Day 69: Sun Room (3rd Shift)

[redcladidealist]

Tomatoes in both choices. Lloyd's face fell the moment he heard the announcement, and with a groan he let his forehead thunk against the table in the Sun Room. He couldn't even ask if he could have a sandwich made without tomatoes in it. The lunches were already made, his nurse holding one of each in her hands. Unhappily, he accepted the one that had meat. Maybe something could be salvaged from it.

Ignoring his nurse's cheerful parting words to enjoy his meal, the teen waited until she'd stepped away before he took his lunch out of the bag and started picking it apart - only to freeze, heart pounding unevenly. A deep, rattling breath had just- Lloyd didn't even finish the thought. Something was here! He whipped around, not even sure how he was going to defend himself. The only thing he had was one of those plastic spoon-forks, and if he was up against that same thing they'd run from last night-

There was nothing. Nothing but nurses and patients passing by. Not even any cats. No one else looked like they'd even heard anything. Lloyd's eyes darted around, but still nothing showed up.

Come on, I know I heard it...

[For Ed and Al!]

Comments

[overlimit]

Great. So both Rita and Taura were in some part responsible for Goku’s death. During the years she lived in solitude, Rita had convinced herself that every friendship inevitably ended in some kind of betrayal. She just never thought she’d be on the ‘betrayer’ side of that arrangement.

Rita knew it wasn’t her fault for not recognizing the kid. But after all that time Landel spent trying to goad the patients into killing one another, she couldn’t help but mentally kick herself for having done just what the bastard wanted.

Regardless, there wasn’t much Rita could do at this point, but she was going to do what little she could. Now that she’d worked out how last night’s events came to be, it was up to her to inform the other patients, in case that kid had any other friends worrying about him. She jotted down a brief note for the bulletin, then picked a chair at random and seated herself in it. Retrieving a sandwich from her lunch bag, she started eating.

[Yuri!]

[voiceofthanatos]

Yuri didn't have much planned today. His body settling into a routine at Landel's and it disgusted him how easy he was being controlled. Part of his body was bandaged underneath the clothes from where he suffered injuries from last night. But they should heal soon and only made certain movements a little sore.

Normally he would eat lunch by himself unless Barnaby or Kotetsu had asked to, which he didn't mind. It was simple courtesy. However the girl had taken his interest, recognizing her from the night before despite the changed clothes. He came over to her table, and spoke up. "May I sit here miss?" He asked politely.

[overlimit]

Rita looked up from her lunch with a tired stare. She didn't expect to be approached by a stranger. While Rita wasn't in much of a mood for socializing, she quickly realized that she'd sat near a large-sized table. She couldn't exactly insist that she needed all that space for herself.

"Sure, do what you want," she replied before taking another bite of her sandwich. Rita knew she couldn't take her current frustration out on a stranger, but that didn't mean she needed to go out of her way to be friendly, either.

[voiceofthanatos]

"Thank you very much, miss." Yuri thanked her and erred on the safe side of caution and sat down on the other side. He wasn't in the mood of socializing much either and had other things in mind. Mostly figuring out where to craft more weapons at just in case he ran into monsters yet again during the night. He couldn't just rely on his powers all the time when they left him winded after prolonged use.

But back to Rita, he asked another question after some time had passed and he finished half of his lunch. "Is something amiss?" He could pick up on her attitude, being a seasoned judge had it's advantages.

[overlimit]

Was something amiss? Was something ever not 'amiss' in a place like this? Rita probably could have launched into a rant about all the awful and ridiculous things that had happened to her, but she wasn't about to dump all of that on a stranger, especially since a lot of it touched on... sensitive stuff.

"Bad day," she grumbled in reply. "Bad week, really. Just about everything that can go wrong has gone wrong." She took another large bite of her food, and continued only after she finished chewing and swallowing. "But, whatever. I'm pretty sure everyone here has a sob story or two." Heck, the guy in front of her looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. Then again, maybe he always looked like that. Rita wouldn't know.

[voiceofthanatos]

"I see." He didn't really care much, but pretended to. His priorities were on escaping naturally, as he still held a belief that it was possible. That or the authorities would come for him, since a sudden disappearance for a major public figure wasn't a thing to take lightly.

"I wish I could offer some assistance to brighten your day, but my hands are tied here." This place was so restrictive and all about their activities, except when night fell.

[overlimit]

Rita shrugged. “I wasn’t expecting any help anyway.” Though such a statement could come across as bitter, for Rita, it was simply a matter of fact. She’d gone years without depending on anyone for anything. She could take care of herself. “I’ll handle it.”

And as far as ‘handling’ things went, there wasn’t much that could be done to begin with. A kid was dead, and nothing she or Taura or anyone did would change that. All that was left to do was to move on… and to take down Landel. The most any stranger could provide was emotional support, and that would just make Rita annoyed and uncomfortable anyway.

As she finished eating her sandwich, Rita started to wonder what the stranger’s deal was. “Anyway, it sounds like you’ve been keeping busy. How long have you been here? I don’t suppose you’ve found any good leads.” Or that he’d be willing to share, if he had. Still, she had nothing to lose by asking.

[fullmetalheart]

Ed slept through the announcement of the change of shifts and had to be shaken awake by a nurse.

"Wha?" he said groggily as he opened his eyes.

"Time for lunch, David," she said as she gave him a bag. "There's two choices, but since you slept through the announcement, I picked for you."

Ed took the bag he was given with a sleepy grumble and sat up carefully, aware of his brother on the floor.

[armoredsoul]

Al was similarly shaken awake and handed a bag, which he accepted with a sleepy mumble. He stretched out a few kinks in his back, then blinked as he spotted a familiar face across the room. "Brother, Lloyd's over there!"

[redcladidealist]

Ears straining for any hint of that horrible, rattling sound, Lloyd caught his name as someone called out, not to him, but it still caught his attention, drawing it to the two blond teens across the room.

"Edward! Al!"

He lifted a hand to wave them over - and promptly lost another heartbeat when another rattling breath shivered the air behind his ear. He jumped, wide-eyed, and whirled around again.

Nothing. There was nothing.

Dammit, I know it's here!

[fullmetalheart]

Once his brother was out of the way, Ed made his way over to Lloyd. "What's wrong?"

There was no way Ed wasn't going to notice him being squirrelly.

[armoredsoul]

Al noticed as well, getting up and hurrying over along with Ed. "You're being haunted, too?"

[redcladidealist]

"Haunted?" Lloyd's head jerked up and back around to stare at them. "What do you mean, haunted?" His voice strained, not with disbelief, but with more than a little alarm. "You think there's ghosts in here?!"

[fullmetalheart]

Ed slid into a seat at the table Lloyd was at and nodded. "Scar thought it was likely a ghost we met. And uh..." He looked down at his injured arm.

[dividedby]

Although his nurse had made a huge deal about stretching his muscles to a healthy extent, Zero had spent most of the day so far sitting. Sitting on his bed, sitting in the cafeteria, sitting on a couch here in the Sun Room...it made him feel unhappily lazy, but sitting was admittedly more preferable than moving about when his major injury was so hypersensitive to pressure. (Unfortunately, sitting also meant the nurse had an excuse to keep him company when he was otherwise alone...but obviously he was trying to get around that whenever possible.)

Lunchtime gave him yet another excuse to sit around, though at least this time the excuse was understandable. Once again, he let the nurse choose his lunch since he had no idea what either of his options were; she came back with the 'grilled mushroom something sandwich'. Fair enough.

Quietly, he started on his sandwich as the nurse, who was still standing nearby, decided to do something quite shocking. "I need to check on something with the other nurses," she suddenly said, "so stay here and be good, okay? I'll check on you after lunch." And then just like that, she walked off. She...walked off? She wasn't going to bother him at all this shift? Really?

... Zero's mood had just jumped from 'vaguely annoyed' to 'nicely calm'.

And yet he still continued to sit and eat quietly, despite his new-found 'freedom'. (What? It wasn't like he could do much else...)

[Aigis!]

[no_dont_go]

Having taken her time in the shower during the shift before, Aigis had merely used the time to contemplate her own health. Was she honestly healed after eating the plant? It seemed very unlikely. How could something like that cure her so completely? But she trusted Sechs and she trusted Castiel. She would wait to see what happened and hold onto that trust all the way.

Lunch came swiftly and soon she was toweled off, in a fresh institute garb and headed to lunch. She grabbed a bag at random since both sandwiches available sounded fairly novel, then she made her way into the Sun Room to check on the bulletin.

Only one note caught her eye. Someone was looking for a mechanic. While she wasn't necessarily trained in service beyond her own physical maintenance, it would not hurt to offer support if necessity proved too great. That done, she decided staying in the bright Sun Room was perhaps just as well as traveling outside of it. She gazed around the large area and happened to spot one of her fellow mechanical beings. Moving that way, she offered Zero a nod as a greeting before settling herself across from him in an armchair.

"Good afternoon, Zero-san. I do hope you have been enjoying your lunch so far."

apologies for the slow! orz

[dividedby]

With his nurse finally gone, Zero had (for once) been prepared to have a relaxing, solitary lunch...so hearing someone call his name out of the blue when he was only halfway done with his sandwich caught him a bit off guard. Luckily for him, that someone was not his nurse returning earlier than expected, nor was it anyone else that he would find incredibly annoying. It was instead Aigis, the female android he had met - ironically over lunch - the last time the prisoners had been taken to Doyleton. Hm. It had been awhile since their last talk, hadn't it...it was good to see her again, and in one piece.

The once-Reploid nodded his head in greeting. "Aigis," he said without bothering to swallow the bite of sandwich he'd taken before she had approached him; fortunately, that case of bad manners was quickly remedied. "Are you doing well?" he said next, this time without a full mouth.

saaaaame orz I am the worst!

[no_dont_go]

Asking after someone's well-being here was a bit of a loaded question in any situation. Aigis didn't think badly of Zero for it, however. It was dictated by social etiquette to ask and respond. Aigis knew this. It was programmed into her. However, in Landel's it made her question real reason behind the social construct in less dire circumstances.

"As well as can be expected." She tilted her head. "Not disabled or destroyed, but not happy. How about you, Zero-san?"

She opened up her brown bag and reached for the juicebox inside. Fruit was really something she would miss once she returned to her normal body. Perhaps when she was switched over her "taste" data would be erased. Sad as it was, it was perhaps for the best.

no worries!!

[dividedby]

The health report Aigis gave was mostly expected. Zero could see she wasn't disabled or destroyed simply by looking at her, and what sane person could be happy in a place like this? It made sense. Zero nodded his head again.

And to her question, he answered honestly. "Temporarily disabled, but not destroyed." Or happy. But that was a given. He took another bite of his sandwich, briefly reflecting on when he'd been attacked last night as he chewed. He really should have been more careful... If he'd had his gun or had even been able to see better, he probably would have--no, he definitely would have been alright. But instead, he'd been careless...a mistake he couldn't afford to make again. Not when it put him in crutches.

[gald_digger]

So far, this day was turning out pretty good, all things considered. Anise was feeling healthy and energetic again, she'd had a chance to catch up with Ilia, she even heard from Barnaby after fearing the worst for him, and most recently... the packed lunches had undergone a serious upgrade. Both of the choices sounded delicious, but in the end, she went with the BLT. She wasn't even sure what that stood for, but it smelled amazing.

The only thing this day still needed was for Anise to hear from Luke and Claude. She tried not to worry too much, but each time she stopped to read the bulletin, she made sure to check Guy's note for replies. There weren't any so far, though.

Well, she was going to have to put that worry aside for now. Maybe she'd go looking for them next shift. For now, she had a promise to keep! Anise hadn't forgotten how she agreed to share her maps with Daken yesterday. She made sure to grab her notebook, the maps tucked safely inside, and brought them with her to the Sun Room. She sat down in a space with a few chairs surrounding a coffee table. That would give them space for eating and for copying information.

Now she just had to wait, and hope that the new guy hadn't gotten himself killed already. In any case, it wouldn't hurt to start eating without him. Setting the notebook and lunch bag on the table, Anise took out the sandwich and decided to get a head start on lunch.

[Daken!]

[trollverine]

Anise, he kept reminding himself. Her name was Anise. Not that he would necessarily need it, but if he somehow did, and forgot, he was going to look like kind of a dick: he didn't want to do that.

He wanted to ingratiate himself to a little girl, which was almost as stupid. But solving complex problems sometimes required the unexpected, and he needed a map. Regardless of his roommate's wisdom from the night before, not planning ahead was going to waste a lot of time.

And anyway, in the land of the blind, you had to find the guy with one eye to get anywhere.

He set his lunch on the coffee table and sat down across from her, glancing at the notebook. "Is that what I think it is?"

[gald_digger]

Sure enough, the guy she was waiting for turned up before long. Anise was about halfway through her sandwich, which she set down as she greeted him with a smile. “Yep! All the maps I’ve got. There’s the first floor, the second floor, and… I’m not totally sure where it came from, but there’s a map of the roof that was floating around on the bulletin – before they really cracked down on censoring us, I mean.”

She opened the notebook and took the loose pages out. As she glanced over the maps, however, she seemed to notice something. “Oh! This one’s a little out-of-date. I can add a couple rooms here…” The Medical Wing had opened just earlier that week, and Anise had done a bit of exploring in there. She could at least try and draw in the rooms she’d been to. “Here – you can copy these ones while I fix this.” She slid the maps to the second floor and roof over to Daken.

[trollverine]

He copied the second floor map as quickly as he could, not knowing whether the nurses would notice (and object). Anise didn't seem worried about it, but then again, Anise wasn't the one who needed maps - and he was getting the impression that she didn't worry about much.

The roof was next, and he'd sketched out half of it before he paused to read the notes.

And re-read them.

If the access tower was locked, and the vents were bolted, and there was no way up the outside, there would seem to be no normal way for anyone to get up there.

Interesting.

He resumed copying. "You have no idea how helpful this is." He shot her a brief smile. "My roommate was not having the new guy thing. He kind of told me to go to hell and figure out where not to go by myself." It was an embellished half-truth, at best, but maligning Aidou was fun and potentially profitable.

[gald_digger]

At least he was being grateful. Anise was surprised to hear how unhelpful his roommate had been, but after thinking about it for a moment… maybe it wasn’t that surprising. “Really? What a jerk!” She frowned as she continued drawing. “But… I guess there’s all kinds of people here. A lot of them can’t be trusted or depended on, so you have to be careful.”

Fortunately, Anise hadn’t seen any sign of Sync or Dahlia in a long time. With any luck, that meant they were long gone. But that didn’t meant there couldn’t be more two-faced patients, looking for an easy target to backstab.

As she mulled over those thoughts, Anise drew, erased, and re-drew the lines making up the layout of the Medical Wing. The front desk was by the entrance, there were a bunch of doors she never tried entering, there was a storage room way in the back… and an operating room? No, two operating rooms. They were probably identical, so she drew the second one the same way as she remembered the first. Hopefully that was accurate.

Finally, she appeared satisfied with the drawing, and slid it over to Daken. It was her almost-complete map of the first floor, and the large space that had been blank until recently was now filled in with everything she’d seen in the medical wing. “Here! It’s still missing a lot, but that wing only just opened up. People don’t know much about it yet.”

[idolism]

Maybe it was a good thing that Aidou had slept late that morning; he had gotten to skip the whole affair of eating breakfast in the cafeteria, and he'd missed seeing the specimen of poor hygiene sharing his cell. Some things were better missed.

Nonetheless, the day still felt long. Aidou retreated to the Sun Room to set up his usual watch over the bulletin board, lunch in tow. Try as he might, he was unable to suppress a yawn. Was this what repeated failures did to a person? Sapped their energy? Made them complacent?

Life had been far happier when he'd been ignorant of such frustrations.