Day 71: Cafeteria

[rebonding]

Korra's stomach was grumbling by the time that annoyingly friendly voice chimed over the speaker that they'd be going into the cafeteria to eat.

"About time..." she grumbled under her breath as her nurse marched her out of the sun room and into the caf. Pancakes seemed like a good idea; something at least a little similar to the food she'd eat in Republic City. She settled down with her food, the events of last night still lingering on her mind despite her best efforts to shut them out. Korra needed to get herself some closer allies, and needed to get in the know on all this talk of the basement and the third floor.

For now, though, food. The Avatar dug in like it was the first decent meal she'd eaten in months.

[Gabe!]

Comments

[fourstonewalls]

Lana shook her head at the question, smiling softly. She'd been wrong; not a new arrival at all. It was good to be found wrong, occasionally; it kept her on her toes. Which was not a mantra she would share with her colleagues, home or here; it would be a sign of weakness she couldn't afford. But she didn't really mind it.

"Lana Skye. And the pleasure is mine." She paused, thinking over her answer. "We hadn't met before. I didn't want to start talking about monsters at night if it was only going to sound like I actually belonged in a psychiatric facility." Not the only reason, of course; but if he hadn't guessed she was worried about sending a kid not much older than Ema out to face the night unaware, she'd drop the subject.

Then she set both hands on the table and leaned forward just a bit; if he wasn't new, it was time to share notes. "Did you get a radio? It's the first time the townsfolk have taken any interest in us besides financial; I'm curious to see what everyone makes of it."

[asteroidbelt]

Ryusei fiddled with his fork. The part about the monsters was true enough, and an open-ended question was open to interpretation and therefore safer. It confused him as to why being here for a week was a sure sign of believing in the monsters, though. Maybe it was just natural—patients were sure to see their roommates going out, and lacking that, the doors were audibly unlocked. Or maybe it simply made Ryusei feel slow; by his estimate he'd been late to accept the premise of danger beyond the obvious.

He had had his reasons. He shoved away the discomfort at the thought of belonging in a psychiatric facility, and crossed his hands. "I thought those were toys."

Ryusei had had a radio on his desk since day one, but Lana had said 'townsfolk' so apparently there had been radios brought back from Doyleton. He'd only seen one that matched the description, but since Kurogane's was given to him by a friend, there was a possibility that other people had also been acquiring and passing them around. The supposed involvement of the townspeople was new to Ryusei, though. "What makes you think they're interested?" he said tentatively.

They hadn't seemed so from what Ryusei had observed, but on the other hand, he hadn't been paying much attention. "I've only been there once, so I don't know...."

[fourstonewalls]

"They were passing out radios to anyone who would take one, and they actually work. Like cell phones, if you know the number on the other person's radio." They'd been fairly insistent about handing them out, really, which had been the first sign. "Most of the time they look at best tolerant of our presence."

"Well. Except for at night, when they're entirely too eager about eating us." The carnage from that night had only been mostly repaired, the first time Lana had been down to the town. And she'd heard -- and seen -- enough to believe all the stories. "There must be a reason; they can't only be concerned about our welfare."

[asteroidbelt]

Eating? She had to be joking, right? He looked up. She didn't look like a person who joked. He supposed he should hope that she'd chosen that word because that was what they were doing at the moment.

He put down his fork and reached for his book, flipped to the sketch he'd attempted to make of what he'd seen of the town. Only a few lines crisscrossed the page; he realized that he'd never finished. He closed the book again. "They seemed to be leaving me alone."

Not that meant anything, necessarily; he'd had his head down and his posture huddled for most of the trip. Depending on the person they wanted, he was— What sort of people did they want? Lana seemed competent as did Kurogane, but the latter had been given his; Ryusei had too little information to tell. "What sorts of people were getting them?"

Maybe they just wanted to lure patients in to eat. But in that case, the radios wouldn't be used to call each other, only to receive and send messages from the master radio. He believed that that would be more efficient. And the radios had been disguised to play a little tinny song and look like obvious toys. But Ryusei didn't know whether subterfuge was the right conclusion. "Are all of the radios like that, or just a few?" he added.

[fourstonewalls]

He didn't ask about the zombies. Good.

"Every one that I've seen, which was four of them. Every patient who asked was given one; I don't know if anyone managed to get a second, and I didn't see any of the other townsfolk take one, but that doesn't mean none of them did."

The ability to communicate was a huge asset, if they continued to work; trying to coordinate multiple teams without some form of communication was doomed to failure in good conditions; Lana had seen far too many tragedies in that vein, not even counting that night. Of course, relying on them had it's own dangers.

"I wouldn't assume the transmissions can't be tapped, though." Giving them the illusion of privacy wasn't like Landel; he liked to point out at every opportunity that he knew exactly what they were up to. But perhaps no one had yet said anything interesting enough for him to gloat about.

[asteroidbelt]

Taking the radios at face value required trust, and if whoever had received them hadn't even been told what they were for, it underscored the possibility that whoever was passing them out merely wanted them in the patients' possession for some reason unrelated to the patients' use. Especially since it seemed the type of person didn't matter; just that people were getting them, by Lana's account. Not that Ryusei had any proof of that, either. He didn't have proof of anything.

"What are you going to do? In case they are tapped."

He supposed keeping an eye on the patients was valuable, depending on the information the radio master wanted, but the guy on the intercom seemed to insinuate that he saw all movements within the asylum—if that guy was the radio master, it had to be some kind of fake-out or gambit. Probably. But there were only a few ways Ryusei could see in which the radios would be useful, especially if their true function had to be obscured in the day—that of tracking others' movements at night. And if the townspeople were involved, he thought that they would be more likely to coordinate around Saturdays, when the patients could go to Doyleton. That the radios weren't restricted to that day meant that something was going on here, but that much was obvious. "Did you get a look at who was passing them out?"

[fourstonewalls]

What was she going to do? Exactly what she was going to do if they weren't -- that was how this place worked. Everything they did might be precisely what Landel wanted, or he might merely be feigning amusement; the only time he'd seemed out of control was when Aguilar had arrived, and she wasn't sure they wanted to repeat that even if they could summon him somehow.

"One of the townspeople, at the toy store; not someone I'd met before. She'd poked her head into each of the shops at one point or another, just to investigate, but the townsfolk hadn't been especially talkative and she hadn't pressed."

A rattle of silverware interrupted her; other patients had begun clearing their trays, and a nurse was looking at her pointedly. Ah. She didn't have any particular reason to antagonize the staff, so she smiled and stood up. "If you get your hands on one, my number is 213."