damned_institute | Day 58: Cafeteria

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Day 58: Cafeteria

Anise woke up feeling lucky to be alive. She still felt a bit waterlogged, even though her skin, hair, and clothes were completely dry. During last night's adventures, she'd swallowed a lot of water, and it still felt heavy and disgusting in her stomach. Her arms and legs were tired from treading water. Lying still in her bed, she still kind of felt like she was floating and bobbing in the water.

But she was alive.

Knowing how close she came to death last night, and remembering the lengths her friends had gone to in order to save her, there was no way Anise could let a little discomfort get her down. She had to be at her best today so she wouldn't seem ungrateful to Guy and Claude. On that note, she had to remember to thank them properly, now that she was better able to express herself.

While getting ready, Anise was surprised to actually run into Claude that morning. He came to her room asking for the notebook he stored there (or maybe it was an excuse to see her cute face again), so Anise happily located it and handed it over. She was pretty tired, but the big smile she gave him was genuine. Who wouldn't be happy to see her savior so soon after a dramatic rescue?

After he left, Anise finished re-tying her pigtails into a low position so the military beret would fit on her head, and then she was ready! Even though her stomach wasn't feeling that great, she figured sitting down to a decent meal would help normalize it. And luckily for her, she was among the few who had the privilege of eating such a meal. Anise filled a plate with french toast topped with syrup and fruit, accompanied by small portions of each of the available side dishes.

It looked like she was early, which meant there weren't a lot of people around. That was okay, though. Anise could get a good head start on her meal before any company came around. She sat down at a table by herself and started on her sausage first.

[for Tolten!]

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The relief that Guy felt when he woke up with a healthy set of lungs and a completely dry set of clothes was hard to describe. He realized he shouldn't ever be happy to be stuck in the same bed again, but still being in the institute was far preferable to death. He didn't know for sure that anything they had done last night had actually advanced their plans for escape, but he could only hope it had counted for something.

Either way, challenges that required them to trust each other and work together were much easier than the Coliseum, where they had all been pitted against each other and forced to spill blood. He couldn't say that he'd found the jump from that cliff or the race to save Anise enjoyable, but they'd been successful at both and that was something.

But now he would have to work through the daily grind, and the military was once again showing itself in full force. Guy adjusted his blue shirt as he sat up in bed and then gingerly set the beret on his head. He didn't know if hats really suited him that well, but it hardly mattered when everyone was wearing the same thing.

The mention in the announcement of possible rewards was enough to pique Guy's interest, though he wasn't going to put that much weight into it. Aguilar's military had already shown that they enjoyed messing with them just as much as Landel did, if in different ways. Speaking of which... he wondered how those drug trials had gone.

Still, nothing seemed amiss when he entered the cafeteria; in fact, Guy even caught Anise speaking with a man around his age. Nothing had really changed there, then, had it? Remembering how the girl had clung onto him the night before, he could only shake his head and laugh. She was really something else, wasn't she?

If Anise was safe, then Claude had to be too. That made Guy feel about ten times better. And after all of the energy that he'd exerted last night, a large breakfast sounded like a dream. Guy stood in line for his french toast and then took the tray over to a seat where he quickly started eating.

[Free!]

[From here (http://damned.livejournal.com/1151520.html?thread=79351840#t79351840).]

But this escort was far from cooperative. Zero asked the human plenty of questions as they walked, and each time he was either given the silent treatment or one of these unhelpful responses:

"Shut up and walk."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Move!"

"I guess a real answer is too much to expect," the Reploid-now-human said flatly. That comment rewarded him with a shove and another threat of being put on report for misbehavior. Sigh. Perhaps it was better to give up for now.

Their destination turned out to be a gathering place for humans, or the 'cafeteria' as the man over the intercom had called it earlier. Here, Zero was ordered by the pushy escort to stand in a line and receive his morning meal. Simple enough, though he wasn't sure what this 'morning meal' was supposed to be or why he was receiving one. And it wasn't like asking about it would yield him any positive results either, as proven earlier. He did as he was asked anyway, and at the end of the line he was given a plate of.....uh.

...What...was this?

Sure, he'd seen Ciel and other humans eat food before, but he had never seen them eat anything that looked like...this. Whatever it was. Was this really something humans consumed for energy purposes? It looked disgusting.

A heavily confused Zero took his 'morning meal' to one of the tables and sat down, staring at what he'd been given instead of trying to eat it. He stared for a good minute or two, head tilted slightly to the side, and then became a little more adventurous by starting to poke the 'meal' with the metal utensil that came with it. So, it was pink and...had a mushy texture. If he still had his sensors, he would have been able to better analyze this goop, maybe even see what it was made of. But unfortunately, he was stuck with these human abilities that, so far, had proven to be almost useless.

After around five minutes of staring and prodding, Zero gave up trying to figure it out on his own and turned to the human sitting beside him instead. This guy's plate had something different than the mush, something that looked more like the things he'd seen humans eat before. Maybe this man knew something about the pink mush, then? Zero tried to get his attention - hopefully a 'hey' would work here - and then pointed down at his plate and asked, "What is this?"

While a patient sat near Guy, the fact that he was a few chairs down from him meant that it was hard to know if he really wanted to talk. Considering the fact that he spent a few minutes looking at his food and probably trying to will himself to eat it, Guy figured it was best if he left him alone for now. He focused on his own food, something that was much easier to look at and to get down, and tried not to feel guilty about the fact that he was given special privileges. He had earned it in a way, if being stuck in this place for weeks on end counted as such.

Though eventually the stranger decided that he was in the mood for a conversation -- or to ask a question, at least. It was hard to tell if the guy was being sarcastic because the stuff hardly counted as food or if he honestly didn't know. And if he didn't, what might that imply about him? Not that Guy had really seen anything edible like this back home, but...

He sighed, feeling some sympathy for the other man. "It's... well, I guess you can call it food. It's got all the vitamins and nutrients that you need to stay healthy, but there's no attempt made for good flavoring." Which kind of bothered him, as someone who appreciated good cooking, but that was neither here nor there. "I guess the military thinks it's the most efficient way to feed us." Or, well, to feed the majority of the patients, anyway. Guy glanced down at his french toast and let out a sigh.

"Hm." So the mush was food after all, made merely for nutrients with nothing appealing to human comfort. Well, the lack of comfort wasn't that big of an issue for Zero now that he knew the mush was something that would benefit him. It wasn't like he knew anything about 'good flavoring', anyway. Taste was one of those human abilities that a machine like him didn't understand very well, if at all. Would that prove to be an advantage or a disadvantage now that he was human? The former was obviously more preferred.

But regardless. If the mush was supposed to be beneficial for humans, then why was this man eating something else? Did he simply choose comfort over benefits? Or was there another reason? He didn't seem too happy about the food from the way he kept sighing like that. ...Unless Zero was reading him wrong, and he was actually sighing about something else. Humans weren't easy to understand sometimes.

"You have something different, though," he pointed out, eyes focused on the other man's plate. Although the comment could be seen as rude or envious, his tone and expression made it clear that he was only curious, nothing more. Besides, the food on this man's plate looked familiar. Zero just couldn't put his finger on the name of the object. What was it again...? Something that started with a 'b'?

If this patient was asking all of these questions, he had to be new. Guy didn't feel like there were any bad feelings being harbored over their difference in meals, at least, which meant that he could answer openly. "As far as I know, it depends on your rank. Since I'm S rank, I'm allowed the better food." He would have taken another bite then, but that would really make it seem like he was rubbing it in the other man's face.

"I would share some with you if I could, but they don't really like that." He sent a glance at a nearby soldier, making sure to keep his expression neutral so that he wasn't accused of giving the staff dirty looks.

"But I've forgotten my manners," he remarked as he glanced back to the stranger, reaching across the table to offer his hand. "My name's Guy Cecil. I'm guessing you're new here?" He was pretty sure he would have noticed a young man with such long hair wandering around before, after all.

"Zero," he responded, taking the other man's hand after a moment's pause. Handshakes were one of those customs that Zero found to be a little unnecessary - proper manners were never something he cared too much about - but it wouldn't hurt to do one here. The gesture was performed awkwardly on his end, though.

With that done, Zero pushed the plate of mush a few inches away from him, creating enough room on the table to lay his arms down on it. The mush could wait, as could any more questions about the food. There was a topic of greater importance now. "Yeah, I woke up here last night. So what's going on around here?" Because obviously it wasn't anything normal, especially with the whole being-resurrected-as-a-human-somehow thing. Which brought up another question: was Guy the same as him, originally a Reploid? Or was he just a regular human? He was knowledgeable about food, which suggested that he was purely human, but he could have simply learned about it from somewhere, too...

Zero? What kind of name was that? Guy had to fight to keep a neutral expression when he heard that, but the handshake still turned out to be a bit awkward. He just didn't know why anyone would actually be named that, unless it was some sort of code name. Even assuming that, though, it seemed awfully cruel. As curious as he was, though, he wouldn't be surprised if it was something of a touchy subject and decided to refrain from asking.

Besides, if Zero (that was going to take some used to) had only woken up last night, then there were plenty of other things that they were going to need to talk about, weren't there? It was a good thing that Guy didn't mind giving explanations, or he might have gotten sick of this job a while ago.

"... Well, that's a pretty loaded question," he started with a brief laugh. "I guess the first thing you should know is that the military angle is fairly new. Before that we were being treated like mental patients, but the bottom line is that we're being kept here against our wills and forced through all sorts of trials. No one knows the real reason behind it, but people have guessed." And if Zero had already experienced the night, then Guy could skip some of that, at least.

Guy's explanation was only spawning more questions in Zero's mind. These humans here used to be mental patients before they were turned into soldiers? How did that work, and why change the system? He wished there was an answer to the question of 'why were these people even here', but it sounded like that answer could only be left to imagination, unfortunately. In that case, this place must be awfully well structured - surprising for how low-tech it all appeared to be.

Looks were sometimes deceiving, of course.

"Trials?" the Reploid-now-human asked, blinking. "What kind of trials?" Did that giant spider count as a trial of some sort? Or perhaps that kid he'd run into last night had undergone a 'trial'. That would explain why he'd turned into a ghost, a condition that had been caused by some sort of drink (or so the boy had claimed). Zero had failed to find the source of the drink before he'd blacked out in that hallway, though... Perhaps this was something else to ask Guy about.

No, he was not going to regret overwhelming this man with his many questions about this place. He needed to know.

"It'd be hard to list them all," Guy admitted as he held back another sigh. "The stuff that happens consistently is the monsters at night and the fact that the staff switches off between either brainwashing patients to attack each other or experimenting on them in the worst ways possible." Both of which Guy had managed to avoid, but he'd heard about it from enough people, and been on the receiving end -- in the case of Special Counseling -- of it enough times to be able to speak about it with some authority.

"But there's more than that, even. I don't know if you heard about the drugs being offered up last night, but chances are that they had all sorts of weird effects." Guy hadn't even gotten close to the medical wing last night, but he knew this place well enough to make a guess at what the concoctions had done to those who took them.

He didn't really want to talk about things like talking to his own shadow or the way he'd died his sister's death with someone who he barely knew, but it was the kind of thing Zero would pick up on as he continued to do his time in this place. That was the sad truth of it.

"The bottom line is that they'll do just about anything to make us suffer and you shouldn't consider anything off limits." He rubbed at his eyes for a moment, gave the young man a grim smile, and then took a few more bites of his breakfast. There was really no point in sugarcoating it. Zero deserved better than that.

Zero didn't need the sugarcoating; he'd seen and heard about things just as terrible in his lifespan (though admittedly much of it was hard to remember at this point, thanks to lingering amnesia). He listened to Guy carefully and took every word as fact. Having seen some of it himself the previous night, he had no reason to doubt him.

But the information was pretty troubling, nonetheless. Monsters like that giant spider were common at night? Zero would have to find a replacement for that lost flashlight as soon as possible, then. Preferably a much larger, sturdier object that could withstand combat usage...or something more effective from a distance, like that shotgun the short human had. Damn, he really should have asked him about that shotgun when he had the chance.

When Guy mentioned the strange drugs, Zero frowned a little in recognition. So it had been a trial after all. "I did hear about the drugs," he replied, "I ran into a kid who'd come into contact with them. He turned into a ghost right in front of my eyes." Even if Guy wasn't talking about things that could be considered crazy to some people, Zero wouldn't have worded that explanation any differently. It was what he had witnessed, after all. "So that's considered normal around there, then?"

It was surprising that someone who seemed so young was able to accept everything that Guy had just said with barely a change in his expression. While it was convenient because it meant that he didn't have to deal with the skepticism that people usually responded with, it was definitely worrying. What had the kid been through prior to arriving here, that monsters and experiments were something he could wrap his head around with little problem?

In fact, it was Zero who came out with a piece of information that shocked Guy. Someone had turned into a ghost because of that stuff? Though he knew better than to accuse Zero of making it up. Even if he'd never seen something like that, he'd suffered from the effects of that zombie bite for a few days. If it hadn't eventually gone away, he could have turned into something truly terrible himself.

"Well, this is the first time I've heard of something like that, but it doesn't surprise me," he said after a pause. "The good thing is that most of what happens here tends to go away by morning, so that kid is probably back to normal by now." And if someone who looked as young as Zero was referring to the person he'd seen as a "kid," just how young had he been? What a traumatizing thing to go through...

"I guess you've learned your first lesson about this place, though. If they offer those drugs again, don't get tempted into taking them," he said, his tone and expression become somewhat more serious. The prize probably wasn't worth what you had to go through to get it.

"Don't worry, I wasn't planning to." Zero hadn't even considered it last night, when he had known little about the drugs or this 'Landel's Institute'. The whole reason he'd sought the drugs in the first place had been to try to put a stop to them, anyway. Now it seemed the drugs were only a small problem compared to the horrific mess this place was said to be.

What was more bothersome than that, though, was how Guy responded to his observation. It was his first time hearing of what, exactly? That someone had transformed into a ghost, transformed from drinking a drug, or transformed at all? If it was simply transforming that he'd never heard of, then what did that mean for Zero, who was once a Reploid and now a human? He certainly hadn't 'gotten better' by morning. Despite Guy saying such a thing 'didn't surprise him', he was still unsure of what this implied.

Guess it couldn't hurt to ask about it. "...So transformations like that kid's aren't common, then. Is everybody human here?" He had yet to see a single Reploid around. There weren't even any Mechaniloids. They had to exist somewhere, right? There couldn't be only humans around if he was still alive...

That turned out to be a loaded question, though Guy didn't think he'd have a hard time answering it. "Well, everyone appears human, anyway," he said between bites of food. "From the sounds of it, a lot of patients were something else before arriving and were put into human bodies when they got here." It made sense in a weird way, since it wasn't like Landel could have kept up his cover of being a legitimate mental institute if there were strange creatures running around, sentient or not.

"Still, once you're here the idea is that you stay human, so I'd never really heard of someone turning into something in this place." No one had actually turned into a zombie, for instance, even if there had been a scare there. As far as he knew, anyway. The idea that one of the patients was now part of Doyleton's undead population was enough to turn his stomach, but Guy was sure he would have heard of something like that.

There was always the possibility of someone reverting to their original body when under the effects of the brainwashing, but that was difficult to keep track of when there were also those guardians wandering around, the things that were worse than the average monster and yet not patients at all. Still, he thought his answer had been detailed enough that Zero would get the picture.

Guy's answer left Zero with a bigger frown on his face than usual. Great. So the chances of him getting his old body back were slim to none. At least he wasn't the only one who used to be...something else. What 'else' was there, anyway? Organic animals were somewhat of a rarity nowadays, leaving few other beings besides Mechaniloids, Reploids, and humans...

Also, the whole transformation process didn't make sense physically. Zero had heard of human to cyborg transformation - Dr. Weil had done so, to be specific - but turning a Reploid into human? Or anything else into a human, for that matter? "How is it even possible...?" he wondered aloud, staring back at his plate of mush momentarily. A transformation like that, if possible, must require some incredibly advanced technology that he'd never heard of. Was the low-tech appearance of this place merely a guise? He had encountered that complicated machine the night before in the MRI room, but he'd sworn it had been useless when he'd investigated it... Perhaps he'd been wrong about that?

...There was still so much more to learn about this 'Landel's Institute'.

That was a very good question. It was one Guy might have considered in more detail if there had been any way of finding out the answer, but he had to admit that simply imagining what sort of technology existed that was capable of such a thing made him a little giddy.

Of course, it wasn't being put to very good use when people were forced into other bodies against their wills. He couldn't even begin to understand what that was like, and he had to wonder if Zero himself was in that category. It might explain why he was so curious about the whole thing, though Guy had better manners than to ask him outright.

"I wish I knew," he said with a shake of his head. "You're going to learn pretty quickly that there are a lot of things that go on here that are never explained." It was frustrating, but Guy had gotten to a point where he brushed it off instead of obsessing. Which wasn't very easy for him to do, considering he was constantly questioning and wondering how things worked.

Before he could say anything else, a particularly cheerful announcement came on, signaling that breakfast was over. In the end Zero hadn't eaten much of his food, but hopefully he would be more spurred by his appetite at lunch. "Looks like we're out of time," Guy said with a sigh as he stood from his seat. "Be careful tonight, all right? This place takes some getting used to, but I think you'll be fine." If Zero was handling all of this stress so well already, then Guy got the feeling that he would be resilient enough to stand up to what the rest of the institute threw at him.

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Day 58: Cafeteria

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