damned_institute | Day 28: Bus 1

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Day 28: Bus 1

Zelgadis was not happy, at all. Not that this was any change, but the events of the past few hours had given him more to angst about than usual. Nightshift had been dreadful: first he was attacked by a small green man and then covered in leeches, neither of which lead to warm fuzzy feelings.

And now this.

When the nurse had come into his room with new clothes he had a small glimmer of hope-- some thief had taken his normal Landel's wear in the night, so perhaps this was a change in luck. However, it was not the godsend he had hoped for. Minus the threat of sedation, there was nothing in the universe that could make Zelgadis wear a bright lemon-yellow shirt. There was a jacket of a slightly more tasteful variety, so Zelgadis made good us of it-- he put all his coupons in a pocket and pulled up the hood. It was almost as good as his cloak. Well, no it wasn't, but it would have to do.

With mild protesting, Zelgadis was lead to a large yellow vehicle. He climbed the stairs, took a seat towards the back, and readied himself for another frustrating day of being attacked and threatened with spoons.

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Rufus had felt the weight of Reno's gaze on him, could almost imagine the Turk trying to turn up any loose edges to peek underneath. It didn't anger him as it would have should someone else have tried such with him. If the Turks didn't, who would? How long would his Geostigma gone undiscovered and untreated before if one of the Turks hadn't been sharp-eyed enough to spot the strands of blackened rot infecting his skin that he had kept covered under his clothing?

Why the hell did he keep thinking about that sickening disease?

Did.
Didn't.

Distracted with his own thoughts, Rufus hadn't given a whole lot of consideration to the expansion of Landel's. Even though they had only been there a week or more, it felt like a year.

"Then I must be a first or they did not get time to begin. If they did anything, I do not remember, and you could not help it anyways," he said, modulating his voice carefully to try to sound calm.

And there was the reason that he didn't want to make a move against Schwarz even if he would have had all his Turks as well as their weapons. Somehow he had guessed that Schuldig would turn up today. He hadn't been hoping, of course, but he had felt the telepath would appear. Schuldig's arrival also saved him from needing to make more of a reply. Instead of meeting Reno's gaze, he met Schuldig's instead, looking the telepath up and down. He had no idea that this was closer to how Schuldig usually looked. It was merely... different.

He could guess that Schuldig knew... knew something, something that his mind kept leaping away from and he let it. Encouraged it even. He never thought about the time he had spent buried alive in the rubble of Shin-Ra Tower, not knowing if anyone was coming to save him. Who would have saved him? The Turks had probably cut and run. His mind was used to playing the denial game, shrouding those secrets in darkness and not letting even him know them. Deep down, further in that dark pool of himself than Rufus ever cared to gaze, he had been terrified of the telepath. On the surface, he wanted someone to understand, to see. That cloaked part of him feared that same exposure, his sins brought to life. Why else would a man that so many thought never to make a move without precise planning and thought do something like jump into bed with Reno?

Or maybe it had been lust, plain and simple. Maybe it had been desire, purer than just sex. That deep core of himself didn't yield secrets easily.

"Good morning, Schuldig. What can we do for you?" he asked, cool and collect as always on the outside even as he did glance briefly to Reno before looking back to the telepath.

No time to begin? Yeah, right. Somehow, Reno didn't buy it and Rufus was most certainly not so naive as to believe something as innocent as that. But any further questions were cut off with Schuldig's arrival.

Brilliant timing, as always.

Reno didn't react as he watched the telepath approach, only slouched even further in his seat in order to comfortably lean his head back. He didn't even have the energy to work up any sort of annoyance. Instead, he gave Schuldig a dispassionate wave in greeting.

Hell, maybe he was starting to become immune to Schuldig. Hard to say whether that was a good thing or not.

He caught the President's gaze, but said nothing. Yeah, so if anyone could tell him exactly what happened to Rufus, it was Schuldig, but Reno frankly didn't want to be told if it meant the telepath would start exploiting the whole thing in the process. And exploitation was the only reason why Schuldig would ever choose to say anything at all. Rufus was right; even if something had been done, it was far too late to do anything about it. Knowing would sate his curiosity, but that was about where it ended.

"Absolutely nothing. Haven't we already established all this?" Schuldig shot Rufus a sidelong glance that was anything but friendly. "I just felt like sitting here. If I'm inconveniencing you gentlemen, then that's just too damned bad." Actually, entirely aside from making Rufus even more painfully nervous than he already was, there was another reason for Schuldig's sitting by two people he didn't particularly like - purely to demonstrate that, one, he couldn't be driven off unless he damned well felt like leaving on his own, and two, that there was nothing whatsoever either of them could do about it.

"Very well then, if that is what you wish. Nonsense about bothering us. We're pleased to have you."

Rufus must have been taking his cue from Reno on this, seeming unconcerned about Schuldig sitting with them. The telepath's expression didn't bode well for him (or anyone for that matter) but until Schuldig laid down what game he was playing, there wasn't much he could do. He turned back towards Reno, facing the Turk for the first time since he'd sat down.

"I take it that no progress was made then with the cellar. That is the last time I leave Wallace in charge. He was supposed to ensure that no matter what happened, you all would find where the cellar was and begin to explore it."

He frowned, leaning back in his seat and trying to find some sort of comfort there. The transports of the common man were not for him.

"Do you think this trip is just another trick, Reno, or is there a purpose behind it?"

Maybe if Schuldig hadn't killed the conversation by saying what he had, Reno might've actually chosen to engage him in some sort of talk (however uncivilized it might become) but as it was, the only thing he could think of to say in return was along the lines of, "Uh, okay."

At any rate, if the telepath was here to purely annoy him, Reno would be damned if he was going to bite. The guy seemed set on staying, anyway. Anything he said would probably just make Schuldig more determined to stick around.

He glanced back at Rufus, unsurprised at the comment. Typical response from the President. "Only person who could've stopped me from going after you is Tseng, and even that's debatable."

Looking away, he shrugged a shoulder. "Hard to say. Maybe they just wanna let us know that even if we make it out of the institute, we still gotta deal with what's beyond that."

Was there anyone in town? Had to be, right? He could always try chatting up the civilians or whatever. They might just be as useless as the nurses, but who the hell knew. Maybe some of them would let up on something. Worth a shot, at least.

Unless this town was part of the institute. A little place they built specifically to fuck with the patients.

"I had been sure that Barret Wallace would have been able to stop you. If he couldn't have, Cloud Strife should have had the brains to not let either of you do such a foolish thing. You could have been killed or injured, Reno. I expect better from you next time."

That still sat badly with Rufus. While a part of him he would deny until he died had hoped that his Turks had been coming for him, the cold and analytical part of him had been near furious that the Turk had so blatantly risked himself. From what Rufus had heard, it was hard as hells to get into that hallway.

Forcing himself to calm before his thoughts were heard, Rufus nodded to Reno's thoughts on the town.

"It will help to know though if this place is on Gaia or not. Are we on what these ones call 'Earth' or the other planets we've heard about. Then again, this could be a huge daytime version of the Nightshift."

And that brought about a thought he'd rather not have had. Rufus glanced up to Schuldig, watching the telepath for a moment before speaking. Mentally, he weighed his odds of being laughed at or something sharp and cutting said. It didn't look good for him, but he went ahead with it anyways. Nothing ventured and all.

"Schuldig, how prepared are you for what might be there? Granted, minds may be spread out more than at the hospital, but what if there are people there and their thoughts are... I don't know... all screams or something else dangerous?"

Rufus had no idea where the rest of Schwarz was today, and in their absence, he'd have to take care of the telepath if such happened. There wasn't much he could do against a town full of minds, that leaving him with that hated helpless feeling. De-facto ruler of a world (or was) and he couldn't do anything.

Sometimes Reno wasn't quite sure why Rufus hired him if he was so worried about his Turk getting injured. Didn't that sort of defeat the purpose?

"With all due respect, boss," Reno said calmly, "you equally could've gotten yourself killed by trying to get Wallace to hold me back. Last I checked, it's kinda my job to keep you from dying, which was precisely what I intended to do last night. I'm paid to risk myself. Hell, I'm trained for it. I had four experienced fighters and one damn near perfect shot backing me up." He glanced at Rufus. "I know what I'm capable of. And I know what I'm doing."

Since when did Rufus believe the Turks were so easily killed, anyway? They'd been up against worst than a shadowy cloak and some overweight rats.

And normally, Reno never would've carried on such a conversation with a third party so blatantly listening in, but considering Schuldig could read his mind, privacy ceased to exist, making it a lot easier to openly say whatever the hell in front of the telepath.

As Rufus posed his question to Schuldig, Reno let his mind wander, only partially listening in on the conversation.

A huge daytime version of nightshift? Oh, yeah. Wouldn't that be a giggle. Though he doubted it. Not with the normal nurses around. No, if there was going to be anything sinister about this place, it would be in the fact that everything would appear too happy and normal. Reno was half-expecting to see a perfect little town with trimmed shrubs and sprinklers and soccer moms.

Schuldig - who'd been managing to look elsewhere without looking as disinterested as probably either Reno or Rufus might've liked - let his gaze slide back to the president. "Spread out or not, I've been barely managing two hundred minds or so with my telepathy weakened as it is, and the side effects of that fucking brain surgery they did haven't exactly been making it easier on me. Add those on top of whatever's in Doyleton and if their minds are audible at all, regardless of what that means, there's a better-than-even chance I'll be returning to the institute in a straitjacket. Or not at all, as the reaction takes me. But why does this concern you? I'm no longer your problem." He shifted in his seat - uneasily, a close observer might have noted, belying the unconcerned way he was speaking of his potential impending insanity and/or death - and snorted. "Still, if it makes you feel any better about it, you're no more helpless to prevent it than any of Schwarz would be."

Unfortunately, Schuldig was on the wrong side of the bus to get a view of the approaching town. So he simply looked out through someone else's eyes, marking the appearance of the town and doing his best to gauge just how long he had before they were close enough that his telepathy would start picking up anything from the place.

Rufus suddenly felt like one of those annoying yappy dogs that had taken a rolled up newspaper across the nose. From Reno of all people.

Just who shot who around here? sat on the tip of his tongue before he jerked it back, checking the urge to draw blood with razored words. Those were the words that would surely mire him and Reno in another spat. It was far easier to listen to what Schuldig was saying and resist the urge to soothe his own wounded pride by striking back.

Besides, Reno did have a point. A small one.

"That doesn't change the fact that it would have been of greater benefit to all of us had you found out what was so special about the cellar versus trekking all the way upstairs with four experienced fighters and a near perfect shot who's talents were wasted. However... you are right. Your arena is protection, not mine."

For Rufus, that was what passed as agreement.

Flipping between two conversations was usually damned easy for Rufus. Business experience alone had taught him how to keep track of multiple things at once. The mild fever he had was what he blamed for struggling to keep up and pay attention to both men equally. Needless to say, Schuldig's news didn't sit well with him, nor did the knowledge that there was nothing any of them could do. He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips, trying to will some plan or plot to come to him.

There was always something that could be done. Except this time, there wasn't. How does one keep back a mental wave when they can't even sense it? Something did click finally.

"What if you were unconscious, Schuldig? Does it stop then? Or can you use another mind to shield yours?"

Right. Wasted on saving his ass. Reno kept silent, though, acknowledging Rufus's half-assed agreement with a conceding grunt. He wasn't looking to pick a fight that would just lead them both around in circles. He'd already made his point, anyway.

Although what he would never quite tell Rufus was that the President's safety took precedent over everything else, without question, for the sole reason that if the President were dead, then there was simply no point in following his orders anymore. For his orders to be effective, they had to keep him alive...even if it meant defying his orders in the process. A bit of a catch-22, really, but there it was. This was especially true because Rufus had no heir, which meant the moment he died, the Turks pretty much ceased to exist. No one left to protect, after all.

He let Schuldig and Rufus's conversation buzz in the background, not interested enough to pay full attention. The scenery outside was fucking boring. Like they were in the middle of nowhere. Still, it was nice to actually see something other than the depressing walls of the institute day in and day out.

"In theory, unconsciousness would work," Schuldig replied with a slight lift of one of his shoulders, a sort of half-assed shrug. "The thoughts are still there, but my brain doesn't have to process them so they don't do me any particular harm. Unfortunately in practice, it might be even more dangerous to try something like that than to go into it normally. If I got knocked out somehow and came back to consciousness while we were still within my range of the town...it's hard enough to keep a handle on it when I'm walking into it prepared, but waking up to it unexpectedly? That would definitely end me. And unfortunately, I doubt there's anything either of you two could do to put me out for the entire day. I suppose I could ask the staff nicely to sedate me into a coma, but even if they were willing that'd just leave me vulnerable and below normal operating capacity whenever I woke up back at the institute, which is risky enough in itself."

Schuldig waved a hand dismissively. "Shy away from risk all you want, ShinRa, but sometimes you've got no choice. And whatever this fucking place plans on throwing at me, I say bring it on. When the inevitable comes to meet you, it's a bit more dignified to walk out and meet it halfway than to cringe in the corner until it arrives. Possibly it's the difference between someone who runs the risk of death or insanity simply by fact of existence and someone who's got an entire legion of people meant to keep him as far away from harm as possible, but I think I like my way better." He slouched in his seat, mentally doing calculations. How wide was his range, now? Probably less than half of his original mile and a half radius...it'd be awhile before he found out what Doyleton held in store for him. "Though I doubt you're capable of understanding that."

After a pause, he recalled that there had been a second part to Rufus' question. "As to shielding myself in someone else's mind, yes, that's technically possible," he acknowledged. "But not for you. It has to be a mind I'm almost as familiar with as my own, in order for me to be able to tell my thoughts and my host's apart. The only person who qualifies is Farfarello, since Crawford's closed off to me in that respect." Not that Schuldig intended to use Farfarello that way...unless, of course, Farfarello insisted upon it, which was a possibility. But he couldn't block out the sinister little thought that said a telepath that couldn't handle one measly village's worth of thoughts was one that was hardly worth the trouble of keeping sane in the first place.

"This is all theoretical, though. We don't know what's waiting for us there anyway."

Rufus tried to touch Reno's leg lightly, the best he could do for an apology. It was hard on both of them trying to get used to these new roles, at least in his mind. Throwing a Turk into the line of fire before would have been easy. Now...

Now was different.

Drawing back his hand, the man frowned. Schuldig gave him something to concentrate on instead of that confusion and fear, something solid to lock his mind on. He'd expected the telepath to spit in his face, tell Reno what had happened during MU, or something else. He nodded quietly to the telepath's answers, trying to find an angle he hadn't looked at yet. Worse yet, they were pulling into town.

"We're going to find out soon enough."

He'd been hoping Schuldig could use himself as a shield if he had to. Why? One might as well asked the wind why it blew. Damned if he knew. Rufus didn't question himself when an idea came. The best option he saw was getting Schuldig to Farfarello if the telepath lost it then.

"It's not cringing, Schuldig. It's being proactive instead of letting one's self be buffeted about."

Rufus bit down on the inside of his lip, keeping his acid words to himself for now. Cringing hadn't been something he'd ever done. Diamond WEAPON's blast had proved that. If it hadn't, then him meeting Kadaj head-on with Jenova hidden on him had, not to mention jumping off the building to try and get a shot at the damned box. Everything was a risk for Rufus.

The brief touch was surprising, but not unwelcome. Reno smiled faintly, which Rufus might've caught if he were looking.

It wasn't much longer before the bus pulled to a stop right by a park and the nurses began herding them off. He slipped out of his seat, intending to do some searching through town for information while he left Rufus with Schuldig. The two seemed to have some unfinished business they were still discussing and his presence wasn't really needed.

"I'm gonna go take a peek around town, leave you two to it," he said, resting his hand on Rufus's shoulder. "Find me if you need me, yeah?"

He let his fingers linger there for a second before he began moving off the bus.

Schuldig had misjudged the distance between them and the town; they were pulling before he'd had any time to brace himself for any sudden influx of thoughts from the residents.

Of course, as it happened, there was no need for that. In theory, he should have been relieved...

Schuldig's fingers dug into the bus seat as he stared out of the nearest window. He was able to see people milling around out there - an entire town of people he couldn't read, couldn't touch. His fellow patients were his only telepathic contact; otherwise he'd have felt as though he'd been rendered telepathically deaf.

True, his continued sanity wasn't in as much question as it had been a minute ago...but he hadn't exactly been looking for a village-sized reminder of how much his powers were shackled, or the telepathic equivalent of walking into a ghost town. Only his eyes provided him with any proof that people lived here.

So much for his theory of those Power Inhibitors having a functional range. Either they had a very large range, or they worked differently than he'd thought.

"I can't hear them," he muttered under his breath; he was only talking to Rufus in the most superficial of senses, in that the president was theoretically close enough to hear the words. Certainly Schuldig had no actual intentions of his words carrying. "Not anything."

"I will. Be careful, Reno."

Rufus had caught the tiny smile on Reno's part, a mild relief sweeping him at that. This was all territory that was so new to him, that he stumbled and fell spectacularly more often than not. At least this time he hadn't upset the table when taking his fall. A spot of warmth remained where the Turk's fingers had touched long after he had left.

That relief was stronger when Schuldig wasn't seized by the firestorm of thoughts that Rufus had been expecting. While he would have dared Farfarello for the telepath, it wouldn't have been something he wanted to do. Barely catching the whispered words, he continued to watch Schuldig closely for the least sign of something wrong.

"Isn't that good? With all of us spreading out, doesn't that lessen the strain?"

He ignored the nurse shooing them off the bus for now. Schuldig probably had places to go, but he wasn't moving either of them until he was sure someone was taking care of Schuldig.

Schuldig shot Rufus another sidelong look. This one, for once, wasn't openly hostile, instead merely questioning in a suspicious, why-are-you-persisting sort of way. "It's good in that respect, yes, although unless the patients spread out so much some of them go beyond my radius it doesn't much make much difference to my telepathy about the density," he replied. "But it means that either the power-dampening abilities and influence of the institute stretch this far, and canvas an entire community - which I hardly need to tell you is an alarming conclusion to draw - or that there's a possibility my telepathy's been permanently hobbled. And either way, I can't get any new information like this...nothing we can reliably trust, anyway, since there's no way of knowing whether or not we're being lied to if I can't get in their heads."

He finally pulled himself to his feet, studying the town through the windows of the bus. "It's also a little unsettling," he muttered. "I can't read the staff, and there are a few select patients whose minds are beyond my reach, but that's not that many people compared to those I can read in the institute. But this is a whole town</>. I see them but there's nothing where their thoughts should be. Shape without substance." He shot Rufus another look. "It's about how you feel if you stepped off this bus and discovered you couldn't hear them in the mundane sense. Something's very wrong."

Rufus ignored the look Schuldig gave him, his mind clicking along and circling the information he had to go on like a wolf looking for the most crippling place to latch onto prey.

"I'd imagine everyone would rather have you sane than all the information in the world."

Something Schuldig said kept coming back to nag him. Such a wide area was odd, but not unheard of. Shin-Ra had controlled Midgar despite it being one place versus all of Midgar. Computer systems made it all easy.

The ever so famous lightbulb finally lit in Rufus' mind. Flashed at least.

"What if they're androids or cyborgs? Can you normally read machines? I don't know about your world, but we have some rather advanced systems in mine. A robot that looks like a human isn't unheard of. Reeve Tuesti's Cait Sith proves that."

A mercifully brief image of a black cat walking on its back legs with a red cape on and shouting through a megaphone came to mind and was gone again. Rufus really hated that thing. Rising to his own feet, Rufus had no idea where he was going in town, but the nurses were insisting they get off the bus. If Reno went one way, he might as well go the other.

"Either way, we need to get off. Maybe we'll find something in this town. I doubt you want to spend the day with me, so do you want me to stay with you until you get to Crawford or Farfarello incase the 'sound' suddenly comes back on or leave you be?"

Rufus' dismissal of Schuldig's loss of telepathy as unimportant wasn't seen in his mind as a loss of value or the like. Schuldig and his well-being had more value than telepathy or any other ability. This was the difference between Rufus Shinra the man and Rufus Shinra the President. When acting in his role as president, everyone had a value, a point where loss exceeded that value, and a point where Rufus would have them killed if they turned on him or he suspected they would.

Schuldig laughed bitterly. "And who exactly are you basing that observation on? There are patients who've made death threats against me and I've never even met them, much less inconvenienced them in any way. You don't think there are plenty of people who'd trade my sanity for a snippet of intel? Either you're being deliberately obtuse or you're telling me white lies to make me feel better, not that the latter would serve much purpose when I'm well aware of the truth."

Schuldig allowed himself to finally be ushered out of his seat to move down the aisle, although he turned his head slightly to continue conversing with Rufus behind him. "As to the android idea - I suppose it's possible, although it hardly seems likely. The staff of the institute are off-limits to me, and I've seen people bleed them so I know they're human...at least to a given value of 'human', who the fuck knows. Either way, if sentient beings can be shut off from me, androids seem superfluous."

At Rufus' offer of companionship, however, Schuldig faced forward again and shrugged. "You're free to do whatever you want. I don't even know why you'd take my preferences into consideration, but as far as I'm concerned it makes no difference whatsoever to me."

"I wouldn't. But you don't believe that, do you?"

Rufus sighed as he shook his head.

"A man makes an error, and you beat him with like a whip, Schuldig, until he surrenders. You're a hard man, and that's coming from a man that most on my world considers the worst."

Letting Schuldig go ahead of him and off the bus, Rufus shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He watched Schuldig long enough to make sure that he didn't keel over and then turned away. It hadn't been his intention to get into yet another argument with Schuldig, thus why he walked away first. When the telepath had sat down, he'd hoped some sort of reconciliation could be made.

A deep part of him was relieved and fearful at the same time. He hadn't sabatoged himself, hadn't ruined everything, although that was more Schuldig's doing than his own. Either way, he headed down the street and away.

((Rufus headed off here: http://community.livejournal.com/damned/245151.html ))

[To here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/244463.html?thread=17602287#t17602287).]

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Day 28: Bus 1

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