damned_institute | 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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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."

Day 70: Magus Park (morning)

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[ugh, I hate getting colds]