damned_institute | Night 61: Meeting Room 1

He had already been taken once. And Sora, having confessed to being here longer than anyone else in the joint, was probably exempt from both brainwashing and a night under the gentle knives of the terribly bored doctors at Landel's. So saying that he was not expecting a visit from an orderly just before the going got going and a demand to follow him out of the room was entirely accurate.

Except this time he wasn't sedated.

And this time the dude was just calmly walking him upstairs.

"So...I'm not being selected for population control, am I?"

There was a roll of the eyes and a less than gentle shove into a board room - which Peter had no idea existed, much less visited in the entire time he'd stayed here - and then the orderly took a silent station by the door. Peter just stood there, gaping.

The room itself was actually rather homey. The table was made of glass, the walls were painted in some kind of creamy not-so-white looking colour and speckled with happy little nonsense paintings, splashes and shapes in a variety of hues. There were water pitchers on the table. And little mints.

Peter frowned at them. Should he...

Yeah, he had just gotten dumped suspiciously into a room by his captors for none of the usual reasons and he was still in possession of his mental faculties. And yet his first thought was still that he wanted to swipe a candy mint.

Wisely, Peter decided against it, and trusted in his spider sense enough to take a seat in the chair nearest to him and stayed put there. This was...not okay. All joking aside, he was actually kind of terrified that he was getting singled out for something and he had no idea what the frick it could be. Once more, he swivelled to face his tour guide.

"Did I win a luxury cruise?"

Silence.

"Is this a PTA meeting?"

More silence.

"Am I getting a promotion?"

And still the constant stoicism. No worries. Peter could do this all night.

"Did I..."

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"Why do I have to be Wilford Brimley?"

Jessica found herself interjecting immediately, brows furrowed and expression immediately sliding into a pout. "I'm cuter, I should be Russel." She could tell that the man was rolling his eyes at their banter but it was in their genes. Their blood. They were walking, talking quiptionaries.

But regardless, she was looking over Peter's shoulder again, hand resting on his arm as she quickly skimmed the mission file. This was similar to what she got with SHIELD, except she'd be with grown men and experienced fighters and not... well, her genetic template. She had a bad feeling in her gut about this, but she figured that was the rational response to finding out she would be going to Antartica.

Jessica glanced over at one of the orderlies, hand still resting in against Peter. "So how exactly are we supposed to get No Man's Snowland? What, are you going to wave your magic wand and poof us there?" The urge to roll her eyes was strong in this one, but she found herself trying to slip into her SHIELD demeanor of taking orders and performing missions and that was something she wanted to keep under wraps, at least, with Peter around.

"Also, why us? It can't be because of how adorable we are."

"Because I can grow a Kurt Russel beard and you can't," Peter retorted neatly. "Also, baloney. They had a poll and everyone said I was the cute one."

There was an audible groan from behind them. Whatever. The ordely was willingly working for the guy who chose to suck them into this hellhole in the first place. If he didn't have the sense to go flip burgers at a Micky D's instead, Dudeguy could just deal with it.

Peter turned when Jess did, though mostly by the head. She still wouldn't let go of him, and it was comforting to an extent. All jokes aside, this was kind of a pickle they were in. He let his eyes dart around, looking for cameras, trapdoors, shimmers of invisibility cloaks. Definitely a pickle. No overt traps, but then if they really were sending them off to the snowy deep then that was trap enough in itself.

But it made sense. Landel's itself was just a training ground. That was the whole reason why the military had come (and gone) in the first place. The jig was up. So logically, it didn't make sense for them to lie or trick them by sending the two of them off to complete tasks. Gather samples, kick monster butt. Peter frowned, and skimmed over the details again. Nothing seemed particularly amiss...

That didn't mean he was up for volunteering just yet either.

"Yeah," he added, tacking on bits to Jessica's point. "Otherwise you wouldn't be bundling us up in twelve tons of snow gear. No one will know how pretty we are."

"Oh for the love of- they picked you so you could prove you could do more than just run your mouths." Orderly Numero Uno crossed his arms, scowling at the two of them. "We're going through the whole roster, don't go feeling so damn special. You're not the first ones to come up here, and you won't be the last."

The other jumped in, breaking his stoney silence for the first time since he'd materialized behind Jessica at the door. "If you fail, there will be consequences. Not just for you, but for everyone."

When the second orderly spoke up, Jessica's eyes widened ever so slightly and her breath hitched. She had no idea how true that was, but they knew how to egg her and Peter on. Knew exactly which button to press to make sure that the two would do what they want. The clone's hand went down to her genetic template's, wrapping her fingers around his.

"Consequences?" She found herself snapping out, voice more on edge than she wanted. "So -- what -- the entire hospital depends on whether we actually go through with this or not? That's a lot of weight for the shoulders of two kids."

She glanced over at Peter, her expression trying to convey the wonder of whether he was going to go through with it or not. They had already convinced her simply with that threat, and while she'd like to think of herself something not as stupid, the guilt and irrationality -- the need to protect everyone -- was already kicking in and there wasn't much she could do about it.

Much like Jessica, Peter was taken aback, wide eyes and all. The orderlies were probably looking at carbon copies of the exact same expression right about now. But while Jess was instantly able to jump in, throw out a challenge to it even if she knew they had to accept, Peter was frozen to stone. He remembered how Scott had sunk down mid-sentence, clutching at a hand on his throat no one could see. Harvey's arm had bloomed bright red soon after. No one had seen what hit him. And all because neither he nor Indy had dared to start throwing punches.

"We'll do it," he said slowly. He looked up at the orderlies, steel in his eyes. "We'll do it."

If Jess wanted to keep fighting it, she would have to suck it up. Peter wasn't taking risks anymore. The cupboards in the morgue were filling up all too quickly as it was. Brainy might be gone, but he still had a lot to lose.

He squeezed her hand tighter and sent her a small look. Trust me on this.

"How do we start?"

Jessica frowned at the look Peter gave her, knowing exactly what it meant and what he wanted. She knew Peter like the back of her hand, even if he wasn't the same with her. But for a while, she remembered everything he had ever said, done, smelled, tasted, everything. She knew he was going to say yes, she knew the only path she had was to trust him. That was what he wanted.

"You two will go through the door and be taken instantly to where your mission will happen."

One of the orderlies pointed to a door in the back of the room, Jess' gaze following the gesture.

"That's it?" She blurted out, hand squeezing Peter's instinctively. "We just walk through the door and we're there."

"You'll have to agree to the mission first, girl. You can walk through the door but if you don't say that you'll do it, those consequences? Will be dire."

Jessica's eyes narrowed and she scowled. This was ridiculous. They were walking her into a verbal contract, she knew it. The fact that they wanted her to say it explicitly, that she would participate was absolutely butt-nuts stupid. But nonetheless, she managed to spit out, "Fine. I'll do it. Let's get this over with."

And then squeezed Peter's hand again.

He was silent throughout the rest of the interchange. His eyes flicked to the door when it was indicated and his heart kicked up a gear. This was stupid. He had no choice to play along, but he definitely knew this was stupid. And of course, it happened to be the one night he decided to take a break from the basement that some other cosmic force of suck would stroll along and hijack him for the night.

And it had to go and roll up Jess along with it. Peter seethed inwardly. It wasn't fair. She should be safe. She shouldn't be here in the first place, and now she was getting tangled up in his bullcrap all over the place and he couldn't guarantee anything for her anymore. He'd die if he woke up one morning and found out she'd gotten shanked by Grell or something worse. Literally, he'd die. He was already on his last legs around here.

In the end, she was agreeing along with him. Another squeeze to his hand. He returned it without thinking. "Thanks," he muttered under his breath. As if she had had a choice.

Then they both stepped forward and the real work began.

[To here.]

Edited 2012-02-13 01:34 (UTC)

Night 61: Meeting Room 1

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