Day 72: Breakfast

[lighthearted]

They had made it. It had required leaving Tsubaki behind to deal with her brainwashed roommate, but they'd gone all the way up the escalator, and this was it, the third floor--

Good morning, patients.

Sora shot up in bed, eyes wide, and let out a huff of surprise and aggravation. That wasn't fair! They'd made it all the way up, only for it to end like this? He fell back onto the bed and slammed his fists into the mattress to vent his frustration before he realized that Link was still asleep. Whoops.

It was hard to know what to do from this point on. He needed to go back to Farwell, but the third floor was important too. He could probably rely on his friends to handle things here while he traveled back to the rebel city, but he just didn't know.

He dragged his hand down his face and then slowly sat up again, as the door opened and his nurse came to get him. On the way to the cafeteria, Sora realized that the Head Doctor sounded kind of down. Was he upset because so many people were trying to go to the third floor now? Well, that was what he deserved after everything he'd done!

Sora stood in line for his plate of french toast and then peered around the cafeteria, looking for any sign of Tsubaki. He wanted to check in with her first.

[Tsubaki.]

Comments

[impudentsongbird]

"You got there?" Gabe leaned in almost unconsciously. "What did you find?" If anything--maybe they weren't there long enough to find anything new. It would be just like Landel to end things for them just as they got somewhere. Then again, the night hadn't ended until after Gabe and Skulduggery had succeeded in winning the shield.

He wasn't expecting Kratos's explanation of the rebels. Gabe couldn't even be sure why, except that it never occurred to him that people from the outside might have actually broken in with the intent to help the patients. "What do we know about their motives, even vaguely? What did they want when they infiltrated?" he asked almost anxiously, and then stopped with a blink. "Just over the mountains?"

The basement went underground. Did it go under the mountain? Is that what the basement led to? If it did, what was the point of the tests? They had to be put there by Landel, and yet if the end result was escape ... No, that didn't make sense. Maybe the rebels had appropriated it. Or maybe it didn't lead under the mountain at all. He didn't have enough information to tell for sure either way.

[forsworn]

"Not to the archive, just to the third floor proper," Kratos clarified. Hopefully, they would be able to reach the archive tonight. "Obviously, there was some machinery up there that none of us recognized" - which, now that he thought about it, was a little odd: wasn't Castiel from this world? Then again, the angel hadn't known much about batteries when they'd met at the electronics store in Doyleton the other day... "Otherwise, nothing else of too much interest." He would withhold judgment until he figured out what those keys were for.

"I only know what I've managed to tell you, sadly." Castiel had given him a note a while ago regarding the rebels' role in driving out Aguilar at the height of the military takeover, but the details of the contents were difficult to recall. "And yes, just over the mountains. I've never been, but my friend has, and that's how he described it."

And Sora intended to go back, didn't he? He made a mental note to ask about that later.

[impudentsongbird]

"Did you find out what the machinery did?" It could have been anything. Maybe it was the teleporters. Maybe the archive was electronic. Or maybe it was something else Gabriel couldn't concieve without proper context. "Would you be willing to let me know what you find tonight?"

So it was possible to actually escape the Institute. Gabe's mortal heart beat faster. How much did the rebels know? Would they be able to tell him more about the visitors--whether they were constructs or reality? "What else did he tell you about them? Did he say how to get there?"

Belatedly the Archangel realised how eager he must sound, and shook his head, sitting back a little and smiling ruefully. "I'm sorry; I'm asking a lot of questions. No one has been able to tell me so much before. Then again, maybe I just wasn't asking the right questions."

[forsworn]

"It was a gate, and it shocked anyone who tried to pass through it. We tried to find some kind of switch or way to disable it, but we didn't turn up anything." Kratos was fairly sure it was just something Landel had put up there to make their lives harder, but maybe Gabriel would know something more about it. "And I'd be willing to do that. We're aiming for the same goal, after all."

He fielded another question: "No, not really." It struck him that he ought to have asked that. Unfortunately, his mind had been mostly preoccupied with the fact that Sora was even alive--and the unpleasant lingering guilt of having been the one to kill him.

Kratos shook his head. "It's not a problem. I'm more than happy to let others know about what I've found out." After all, he was probably one of the oldest patients, in terms of both length of stay and actual age, in the institute; the amount of knowledge he'd amassed probably outstripped many others'.

[impudentsongbird]

It didn't sound like modern technology. It could have been magic posing, but there was no way Gabe could tell from down here, and he already had plans for tonight. "Thank you."

Although Kratos didn't quite know as much as Gabe could have liked, it was still far more than Gabe had known beforehand. "Is there anything else you can tell me about the Institute? Or maybe Landel? Who is he?"