Day 32: Sun Room (2nd shift)

[heraldric.livejournal.com]

After the couple glasses of water Leon managed to gulp down during breakfast, the mage felt immensely better. He was still a bit tired, but that was nothing a little lounging on one of the sofas wouldn't cure. Stretching his arms above his head, he couldn't help but wish he'd had the chance to grab one of his new doctor's coats before leaving his room that morning. Maybe they would have let him get away with wearing it. Maybe.

He grabbed an empty sofa, pulling out the journal he tried to keep on him at all times. It was nearly complete now. Just a couple more pages to go. It might not improve his spellcasting that much, but any improvement was better than none. It was getting to where it might be too dangerous for him to use spells at all, if it left him so worn out without even finishing a monster off.

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[saintoflangley.livejournal.com]

Conklin blinked, unable to believe what he was hearing. "That's..." That's crazy, he wanted to finish, but he couldn't help but feel that referring to the insanity of the whole operation would be in rather poor taste. What on earth did Landel stand to gain from this, anyway? But if what Nakago was saying was true (it wasn't, it couldn't be, some small part of him insisted despite the growing body of evidence, that couldn't happen, it's just a paranoid delusion...), then there was something rotten in Denmark, or wherever the hell this Landel's Institute was.

Christ, did this stink as bad as that Hong Kong debacle! It reeked of deception, positively drenched in the scent of mismanagement and abuse of power. He wished David was here, or Mo, or Marie - hell, he'd even be glad of David's psychotic alter ego at this point. But there was not a familiar face among the lot, and it finally struck Conklin that he was on his own here. No backup. Disavowed. He had to make it or break it as he was able. What Nakago was saying was either sheer lunacy...or a chillingly brilliant plan. The one thing Conklin couldn't see, however, was how it would hold up to close scrutiny. The patients - the prisoners - had friends on the outside, friends who would surely notice if they went missing. He could just see Mo now, the psychiatrist furious, pulling out all the stops to get Alex out of here, brandishing official-looking government documents signed by people at the highest levels, can't you read, you underpaid idiots, I'm his doctor, his only doctor, and I tell you there's nothing wrong with that man's head that can't be cured by a well-deserved peaceful retirement, you quacks!

That absurdly amusing image in his mind, he just had to ask: "There's no way Landel can keep this whole thing a secret, I mean, most of us have to have people on the outside who're looking for us."

[heartofrevenge.livejournal.com]

"That may be," Nakago agreed, secretly amused by the look of disbelief on the man's face. How badly did Alex want this to be the ramblings of a mad man? How was he trying to rationalize this in his head? Then and only then did it occur to him that maybe, just maybe, this was the sort of thing Landel and his staff longed to see. Perhaps they took delight in seeing what this place did to the people they took, seeing how their prisoners would rationalize everything.

Nakago might have taken some enjoyment in it, himself, if he was not an unwilling participant in a game he really had no desire to play.

"However, there are some who have no one." Of that, Nakago was absolutely certain. No one would be looking for him or wondering what had become of him. He was supposed to be dead, after all, and those who would have cared were long gone. "Those on the outside, I'm sure, believe this place to be exactly what they say it is. Apparently, there are some visitors, but most here have not spoken about such visits at great length." At least, no one he had spoken to had much to say about said visits or visitors.

[saintoflangley.livejournal.com]

The way Nakago responded to Conklin's question tipped him off that he himself may have been one of those poor souls with nobody on the outside. Had it not been for a few chance occurrences, the spook would be in the same boat himself. Everyone had been pretty pissed at him for jumping to the conclusions that he had, most of all David. He hated that empty, friendless feeling that had started to rear its ugly head again in the past few hours.

And, coward that I am... He'd taken the easy way to make the pain and loneliness disappear, temporarily, via the bottle. But that was behind him now.

He was about to ask a question concerning the visitors when the intercom chimed and a nurse came to take him away from Nakago and head to lunch. As soon as he was at lunch, he was going to write down everything he had learned so far, even if it was false information. In the meantime, he limped off to pizza.