Day 59: Sun Room (4th Shift)

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

After an intercom broadcast like that, Kurogane felt somewhat better about the little information he'd gotten from Harrington the previous night. The man only sounded competent when he needed to but was an idiot otherwise. Unfortunately that was furthered proof of the General not employing the brightest of staff members, making another option for information closed to them.

Kurogane was again some steps ahead of his escort when he reached the Sun Room and ignored the soldier further as the ninja headed to look over the bulletin. Last time he'd missed something, and he wasn't about to have that happen a second time. With some searching he located Tsubaki's messages to others he didn't know but found nothing either written by the magician or addressed to him. That being the case, he left the board without any of his own writing and sought out a chair over a couch. If he didn't leave open a space by him, he had a better chance of being left alone. Or so he believed.

[free bird! bear]

Comments

[witchoftruth]

As Sync already did his part by scolding Erika about looking like an idiot while building a fort, this boy's words naturally had no effect on her whatsoever as she continued to look at her fort, deciding that she had done a good enough job with the few materials she had. If she had come by earlier and took that strange boy's advice to continue building the fort during lunch, this wouldn't have happened... Deep down, Erika was naturally aware that this was the biggest waste of time imaginable, but with nothing else to do until nightfall, she thought this was a pressing enough situation.

"There's nothing else for me to do until nightfall," Erika replied, not even sparing the boy a glance. "If you want to sit, there are seats in the Game Room. I checked." She did. There were none left for her to take, but she managed to salvage a few chairs from the Art Room to add onto the fort. She quite liked her work in the middle, which left a small protected space for her to pop her head up and throw things. Yes, she wasn't planning on letting Scott's fort remain standing, but to walk over and kick it down would be too boring.

For now, though, she could talk to this boy. Erika did turn to look at him this time, only to look at his beret. When she clearly saw that the pin she was looking for wasn't there, she turned away again in disinterest. Too bad, this encounter could have proven to be more fruitful. In the meantime, maybe she could make the odds better for her in the future.

"Do you know why the military allowed me to do this?" Though the way she phrased it sounded like she was asking the boy a hypothetical question, Erika looked at him again with a questioning expression as if she really was asking him for the answer. "I don't have a solid answer, but I have an idea."

[inherited]

The fact that she brushed him off like that annoyed him, but her question was interesting enough for him to not just turn away like it was nothing. Riku thought this was a pointless exercise, but the fact of the matter was that she jumped right to his problem with it. Things like this could work against everyone's favor in the long term. But they were still going on. No discipline, no stopping. A task like this occurring for more than one shift meant that someone either didn't care to stop them—or was making a statement.

Riku figured that was what she meant. That all of this was just one big statement. He thought back to that annoying speech given that night, and how it was about their free will. He snorted out in remembrance. His breakfast chat proved that the speech was nothing. In the end, these military guys weren't any different from Landel. They just dressed themselves up differently and tried to pass off a different illusion.

"I've got an idea or two," he admitted to her after a pause to draw it all together. "They either want to show that we're out of control for our records or they want to give us the sense that things are different now. They keep spouting it off. Different clothes. Different things to do at night. Different guy in charge who claims he's not treating us like an idiot. But it's all just another game." He shrugged, indicating that was where his thoughts ended.

"What about you?"

[witchoftruth]

The boy, to his credit, came up with some good points and took her question to heart. She liked that, which was why Erika nodded long to some of his ideas. That first one in particular with the military deliberately letting the patients make fools of themselves was an idea she actually hadn't thought of, though she had her own doubts about that. Regardless, while she didn't have a direct answer to her own question, she had an idea, which was what they were discussing.

Erika reached up and tapped the pin on her beret, the one she earned for letting herself get gutted like a pinata (literally). "After I earned this, things became a little different. Because of this, I'm allowed to move around freely. Not as freely as I'd like, as many rooms are still closed to me, but the laundry room was open. There, I was able to get some blankets. There was one person who complained about my conduct, and do you know who that was? One of the staff members from before, one who was retained to do the menial work like laundry. He couldn't do a thing to stop me. He wanted to, but it seemed like my rights trumped over his."

That was an odd way to put it, but that was the point that Erika was getting at with her little story of how she actually got all of these blankets. Though Erika was surprised that the military actually didn't see this as a disruption at the very least, it was interesting to think that doing things now had a tangible effect, granting her a set of privileges that other patients did not. Testing the limits of that privilege was the reason why the fort existed, and it seemed like depending on the way she stretched it, it could go quite far.

"I don't know what value the military sees in this, if there is any, but I know this: I'm allowed to do this because I've earned it. Nothing more, nothing less." That was what it basically was to Erika, as far she was concerned. "I don't think the military really cares what we do during the daytime anymore. As long as we're not causing trouble for them." The final point: As long as her antics weren't disturbing the actual soldiers, they had no reason to interfere with her. Her little experiment had actually given her a wealth of information to create some theories with, and this boy hopefully could understand the value of what she was actually telling him. At least, Erika thought it was valuable.

"Although, even with this much freedom, they still complain if I take off my hat."

[inherited]

Riku considered her pin and wondered where it came from. Would she take kindly to the fact that he was asking? It was strange how he resented her earlier, but now she was testing the limits in a way that he hadn't considered. But he was in a position where he couldn't; one wrong move might mean he didn't wake up the next day. One wrong move might mean he didn't see his friends again. It wasn't that he was worried about himself—nothing could really make him see himself as someone who was worth worrying about, with all the pains he brought upon things—but he couldn't stand to leave them here.

But processing things the way he was now, he wondered how different this place was from the Organization, from even the way Ansem decided to use Naminé. In the end, it wasn't all that different.

"They just wanna use us as tools, huh. Soldiers for what they need to get done. Cannon fodder." Maybe that was why they took over. He thought back to the speech from the night he woke up, and he realized that was just the same kind of stuff he thought the Organization had to hear. It was too bad none of them were around anymore. He wasn't on great terms with Roxas, but he knew he could ask Sora to ask his Nobody to put things into perspective. Riku had a pretty good hunch, either way. "Use us up, and it doesn't matter what happens between now and then. It makes sense. The drugs. The speech. Of course they don't care. We're helping them out." The last bit came out a little lighter, almost cocky and mocking.

He smirked as he glanced toward her pin and focused on it again. "So how'd you get that? I can't say I like being so chained up."