasn't really any way to make that sound less insane.

Edited 2011-07-11 09:27 (UTC)

It should've been more comforting than it was to get confirmation that whatever utterly insane thing Landel had done to his head a week ago had some basis in... something. Because surely it was better that there existed an actual universe out there where James T. Kirk was a fictional character, instead of the Head Doctor simply having way too much on his time on his hands and inventing this story just for Bill's benefit.

Bill. Oh god. This whole thing was someone's idea of a joke, wasn't it? An elaborate, ridiculous, impossible-to-believe joke. As if it wasn't enough that he was technically a Jim Kirk from some messed up timeline, and somewhere out there in time and space was a Kirk who rose the ranks legitimately to become captain of the Enterprise. As if it wasn't enough that his CMO was apparently haunted by memories of a third Jim, a cruel and ruthless one.

"This 'famous TV star' of yours..." Kirk grabbed for the dog tags dangling from his neck, remembering a second too late that he was back in the grey uniform. Which didn't matter, but it would've helped illustrate his point. "He wouldn't happen to be named William Shatner, would he?"

Edited 2011-09-07 18:18 (UTC)

If Scott had been confused before, now he was just befuddled (was there a difference? Scott wasn't sure, but "befuddled" sounded one step beyond, sort of). So this Kirk was from some offshoot timeline and knew about that, and he didn't know about the whole Star Trek thing... but he knew the name "William Shatner"? Just what kind of information had people been feeding this guy?

"Yeah, he would happen to be," Scott said carefully, eyeing "Kirk" with a wary eye. "How'd you figure?"

"Ah..." Kirk laughed and shook his head. Where would he even start?

Where else? He had his reasons for concealing this information from his crew, but he couldn't figure out much of a point to pretend otherwise with Scott, assuming the man really did know everything already. "It's the name the nurses call me. I wouldn't have twice about it, except that about—" He paused, quickly doing the math in his head. "—twelve days ago, there was this... mass brainwashing. A bunch of people made to think they were who our dog tags say we are. I was one of them."

He'd hardly spoken of this since then. A health check-up with Bones, a short conversation with Spock, then an entry in his captain's log and Kirk had closed the book on the whole episode. It had been easy to believe he'd mostly forgotten about this nonsense, but talking brought it all back.

"Bill's story was that he was named after the actor, I think. Huge fan. A 'Trekkie', I guess you'd call it. I still remember some of what he remembers." Kirk tapped the side of his head, then smiled wryly at Scott. "I wasn't lying when I said no one told me. I just thought it was... a joke."

It was really, really hard not to laugh. ...Reeeeaaally hard.

Somehow, though, Scott managed not to let more out than a stifled snerk through a nostril. For all he knew, his own "real name", Bryan Whatsisfaces, was the name of whatever schlub drew his comic series, or played him in the movie, or some other lame meta joke like that. He couldn't exactly pretend he was much better than Kirk here.

Besides that, the talk of brainwashing was definitely enough to sober him up, and fast. He hadn't experienced that personally, but he had been around some of the people he had, namely Bass/Forte. That... couldn't have been fun, he imagined.

"Okay, I think I get it now," Scott said with a nod, the urge to laugh thankfully dying down at this point and giving way to a more subdued respect. Offshoot timeline or not, Star Trek fan or not, this guy was still James Tiberius Kirk. Captain. He deserved as much respect as Indiana Jones in the frame of pop culture legends, maybe more, depending on who you asked. And yet he couldn't help certain remarks that were in his nature to make: "I'm sorry you had to go through that, man. I know the time you're talking about and it sounds like it was more trouble than Tribbles, seriously."

Now that was a joke, thought Scott proudly.

Somewhere in the universe, Kim Pine was groaning and she had no idea why.

Scott paused a moment, then asked a question that had just come to mind. "Someone I know said they saw McCoy in the greenhouse once." Something about arteries exploding? "How many of you guys are there around, anyway? I won't tell them anything, I'm just, like, wondering."

Edited 2011-09-29 04:13 (UTC)

[From here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1124189.html?thread=78633053#t78633053)]

England hadn't paid much attention to the Game Room before, but it seemed a good choice on Prussia's part. It was fairly quite, but with enough people to mask most conversations, and they could always occupy themselves with a pack of cards to make it look as though they were good patients, obedient pawns.

Fuckers.

"Did you want to play something?" he asked nonchalantly as they headed inside., and then, more quietly, "are you really surprised that I would want to avoid a film about that time?"

Upon entering the game room, Prussia was disappointed to see they didn't have that 'video game' from earlier in the week set up. He'd wanted to try it again after Claude had showed him how to play, but... On second thought, maybe that wouldn't have been such a great idea with England around. He didn't think he could lose at playing some video obstacle course, but he was still learning how, after all. This would have just been practice, and he definitely didn't need England around while practicing.

He shrugged at England's first question, planning to see what they actually had first since the video games were gone. At the second question, however, he froze for half a heartbeat. Couldn't England have just dropped the subject of the movie now that they were away from it?

His steps as he continued towards the cabinets were stiffer and more measured after the question. "How should I know what you want to avoid?" he replied, a defensive tone heavy in his voice. "I barely know a damn thing about what it's like in the future, other than that crap you made up about Russia taking over. Besides, aren't you guys the 'heroes' of that story?"

He did manage to find a deck of cards, but really, it wasn't all that fun to play endless games of solitaire, no matter how much his game count on his computer would suggest otherwise. It certainly wasn't as much fun when you actually had to lay out the cards time after time and shuffle them and...

Anyway.

He watched Prussia stalk over to the cabinets, the stiff posture telling him enough. "Oh, definitely," he agreed. "As I said, the Nazis will become a lingering symbol of abject evil for at least the next seventy years." He was hardly arguing that point. "But... it was still a painful time for everyone involved. Even me. I had to break myself to survive." Gave up his empire and had to get help from the brat across the Atlantic.

Prussia cast a glance back at the other nation—he'd found some cards, it looked like—but quickly turned back to the cabinets. Was England trying to rub it in? Because if he was, it was working. Yes, it had been a painful time, but so what if England had lost some land and some dignity? Prussia had lost everything, and one of the ones to blame for that was standing in the same room as him.

"Yeah, sure," he muttered, gritting his teeth. He tried focusing on finding something interesting to pass the time; maybe once they found a game England would stop talking about it.

He pulled out a brightly-colored box labeled 'Candy Land'. "What the hell's this?"

Maybe he was trying to rub it in, just a little, or perhaps just trying to prove to Prussia somehow that times were different and England was different. Sort of. Constrained by other laws and regulations and international politeness. Sometimes he wished it was as easy as it once had been; shows of force and whoever had the stronger army won.

He frowned when Prussia asked, and turned to take a look at the proffered game. It was some pink monstrosity. "I really dread to think. I bet it's America's." It looked like something he would enjoy.

Prussia stared at the box for a moment longer, and then nodded his agreement.

"You're probably right," he said. It only took another moment—in which he'd realized England had actually not made a further comment about the war and how it continued to linger in the minds of men and nations and had focused on the game instead—for him to make up his mind. "Alright, we're trying this."

Before England could refuse, Prussia started making his way towards a table, box in hand. A different game would probably have been better—some kind of strategy game, maybe—but as long as it kept England from continuing to rub at still-fresh wounds (so to speak), this would be fine.

He could still hear sounds of the movie coming from the next room.

"Who else would make a game focussing on sweets?" he asked dryly and then stared for a moment as Prussia headed over to the table with game in hand, aparrently undeterred by the fact that it was pink and featured sentient candy dancing across the box. Apparently Prussia had gone quite quite mad back then. At least that was one mystery of the world solved.

"I can't believe you actually want to play this," he said as he went to sit down at the table as well, peering at the game as though it were some rabid beast in disguise and would jump up and bite him as soon as the lid was openened. This place was obviously out to torture him, him personally.

Day 57: Game Room (Third Shift)

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