damned_institute | Day 65: Sun Room

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Day 65: Sun Room

His nurse had whisked him away from breakfast as soon as the intercom’s voice faded. Surprisingly, she didn’t take him to the shower rooms, instead bringing him to the Sun Room (as she called it), explaining that since this was his first day he would be allowed to skip the showers. Besides, it would be good to let his injuries heal a little more.

He’d passed through this room on the way to breakfast, but hadn’t really paid much attention to it the first time. Now that he was standing here, the Once-ler understood why it was called the Sun Room.

Despite the fact that it was cloudy outside, there was still far more natural light coming in through the ceiling windows than he had seen in a long time. The Once-ler stood still for a few moments, simply staring up. It seemed almost like a dream, really. The valley never got brighter than twilight, even at noon. There was too much smog in the air to let any more light through.

After a few minutes, he shook his head. Anybody who saw him just standing in the middle of the room would probably have questions about it, and he did not relish the thought of explaining himself to a stranger. He glanced around the room itself, spotting the bulletin board Soma had talked about during breakfast. The Once-ler decided that was a good place to start, and hobbled on over to get a closer look.

[For Nina, I believe?]

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Harpuia was beginning to get a feel for this place. The establishment was obviously adamant on pretending he was a human, that much was becoming clear. Food would have wreaked absolute havoc on the delicate machinery inside him, yet his nurse seemed to be worried by his refusal to touch breakfast. She insisted on calling him Hayato, and appeared to believe he was a civillian. She had informed him that it was time for the youth patients to head off to Arts and Crafts. A statement that, frankly, he found outright offensive. He'd always resented implications that the frame he'd been built with somehow reflected on his intellectual capacity -- the idea that he, a capable soldier, ought to be spending his time on juvenile little crafts with a bunch of children.

He'd suggested that he had no desire to participate in a makework activity like that. His nurse had frowned, but had agreed -- he was obviously having a hard time settling in, and between those injuries and his lack of appetite, it looked like he wasn't feeling up to much activity. She'd suggested some quiet time in the Sun Room instead, and he'd agreed to that alternative without much fuss. The Sun Room, it turned out, was the room with the bulletin board he'd passed earlier. This gave him a chance to take a look. Most of the messages seemed to refer to things outside of his understanding, but he had been surprised to see a rambling, not-quite-coherent apology from Zero.

It had given him even more to think about, as he'd eased his aching body down into one of the many couches in the room. In a way, he was glad for the indirectness of a written conversation, even if Zero wasn't exactly at his most eloquent (as much as that word could be applied to somebody like him, at least). It gave him time to sort himself out, to try to fit a few more pieces into place.

Still, solitary observation and inference could only give him so much. If the other notes present on the bulletin board were any indication, the other people present here had a much better picture of what was going on. His gaze drifted back over to the board, and quickly settled on a patient standing nearby. Not that a guy with green arrows on his face was in any position to judge, but it was pretty hard to miss noticing someone who had banadges covering up half of his. After a moment, he decided that this individual didn't look like he had anything in particular he needed to do -- hoping to catch his eye, Harpuia indicated the empty spot on the couch he was occupying. With any luck, this guy'd be able to clear things up for Harpuia.

It wasn't common for another patient to invite him to sit down like that. Usually, it went the other way around and you had to ask permission to share a couch or a table with someone. The kid who was waving him over didn't stand out much except for the fact that he'd apparently gotten some tattoos on his face.

While it was temping to think kids these days, Harvey didn't want to feel that old. So he tried to just accept it as he moved over to the couch, sitting down. It wasn't like he needed to be picky with who he spoke to at the moment.

With kids here, it could vary on how tolerable they were, but this one came across as quiet if he was going off of first impressions. Harvey looked him over for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "You need something? Or were you just showing me a spot that wasn't taken yet?"

If the kid would rather not talk at all, Harvey wouldn't particularly mind. A nap didn't sound that bad, after all.

Well, so far, so good. The bandaged man didn't appear to be hostile, so Harpuia cut right to the chase. He wasn't exactly one for idle chatter. May as well just get the info he sought, rather than wasting either of their time beating around the bush. "I don't intend to impose, but I'm one of the new patients mentioned on the intercom this morning." Though the word "patient" did sit a little oddly; machines, after all, really didn't get sick. He couldn't be here for treatment of the blaster shots Zero had inflicted on him; he'd already woken up in this place the previous night, after all, so admission had presumably come before injury. He could only assume it was meant to be some sort of excuse, potentially related to this insistence that he be treated like a human.

That seemed like a good starting point to him, then.

"I'd appreciate it if you could explain a few things about this place. I believe I have a grasp on the basics of my situation, at least," he began. "This is a human hospital of some kind. Though I am a reploid, the authority figures seem very adamant that I be treated as if I were a human as well. I've been placed in a body that isn't quite my own, and the nurse I've spoken to seems to believe I'm somebody else. There appears to be a drastic difference between night and day here, as well; I found myself in danger on the night of my arrival, and I don't believe I would be incorrect in assuming that I was not the only one, given the amount of wounded parties I've observed up to this point."

It seemed tactless to inquire as to how this man's face had been injured, so he opted not to ask whether he'd been attacked the previous night or not. The man would fill in the blanks as he deemed appropriate, he figured. "Am I on the right track?"

Edited (using redundant words redundantly) 2012-07-25 21:34 (UTC)

It turned out he was in for more than he'd really bargained for, in that almost right after he sat down, the stranger started talking -- and didn't really stop. One of the first things that Harvey noticed was that in terms of how the kid spoke, there was something off about it. There was a monotone to his voice that seemed strangely familiar.

It only clicked when the term "reploid" was used. Harvey had heard that term once before, and after a few seconds of thinking it over, he realized where. Zero had referred to himself as one of those, and had even given Harvey some idea of what kind of world he came from.

So this kid was another android and might possibly know Zero. Harvey realized that he was in for an interesting conversation, although so far everything was pretty basic.

"Sounds like you have it about right so far," Harvey said once the kid finally stopped talking and threw the ball into his court. "You're not the only one here who's been put into a different body, either. I've met someone else who said he was a reploid. The nurses are always going to insist that you're crazy, so don't even bother with them. And yeah, the nights range from annoying to lethal, so you'll want to be on your toes."

That more or less covered it, didn't it? At least what the kid had asked about so far. Harvey got the feeling that he was going to be bombarded with further questions, and so he tried to mentally prepare himself.

This guy'd met another reploid...? Back home, that would have been "I've met someone else who was male" levels of dazzlingly obvious -- reploids were everywhere, so meeting one wasn't exactly a red-letter occasion.

If being forced into a human shell was something everyone went through, though, then it might not be so unrealistic to guess that things were a little different around here. It may have seemed like a very odd thing to say to Harpuia, but he doubted this man would have bothered to point it out unless he felt it was noteworthy.

If that was the case, then he could make a pretty sound guess at which reploid this guy'd been referring to. X had arrived at the same time as Harpuia. That left only one other reploid, as far as Harpuia knew -- one that was very relevant to his current line of questioning, too. Last night's attack and the subsequent apology note had raised a point that he couldn't quite rationalize out on his own.

"The reploid you met... was his name Zero?"

Well, that didn't take long. Harvey couldn't imagine that "reploids" were that common around here, though, and it wasn't a surprise that the two he knew of also knew each other.

After a pause, Harvey nodded. "Yeah, that's right. I've ended up working with him a couple of times." He didn't have any strong feelings about Zero either way. He'd been decent enough as a nighttime partner, and they had witnessed a murder together at the hands of one of the institute's monsters, but...

Well, that was no reason to necessarily feel like they'd bonded in some way. Harvey didn't have any problem with Zero, but he wasn't all that interested in catching up with him either. He wouldn't mind if they got tossed together again sometime, but that was about all.

"Are you two friends?" he asked after a pause. It was either that or the exact opposite, and Harvey was curious to know which.

"Absolutely not." The reply came without a second's hesitation. There was a very clear division in his mind between respecting someone and actually liking them, and it was very clear to him which side of the line Zero fell on. He could say that he trusted Zero, perhaps, and it was true they'd helped each other before, but he still adamantly saw Zero as someone to beat; they had clashed far too many times for Harpuia to ever regard him that warmly.

Still... in the end, though Harpuia hadn't been willing to align himself with Zero, he couldn't exactly say they weren't on the same side, could he? "But I suppose we aren't enemies," he added, after a moment. "We knew each other prior to coming here."

He didn't bother to expand on it beyond that; elaboration would only complicate it unnecessarily, and Harpuia doubted that a complete stranger had much interest in a detailed recital of his history with Zero -- it sounded like this was only a casual acquaintance of his, anyway.

"If you know him as well, then are you aware of what happened to him last night?"

With such a sudden response, Harvey had figured that the two hated each other's guts or something, but as the kid went on to explain, it turned out that it was a little more complicated than that. So they were people who weren't exactly enemies, but who didn't necessarily like each other. Harvey couldn't help but think of his relationship with Gordon, prior to the accident at which point dislike had turned into a burning hatred.

A hatred that he still hadn't had the chance to act on, either. He hadn't forgotten that.

He didn't need to know more about the relationship than that, but the question that came next was an interesting one. Something had happened to Zero? That wasn't such a shock here, where it seemed like something was going wrong every night, but Harvey was curious despite that.

"Can't say that I am," he responded after a few seconds. At this point, the kid had to realize that he was obligated to spill the beans, and so Harvey just waited.

Good news, Harvey: Harpuia saw no real reason to keep any of it secret. Zero might have been feeling remorse over what he did, but that defintely didn't mean Harpuia was going to spare his feelings. He could worry about Zero's street cred after he had all the facts he needed. (Or just... not worry about it at all. Again, not exactly Zero's best friend.)

"I encountered him during the night. He was as I remember him looking -- a fully armored reploid, not a human. More importantly than that, he was apparently loyal to this establishment; he turned hostile very quickly. It's not surprising for him to attack me, but I was in the company of a reploid that I don't believe he would ever harm of his own free will."

He cast a look back to the bulletin board thoughtfully. As badly-written as that apology note had been, there was no reason to doubt its sincerity. Zero really did seem to be back to his usual self. "It appears that he's since come to his senses, which I must admit I find even more puzzling. Is this sort of thing normal here?"

It didn't take long for Harvey to figure out what had happened. Special Counseling was a common enough thing here that it was easy to identify, although he was more surprised by the knowledge that Zero had apparently reverted back into his proper body. That was something that Harvey almost wished he had seen for himself, if only because then he might be able to believe it a little better. Or at least he'd know what Zero really looked like. Still, the fact that there were other reploids around added to Zero's credibility.

This meant that the kid had run into a Special Counseling patient on his first night here -- and more than that, the brainwashed person had been someone he knew. That had to rank pretty high on the list of worst first nights, but Harvey didn't know if they really needed to make a contest out of that.

"Yeah, it's normal. Well... common, anyway." Harvey sighed, and the realization that the only reason he probably hadn't been wrangled into that yet was because the most dangerous thing he could do was shoot someone. Compared to what other patients could pull off, that wasn't particularly scary. "It only lasts for a night, but seeing how you'll attack just about anyone, yeah, it's not exactly pleasant. It's understood here that it isn't your fault if you get chosen for it, but that doesn't stop people from feeling guilty."

Of course, there were a few patients who had gloated and felt no remorse afterward, but even Harvey wasn't that far gone.

So there was a precedent for this sort of thing? Apparently, it didn't just apply to reploids, then. Did that mean that humans were just as susceptible to whatever reprogramming methods had been used...? If that was the case, then that just puzzled him even more.

"It's certinaly not my intention to complain, but... why only one night?" He wondered aloud. It may not have been likely that a fellow patient would know that, but the inconsistency seemed too big for Harpuia to overlook. He'd always been of a pragmatic mindset -- discern what needs to be done, and cut right to it. Intentionally leaving room for error was just asking for your plans to come undone.

"The purpose of implanting us in these bodies and assigning us new names is to convince us we're somebody else, right? I've seen reploids reprogrammed to the point that they bear almost no resemblance to their former selves; I know such a thing isn't impossible to do, by any stretch of the imagination. If they want us to believe whatever they've decided we should believe, wouldn't it be far more efficient to simply rewrite us permanently, then?"

It was a fair question to ask, and Harvey had a few guesses, even if he didn't necessarily have the true answer. They had been forced to assume so much in this place that he wasn't against tossing out his own theories. Not that he'd ever been against something like that. Soft-spoken was something that Harvey had never been.

"We can't know for sure. My guess at first was that they weren't able to hold the brainwashing for longer than a few hours, but... there are other examples that are more permanent." It wasn't something that anyone liked to think about, but with how many people he knew that had gone down that road, it was impossible to ignore. "Some people end up getting released from this place, and as far as we're aware, what happens is that they're brainwashed into believing the lie the nurses tell."

Harvey liked to think that a human couldn't be reprogrammed as easily as a robot, but there was proof that it really was that simple. It still didn't answer the Special Counseling question, but at this point he was willing to default to 'Landel does it for kicks.' But that was something that the kid could probably work out on his own.

"Is that so...? I suppose we can't toss out the possibility that the brainwashing requires long-term exposure to set in on a permanent basis." Though... even then, that raised the question: why put the reploids in human bodies? It would save a lot of time and effort to simply alter their programming while they were still easily rewritten. Maybe the actual goal wasn't the brainwashing, then, but something else...? That, at least, would explain why he'd not only been allowed to keep his sense of identity unaltered, but he'd been placed in an environment where others could verify that he wasn't who the nurse wanted him to think he was.

Still, the whole idea seemed far too roundabout and inefficient. Harpuia simply couldn't understand the logic behind it in the slightest. If the information needed to draw a solid conclusion wasn't available, though, then it would just have to be a mystery that got moved to the back shelf. No point in leaping to baseless conclusions.

"I doubt that the patients are taking this treatment lying down, at any rate." It wouldn't be necessary to have brainwashed anyone into guard duty otherwise, would it? "I would prefer not to get shot again anytime soon if I can avoid it. Is there any way that I can arm myself in the future?" He wasn't holding his breath that he'd stumble onto any beam sabers, but at the very least, he'd feel much better with something a bit better than a flashlight to work with. "I would appreciate any other information you can provide that would boost my chances."

A long-term exposure, huh? It wasn't the worst idea, but Harvey didn't know if it was actually right. That would imply that anyone who'd been released and brainwashed more completely had been under Special Counseling at one point, and he didn't know if that was true.

Still, it looked like at this point, the kid had decided to move on to a different set of questions, which probably meant that he'd realized there was no surefire way to figure out the truth. That was something Harvey had been forced to come to terms with a while ago, and the faster a new patient did it, the better.

As for the question, it was one that Harvey had actually helped Zero with the first night they met. It was kind of weird that he'd now be answering it for his not-friend, too. Not that he had any loyalties or any reason to keep the information to himself, since he was already armed. "There's a janitor's closet up on the second floor that has some odds and ends in it, including some metal pipes. Those seem to work pretty well, for a start." He still had his, after all.

The second-floor janitor's closet. Harpuia filed that knowledge away for nightfall; while a pipe was by no means considered a sophisticated piece of weaponry, it'd be sturdy enough to serve the intended purpose. He'd rest much easier knowing he could defend himself properly, though he did stop to wonder exactly how he would go about concealing something that size from the nurses. A matter to consider later, perhaps; it obviously could be done, or there would have been no point to making the recommendation in the first place.

"Thank you. You've been extremely helpful. I'm sorry that I can't offer you anything useful in return, but I don't intend to forget the kindness you showed me." It was a bit... serious, as far as replies went, but that was just Harpuia's nature: he took things absolutely seriously.

Well, for as weird as the kid was, Harvey couldn't say that he had zero manners. Not that it really meant all that much, since words only got a person so far, but he figured it was better than someone being rude and taking him for granted. In the end, he only nodded in reply to the newcomer's words.

"There are obviously some more useful weapons out there, but getting them is a little trickier." Trying to explain Doyleton, let alone getting into the logistics of how difficult it was to go there at night, wasn't something he had time for, seeing how the nurses were starting to make the move to escort them elsewhere.

"Guess you'll have to figure that out on your own," he said as he stood. It might be for the best. It probably wasn't a good idea, telling a kid how to get a gun. "The name's Harvey, by the way." They hadn't actually exchanged names during this entire conversation. Better late than never, right?

He saw no reason to further keep Harvey from whatever it was he'd been up to before Harpuia had beckoned him over. "Harpuia," he replied simply. "You've given me more than enough information to work with. I won't take up any more of your time."

A slightly less backalley choice of weapons would be a step in the right direction, yes, but for now, Harpuia's biggest priority was to just have something that could serve as a weapon. He could worry about upgrades once he was a little less of a sitting duck. It was enough to simply lay down a foundation for now; this didn't seem like the sort of place for reckless action.

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Day 65: Sun Room

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Hello, my name is Hideously Late

That's all right! I'll go ahead and tie this up.

\o/