damned_institute | Night 66: Doctor's Offices (Med Wing)

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Around the corner was a dead end with several unmarked rooms. In a hospital, he wasn't really sure how to feel about that, less so when it was this one. Was this a good or bad sign? Again, he scanned the hallway around (and behind) him before he ventured toward the closest door. He opened it carefully, pausing when it was a few inches open to hear for any signs of movement or something being tripped. After there was no sign of anything, he entered the room properly.

Oh, that's why it hadn't been marked. It was someone's office. It was a simple office, but even in the dark he could make out the small, personal touches scattered about the room. The simple artwork, for example. ...Whoever's office this was seemed to have a thing for cats.

You know, it was strange. He'd been wandering around this hospital, just as everyone else has been, for weeks. And yet, it was only now that he was going into an office that he suddenly felt like he was being incredibly intrusive. Like he was breaking and entering. He supposed what he and everyone had been doing could be considered theft, but in light of kidnapping and torture on the staff's part, that offense didn't hold much water. Besides, they were taking things for the sake of their own survival and sanity, and they wouldn't even have to take things in the first place if these people hadn't--

Okay, he was digressing. He should be focusing on his surroundings. An office here was the perfect place to find potential information and the perfect place to set a trap.

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The room was as still and quiet as the rest of the building seemed to be. It was such a contrast to what he knew to be the truth, that even with nothing attacking him yet, he couldn't help but feel that that stillness could shatter apart at any given moment. So he didn't want to stay in here too long even if it seemed to be clear.

First things first. Let's check the desk, shall we? He went over to it, checking the area underneath before he started going through drawers. Like the front desk, it was astoundingly anticlimactic. There was nothing here outside blank report forms and office supplies. ...This one needed to refill his printer paper immediately. Yes, this desk was so boring, that was all that was worth any note.

Actually, there was one other interesting point, though he doubted it would amount to anything: the computer. After a moment of hesitation, he reached down and pushed the power button, not really expecting anything. Shockingly it clicked, the familiar hum as it started booting up sounding almost deafening in the quiet room. He actually jerked, somewhat startled. It was... working?

...Wait, didn't they cut the power to the main part of the building at night? None of the lights worked, after all. Was there a reason the computers were an exception? They must have been using the computer system at night to some degree, then. What would they be using it for exactly? He wondered if there was any chance of accessing the files in here or at least seeing what kinds of things... might... be....

And there, like some kind of punchline to a bad joke was the login screen. It wasn't even so much the little window demanding a password that got to him as it was the stupid background of Smiley faces, all grinning at him like they were laughing at his naïveté. And somewhere, he was sure someone was. Did you really believe it would be that simple?, the little bastards seemed to be saying. You're just walking around in circles, Klavier. Is this really the best you can do? My, you certainly are useless on your own, aren't you?

He pushed the power button again, holding it until he heard the hum of the computer cut off abruptly. He hoped the hard drive had gotten corrupted.

Edited 2012-10-17 21:28 (UTC)

Anyway. There didn't really seem to be anything in this room, but he continued checking around despite that. The cupboards and the shelves didn't really hold much of interest. He pulled a file and book out randomly and flipped through it, mainly to see if they were even real or if it was part of some kind of grand illusion to make the room look authentic, like props on a set. It actually might have been interesting to find something like hollow books or cardboard cutouts made to look like desk items. But no, it was all "real." And it was all "real boring."

Did he mention he hated investigating? Because he did. Quite a bit, in fact.

He exhaled an audible breath, keeping himself from sighing out loud. This was going to be a very long night. Suddenly, he could see the appeal of exploring the basement. Even if it was dangerous, at least one was guaranteed to find things down there. Though the worth of that risk and information was debatable. In any case, he finally decided to leave the room and its useless contents behind.

After carefully checking the hallway first, Klavier left one room and moved into the one next to it. It looked like it was another office. He supposed that meant these were all offices. But this one made him feel even more intrusive than the last one had. After moving inside and getting a better view of the desk, he could see there was a good amount of personal photos along the desk. Pictures of children at various stages of life, making faces or posing for a school photo.

It was the children's pictures that he stayed looked at and that twisted at him the most. Let it be known that Klavier didn't have any particular sort of soft spot for kids. It was more the implication of a family and this room that indicated a family-oriented person. A parent.

Was it really possible for someone like that to be involved in the more heinous side of the institute? Klavier really did believe there were likely plenty of the lower level nurses who were oblivious as to what was going on, but had assumed the doctors were probably all in on it. But this person... Could someone do horrible things to people here and then go home to their family, all smiles as though everything was normal? He didn't want to believe such a thing was possible. Nor did he want to believe that Herr Doktor had somehow managed to employ an entire facility's worth of sociopaths.

He finally, moved his attention away from the pictures and toward the rest of the desk. ...As nice as it would be to assume this was some innocent person who got caught up in something without their knowledge, it was more effective to just assume everyone here was guilty until proven otherwise. After all, painting a smile on their lips seemed to be a specialty of all those working here.

Klavier ignored the computer, but otherwise searched the desk and the room as he had the room prior. And like the last room, it was incredibly underwhelming. No files on anything relevant and nothing useful. Well, there was one thing, though it depended on one's definition of "useful." Apparently, this doctor had decided to throw some packs of cigarettes between some of his files. He scoffed a little bit at that. He'd heard of people hiding liquor in their office, but cigarettes? Then again, it was a hospital. Still, it might have been nicer if it was liquor. Not to say he would get inebriated. Just a point he was making.

He was actually going to leave them be, but then had second thoughts. This was... really stupid, but he remembered seeing some people on the bulletin offer or request cigarettes as payment for information or items. Words couldn't express how annoying he considered that to be, but that was unfortunately the kind of place this was. If it came down to it and he had to ever rely on one of those kinds of people for anything, did he really want to be caught without anything they might consider worthy of a bargaining chip? Oh, they might appreciate blades and weapons, yes, but that wasn't the sort of thing he would ever just give to unsavory types. No, it would be much better to give them something relatively harmless like this (secondhand smoke aside).

So even though his motivations were annoying and downright penitentiary, he took the packs of cigarettes. Sigh. He could not believe this was the most he was getting out of this.

Again, he checked the hall carefully before actually moving out and again he moved to the next office. Now this one actually seemed promising. Maybe it was the layout or maybe it really was the case, but this office seemed to be bigger than the last two. Maybe someone more important was the occupant of this room and there would actually be something useful here.

See? He was being optimistic and hopeful to mask the irritation of wasting his time on the other rooms. ...Well, if "optimistic and hopeful" meant that he was quietly swearing to god that there better be something worth the effort in here or he swore he was going to pitch a fit. He couldn't even bring himself to be adequately wary as he moved through the room. Either he was getting comfortable with what seemed like the safety of offices or else he was too annoyed to care.

That all being the case, Klavier was very thorough in searching this room and spent what must have been about seven minutes in there before coming to the realization that spending more time searching was not going to magically turn up evidence. And that once again there was absolutely nothing, nada, zilch, nichts in here.

Okay, he couldn't claim to know very much about what was normally in a doctor's office, but was this normal? Was it really that he was wasting time looking in the wrong places or was it that these places were just a little too clean? He seemed to recall this being an issue when searching some of the rooms upstairs as well.

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Edited 2012-10-18 04:35 (UTC)

Night 66: Doctor's Offices (Med Wing)

Still in the first room

no subject

Southeast room

East room