damned_institute | Night 64: West Wing, South Hall 1-A

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Night 64: West Wing, South Hall 1-A

[From here.]

Still no one. Harvey imagined that before long these areas were going to be flooded with sick people who were going to follow that clue, so he was glad that he'd beaten them to the punch. It wasn't that he thought it was contagious anymore -- by this point, they would have known -- but he didn't need to be surrounded by a bunch of miserable, sniffling people, either.

Relieved that he'd dodged that bullet, at least so far, Harvey reached the end of the hall and took a right toward their regular meeting spot.

[To here.]

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Hakkai followed Gren, trying to focus on what was around them rather than the thoughts in his own head. Easier that way. And Gren was right - it seemed like there were far more people out and about than usual. Though as to why... Hakkai raised one eyebrow slightly in confusion. "The Medical Wing?"

That Aidou's next object of concern resided in the female cell blocks would have been more inconvenient without the shortcut provided by the ring -- if Aidou wanted to raise objections about its use even after this much time had passed without noticeable negative consequences (and here, that was good enough for Sasuke), Sasuke was prepared to simply grab the vampire's hand and take him without preamble. After all, it wasn't as if there were any witnesses left to the hideous and deliberately-fueled misunderstanding that had arisen from their one unpleasant sortie with Naruto.

Not that that was a name that bore remembering after this much time (not that any of those were names that intruded no matter how much time). Sasuke turned his attention to the question Aidou posed with a tensing of his features.

"To town? I was. I was on the bus that attempted to riot." With predictable consequences.

Edited 2012-07-03 00:26 (UTC)

[from here]

Kyousuke tried to keep a close eye on his surroundings as he walked, and outwardly, it probably looked passable, but the truth was, it was taking most of his focus just to drag his exhausted limbs and control his breathing. This was ridiculous. He couldn't even remember the last time it was so hard just to walk.

The hall had some life in it, though, and unlike like their encounter from before, nobody seemed to really pay them much mind. They must have been like them. Kyousuke took this as a cue to feel safe; if something came, someone was bound to notice even if he didn't, and they could probably use numbers to their advantage. He leaned against the wall again, casually watching people talk or come and go like he was deliberating, but that wasn't quite the truth. They hadn't even walked that far, yet he needed a small moment to make it feel like his extremities were less on fire.

Was this going to happen every small distance they traveled? If so, they weren't going to get anywhere very quickly. This ... might not work.

Murphy just shrugged. It had looked pretty great to him. and neither of them were dead, though Tsurugi looked like maybe he was fading fast. Either from the fight or from fear, and the ex-con considered both valid reasons.

"This isn't really a hospital," he offered, attempting the conversation thing again. "But they've got medical stuff. If you need anything. I still don't have a map, but...sometimes you can find your way around without one. I haven't been here that long, just...woke up here last night."

He figured he shouldn't ask 'are you okay' again, since he'd probably just get the same answer. And he didn't want to push this kid away. He knew he fucked up, had a habit of doing the exact wrong thing, but he was determined.

"So...where are you from? I'm from Boston."

Kyousuke wasn't surprised to hear this wasn't a hospital, really. It looked like one, but the rust and decay wasn't exactly very sanitary, and it would be hard to keep people alive without any power. Maybe it was one at one point, but at the moment, it was pretty defunct. As for medical supplies, he doubted that was going to him any good.

"... I just need rest," he admitted plainly; pretending he was okay wasn't going to do much good if they ran into anything again, especially since he wasn't quite convinced he'd even be able to run away this time. But still, "It's not the time. I can worry about that later."

He wasn't entirely sure what to make of the fact that Murphy had already been here an entire day without slipping out of an exit, but Kyousuke choose not to comment on it. Hearing where the man was from, however, gave him some pause. Boston... Wasn't that in America?

"Inazuma-Chou, in Tokyo," he responded slowly, not sure that he liked where this was going. His eyes narrowed. "You really don't know where we are?"

It was probably pointless to repeat the first question he'd asked, but Kyousuke couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong here, apart from the obvious. What happened if he was really that far away from away from home? Even if he got out of here, he'd still basically be stranded. That... wasn't good.

"Do you want to go back to a room and rest? They're supposed to be safe." Murphy couldn't honestly swear they were, but that's what he'd been told.

"There's not much good wandering around drained is gonna do," he went on, countering Tsurugi's insistence of worrying about it later. "When it's morning they won't let you rest. They pretend it's a hospital and we're all crazy. Nobody knows where it is, other than someplace in America probably." He offered a small smile, trying to stay calm and hopefully forge some sort of trust with the boy.

"Wow, I've never met anyone from Japan before. You speak amazing English." That wasn't rude, was it? It was true, Murphy would never have guessed Tsurugi wasn't from the US. Sure he had a foreign name, but plenty of kids did. "I don't know that much. But we're trapped for right now, and everyone I've talked to says no one gets out through escaping. I dunno if it's true. But I do know it's really hard to get out of a place that doesn't want you to leave."

That was a less meddlesome response than Kyousuke had been expecting, a fact he was a grateful for. It still wasn't quite ideal, but at least he'd stopped treating him like a child. That was all he could really ask for.

The rest... was a lot to process. He assumed "they" to mean whoever had brought them here, but crazy? What was the point of that? What was the point of any of this? He tried to sort through what he knew to see if he could piece something together, but his headache disrupted any attempt to collect his thoughts. ... He just couldn't concentrate right now. Then there was that other part, about being in America. ... That was problematic. He had no money or passport, and he doubted his parents had the money to help him on such short notice. Maybe if he found his way to a consulate, they could do something... His head flared again.

"That's only if I stick around that long," Kyousuke countered eventually. He was exhausted, but he could still move, even for all the effort it took, and that was what counted. He wasn't going to waste an entire night if he could find a way out now.

Yet Murphy kept talking, and it far from assuaged any of Kyousuke's worries. "I—what?" he responded, totally bewildered. English? He wasn't speaking English... And Murphy didn't look like he was joking, either. He didn't know what that meant. He didn't even know how to respond to it, or address the obvious discrepancy.

"... Yeah, I guess," he said vaguely, still confused. He really had no other response. Either something was wrong with this guy, or he was one good actor.

The rest made about as much sense. What was the difference? Escaping was escaping. In fact, he probably would have made it if Murphy hadn't stopped him; those few seconds of pause were the difference between slipping over the wall and that robot appearing. He probably still could have made it even then if this guy hadn't been so passive and interfering, a thought which gave him a new swell of irritation, but the boy put that aside for now. But... 'A place that doesn't want you to leave.' He had to frown at that. This was just some run-down old hospital. It wasn't like it could think for itself.

"What do you mean?" he asked carefully.

Murphy only smiled sadly and shrugged a little.

"I really wish I had answers," he said. And he did. "I was in...a weird place before I woke up here. That honestly sometimes doesn't seem so different. And I don't know why they want to keep us here. There's a lot of us though, I could tell during the day. They give us different names and insist that's who we are. I know it sounds insane, I think it sounds insane." He ran his hands through his hair, clearly frustrated with his own lack of knowledge.

"My roommate...he got me up to speed as best he could. They let us out at night but there's monsters all over. People die a lot. I saw two of them last night. The military was here, I guess, but I don't know what they've got to do with anything. And no one gets out. Last night...I was out with a woman, we were in another part of the building. The front door. And then I was waking up in the room I woke up in first and it was morning and a nurse was there."

He looked up and down the hallway, keeping his eyes open for anything that looked dangerous heading their way.

… Oh. Well, that was good to know, he supposed. Except not, because if Sasuke had been awake why hadn’t he used some of his weird ninja powers to find Aidou for once, instead of the other way around?

Even if the boy couldn’t see it, the vampire still gave him a raised eyebrow. “So you were around. Jeez, consolidating information would be a little easier if we were in the same place at the same time for once.”

Not that Aidou regretted not being in a bus crash. That kind of stuff, he could happily leave to other people.

“Clearly those stupid buzzards didn’t give you too much trouble after dark, though,” he remarked. Sasuke was still in one piece, so he hadn’t been made into bird food, after all.

_{[to here]}

"......"

Kyousuke remained silent, suddenly feeling like he'd been stabbed by some unidentifiable emotion. He had no idea how much truth that story held, but it was difficult to wrap his head around, especially as he was. A lot came at once, and he couldn't seem to process his feelings.

"So, what you're saying is... People get brought here, told they're insane, and get attacked because they want leave. They're here fighting against their will." He said it deliberately, more to himself than anything, trying to string his own thoughts together.

People died. Murphy had mentioned that before, but Kyousuke hadn't thought to put it into context, and doing so made all the difference. He'd seen people's emotions toyed with before, and he'd seen people try to ruin others' lives, but not quite like this. Never on this level. It was repulsive no matter what the scale, but death? ... There was ruining a life, and then there was ending it. At least life held a little hope, even if it sometimes seemed impossible. But dead was just dead. There were some things you could never regain. ... He thought of his brother, and how how hard his loss had been, and then what would have happened if he had lost even more, but the idea was so unfathomable it just made it insides recoil. But according to Murphy, people were being forced into just that.

"Then leaving won't change anything," he realized. His head burned, over-strained from his lack of energy, his limbs felt sluggish and heavy, and he was starting to feel sick, but his anger overrode all of that. "People will just keep getting hurt."

... He couldn't save only himself. He knew his brother would never stand for any of this, and his friends would never abandon anyone. Kyousuke wouldn't either. His course of action couldn't be any clearer: "We need to bring these people down." He looked Murphy directly in the eyes as he said it, intent and challenging.

"One of our 'friends' hacked the intercom and sent a message. Something about a clue to curing the sick being left in the x-ray room," he replied. "I'm not sure I really buy it."

It might just be him letting his paranoia get the better of him, but he couldn't find it in himself to trust their mysterious benefactors any more than he did the rest of the staff. Maybe if they'd ever done something to help, instead of offering obscure clues and confusion, but so far, they didn't have his support.

"Ah," Hakkai replied, trying not to let the way his heart jumped at that revelation. The lightheadedness and the rash had gotten worse, not better, and he was getting increasingly worried that he was going to be one of the ones to turn. To lose himself to the worst part of him.

But Gren was probably right. The way things were around here, it was hard to trust anyone. Which was probably why he hadn't made any friends who weren't Gren.

They made it to the edge of the side hallway, and he turned the corner into the larger main hall.

[To here]

Edited 2012-07-04 09:02 (UTC)

"That pretty much sums it up," Murphy agreed, nodding. No, it didn't make any sense. But there were only so many things a man could reject before he had to trust what was happening around him. At least to some extent.

He had to smile a little when Tsurugi stated his...challenge, he guessed. He was right, though, and the ex-con agreed with him. Though he didn't know what they could actually do, if this place had been around as long as people claimed. But it had to be stopped. They had kids here.

"Yeah," he said. "There's a doctor who's in charge, comes on the intercom a lot. He's different at night, too, but he's running things right now. I don't know anything about him, except his name's Landel and I guess the military doesn't like him."

When it came to detailed information, Murphy was seriously lacking.

At least they were on the same page. He relaxed a little, knowing he wasn't going to be met with protests, although there was still a certain kind of frustration in it: things would have been a lot easier if Murphy had just said all of this from the beginning. It didn't matter, though. At least now he was on the right track.

The question was, what did he do about it? Everything he was being told was vague and insubstantial. He had a basic idea of what was going on, but no real knowledge of how the other side functioned or what they were trying to accomplish. ... It was strange and unfamiliar being so far out of the loop. There had to someone who knew something they could use...

"... There have to be more people trying. What about them?"

That was the best lead he had. Moving around alone in the dark could only get you so far, in both senses of the phrase. Kyousuke wasn't keen on cooperating with just anyone, but with the right people, they might be able to manage something. And from the sound of it, they were all in this together, whether they liked it or not.

Now Murphy understood why Harvey had seemed so annoyed earlier.

"I've only been here maybe twenty four hours," he said again. "I don't know who's trying to do what. People have groups that I think are trying to bring this all down. You'll be able to find someone who's been here longer and knows more when it's daytime. They just let us all out together for food and activities and stuff."

Which was a step above prison, most certainly.

"i'm sorry I can't tell you more. I'm sorry I don't know more. I really don't want to be here, either."

Right.... That was plenty to find out more by Kyousuke's standards, bit it couldn't be helped if Murphy didn't know too much. He decided to refrain from asking anything else, only able to assume he'd exhausted everything he could. If he had to press for details, he could get them somewhere else. Kyousuke briefly pinched the bridge of his nose, half in frustration, and half to ease his headache. From the sound of it, he'd just have to keep an eye out for any of these alleged groups.

"...."

The last bit made Kyousuke shift his gaze. ... There was really nothing he could say to that. He knew he was being demanding, but he didn't have any reassurances, and he wasn't one for apologies or petty excuses, which put him at a bit of a loss. Maybe acknowledging it was enough; it wasn't like there was anything else he could do.

"... Let's go," he said quietly, turning his back. They weren't accomplishing anything by standing around.

[to here]

[From here]

An acute sense of frustration was starting to bubble underneath the steely calm composure Harpuia usually maintained. This was the first time he'd ever been so thoroughly and utterly... blind. No GPS to check, no access to a teleportation network, no way to simply download a map of the area, and nothing to go off but the narrow little beam of vision that the flashlight afforded. Trying to explore the place without any of the technology that had always been at his disposal was gratingly inefficient -- Harpuia never had been fond of situations where he didn't understand what was going on, and witnessing firsthand just how fragile these bodies were did nothing to make him comfortable with this. The sooner he found someone who could attend to X, the better.

Upon reaching the hallway, he gave another cursory sweep with his flashlight. To the left, the hallway seemed to go on for quite some ways. Further than the flashlight's beam could reach, anyway. To the right, the hallway seemed to end at a three-way stop; the outline of a staircase was just barely visible.

He supposed he couldn't necessarily bank on the assumption that they weren't underground, but he much preferred to think that wasn't the case; staying on the ground level would probably be the wisest course of action. They were much more likely to encounter either an exit or a map here; if this was the ground floor, then it was obviously where visitors entered. He could only guess what lurked at the other side of the hallway to the left, but it still struck him as appearing like a more likely choice.

...Still, he wasn't the one in charge here, he reminded himself. He looked over his shoulder to X. He would trust in his master's judgment; he'd overstepped his place enough already, and the last thing he wanted to do was further reinforce the idea that he didn't trust his leader to be competent.

"Left or right?"

That was a tough question. The area to the right seemed a wise choice, with the multiple stops and even a staircase, but with that many doorways, it was easy to get lost, and harder to retrace one's steps. At the same time, though, there was a more likely chance to find a room with needed supplies, or at least find...someone.

Empty hallways were just that...empty hallways.

And if something happened, the hallway didn't offer much in terms of cover in case something went wrong.

But on the other hand, the hallway was easy to navigate, and in case they reached a dead end, they could reach their previous position easier without a map. Perhaps the longer hallway was the best choice, since neither of them were equipped with any means in which to trace their steps outside of their own minds...

X let out a sigh and kept his hand on the wall.

"Left. It'll be easier to retrace our steps if we take the less complicated route first."

"Yes, Master X." The acknowledgement of orders came almost without thinking. Still lingering close to X protectively, he turned toward the left. He wasn't one to keep his mind idle for long; perhaps a long empty hallway wasn't as exciting as whatever lurked on the right side of the path, but it made for a good chance to review what he knew.

Fact one: he should be dead. He wasn't. Harpuia was reluctant to append on the idea that he was now human as fact, but he was willing to state that he was a shadow of what he'd been in life -- no weapons, no armor, no wings. So far, he could see no opportunities to gain answers to the questions this fact proposed.

Fact two: he wasn't the only dead reploid present. Despite that, though, X's presence only muddled things further. He claimed to be from centuries before Harpuia's birth -- something that should not have ben possible. Given the technological level of their surroundings, it was hard to say exactly which century it was even suppose to be. Another inconsistency that he couldn't quite answer, but at the very least, he could clarify the situation a little better.

"Master X." Another quick little glance over his shoulder at his companion. "You said you were from the 22nd century, correct? If I may ask... exactly when in the 22nd century? How many of the Maverick uprisings have you staved off so far?"

It might not unveil the reason behind the massive difference in their memories, but at the very least... at the very least, it was a chance for Harpuia to learn a little more about the man he served.

'How many--'

No matter how many times he heard that, it was likely that X would never get used to it. There only should have been one uprising as far as he was concerned; just one, and Sigma should have long since been dead and the Maverick Crisis done with.

At least now he was gone. Sigma was dead; X had made sure of that himself.

"Two." X said after a moment. "I'd just returned from fighting Sigma for the second time, before I found myself here."

Zero...Dr. Cain...do they know I'm gone? Maybe they're already looking for me, and in this place, I can't even send an SOS message, not even some word out to let them know that I'm alive. That I'm all right.

X hoped they were all right. Zero, Dr. Cain, and the other Hunters that he had led only such a short time ago.

"Only two?" Harpuia echoed, looking back at X in surprise. In his own experience, X had been an ancient, experienced machine -- a figure so deeply ingrained in the world's history that society viewed their hero in an almost divine light. It was hard for Harpuia to even imagine what X had been like in the relative infancy of his 300-year existence; the idea that he was right here with him now was a little surreal. Harpuia's own lifespan had been nothing more than a here-and-gone moment compared to X's, but at that moment... he couldn't help but realize that he was probably more experienced than his master currently was.

That... might have helped explain why X had done something as brash as punching a mirror, in retrospect.

"You're much younger than I thought," he admitted. If there was any irony in someone who looked like him saying that, then Harpuia certainly didn't seem to be aware of it. "You've been a legend for so long that I never considered that you might still be..."

...A child? That wasn't the word Harpuia wanted, he was sure of that. It wasn't a term that even really applied to reploids, save for those specifically built to be children, and it struck him as an incredibly patronizing term to apply to the father of all reploids anyway. He knew it grated on his own nerves every time Leviathan addressed him as a pretty kid; he had far too much respect for X to do the same to him. Nor was it quite right to call him a novice. Two wars was still a significant amount of service. Maybe X was going to go on to do brighter and greater things, but that didn't diminish the things he had already accomplished.

Harpuia shook his head, shifting the topic slightly. "It's a little far from my experience, I suppose. I can't even imagine what life was like in 21XX."

'Only two'.

So there were more wars that X had to worry about, according to Harpuia? Even without Sigma, the conflicts would still continue, regardless of how much X himself had worked to rid the world of it?

...What was he thinking. Of course it would still be there; destroying the root of the problem didn't stop the tendrils from growing, or others from deciding to take up his aims. Even if X did destroy Sigma, there were other things he had to worry about, and things he had to do to keep the world safe. But it would be safe someday; if Harpuia was right, and he had created this "Neo Arcadia"...

And even if he hadn't. There was always hope. Even if Sigma came back, X just had to beat him again. Even if fighting was painful, even if it broke his heart to see the deaths of so many at his hands, so long as it was him doing the fighting, and innocents were kept safe, it was okay.

It would all be okay.

"It's likely that you're older than me." X said. "Even if like this, it might not be the case. Whoever put us in these bodies has a funny sense of humor, huh?"

Understatement of the year, clearly.

"But 21XX is...it's a rather vibrant time, I guess. Even with the war, the cities are still full of life, and humans and Reploids alike do what they can considering the circumstances."

With an awkward laugh, X used his good hand to scratch the back of his head, careful not to poke himself with his glass shard.

"It's strange; even though I live in it, it's hard to describe in words." He paused. "What about you, Harpuia? What's it like in Neo Arcadia? Tell me a little bit about yourself."

That... had suddenly become a difficult question to answer. A couple years prior, and Harpuia could have responded confidently and proudly. Neo Arcadia was the paradise X had dreamed of; humans could live in peace at long last, and Mavericks were brought to justice under the fair and unbiased rulings of the Eight Gentle Judges and the X built to replace the one he was speaking to now. The Four Guardians, together since activation, stood united against all that threatened the utopia that the world had yearned for.

It wasn't a perfect existence... but it'd been a happy one.

Looking back now... there was a pervasive sense of bitterness looming over his memories. Tell X about himself? He was used goods. A purposeless, unnecessary machine. Stripped of his position, cast aside as incompetent, a traitor to the very establishment he'd loved with all his being. Neo Arcadia... had it really been the utopia he'd believed, or nothing more than a cardboard cutout, a soothing little lie that was all-too-easily snatched away by a power-hungry madman? The Mavericks he'd cast down in the pursuit of justice... had they been as innocent as the Resistance claimed, despite the verdicts of the Judges?

The loved ones he'd lost, the sleepless nights spent running over the casualties among his own troops, every last drop of coolant fluid Zero's saber had torn from his veins... he couldn't shake the thought that it'd all been without meaning. That he'd been little more than a Pantheon -- a mindless mechaniloid that existed only to shoot at whatever it was told to. What he'd believed from the bottom of his heart to be an ugly but necessary part of protecting the humans he lived for... had it really been anything but the pointless, hollow clashing of war machines?

It... it felt too heavy to discuss. The chance to speak with Master X was precious; he didn't want to taint this experience so soon with something as bitter as that.

"It might be for the best that I don't talk about things that, from your point of view, haven't happened yet," Harpuia replied simply, keeping his eyes trained on the hallway ahead of them. "I don't believe in time travel, but I also don't wish to influence you unnecessarily. Isn't the most important part of hope not knowing what comes next?"

"Not necessarily," X said after a moment. "Because even if you know what happens next, and that future turns out to be bleak...Even if it seems like all is lost, there's always the chance that it will get better, if one works towards it."

After all, X had defeated Sigma. X had brought Zero back, even when his friend had blown himself up before his eyes, seemingly lost to him forever. X had taken his Control Chip, searched high and low for his parts, and then took them back to Dr. Cain in hopes that he could put him together again.

Yes, the future had been quite bleak, but still X believed.

"Having hope isn't about 'not knowing', Harpuia. It's about seeing the odds and knowing in your heart that even if you have little chance to succeed, you can still win with hard work and perseverance..."

He smiled, a bit.

"And believing in your friends and those around you who share the same goals, who are working towards it."

Surprisingly optimistic words. It wasn't necessarily a viewpoint that Harpuia was sure he could share; last-minute miracles were not an especially common thing in his life. Really, the last year or so of his life was better described as a very sharp backslide into despair.

Believing in the ones dear to him didn't stop them from blowing up in desperate attempts to bring the foe down with them. The power of friendship had not stopped the Baby Elves from taking over Harpuia's body. Even the strength of the most significant bond known to reploidkind had not allowed Zero to stop Elpizo from plunging that sword into X's chest. The heart of the cards hdn't stopped Weil from sending that missile into a populated corner of Neo Arcadia.

As dear as Fefnir and Leviathan were to him, all their belief in one another had really allowed them to do was march willfully to their deaths.

"And if you find out that the outcome at the end isn't success? Do you intend to change it?" His tone wasn't necessarily bitter or mocking, despite his own inclination toward pragmatism over optimism. Merely curious. "Do you intend to make sure nothing bad happens? Is such a thing even possible? If not, how do you know whether the changes you choose to make are for the better? If you prevent one of the many unpleasant events in the timeline, then none of us Guardians will have ever been built. Is that a worthwhile sacrifice for the sake of a smoother timeline?"

He had no intention of shooting X's belief down as foolish, despite the bluntness of his questions; anything worth having faith in was strong enough to withstand scrutiny, in Harpuia's eyes, and there was genuine interest in X's answers. There had been plenty of legends about X in his time, and before their deaths Fefnir and Leviathan had mentioned a meeting with their master, but Harpuia himself hadn't had an honour like that. This was his first chance to see what sort of man his master was, and he was eager to find out.

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Night 64: West Wing, South Hall 1-A

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