Night 59: Operating Room (North)

[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

[from here]

As usual, Indy stopped on the threshold and waited, listening and peering through the darkness, trying to track anything moving. He gave it a minute and didn't notice anything, so he moved inward. It was noticeably cooler in here. The table was straight ahead, surrounded by a raft of devices--what looked like lights and monitors, and another, unfamiliar machine.

No ominous bloodstains, at least. Indy felt around briefly for a switch to the lights, then gave up. The coolness of the room suggested that at least some kind of power was still running in this area, but he doubted it extended to anything that was likely to help them.

Comments

[dualistic]

The change in temperature was the first thing that Harvey noticed, although part of his attention was still focused on figuring out what these rooms were for. It was true that they could be used for patching them up during that twilight period between the end of night and when they woke up, but Harvey thought that a whole operating room was usually more than was needed for the scratches and bites that people got here.

Then again, if someone needed stitches, it might be the sort of thing that was done here -- or even putting on a cast. He didn't really want to think that he and other people he knew had been laid out on this table before without even knowing it, but...

In the end, he couldn't help equating this place to the morgue. He was sure that Jones was doing the same thing, which meant there was no reason to mention it. Harvey drew closer to the table and ended up running his hand over it, but it was clean and when he sniffed at his palm, it smelled of antiseptic.

"Makes you wonder... How much time do you think passes between night ends for us and when we wake up?" It was something he'd thought about before, but a room like this gave more credence to the theory that it was a few hours rather than a few minutes.

[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

"It--" Indy stopped and considered his answer more carefully. As many times as he'd turned that question over in his mind, he still hadn't come up with anything logical. "You'd think it would be a while," he said. "Just transporting everyone back from where they ended up--going to get every group from the basement or those ruins or Doyleton and tucking them into bed--that could take hours. Then the time it'd take to patch up injuries, change everyone back into the uniforms, pack up all our belongings into those boxes and take them all to storage....Not to mention clean the whole place.

"For a normal staff the size of the one we've seen, it could be days. But the night is hours long and they wake us up in the morning." He shook his head. "As far as I can guess, there are two options. Either they're using some kind of technology, like those rings, that's beyond us but that cuts the time down to no more than a few hours." Earlier he'd wondered if it didn't have something to do with time travel like the kind that might have brought him here--restoring the building to some earlier state--but that sounded too crazy to mention.

"Or else it really does take that long, and we're just out for days in between the end of night and the morning we wake up. It would certainly help explain how injuries heal faster than usual in here." Although maybe not all of it--Indy could swear he'd seen broken legs heal in less than a week here, and you'd need longer than a few missing days to achieve that. He frowned. "I don't know which is more plausible. I haven't been here long enough to see if the change in weather is what you'd expect for a given time period, and I've never thought to ask anyone in town about how long it's been since we were last there." Assuming they'd even give him a straight answer. They might well all be as brainwashed as the staff here.

Having delivered his lecture, he tried opening one of the drawers on the unfamiliar device. It was empty.

I can move them next tag!

[dualistic]

In a way the question had been rhetorical -- or rather, Harvey hadn't really been expecting a serious or in-depth answer. He must have forgotten that he was speaking to Jones, archaeologist and over-thinker extraordinaire. Not that any of that was a bad thing, of course. Harvey usually spent his fair share of time pondering over these things himself. It was just unexpected considering they were in the middle of searching through an abandoned medical wing. This seemed like the sort of conversation they'd have over a meal during the day, not while they were creeping through an operation room.

As Jones went through his lecture, Harvey continued to look around the area, fiddling with the monitors (all of them were turned off) and searching for any instruments that might have been left out. It seemed that the staff was diligent about cleaning up after they did work in here, though, since the place was spotless.

"I think it's probably the first one." Part of that was because he really didn't want to imagine that he was sleeping days between night and the morning when it sure as hell didn't feel that way. That was a level of eerie that he didn't want to accept unless he was forced to. "I mean, they've already proved that they've got levels of technology way beyond what I'm used to, so..."

The other option was that they were slowing down time somehow, but Harvey tried not to think too hard on how much control this place had over things like that. It was something that screwed with his world view too much for comfort.

At the other end of the room were two doors. Harvey went over to one and found that it was unlocked before moving over to the other, which also was. He was shocked by how accessible this area was. He'd had to break through two doors, sure, but after that it'd been smooth sailing. "You done here?"

[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

Indy nodded. "You can say that again." The novelty of the amazing technology here hadn't worn off yet. He hoped he wouldn't be here long enough for it to get old.

There didn't seem to be anything notable here, so Indy left the operating table and followed Dent over to the doors. Both unlocked again. "Yes. Does either of those look like a storage room? Not sure if they'll have much worth taking, but it's worth a look."

[dualistic]

Now that Jones made it clear that he was done, Harvey went ahead and directed his flashlight into the door he was closest to. It didn't take long for him to realize that he'd found the right one, since there were a few medical trolleys straight back that looked like they actually had things in them.

"I think we've gotten lucky for once," he said, glancing over his shoulder at Jones for a split second before he stepped inside to get a closer look.

[To here.]