Day 64: Sun Room

[overlimit]

This time, when Rita awakened, the drowsiness and disorientation cleared much faster than it had during the night. Being in a familiar room with traces of light helped with that. Instinctively, she tried to pull herself up, but the motion sent a piercing pain through her chest.

"Oh, Paige, let me help you!" a nurse cried from the doorway as she rushed to Rita's side. For once, Rita wasn't about to put up a fight, though she grumbled a bit as she was eased upright and to her feet. Her right arm was in a cast, which was kept immobilized in a sling. Wherever skin was visible, bruising could be found, and a particularly deep shade of blackish-blue could be seen peeking out from the edge of her shirt collar.

As they began to walk to the Sun Room, the nurse continued talking. "I hope you're not too disappointed at missing the field trip. But I have good news for you! The doctors say you'll be good as new in no time, so long as you take care and don't aggravate your injuries." The woman went on to list a number of activities the mage should avoid or ask for help with, as though Rita couldn't figure those things out for herself. Finally, they reached their destination and Rita was left in peace.

First things first: the bulletin. Since it was early in the day, there weren't many messages from patients yet. That was fine; it would mean her own message would be more visible. First, she needed to notify Taura of her situation, and then there were a few magic-related topics she wanted to inquire about...

Rita picked up a pen and a slip of paper, bent over one of the tables near the bulletin, and began to write... but the letters came out jerky and illegible.

"Dammit," she hissed, scrapping the paper and beginning again. Using only her non-dominant hand was more difficult than she imagined. This time, she wrote very slowly, taking care to write each stroke of each letter neatly. The result was still awkward-looking, but at least it was a readable start. She just needed to be patient... though that was a virtue Rita certainly lacked.

[Taura!]

Comments

[ryuuzaki]

"Yes." He nodded, brightening his expression so that he would look more encouraging. "Like that."

It really didn't matter how she pronounced his name, although her attempts indicated a show of good intentions on her part. "Ryuuzaki" was only an alias, so there was no reason to care if she mangled it, and the fact that he wasn't Japanese in reality meant that there was even less reason to have any interest in whether or not she was able to reproduce the R sound or put the proper stresses on the syllables. Even if it had been his real name, he still might not have cared... except that pronouncing Lawliet correctly meant that someone probably wouldn't be able to guess how to spell it. It wouldn't have saved his life in the past year--Amane didn't need a name to kill, she only needed to see him at a time when she had Kira's power--but it still felt like a small component in his personal armor, that if he was somehow forced to tell someone his name, it would still be almost impossible for them to write it down accurately. That was one reason why he had been so unsettled when he had realized that the number that the military had assigned to him was numeric code for it.

Nina's next statements were more compelling; he listened, with an intent stare and more subtle nods to let her know that he was following closely. In light of what she was saying, it was important to give the impression that he was taking in every detail. But his mind was also working on what she said: it had certain implications.

She was trying to find the killer on her own... does that mean that she was trying to learn their identity, or that she had a suspect she was pursuing? One makes her an interested party, a kind of victim, the other, a vigilante; the difference involves motive, opportunity, temperament.

Apart from that, if Inspector Lunge was investigating her parents' deaths, and the police were pursuing the wrong person, then she believes Lunge was the one on the wrong track. It's possible for any officer to make an error, but Lunge seemed extremely sharp, extremely capable... maybe it's related to the conditions here. There's only a finite amount of useful information, and she might even come from Lunge's past... does her parents' murder predate the use of DNA evidence?

One thing was clear: if she was a vigilante, and if Light ever made another appearance in the Institute, she might turn out to be sympathetic with Kira's aims. Yet if Light appeared, he probably wouldn't preserve the relative secrecy L had maintained around his own profession. Lunge had known, and Abe had known, and Howell had made some insinuations, but Jones hadn't known, and Edgar still didn't. As to Nina, he planned to tell her only as much as he needed to... but that might be a great deal. One of Lunge's first questions had been "Policeman or criminal?", and L had had to explain that policeman was inaccurate, but close enough to be getting on with.

"We'll go back to your case in a moment, Miss Fortner. In answer to your question... first of all, it was necessary for me to tell Mr. Lunge something personal to try to establish whether or not we came from the same world. But past that, it would be easier for me to explain why he knew more of me than I did of him if you have some experience of this place at night.

"Were you here yesterday, when most of us were in town, or did you just wake up here this morning? It makes a difference."

[mirrorimage]

When his expression brightened, so did Nina's, and unlike with L, there was nothing calculated or deliberate about it. Nina would take all the encouragement she could get, and she liked to think she wasn't verbally mutilating her new acquaintance's name. Even her posture perked up a little bit, her back straightening even more than it already had been, and Nina wasn't prone to slouching on general principle.

Policeman or criminal? was dancing around in Nina's mind as well, although she wasn't prone to stating it outright as the erstwhile inspector had. Yet, anyway. Eventually she might have to ask, if Ryuuzaki didn't volunteer the information on his own. But he had to be one of the two, she thought, for Lunge to have taken a vested interest in him -- and, for that matter, probably for him to have taken such a vested interest in Inspector Lunge.

Right now, Nina was leaning towards "policeman", but she was also painfully aware of how her own optimism could work against her. Nina was idealistic enough to want to believe the best of people, but she was also savvy and self-aware enough to know she wanted to believe the best.

She was only too happy to answer his next question, though. Even if he turned out to be a criminal of some kind or a suspect of the inspector's, Nina still didn't want him killed or seriously injured, and telling him what she had seen could only help prevent that.

"I arrived last night," she said. She talked more freely about this than she did about the circumstances of her past in her own world, although there was still a gravity in her voice. The happenings of the night before, still fresh and horrific in her mind, warranted nothing less than severity. "While you were all in Doyleton. Ryuuzaki, where is 'Doyleton?'"

She had the awful feeling that he likely wouldn't be able to tell her, though, and went on without waiting for an answer. "When I woke up here, it was almost empty. I thought I was alone at first. But I met a man..." Here, Nina's features softened a little, although she didn't quite smile. She didn't know much about Murphy, but he had been kind to her in the midst of so much horror, and for that she was grateful. "We went to the entry room, and when we got there, there were bodies and blood. Everywhere. So much blood. More than I'd ever seen before." Even her parent's deaths had not been so bloody. Nina shivered involuntarily.

Finally, everything Ryuuzaki had said really caught up to her. Or it did as much as it could, when some of it felt like complete nonsense. "Wait. What do you mean, 'different worlds?'" He said it so casually! But the very idea was bizarre to Nina. "Why does it make a difference? I don't understand any of this. It's all so strange."

[ryuuzaki]

"It's a lot to explain. To begin with... Doyleton is the nearest town. It's a few miles down the road. They take us there every Saturday... a field trip." He put an ironic, biting weight on the last two words. His long right hand strayed up past his temple, into his dark hair, where he rubbed his scalp, then sighed.

When he spoke again, he sounded less emotional: he'd reverted to tired and matter-of-fact. "It's good that you were here last night; it will be easier for you to understand what I can tell you about this place. But please, save any questions until after I've finished.

"First of all, it wasn't only like that last night. It's like that every night. In many ways you could call it the true face of this place. You shouldn't go out alone unless you're traveling a very short distance.

"Today, this," (his right hand gestured vaguely around the room before falling to his side), "the idea that it's really a hospital... this is an elaborate charade. The Institute has connections with the military. You'll be pushed all day to accept a false identity, and there won't be any concessions to the idea that it's anything other than a psychiatric hospital. At night, they seem to want us to fight. It's best to find the most effective weapon that you can, as soon as possible.

"The people here come from different places and different times. Some have magical abilities, although I wouldn't recommend accepting any such claim without a demonstration of it. I wouldn't have accepted the claims myself, but the demonstrations...." He shrugged. "One of my roommates was able to read some of my thoughts, and someone else was able to run his hands through his own hair and change its color. Among other things.

"To answer your original question, there was a night about two weeks ago during which doors didn't connect to the rooms they should have. One door, upstairs, took us to Doyleton, and the next took us from Doyleton to my current home, where I was staying before my abduction. But we were only able to stay there for the rest of the night."

He paused to confirm that she was following what he was telling her.

[mirrorimage]

Confirming that Nina was following what he was telling her would not be hard. Her posture had changed dramatically since he began talking. Her posture was much closer to a less hunched over version of his own now, as Nina had drawn her legs up and was holding herself around her stomach, arms looped loosely around her waist.

She tried to make sense of what he was telling her, but although he had given her the explanation with as straightforwardly as he was likely capable of under the circumstances, the knowledge still found it hard to connect to something coherent and understandable in Nina's brain. Everything he was telling her seemed so fantastic, even for someone who had lead a life like hers. Different places. Different times. Magical powers.

It was all almost too much.

If Ryuuzaki waited on a nod before continuing, he would need to wait several seconds while Nina tried to mentally digest everything she'd been told. Eventually, though, the lack of speaking jerked her back to the real world, and she was cognizant enough to give him a quick nod that said yes, she was definitely still paying attetion.