Day 69: Sun Room

[rebonding]

[From here]

Korra wandered into the Sun Room while rubbing her hair dry with a small towel. The shower had been nice, at least. She had wanted her nurse to take her outside, but apparently there would be none of that for the moment. The "adults" were out there. What were they doing that they couldn't let her go outside, too?? She wasn't used to this, being cooped up. It reminded her of her time in the sewers.

She flopped down onto one of the couches, keeping an eye out for someone to chat up. Sure, her social skills weren't exactly 'honed,' yet, but that didn't mean she didn't want to talk to people. There wasn't anything else to do here, anyway.

[Barnaby!]

Comments

[rebonding]

"Something makes me doubt that," Korra huffed, slouching down in her chair. Maybe everyone else could be fine with this- being told of a false identity, that they're all crazy... She wouldn't put up with it.

The sentiment was obviously an empty one. There was nothing to be done about it, which naturally only made her crankier.

"You been here long?"

[baniichan]

Well, she would either learn to adapt, or she wouldn't. No one exactly liked having their identity repeatedly invalidated, but no one could afford to fly off the handle every time it happened, either. Besides, Barnaby certainly didn't need the nurses' validation for anything. But as someone who had deliberately revealed his identity to the public, he'd be lying if he said that seeing his hard work wiped off the map didn't add insult to injury.

There was once a time when he would have been shocked to find that Korra apparently didn't recognize him. Now it was par for the course. Of course, these days that was the least of his worries.

"A little over a week now," he answered. Too bad it felt like a year. "From what I understand, not everyone lasts even that long."

There wasn't any point in coddling the girl by trying to make the situation seem less dangerous than it was. Barnaby had no reason to spare her feelings, especially since he was only talking to her in order to get the nurses off of his back. In a place like this, though, he was probably doing her a favor by speaking so candidly.

[rebonding]

"Lasts...? You mean like they die?" Despite her time in battle, Korra has little to no experience with death. Fighting was something almost recreational to her; it was proof of strength, it was honor. Everyone played fair.

This wasn't fair.

[baniichan]

"Sometimes." He'd never seen it firsthand, but he'd heard accounts from other patients, and he'd certainly seen enough things that had nearly killed him. "Sometimes people simply aren't seen again, and the staff claims they were rehabilitated."

Whether they actually were or not was another matter. But, if they vanished due to the institute's influence, Barnaby saw no use in fooling themselves -- those people were likely as good as dead.

[rebonding]

"Oh man..." Korra leaned forward in her seat, resting her elbows on her legs and her forehead in her hands. She had been told that there were monsters, and that it was dangerous, but she had somehow taken it for granted until now. People always overreacted. When all was said and done, there hadn't even been any casualties of the Equalist Revolution.

But the stakes were higher, here. The stakes were higher, and she was weaker whether she wanted to admit it or not.

"So what do people do? Do we just go out at night and try to make a break for it?"

[baniichan]

"A lot of people try, sure," Barnaby confirmed. His eyes caught the nurse's intent gaze as she watched the two of them from the side of the room. Offering the woman a quick, polite smile, he moved to sit down on the chair near Korra's couch.

"Escaping will take a lot more than just hopping the fence and making a break for it, though," he added after a moment. "You're probably going to blackout before you get anywhere, and then you'll wake up in your cell the next morning so you can repeat the cycle all over again."

It was a bleak assessment, but it was the truth.

[rebonding]

"So no matter how far you get, you're just gonna end up right back here?" That was a dismal thought. And it complicated things. It had been disorienting to suddenly wake up back in her bed as if none of it had ever happened, as if she had only been dreaming.

[baniichan]

"More than likely, yes." Barnaby leaned back in his seat, folding his arms over his chest. "I doubt the institute's influence is infinite, but the fact that they were able to bring us here in the first place should say a lot about their resources."

If it were simply a matter of running as far away as possible, he was certain more people would have escaped by now. More than that, he was certain he would have escaped by now.

"Someone once told me the basement could be an important clue," he continued. "But he seems to have vanished, so I can't exactly ask him what he may have found there."

[rebonding]

Korra perked up at the mention of the clue in the basement, but her excitement instantly dwindled when Barnaby mentioned his disappearance.

"You don't think he disappeared because he got down there, do you?" It made sense to her- cut out the people who were making progress. Of course, that theory also confirmed that there was something worth finding down there.

Which meant that she would have to get down there herself and find out.

[baniichan]

"With how often people disappear around here, I personally wouldn't bet money on it," Barnaby replied. "Correlation doesn't always equal causation. But I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility, either."

At the very least, it was one avenue he and Kotetsu hadn't explored. They would likely need to investigate it once they both managed to pull themselves together again.

"Do you have any unusual abilities?" he asked as he turned to assess the girl. Not that he had any personal interest in her background, but Barnaby had noticed many of the patients here fell into that category, and he wanted to have a better idea of their capabilities in case it became relevant later.

[rebonding]

"Oh..." Korra scratched her head. Then nobody really knew why people disappeared, then?

But that question sailed right out of her head at the mention of 'unusual abilities.'

"You bet! I guess you can think of it as martial arts that control the elements?" At least she'd had the sense not to call it 'bending' this time. "I'm a... special person where I come from. So I can fight with water, earth, fire, and air." Though the air was still coming with some difficulty.

[baniichan]

So she was a NEXT after all. There was no quick way to identify one outside of seeing them use their powers, but Barnaby decided to take her word for it. It wasn't the sort of thing a lot of people would lie about back home, and, depending on when they awoke, many people Korra's age and younger were able to master their abilities.

Why no one here seemed to recognize such a widely-used term was still beyond Barnaby, but for now he'd decided to accept it as one of the many strange facets of this place.

"I see," he politely said, not looking the least bit perplexed or doubtful over her answer. Someone using martial arts to control the elements was not out of the realm of possibility. Even if Blue Rose, Dragon Kid, and Fire Emblem didn't necessarily need to use extra body movements to activate their abilities, NEXT powers were vastly diverse.

He wasn't completely sure what she meant by being special, though. Barnaby just assumed there wasn't a large NEXT population where she lived.

"There are people who can do something similar where I come from too, actually," he added. Of course, there were people like that everywhere, but he wasn't going to get outwardly nit-picky over details like that. This girl probably hadn't heard of Stern Bild before, so there wasn't any point to it.

[rebonding]

"Wait, so does that mean you have benders where you come from?" Maybe if she used the proper familiar term, Barnaby would pick up on it. And the idea of another benders being here was a bit of a relief, for some reason she couldn't quite put her finger on.

[baniichan]

"In a manner of speaking," Barnaby replied in a neutral tone. "We don't call them 'benders', though. Someone who can control the elements would be considered a Noted Entity of Extraordinary Talent, which is usually abbreviated to simply 'NEXT'."

Most often, elemental-type NEXT could only control one particular kind of element. But it certainly wouldn't be impossible for someone to have the ability Korra claimed to have. Combined with a proficiency in martial arts, Barnaby imagined her powers would make her a very formidable opponent indeed.

Hopefully they wouldn't cross paths while she was "brainwashed".

"NEXTs aren't limited to element-type abilities, either," he added. "I'm a power-type NEXT, for example."

[rebonding]

"A NEXT?" Korra pouted, thinking. She'd never heard of a term like that before, and couldn't imagine what Barnaby meant when he said his abilities were "power-type."

"So what can you do?" Bending originated from the Spirits and... something about chi, she remembered Tenzin telling her. That was why Air Nomads were always born benders- their intensely spiritual lifestyle made the chances shoot up.

But what made a NEXT?

[baniichan]

Korra's reaction wasn't unexpected, seeing how she hadn't given any indication that she was familiar with such a term. Maybe it had been useless to bring up, but Barnaby supposed it didn't hurt to spread the terminology around in case someone who did know that word could be directed to him by someone.

"Under normal circumstances, I can make my physical abilities one hundred times stronger," Barnaby answered. "Obviously, it doesn't work quite the same way here, or else I'd have escaped by now, but at night I'm still able to activate my powers on some level."

[rebonding]

"That's weird," she said without thinking. It sure wasn't like anything she'd ever heard of before. Then again, this whole stupid place wasn't like anything she'd heard of or seen before. Why should the people be any different?

"So it's like super strength?" It did sound pretty cool.

[baniichan]

"It's not considered that weird these days," Barnaby patiently responded. "At least, not where I come from." Compared to some of the other zanier NEXT powers out there, his could even be considered a little on the plain side.

"Super strength is one way to describe it," he confirmed. "It has more uses than that, though. For example, I can also use it to jump to higher places, as well as to boost my speed, eyesight, and hearing."

[rebonding]

"That's pretty cool!" Consider Korra impressed. If he was telling the truth, at least. And what reason did Barnaby have to lie about his abilities? That could prove dangerous here, right?

But all of this went against everything she knew about the world. There had been no such thing as any of this before she had woken up in this stupid hospital.

[baniichan]

Although Korra was probably closer to Blue Rose's age, there was something about her demeanor that reminded Barnaby of Dragon Kid. He wasn't sure if it was because of her tomboyish air, or her interest in martial arts and combat. There was also a similar sense of earnest honesty behind her words.

Of course, first impressions could certainly change, provided he even spoke to this girl again. Knowing how meddlesome his obnoxious nurses could be, though, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

"You think so?" Barnaby responded, although he was only being half-modest. "It's certainly something that gets a lot of attention back home, but I'm afraid it doesn't do much good here if I can't use it to find an escape."

Everyone else here was dealing with a similar situation, which was the only reason Barnaby freely admitted to it. Normally, he liked to minimize weaknesses, and he still did so in this case, but there was very little to be gained by completely hiding the fact that he was a NEXT.

"What about your abilities?" Barnaby asked. "Have you tried testing them since you arrived here?"

[rebonding]

"I... haven't really had much of a chance to." Korra frowned, thinking of how quickly she'd wound right back up in her own bed. "They definitely came back, though." That had been a huge relief. No matter how much she told herself she wasn't scared of this place taking her bending, the notion still terrified her. She would have to meditate on it, later. Hopefully Aang would have some advice.

"They definitely don't work during the day, though."