Night 59: East of the Institute

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

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They turned towards the south, turning with the corner of the Institute and moving down towards the ruined town. Remembering the hunting knife in his pocket, Lunge swiftly took it into his hand and held it tight for protection's sake.

"I simply told him that I'd met Marc and gave him my assessment of his character," he added swiftly, glancing sideways at L. "Your name wasn't mentioned, and neither was the location of our meeting." He hadn't been that careless; if he was going to give anything away he wouldn't have let it implicate anyone but himself. Ultimately he'd stayed rather more tight-lipped than anticipated, but the principle had nonetheless guided much of his answer to that question.

Not that his silence on the details had much impeded his own ability to ask questions- it had been patently clear from the beginning that no amount of talking would have earned him an equally thorough answer of his own on the matter of Lydia. "He allowed me to ask my own questions, and so I asked about Lydia," he explained. "'Wouldn't' is the more accurate. I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to answer that question is what he said." A pause. "I think it's obvious that they know who she is. It would be interesting to know whether that means that they have her or that she's missing." Not only interesting, but potentially what the meaning of tonight's changes hinged upon.

Comments

[ryuuzaki]

It was better, L thought, that Lunge had readied the knife. The advantage to where they were now was that it would be hard to sneak up on them in the uninterrupted, radiant landscape, but the downside was that there was nowhere close for them to run for cover if something attacked them anyway. Worse, the terrain here could be treacherous enough that there would be serious risk of a nasty fall if they had to move so fast and carelessly.

As to the probability of interference? Almost certain. They'd met something unpleasant in the ruins on two out of three visits, although in both cases it had been once they'd reached the town, not en route. He tried to stay focused on both things in tandem: the topic of conversation, and the area around them.

"Last night... it seemed ridiculous that Marc all but broadcast his location, yet there was no indication that Aguilar--or Berg--made any move to capture him. It made me wonder if there was a reason... maybe he was watching to see who would try to meet with Marc.

"I doubt that he ever intended to tell you anything useful. But yes, it would be interesting to know more about Lydia... if they don't have her, she would be a wild card. I believe Landel might have mentioned her if he'd known of her whereabouts, which suggests Marc might not know, either. What did you think of Berg himself? What does he look like? Where did this meeting occur--somewhere you had seen before?"

They were making decent progress, propelled by the desire to put the chaos behind them, even if there was no guarantee that they were moving towards safety. At least the air out here was almost sharp in its freshness.

In the distance, far off to L's right and almost behind him, something small and angry and hungry detached itself from the side wall of the Institute and began to run towards the two distant figures. They moved away from it at a good speed, but it knew it would catch up soon.

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

Lunge smiled ruefully. "Interesting that you should say that; I was told that they'd monitored all of Marc's broadcasts, but they made it clear enough that weren't sure where he was or, at the very least, how to go about capturing him."

And as much as Berg had tried to protest otherwise, they were clearly concerned about Marc's presence. He had, after all, been the very first thing that the man had asked about, and while it was true that Marc was simply one rather inexperienced man, he also presented a beacon of dissension to the patient populace. Under Landel that might not have been particularly notable- Landel himself had seemed to enjoy having someone act the wildcard in his cat and mouse game- but to the military, so defined by their rigidity and discipline?

And, of course, would that discipline really allow Berg to give anything away that might have helped them? "That's what I decided before I even began speaking to him," he agreed. "I didn't bother wasting my time with questions I'd never get a truthful answer for no matter how much information I fed him in return; his reactions were more useful anyway."

The motion to L's right went undetected by Lunge; his eyes were trained solidly to his own side, trusting L to warn him if something approached them from that side. Perhaps the supposed safety of having their surroundings outlined in pink had made him lax. He hadn't counted on the speed of the creatures out here- the speed, and the stealth.

Attention on their conversation, he continued. "I was blindfolded for the majority the way to Berg's office- very neat, organised, officious," he added briefly. "The journey felt disorientating, like it did on the night that the doors malfunctioned, but that could have been down to the blindfold. Berg himself..." A pause, and then his hand was typing. "Perhaps in his late forties. Just as well-turned out as his office. He's greying already, with dark eyes. As for his manner: outwardly friendly in a professional way. The first thing he did was offer me coffee. There's a steel under that, though, a calm, easy confidence; I could never have tricked him into saying anything he didn't want to then."

1/2 ;_____;

[ryuuzaki]

It felt abnormal to move like this while thinking and absorbing information. Doing so became necessary from time to time, in L's experience, but combining the two purposes didn't serve either one of them as much as would be ideal: fleeing distracted from the interview, talking hampered the escape, and he'd prefer not to have to work this way at all.

As he mused on what Lunge was telling him, the temptation to slow to a contemplative stroll overwhelmed him, and as such, his footsteps began to drag. He had gone a few yards at this ebbing speed when he realized what he was doing and picked up the pace again.

The follower they had attracted was still distant and out of his line of sight.

He tucked away the information about Berg: not much to go on, and it might not be useful in the long run, but it was better to know it than not. There was a brief flicker of envy related to the coffee. The rest of it... It might be that most of what Berg told Lunge was a lie, but is it also possible that Aguilar was truly unable to capture Marc, even with all his troops? It would have been a bad choice to send patients on that kind of mission, but Aguilar has other options. Why aren't they viable? A possible explanation struck him almost in the same moment that he began to consider the concept, and he decided to voice it.

"Hm. Could Landel be the reason they can't capture Marc--the missing factor? We know that he can control behavior to some extent, if he tries: certain people can't discuss certain subjects. He's also been skilled at evading patients, even when appearing in front of them, and he was supposedly able to inflict relatively serious injuries on Marc without being injured himself. Is it possible that he also has some kind of ability to make himself unusually hard to find? If so... it seems reasonable that he would want to extend that kind of protection to Marc, for the time being.

"I'd prefer a more mundane explanation, but I think it would be a mistake at this point to fail to take Landel's more esoteric abilities into account... however, I think we should be very careful about theories of that nature. Even if the hypothesis is correct, those abilities must have limits like any others." His speed was too brisk, now, for him to sound as irritated as he might; anyone who walked like this for long would be winded, and he had to keep an eye on his footing on the uneven ground. He spent a few steps catching his breath before continuing. The idea of power and protection had an innate connection to a subject that was, at the moment, omnipresent.

"This Code Red... I think it protects the Institute in some way. I can't explain how it works, or why. It would have to be very advanced... whether or not we think it may also be 'magical' depends at least partly on what we think of IRIS. IRIS has been used as a failsafe in the past, but mostly to put this place on a kind of autopilot." One which doesn't always work well, he thought, remembering the woman standing in the corner of the Arts and Crafts room, and trying not to dwell on the way he'd fallen into convulsions and the taste of his own blood in his mouth.

2/2

[ryuuzaki]

"You didn't get a shock or a burn from touching affected objects with your hands, and when I touched them with this blade, there were no sparks, nothing like what you might expect if the glow had an electrical charge. However... I discovered by accident that I couldn't damage anything that was glowing with the blade itself. It should have been easy to destroy the surface of the desk or dresser in my room, but I wasn't even able to leave a scratch--and I was trying.

"The same thing might be true of the halls, but it's hard to say without knowing exactly how those killings were accomplished. Is it safe to assume that anything that caused biological material to burn would also burn the area around it?" The question was rhetorical. He paused again to catch his breath, without losing momentum.

"So what motivated it? This kind of emergency... Aguilar didn't choose to use the gas that has been used in the past, so it can't have been only a matter of ordinary rebellion among the patients. Gassing his staff wouldn't be a concern; they'd have the equipment to withstand it.

"No... if the Institute has to be protected from physical destruction, then there's a serious risk of it. That means either the rebels have more power than we've assumed... would they try to destroy the place with us in it, now that Aguilar is sending some of us on missions?... or that someone might have managed to destroy the device. The latter seems more likely, but there could be a third or fourth possibility.

"Another question: has Landel been using the same method to control patients, or does he have another way--another 'magical' ability? Aguilar doesn't seem to have access to all of Landel's resources."

Meanwhile, the squirrel bounded across the landscape, pausing occasionally to stand and sniff the air, making subtle alterations in its trajectory, and for a long time, L didn't notice it. It was still some distance away when his general discomfort made him glance over his shoulder, then stop in his tracks in response to what he saw.

"Wait, we're going to have to--"

He could tell that its size was unnatural, but he wasn't sure how much so, only that the difference skewed his visual perspective and made it hard to see how far away the squirrel might be. As it approached, its chittering became more audible, and L felt a surge of new dread in spite of himself. It was obvious that the animal was interested in him and in Lunge, not in avoiding them and running off into the forest.

They could keep walking, but the squirrel wouldn't take long to catch up to them, and when it did, it would be better to be ready for it than to be attacked from behind. L took hold of his blade with both hands, preparing to swing it... hoping that it wouldn't take much.