Nightshift 62: Main Hallway, 1-West

[ninelivesonce]

[from here]

Taura took up station midway between the two halls leading back into the dormitories. Alone with her thoughts; the hall was quiet. Too quiet. Dead quiet, a little voice hissed in the back of her mind.

This was no time to be getting superstitious. It was unavoidable, really, in a profession with so much risk involved in daily operations, that those who survived found things to credit. Beyond their own skill, because they'd all seen better men/women/herms when their luck ran out, and skill only improved your odds.

Her luck was holding, tonight. Was Rita and Goku's?

[Rita and Goku]

Comments

[dualistic]

While Sangamon had a point, it wasn't like the rest of the group to get cold feet most of the time. All of them were generally ready to keep pushing further down the rabbit hole, so what was the hold-up this time? Maybe news of Peter's disappearance had spread and it had set everyone back. That might be it.

But as far as he understood, it didn't really matter what they did. He'd gone and done something random the night before and it had still led to someone's death in the end. Not that he needed to bring that up with Sangamon. The guy was probably better off not knowing.

"What kind of trouble were you planning to look for?" Since their original plan was probably the most dangerous and unpredictable option, everything else was going to see uninteresting in comparison. But maybe Harvey just had weird priorities.

[toxicspiderman]

"Hadn't thought that far ahead. Figured I'd show up here and we'd go spelunking, but not with just two of us. No offense." Hey, it was the truth.

If they hadn't fucked with the schedule, it wasn't a torture night, so there wasn't any point in heading upstairs. "Maybe go cross-reference Javert's notes with the Institute's files, unless you've got an idea that involves fewer card catalogs and more action."

He'd never seen what notes the other side had on their little experiment -- had Javert looked and found nothing? Was there anything to find? Maybe it was all in there.

[dualistic]

No offense was taken, since Harvey hadn't really been planning on setting off with just one person either. Sangamon wasn't the worst person to end up on a two-person team with, although Harvey wasn't sure how well they would do with a fight. He always had his gun as a last resort, although that hadn't stopped Zex from being killed last night.

If he hadn't hesitated and had actually shot the dog instead of using his pipe, would Zex have lived? Was it even worth thinking about something like that, and in the end, did he even care?

"I'm not really interested in any action that doesn't have to do with heading down below, so comparing notes sounds fine to me. Which way?" He was guessing one of the file rooms, but he sent Sangamon a glance, waiting on his lead.

Though at that moment the intercom sounded, singing ring around the rosie in that computerized voice from that one night. What was Landel up to now? Harvey glared up at the closest intercom unit and then tensed up when it started spouting strings of ones and zeroes. Binary?

[toxicspiderman]

S.T. didn't have a photographic memory. Or a phonographic one. So once I.R.I.S. went from vague poetical allusions to binary, he stopped paying much attention. Why binary, anyway? Most hackers used hexadecimal, because computers were O.K. with ones and zeros, but humans did better with something less mind-numbing. Morse code almost had rhythm.

"It wasn't really about the plague, you know." He whistled a bit of the tune, off-key. Ring around the rosies, pocket full-- "Like rock and roll. Some people can't listen to anything without thinking it means something. Play it backwards and it summons the devil. Plague." He snorted. "Either Landel thinks we're idiots, or he thinks he's a genius."

He started walking as he pieced together tonight's theory du jour. Or whatever night was in French.

[to here]