damned_institute | Day 30: Staff, Morning

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Day 30: Staff, Morning

Burly orderlies and agile Calm Effect nurses flooded the cafeteria from the Courtyard while regular hall nurses filed in from the Sun Room and ushered out those not involved in the rebellion. It indeed seemed as if Landel was sending out all the cavalry, and an effective cavalry they were: The riot didn't continue for much longer after the alarm sounded, though it seemed strange just how quickly all of the mutinous patients fell, even the ones who hadn't been injected with anything.

The hall nurses were quick to escort their well-behaved charges back to their rooms, praising those who hadn't joined in and chiding those who muttered under their breath in response. There were some exceptions, of course: One nice young man had even defended one of the nurses from the violent patients! Now, wasn't that exemplary behavior? Dr. Landel would be so proud to hear about it...

Within half an hour, all of the so-called "loyal" patients had been safely deposited in their rooms, and it was then that the alarm finally stopped and the true difficulty of the situation was tackled. There certainly weren't enough rooms in solitary to accommodate such rampant disobedience, and yet measures would have to be taken to ensure proper consequences for each and every patient involved. After all, something like this couldn't be allowed to happen again!

Different options were considered. Perhaps they should make an example out of the girl who had sparked the riot, but then again, perhaps not. This certainly wasn't the first case of patients attacking nurses or their peers in a crowded area, but what had been different this time was the sheer support that the other patients had shown for her. Should the staff then make examples of all those who had tried to "protect" her from the well-meaning nurses? No, there were too many for that...

In the end, it was decided that the best immediate solution would be to treat the rebellious patients in the Medical Wing while they were unconscious and then move them back to their rooms to await punishment. To ensure the safety of both their roommates and the patients themselves, however, the staff decided to securely fasten their limbs to their beds and keep them heavily drugged. Such a sad sight they were to see, but... it was necessary.

Finally, when each and every patient had been escorted back to their respective rooms, the staff hurried off to an emergency meeting upstairs. Strangely, Head Nurse Lydia was the one taking care of the proceedings in the Head Doctor's stead. She calmly told them that he was preoccupied with more urgent matters, and as she began to speak to the crowd, the staff could only wonder what could possibly be more important than an unprecedented patient riot...

[ Comment to this post with separate threads for each patient room, and please put your character's room number in the subject line. Thank you! ]

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"Eh, you're not my type," the Bride replied, deadpan. She chuckled a moment then as she settled back into the bed, crossing one leg over the other. "Normal sounds good."

A short bit later. "Smoke?"

"I don't think you're quite mine, either," Naomi said with a soft chuckle of her own.

"And a smoke sounds great. So how do we do normal? I have to admit, girl talk isn't exactly something I've got much experience with. The girls I went to school with always annoyed me more than anything else, and then... well, I just never had time for a social life, really."

Forensics work and then the FBI had eaten all of her time, and left her with little to discuss other than gruesome stories of murder, abuse and sexual assault. Not exactly conducive to Friday night social gatherings.

"Girl talk is normally about clothes, gossip and boys - always about boys," Beatrix replied. "Except when you're a farm girl. Then your girl talk consists of livestock, trucks, the town festivals, gossip and, well, boys."

The Bride shrugged. "I was kind of popular in school, though I never really had guys interested in me until the end since I'd always been so tall. And then they seemed to think they could impress me with demonstrations of how they rigged their tractors to make moonshine." She rolled her eyes.

She looked over at Maki. "Do you still have those two I gave you last night? I've only got one left myself."

"I have one left." Naomi pulled it out, deciding now was a fine to have one.

"I never had time for boys in school. I attended high school in Japan, and all my free time went to my studies. I dated a little in college, but it was mostly stupid American college boys who assumed all Asian women were demure, obedient girls just dying to serve them. I finally met a nice guy who was half-Japanese. His mother came from a good family, my parents approved." And after turning him down dozens of times, she'd finally agreed to a date and somehow she'd ended up engaged.

"So you grew up on a farm?"

Beatrix nodded to the cigarette. "Did you want to share the one or just hope I can find more later? I usually only smoke when I drink, which is rare, so I don't really care." Besides, Maki had the matches.

"Americans tend to think the world is like the stereotypes they see on TV. Especially guys." She sat up. "I'm American and I don't particularly care too much for my country even though I am a fan of capitalism."

"But, yeah, naive little farm girl from the Heart of America - that's me. me and Mom raised horses while Daddy grew corn." She chuckled a little. "Starry-eyed girl that wanted nothing more than to see the world when I graduated high school. Hard to think that was me, eh?"

"We can share. Here, shove over, I don't want to be reaching across the room every minute or two." Naomi got up to a sitting position, stretching slightly.

"I've noticed that. I've lived in America for over a decade, and some people are still surprised I'm actually American." She shook her head. "I prefer America to Japan, honestly. Some Japanese men have the same impression."

She did find it hard to believe. Based on what she'd seen of Arlene, she was guessing there was some sort of gang activity in her past.

"I take it you saw the world?"

Beatrix rolled her neck, popping it, and moved over to one side of the bed putting her back against the wall. "Yeah, I did see the world. A lot of Europe, Egypt, Morocco, Istanbul, Rome, China, Japan, Phillipines... lots of places." She'd killed in most of them too. "Sometimes I wonder what I would have been like if I'd never gone to Cairo."

She paused, a thought popping into her head, and raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I've been to Japan many times, even spent a couple years there in... various capacities, and I still think that unless you're obviously gaijin that the men there expect women to be demure. I think it's a tremendously male dominated society."

"Try misogynistic," Naomi said, settling in next to the other woman. "You don't need to be polite about it. It's one of the reasons that I left as soon as I could. I went to America on a student Visa, and I never left. My family is very traditional, and I don't think they ever fully approved of my decision. But they were happy enough with my fiance, and he wasn't bad. He'd lived in America for most of his life, too."

But he still expected her to be a housewife and mother and nothing else, and wouldn't have it any other way.

"I've never really traveled. We went to Jamaica once, for a vacation. There just wasn't the time." Not with both of them working. She lit the cigarette and took a drag before passing it over to Arlene.

"Maybe someday."

"Parents eventually get over it."

The Bride accepted the cigarette and watched the small curl of smoke drift up from its tip. "The world is a beautiful ugly place," she replied before partaking of the nicotine.

"There really isn't anything else they can do," Naomi said, leaning back. It didn't matter now, anyway. She'd seen her parents for the first time since leaving Japan just a week or so ago - it wasn't as though they were particularly close.

"That pretty much says it all, doesn't it?"

"Yup."

Beatrix handed the cigarette back. The things she'd see as she traveled, the stuff she'd been exposed to... it would fill volumes. Thankfully she couldn't write worth shit and was rather attached to her freedom to go about getting her memoirs published. She didn't even keep a journal - too risky.

"I can't wait to show it to BB."

"Your daughter?" Naomi took the cigarette, looking at Arlene curiously. The name still brought back a myriad of memories, forever connected to the case in Los Angeles. It was hard to picture a young girl and not a strange madman with some unknown connection to L.

Beatrix smiled softly at the thoughts of her daughter. "Yeah, my little girl." She glanced over at Maki. "Did you ever want children?"

"Not really." It was the honest answer. She'd resigned herself to the prospect of them, eventually, but she'd never wanted them. Raye had. Raye had been the one who decided everything, and she'd just been too tired and too pressured to argue anymore.

"I don't really like kids."

"They're not for everyone," Beatrix replied. "I'm not sure I'm cut out for it, to be honest."

She sighed. "I mean, I prepared myself for it and was pretty sure I'd be ready by the time she was born. But then..." Bill tried to kill her and, in the process, her little girl not knowing she was his. "I lost so much time."

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. "Life just loves to fuck with me."

"I'm sure you're a good mother." Arlene seemed devoted enough, and she was a competent woman. And it was clear she loved her daughter.

"That's life, I think." It fucked with everyone. Sometimes in big ways, sometimes in small ways.

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Day 30: Staff, Morning

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