damned_institute | Day 70: Magus Park (morning)

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Day 70: Magus Park (morning)

Kyousuke was tense as he left the bus, enervated before the day had even begun, yet fueled by a spark of anger and determination. He couldn't say why this was happening again, but that didn't matter so much as putting a stop to it. ... He had to save them. The weight of that pulled at him, but there was nothing he could do about it yet, so he'd just have to bear with it for now. Frustration wasn't going to help anyone right now.

Knowing that, he'd just have to find some way to relax and put it out of mind, however impossible that seemed. Being here helped, a little. It was new, and they were being allowed to wander around instead of suffering the staff's institution farce in the silence of pointless, monotonous activities. Being so far away removed the knowledge that what they needed could be close by, just waiting to be found.

For now, the boy decided to linger in the park for a while. It was nice there, if a bit vacant in the early morning, and he had all day to explore anyway. They called it a "town," but it was really more of a small village from where he was standing, so he doubted there were many sights to be seen to begin with. Maybe he'd just go sit on a swing for a little while and finish his breakfast; he'd been so absorbed in his conversation with Lloyd that he had yet to touch anything.

[ Korra ]

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Korra stepped off the bus with a similar wonder to the day she first arrived in Republic City. No, Doyleton was nowhere near as impressive as the capital of the URN, but it was unlike anything Korra had ever seen before. The buildings had the same weird look to them as Landel's.

At least today would be good for stretching her legs and exploring a bit. She hated the naked feeling of walking around, knowing that if she tried to bend it wouldn't work.

She spotted Tsurugi while passing through the park. Good. At least nothing bad had happened in the blur of last night. Nothing had gotten done. Again. It was frustrating. Still, she put on a smile and took a hand from her pocket to wave.

"Hey, Tsurugi."

There was Korra. It looked like she'd gotten out of the night safe, which was good, but it wasn't like there was much reason any of them wouldn't have. Maybe getting nothing done was actually a hidden blessing; most of his nights here had been a little too eventful. At least this way, nobody had gotten hurt, even if that was pretty weak as far as silver linings went.

"Morning," he greeted with a nod, finishing the remnants of his food. "Is this your first time here, too?" It was just a guess—she seemed a little more interested than he did.

"Yeah. I overheard someone saying that they take us here every Saturday." She wished it could be more often, just for the change of setting's sake. It was all she ever wanted after getting out of that compound on the South Pole. She plopped down on a swing next to Tsurugi's.

"I hear they actually let us buy things. Any idea if we get to keep it?"

"I guess it's just another way of wasting our time," Kyousuke shrugged. Different from the usual Dayshift grind, sure, but Doyleton wasn't a very big place, so after a while, this would probably get old, too. Either way, everyone was left shuffling their feet until they could actually do something.

As for their money... "I don't know for certain, but probably. It'd be pointless to give us money they don't actually want us to use." Whether they could get anything useful was another question entirely, but he supposed they'd find out soon enough.

Korra pouted. She didn't think this to be a waste of time at all. The matter of money, though...

"Is this what they're talking about?" She held up her card, frowning at it. "How's this money?"

The card? "It's electronic," Kyousuke explained. "There's a magnetic strip on the back they can read the information from." .... Would that even make sense to someone from another world? But even if Korra didn't understand, that was about all he could explain; he didn't know the finer workings of it either. He was a kid, not an engineer. "If you hand it to the cashier, they'll know what to do with it." That was probably the most important thing to know.

By then, he'd finished with his leftovers, so he stood, brushing the crumbs from his jacket, and tossed his little paper bag in a nearby bin. "I think I'll go take a look around," he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Magnetic... Huh." She turned the card over in her hands, inspecting it closely. It sure wasn't like anything she'd ever seen before. Good thing Tsurugi knew what he was talking about.

Korra hopped out of the swing when he mentioned taking a look around.

"Mind if I tag along? I wanted to see the town, too."

"Sure," Kyousuke consented. It wasn't like he had anything to do here on his own, especially not knowing where anything was, so they may as well stick together. Who knew, maybe they'd find something interesting.

He began to make his way back across the park, past the buses they'd arrived on, quietly taking stock of the scenery. It was actually pretty big open—were he still not so sore, he wouldn't have minded kicking a ball around here. It'd probably be a better use of his time. ... Maybe later he'd do it anyway. It was strange, but the pain was already starting to feel less debilitating, even though an injury like his would normally last for weeks. ... Or maybe he was imagining that and shouldn't press his luck.

[ to here ]

Once they'd offloaded from the bus, Lloyd warily eyed the area for nurses before deciding what he was going to do. Were they really being allowed to go wherever they wanted? It looked that way. Testing the theory, he picked a random direction and set off, all the while looking back to see if he was being followed.

Huh. Where are the horses they used to move those wagons? It was odd. He couldn't even see a spot where a horse could be hitched to the things. He frowned, but eventually pushed the question off. It wasn't all that important, unless he could use one of the horses to escape and ride for help. They'd already put them away, though, so... Obviously it was time to find a plan B.

The town was different from any that Lloyd had visited before, from the way the buildings were built to the lights and the smells and the sounds. The plastic card they'd given him with the coupons confused him, so he just tucked it into his pocket.

He still hadn't figured out where he was going when he passed through a park. His footsteps slowed as he spotted the playground. Swings and a sandbox, a slide and monkey bars. Under different circumstances, he might have liked playing here. Who said eighteen was too old for those things?

But now wasn't the time. With a little reluctance, he turned away. Right. He needed to figure out where to go next.

[For Nina!]

The park seemed like as good a place as any to go and get her bearings. Daily life had Landel's adhered to such a strict regimen that even this comparatively little freedom was a bit overwhelming for Nina. The park seemed like the best place to go to get her bearings. The weather was mostly nice, but crisp; it still wasn't summer yet. But the park was green and pleasant to look at. The children's playground equipment pleasantly touched some buried part of her.

When she saw someone wandering, doing the same thing she was doing, wandering and thinking, trying to decide what to go and where to go next - and better yet, someone she knew at that! - Nina smiled warmly. "Lloyd!" she called out, waving, trying to get his attention.

Edited 2013-04-14 23:51 (UTC)

Her attempt at getting his attention succeeded. Lloyd blinked and looked up, then around, when he heard someone call his name. Oh, hey, it was that woman from before. Her name was... "Nina?" he hazarded a guess. Right or wrong, he still smiled back, feeling a little better after his talk with Tsurugi. "Hey. It is Nina, right?" They hadn't really had a chance to talk long before the nurses had shooed them off to their next shift the one time they had talked.

"That's right!" Nina said, giving him an encouraging smile to confirm that he was right. It was nice to see Lloyd again, even if her first encounter with him had been brief. He'd left the impression on her of being friendly, at least, and friendly faces could be valuable and hard to come by, both in and outside of Landel's walls. "Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. But you look as overwhelmed as I feel. You don't think they're really just going to let us do whatever we want, do you?"

Lloyd didn't know how she did it, but she'd just nailed his feelings of indecision and awkwardness on the head. "It's the first time I've had this much freedom since I got here, during the day. I'm not sure what to do with it. I feel like I should at least try to escape, even if there's... there's reasons why I shouldn't. At least not yet." He tried to keep in mind what Tsurugi had said, about not scaring people who didn't need to be scared, but it wasn't in Lloyd's nature to lie about things either. That made it hard to talk around the subject of what had happened to him last night. Unconsciously, he rubbed the back of his bandaged hand. It still tingled and stung.

"What are you going to do? Have you ever been here before?"

As a future lawyer, Nina had to have a way with words! But it was more than just that. She found herself feeling strangely grateful to Lloyd. It was a funny thing to know that was someone was feeling the same way you were, dealing with the same conflicts. Funny, but powerful.

"I haven't," Nina admitted. "This is my first time. I was going to go see the pet store. You can come with me if you want. But that feels like so little. I know what you mean about escaping. It feels like we should be doing something. Unfortunately, I think that's likely to bring about more harm than good."

Lloyd couldn't help the sigh that escaped his lip, feeling vaguely discouraged at her words. "That's what my friend Tsurugi said, too. I just... If we don't try to escape, what do we do? Is it really okay to just... walk around and look at things?"

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have minded at all the idea of going sightseeing. He was naturally curious, and some of the things he'd seen already just passing by had looked really cool. But was that really the best way to use his time and the unexpected gift of freedom?

"We could..." An idea formed in his mind, a compromise. "What if we go look at stores, and see if we can talk to people and get them to help us out?"

Lana stepped off the bus, her lunchbag folded closed and tucked neatly under one arm. The floral pantsuit she'd been given had been made out of something synthetic, and wear had pilled up the fabric into a scratchy mess, but it was warm, and even without a jacket, she wasn't cold.

Or she was finally getting used to the climate here. She wasn't sure she liked that idea; everyone thought of Los Angeles as perfectly sunny, like it was on television. The truth was foggier -- or, to be precise, smoggier, but she had never liked the cold, and had generally avoided it by working long hours indoors. But it felt good to be outside, and better still to be warm without feeling feverish.

She started watching people climb down out of the buses and strike out across town. Ilia had already set off somewhere -- there was Nina, running over to a young man she didn't recognize. And most of the others were unfamiliar. ...Was that the man she'd barely gotten to say hello to, before the nurses had dragged them both away from their breakfasts? He was getting off another bus. She'd felt she might be intruding, then, and then hadn't had a chance to really apologize before they'd been shuffled along. She waved, from a half-dozen yards away.

He could ignore her, or come say hello -- she needed to network more, and she knew it. Any of them could disappear at any moment; the only way they were going to get anything done was teamwork, and she hadn't even gotten his name, let alone a true first impression. So she'd try again.

Edited 2013-04-15 01:25 (UTC)

Gren had let the busride slide by in a daze--not a particularly bad one, but he simply hadn't been paying much mind to anything. He was feeling better, if only because it was 'fieldtrip' time. Just getting out for awhile, getting rid of that trapped feeling, even if it was an illusion, lifted his spirits a bit. Even the fact that they'd given him jeans and a button-up shirt with an ugly pattern--both about a size too big, wasn't really bringing him down. The weather was nice, especially if he compared it to what he'd left behind back home, and he stepped off the bus determined not to completely waste the day brooding over things he couldn't do anything about.

He caught sigh of someone waving as he walked away from the bus, and after one confused moment, realized it was the woman he'd talked to briefly at breakfast. She'd seemed nice enough at the time, even if they hadn't had much time, so he waved back and headed in that direction, greeting her with a fairly cheery "hello," once he was within earshot.

Lana smiled back, and extended a hand as soon as he'd approached. "I don't think we managed to introduce ourselves. Lana Skye, former Chief Prosecutor of Los Angeles."

They were both in a better state than they had been; the fact that very few people still seemed to be ill might account for some of it, even if he hadn't been one of them. Or just that the human spirit was incredibly resilient, and it would take more than Martin Landel to crush them all.

"Gren Eckner," he replied, returning the handshake. "I... uh. Don't have any fancy titles." There was his military rank, he supposed, but he'd lost that when they Court Martialed him, technically, and it was nothing he was proud of anyway.

"Sorry we didn't get to talk more, earlier," he added, with a bit of a wry smile. You couldn't really argue with the nurses, when they decided breakfast was over, unfortunately.

"Not your fault," Lana said. And it wasn't hers, either. Weighing them down with guilt was part of what went on here, and she wasn't going to let it happen to her. Not today, at least.

The townsfolk bustled about their business, deftly dodging the clumps of patients dotting the landscape. No signs of their nightly transformation showed. "You've been here long enough to know the ropes, haven't you?"

He shrugged one shoulder slightly. "Guess so, yeah. Of course, sometimes they like to shake things up a bit."

With uniforms and soldiers and tear-gas. But that was over for the time being, and he didn't want to dwell on it more than he had to. Things like that had to stay in the past, if he wanted to get through all this.

Lana almost argued the point -- shaking things up constantly seemed to be the goal. But arguments had their place; and it was not while trying to get to know someone.

"Good. I hate trying to explain that zombies are real when I can scarcely believe it myself. Even when I have the scars to prove it." Actually, the wounds had healed remarkably cleanly and quickly -- too quickly, but that, too, was normal here.

"Don't worry. I don't need any convincing," he replied, though he did his best to keep his tone light. He had plenty scars of his own. "Although sometimes it makes me wish I were just crazy like they claim."

Although sometimes he wondered if both things weren't true, there was some solace in knowing everyone else was going through the same thing.

Lana didn't wince; the only thing that would give away her reaction to anyone who knew her well enough was that she didn't. And Ema wasn't here, so that was no one. Unless someone here could read minds, which wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen.

"I'm surprised they don't make more of an effort in that regard." Her voice was dry. "I do mean about convincing us we're crazy. Not in making it seem preferable."

"Though...no. It wouldn't be, because it would be a lie." And that strayed far too close to having to tell her entire life story to a virtual stranger, so she changed the topic. "I've heard rumors that this isn't even Earth. Makes you wonder why they even picked this, ah, atmosphere for their theme park."

"I guess maybe they don't really care if we believe it or not," he replied. "Who are we going to tell?" The townsfolk either completely believed the mental hospital story, or were in on the whole thing, and the only other people they had were fellow patients. When it came down to it, the truth almost wouldn't matter. He'd been tempted, once or twice, to pretend they bought the story being sold to him, but in the end, he just couldn't do it. He just couldn't let them win.

"It might not be," he replied with a shrug that implied the idea didn't bother him in the least. He would have found it much stranger, to be honest, if they were, considering the planet was the crater-riddled refuge of people too crazy or too stubborn to find somewhere else to live, from his perspective.

The idea of being on another planet would have made Ema squeal in scientific curiosity; to Lana, it was just another completely ridiculous piece of information that didn't fit with anything else she knew. Except in that everything here was ridiculous.

"Then why the charade in the first place? Why this entire town? It's one giant contradiction." She folded her arms and glared out at the main drag, as if she could will it into making sense. It worked better on witnesses and scatterbrained detectives than on pavement. "I just get the feeling that if we could figure out why they're doing this, we'd have some way of changing things."

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Day 70: Magus Park (morning)

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[ugh, I hate getting colds]