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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Byrne probably would have added some sarcastic joke to that response if he wasn't feeling so terrible. It was a nice thought, especially after everything the bastards had done to them and all of these people, but...when it really came down to it, going around slaughtering every institute employee would make Badd no better than they were.

At least he could now (try to) put his doubts to rest and be assured that his friend wasn't upset with him. It eased little of the guilt he felt for submitting to that doctor, but it helped nonetheless.

Byrne shook his head. "Don't. It was...my fault, anyway. I was the one who fell for their trap." He reached over to put a hand on his friend's arm in reassurance. If there weren't so many people around, he wouldn't have hesitated to throw his arms around him. God knew how much he needed the support right now. This feeling of fear...it was like what Kay must have felt when she was four and scared of the monsters that tried to get her at night. Only here, the monsters were real, and they were everywhere.

Badd was sharing similar impulses. He was no good at comforting people--children, you gave a candy and some soothing words, but for a grown man Badd had no idea what to do. So he stood there to the side of the cafeteria door as the prisoners filtered through and he set his hand on top of Byrne's. If nothing else, he was here. That would have to be enough.

He shook his head again, hard. "Doesn't matter. Using a man's family against him...there's never any justification for that." Killing them wouldn't make him just as bad. Nothing could make you as bad as someone who used that kind of emotional blackmail. "I don't know how they knew about us or Calisto Yew, but..."

The photo. He still had it, didn't he? Badd reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded, crumple-edged photograph. He didn't show it to Byrne just yet.

"Tyrell..." Byrne sighed. He really wished he knew how these people knew about him and Badd so well, too. And Badd was right, there wasn't any justification for such emotional trauma. It was downright cruel, plus a lot of other nasty adjectives. But still...

It was useless to keep trying to disagree with him, Byrne supposed. Badd would keep insisting the institute was the only one in the wrong, Byrne would keep tossing his guilt at him, and then it'd just be this back and forth thing, like an unending emotional tennis match. Was it worth it? Not really.

There was something else to focus on now, anyway. Specifically, the folded piece of paper (a photograph, maybe?) that Badd just pulled out of his pocket, which piqued Byrne's curiosity instantly. Hopefully this would provide him with a well-needed distraction from the events of last night. "What's that?"

"They gave me a letter yesterday. It was supposedly from my..." Badd had to work up the nerve to spit the word out. "Wife. Written to the guy on my dog tags. It came with a photo. I was going to show you last night, but...well." Let's not go there.

Badd unfolded the photo carefully. He hadn't looked at it since yesterday and barely remembered he'd had it with him until now. It was of Badd, at least a decade younger and dressed in a tux. There was an uncharacteristic smile on his face, and an even wider one on the woman next to him. Hanging off his arm, wearing a wedding dress and nearly laughing, was Calisto Yew.

Badd handed the photo to Byrne without looking at it.

A letter written to the guy on his dog tags? A letter--

AH! Crap crap crap! Right! The letter! Byrne had been so worried about his M-U that he'd completely forgotten about that letter from 'Kay' that he'd wanted to ask Badd about! His face lit up with this realization just as his partner handed him the photograph. Alright, then. He'd mention it in a moment, after he was finished looking at this.

......

"What the hell?" Literally the only intelligent response Byrne could make to the photo, with disbelief written all over his face. Seriously, what the hell? How did they manage to pull this off and make it look so real? Landel must have some seriously talented Photoshop artists on his side or--or something, because damn that looked just like Badd and Calisto. Except for, you know, that awkward smile Badd had going on there. And the whole set-up of the photo, which was Badd and Calisto getting married. Married.

The whole thing was so ridiculous that Byrne couldn't stop himself from laughing. Not so much a mocking laugh - it was closer to a nervous chuckle.

Edited 2011-08-19 04:28 (UTC)

At least something had gotten his mind off the torture. Badd scowled, in that way he did when Byrne mocked him about something. It was the way he'd scowl if things were normal and they were joking around together at the office.

"They got a pretty sick sense of humor. I guess they did it with...computers or something. Don't think I'd have a smile like that even if I was getting married." And men like him didn't marry pretty young things in their twenties, they couldn't even make it a good lie. In fact if they'd wanted to make him believe he was someone else they'd found the identity he'd least want to have even if he thought it was true. No, he wouldn't let his best friend be a murderer and a murderer be his adoring wife. He'd rather be considered insane and keep who he was.

Especially not after what they'd done to Byrne and to Kay. He'd fight them with every breath he had, with every shred of sanity left to him, they'd have to pulverize him before he'd bow to their lies.

"No kidding. Obviously these people haven't seen the photos I tried to get you to smile in." Byrne grinned a little at that, then handed the photo back to Badd before he laughed any more at it. The familiar scowl on Badd's face was a small comfort that was well appreciated. Hell, anything that kept his mind off of last night was appreciated right now. But if it had to be something, let it be something familiar, from when things weren't this crazy.

Speaking of crazy, though, now was probably a good time to tell Badd about his own letter. "To tell you the truth," Byrne began to explain, his smile already gone, "I got a letter yesterday, too. It was supposedly from Kay, but like your letter, she addressed me as the name on my dog tags. There wasn't a photograph or anything, and she even called herself a different name. But her handwriting looked way too familiar." He said familiar rather than a match, as he only knew ten year old Kay's handwriting and not seventeen year old Kay's. In spite of that, the letter had shaken Byrne pretty badly when he'd first read it. Now that he'd seen that photograph of Badd and Calisto, however, he was being convinced that it was just another dirty trick.

"She said a lot of weird things. I forgot to bring it to show you, though." The reason for that was obvious.

Badd refolded the photo and tucked it away. He didn't mention the contents of the letter, no point depressing his friend further when he was just starting to pull a smile. "Want to bet that both of them line up? My letter mentioned...I think they might have been referring to you and Kay in some way. It's like they've got this elaborate story built up about who we're 'supposed to be' and they're keeping to the party line for everyone." The why, he still hadn't figured out, but he had reached the point of not caring. The whole thing was a massive sadistic experiment and all Badd needed to know how to do was how to stop it.

He wasn't ashamed of having yelled at Javert earlier. Javert deserved it for wasting his time trying to deduce a method to the madness when all they really needed to deduce was where they were keeping those guns at night.

The letters matching up made the most sense if these people were really trying to screw with their heads. Byrne thought back to his letter, trying to remember the most important details from it as best as he could. "Hmm... Well, 'Kay' never mentioned you in my letter. But she did seem to hint at some 'elaborate story', saying that I hurt quite a few people, even murdered some." Thinking about it now, the idea was pretty dumb. As if Byrne would murder anyone. That was one moral line he wasn't willing to cross without very good reason, and he really had no excuse as he wasn't an armed law enforcement official like Badd was. If these people wanted him to believe he was some kind of serial killer in denial, then good god they were going to need to try really damn hard to accomplish that.

Then again, they'd easily made him think they had his daughter held captive and were torturing her...

Byrne frowned deeply for a moment as the thought crossed his mind, shook his head, then forced himself to stay focused on the letter. What else was important about it? And not last night? Think. "Oh, there were some spots that were blacked out in the letter, too. The only black out that made sense seemed to relate to time, if I remember right." Of course. Why would the institute want the patients knowing precious details like that? That would be a little too generous on their part.

At least he seemed to be taking the idea well. Badd was used to victims of assault and torment, but he wasn't used to treating them gently...when he wanted to be compassionate, he backed off and let someone more capable handle it. But there was no one else to do it, so all he could do was hold to Byrne's hand and keep him distracted.

"Time and location, and the names out of outside parties.I got the murderer story too. They made it out like I was some cop who went crazy after his wife left him and started falling for his prey, which I assumed was supposed to be you." He threw in a rough chuckle, to accentuate that he found it just as ridiculous. It made for good drama, a real detective noir story with some psychodrama and bizarre homoeroticism thrown in. The boys up in Landel's office must have had fun rewriting his life into such a twisted image.

Byrne couldn't resist a small laugh at hearing that, either. "Sounds almost like a cheesy drama flick, doesn't it?" Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous. All of it was.

So ridiculous that Byrne lowered his eyes, sighing deeply. The depressed expression from earlier was starting to come back as he asked what was probably the same question on every patient's mind every minute of every day: "What's the point of it all, Tyrell? Why are they trying so hard?"

Why indeed? Byrne had convicted hundreds of criminals in his career. Even the ones who claimed to commit crimes for 'no reason' had some psychological reasoning behind their behavior, something that happened to them that made them snap. Logic dictated that Landel or Aguilar or whoever wouldn't kidnap all these people, stick knives in their hearts and twist them as much as they could, just because 'they felt like it'. It was too large, too expensive, too risky of an operation to perform with so many people involved.

But trying to figure out why was starting to hurt Byrne just as much as thinking about the crimes themselves. He tried to believe in the good of people as much as he could, but not to the point where he would naively forgive anybody who stooped to these levels for any reason. It was still enough to make him wonder just how any human being could possibly want to orchestrate such a thing as this place. Perhaps it wasn't worth it trying to think about it anymore.

The brief smile had vanished from Byrne's face again. Badd had never seen Byrne so disheartened, even in the middle of KG-8 (should he tell about the hallucinations? No, no reason to worry him, and as he'd told Javert the effects would pass eventually) "Experiments, I think. Beyond that even the veterans don't know...and at this point I don't particularly care." His voice lowered--not softened, there was only so much you could soften gravel and barbed wire when you were constantly restraining the urge to murder the people around you. "Nothing could excuse what they did to you. All I want to know now is how to destroy them."

Badd made another nudge to try and get Byrne to sit down. He wished he was able to smuggling a lollipop out of his room to give to him, any tiny little thing he could do to make things comfortable and familiar for him.

This time Byrne would let his friend lead him to a table. It was getting tiresome standing here. Forget about eating, though. He'd be lucky if he could stomach lunch later on. Too much to think about, too much to worry about.

"Open daytime rebellion has proven to do more harm than good," the prosecutor responded after a short pause, "And I doubt it's so easy to find the head of it all if the veterans have been trying for weeks. Their system is clever and too perfectly chaotic at night. Fighting them will be difficult." He looked and sounded disheartened at first, but both his expression and tone hardened as he continued on. "But I bet it's not impossible. Just harder than the Yatagarasu's used to."

The torture session had taken a lot out of Byrne and would likely continue to haunt his mind for a little while. But being here now, reassured by Badd's presence and his will to fight...the possibility of victory didn't seem so impossible anymore.

Badd gave a firm nod and bit his thumbnail in lieu of a lollipop to nibble upon. There. He'd claimed it, even after they'd tried to tear him down in the worst way possible. General Aguilar had tried to have the Yatagarasu written out of existence completely but they wouldn't go down by a few holograms and fake letters.

"And we are still the Yatagarasu," Badd said, pulling his thumb from his mouth. He leaned back against the table, managing to somehow be defiant in his casual gesture. "Against time, against death, against the smuggling ring, against every conceivable law of reality and every horror they've tried to throw at us, the Yatagarasu's still flying. They're not going to be able to break us of that."

He was even less a man of speeches than he was one of compassionate gestures, and he viewed rhetoric as words ill-spent. But someone needed to make a noble statement in this worthless place...someone needed to put the fear of the gods in General Aguilar's forces and break the cycle of torture and despair.

Badd wasn't technically smiling. He very rarely smiled. But the people who knew him closely knew better than to just look at his face and his lips for signs of his true emotions.

If Byrne looked into Badd's eyes he'd know that his friend was wearing a fierce grin.

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Day 58: Cafeteria

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