Day 59: Intercom, Evening

[damned-intercom.livejournal.com]

As the day began drawing to a close, the intercom flickered to life. Instead of Harrington's voice, however, Berg's calm tone filtered through the speakers.

"Attention all personnel: please escort subjects to their quarters for the duration of dinner shift. After that, you are expected to report to your stations -- no exceptions. Anyone caught away from his or her post without direct orders will have to personally answer to the general."

An odd tension hung in the air, but Berg didn't say anything more than that. Once the intercom clicked off, soldiers began to gather up the patients and bring them to their rooms. Most didn't know why Harrington wasn't handling the announcements, or why Berg sounded particularly serious this evening, though no one would admit that to the subjects themselves.

The few who did know had more pressing matters to contend with.

Comments

Re: M41

[corvus-veritas.livejournal.com]

Byrne slowly shook his head. "No, it's...it belongs to a friend of mine. I took it from his room yesterday and had it on me until this morning, when I woke up to find it missing..." He still had no idea how Badd even got the thing to begin with, but that was far from being the biggest concern on his mind right now. What was more important was simply the fact that the gun was now back in Byrne's possession, for some reason or another. Why? Why would the people in charge freely give a handgun of all things back to a patient? What advantage did that give them? Why did they have to do their nightly torture sessions? Why did there have to be more questions around here than answers? Why was Badd so stubbornly resisting Byrne's help? Why did he have to say those things before? Why...

The prosecutor looked back at his roommate, becoming mildly aware that his behavior was unusual and that he should stop making his emotions so...public. It always made him feel guilty to show weakness, to have anyone have to ask him 'what's wrong'. It...that was his job, he was supposed to care for people, not the other way around... And wasn't he doing this same thing just a few nights ago?

... Oh, to hell with it. He could have a few minutes of being depressed for a change.

Re: M41

[hes-deadjim.livejournal.com]

Byrne's answer didn't exactly helping to clear anything up. It sounded like there was sentimental value because it was a friend, but at the same time, Byrne was more stunned to find it missing and then to get it back. So why was he reacting this way? He looked more upset than when he got the letter from his daughter. Confused, McCoy could get. Suspicious, he could get. But not this.

Maybe he was missing something. He had to be, Byrne wasn't exactly forthcoming right now, or making much sense. Probably had everything to with what exactly was eating him. "So you're upset you got it back again?" Shouldn't he return it?

Re: M41

[corvus-veritas.livejournal.com]

As the conversation went on and Byrne slowly came back to his senses, he started to feel more and more awkward being in this position. He was depressed, sure, and he wanted to let out that depression, but...ugghh. He didn't want to make McCoy feel uncomfortable because of him and his problems. And yet, he also didn't really want to start trying to force himself to cheer up like he'd been doing intermittently all day. Sigh.

Directing his attention to the doctor's question was probably the best idea right now. "W-well, not really, but--yeah. I mean, why would they just give a gun back to a patient? Isn't that kind of a dumb move on their part?" But then again, what could he do with it besides shoot monsters? (Or patients, but that wasn't something he would do.) There were only a measly ten bullets that came with it, after all. Maybe this was the Institute's way of saying ha ha, we'll let you have this lethal weapon because it's not like you can get out of here with it anyway?