damned_institute | Day 31: Intercom, Evening

The intercom's jingle came on with its usual overly-cheery quality, echoing through the halls and doctors' offices.

"I trust, as always, that you all enjoyed the last shift and that all the staff-patient interaction went smoothly. Of course, we're nearing the end of another day and so we must begin to bring things to a close. Nurses and orderlies, please escort all the patients to their respective rooms and make sure everyone gets their dinner--which is, by the way, chicken teriyaki and assorted tempura, along with rice and miso soup--before they retire for the night. A vegetarian substitute is of course available, and we have our usual assortment of drinks; we also have a special of hot green tea to go along with the meal.

"Thank you, everyone, for an exceedingly pleasant day, and our therapy sessions will continue tomorrow as scheduled. Enjoy your dinner, and I will be on again before bedtime to say goodnight."

The announcement ended.

[ As always, individual dinner threads go in response to this post, and it helps to put your character's room number in the subject line. Thanks! ]

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"Yeah, it does," Leon agreed. "Kind of felt like one, too."

He raised an eyebrow. "Cloned psychics? That sounds..." He searched for a word. "...difficult."

"I'm not surprised," Yohji replied. "What brought that around?" All these different places were kind of intriguing, even if he didn't fancy facing a horde of zombies himself.

He snorted and nodded in agreement. "That's one way of putting it," he said with a small smirk of amusement. "The non-cloned psychics weren't a picnic either."

Leon frowned, thinking. "The short version is that a virus was released into the local animal population. Some of those animals-- rats, dogs, stuff like that-- attacked the humans. By the time I got into town, the entire place was infected." He sighed. "That was my first day as a cop."

"Never had to deal with psychics, though," he said, raising an eyebrow in Yohji's direction. "How'd that happen?"

"Man, what an introduction," Yohji said, his eyes widening a bit. At least he'd been sort of eased into being an assassin with training and stuff. He didn't think anything would prepare a person for zombies.

"They were working for someone who we ah... weren't on good terms with. And then they kidnapped my friend's sister."

"Yeah." Leon shook his head, smiling ruefully. "Some first day." He seemed to have pretty awful luck with first days in general.

"Were you able to rescue her?" he asked, looking concerned despite the fact he knew nothing about this person.

"Yup. I think that tops most first days for sure," Yohji replied with a faint grin. Zombie apocalypse on your first day of work. He was surprised that anyone would want a second day after that.

He nodded. "Yeah. She was got out before the building collapsed. Shame we didn't. Tokyo Bay is damn cold."

Leon couldn't help but grin back. "Actually, my first day on my most recent job was even worse," he said.

He looked relieved at Yohji's response. "That's good." There was a momentary pause, then he continued. "For her, I mean. Was anyone hurt in the fall?"

Worse? Yohji's eyes widened at that and he gave Leon a curious look. "Okay, I have to know. How did it get worse?" Worse than a zombie apocalypse? Man, that had to be bad.

He smiled wryly and nodded. "Well, none of us was in any shape to be working for a while after that. Nearly drowning and avoiding falling masonry and all." Not to mention having nearly got their asses kicked by Schwartz and those creepy old people. They were just really lucky or maybe they had the nine lives of their namesakes.

Leon sighed. "My latest job was working on security for the President of the United States. First day, his daughter gets kidnapped by a cult in Spain. I had to go rescue her. That was... about ten days ago, I think."

Leon appeared thoughtful for a moment. "Seems like an awful lot of excitement for a florist," he commented dryly. "Psychics, kidnappings, collapsing buildings. No wonder you couldn't arrange vases after all that." He didn't sound mean, just a little sarcastic. Leon had been rather dubious of his roommate's claimed profession. This confirmed that there was something else going on.

"Wow. How'd that turn out? Did you get her back?" he asked, leaning forward a little. Leon must be a pretty important guy then. FBI or CIA or something like that.

Yeah yeah. It was way more than any florist should ever have to deal with but, well, there wasn't really a good way to say 'oh, by the way, I'm a professional killer working for a vigilante organisation'. He really couldn't see that going down well.

He shrugged, giving Leon an apologetic smile. "Yeah well. Floristry is more dangerous than people give it credit for, especially when things get personal."

Leon nodded. "Yeah. Longest twenty-four hours of my life, but we made it out alive." He'd only barely escaped an exploding island on a jet-ski, partially thanks to Ada. She'd given him the keys, sure, but she'd also rigged the damn place to explode. As always, she was a mixed blessing.

"Uh-huh," Leon said, clearly not buying it. "What, did someone not like their roses or something?"

"Well, alive is always a good thing," Yohji agreed. Well, most of the time anyway. Sometimes.

Actually they were trying to ressurect a demon from hell in order to take over the world. Yeah. That would go down well. Although with the zombies and whatever Leon had dealt with, it might not sound too strange. "Well, there was this cult trying to ressurect a demon in the body of my friend's sister..." he said finally. What did it matter if this guy had the truth. They weren't exactly trying to hide it.

Leon nodded. "I've generally found it preferable to the alternative," he replied.

He just stared at Yohji as he began to explain. "...Go on," he finally said, looking more curious than anything. Saddler's cult hadn't been going after a demon, but the virus they'd unleashed was pretty terrifying in its own right.

Yohji sighed, knowing that he couldn't really explain this without telling Leon what his other job was, but he could give it a damn good try at least?

"She'd been in a coma for two years but hadn't aged at all during that time," he explained. "Anyway, we uh, went in there and rescued her and in the process the building kind of collapsed around us because of a telekinetic. But we got out."

Clearly, Yohji was leaving out some details. Leon decided not to press him on it, for now. Yohji was a good guy, and certainly not a threat. If he wanted to keep a few secrets, there wasn't any harm.

"Wow," he finally said. "That's well beyond anything I've ever dealt with." Psychics weren't something Umbrella had ever been able to reliably work out, though according to some of their documents they'd been trying. Leon was just glad he'd never had to fight anything that could read his mind.

"I dunno. I think the zombies are worse," Yohji said. You could kill psychics. It just took a lot. Like surprise and sharp things. Zombies, in movies at least, took a hell of a lot more and, oh yeah, could make more of them. Cloning, at least, took a bit more effort.

"Um... one of those psychics might be turning up here tonight, just so you know." One or more.

Day 31: Intercom, Evening

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