damned_institute | Day 34: Breakfast

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Day 34: Breakfast

[starting off in M13]

The last part of the night was little more than a blur in Homura's mind. The men had rushed in, but not joined them, instead staying off to themselves. Before any of them had a chance to react, however, a voice sounded through the air, mocking some other person Homura had never heard of, and the patients themselves.

To Homura, whoever that man was, he sounded a great deal like a god.

But before he could ask questions, the demi-god found himself no longer in the chapel, but some strange room on a bed. Is that what Kenren had meant from his earlier warning? Homura sat up, glad at least that the world didn't spin when he did so. Then the same man from before began to speak again, with a completely different tone. It was confusing to hear him talk that way, calling them patients instead of prisoners as he had before. Homura listened quietly as the announcement was made, then got out of bed.

Maybe he wouldn't have to go anywhere yet. It wasn't like Homura knew where to go anyway, and that meant he had time. If this was his room, and if he had been here as long as Kenren had said, there was a chance he could find something with answers. The Taisho had even told him that Homura had seen Rinrei. Certainly he would've written something down, made a map, something that could let him find her again! He started with the desk at the end of his bed, first finding a small stack of notebooks. Picking up the first, he flipped through, turning the pages with quickening desperation as he found each one to be blank.

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John laughed a bit too loudly at her comment. "Right, end of the world, haha," he said, his nerves growing. "I don't like to brag but I'm decent at hacking. All I need is a few tools and a monitor and I'll get it working, you'll see."

The way she spoke it was as if she knew him. It was bizarre and now he was a bit suspicious. The last pretty girl who had spoken to him turned out to be made of metal and it wouldn't surprise him if the same thing happened again.

Of course, all thought of her being a robot left his mind as quickly as they had appeared. When she talked about being tasty and not being able to do 'you-know-what', John's mind took a left turn into the gutter and he choked on the food he was eating. He gulped his orange juice, turning his head so as not to spit food at her. His face was red and he was struggling with the fact that he was making a complete and utter idiot of himself. God, how retarded did he seem right now?

Claire gave him a strange look when he talked about hacking. "But you said you didn't know anything about it, when I asked you to find out that information on my dad's computer. You said you just knew enough to do what you did with your camera and stuff."

She felt like she was missing something in this conversation, but then he started choking on his drink, and she forgot about the odd notion in her sudden concern. Claire pounded carefully on his back, hoping she wasn't going to have to call an actual nurse over. At least they were in a hospital. Sort of?

"Hey, are you alright? Don't go dying on my, you're not likely to come back."

"Yeah, I'm fine," John coughed, grabbing a napkin to wipe his mouth. Somehow he didn't think that this girl had ever really met him. He had never owned a camera let alone visited someone's house to hack their dad's computer. Not unless he broke in and if he had she wouldn't have been so casual about it. No, there was something going on and John had to tell her that they had never met before.

"Um," he started. "I, uh, I don't think I'm who you think I am. I mean, I use computers and stuff but, uh, unless your Dad works for Cyberdyne or something I doubt that I have ever hacked his computer. So, sorry about that."

Claire blinked at him, looking confused. "Zach? What are you talking about?" she asked in bewilderment. Had the Haitian done something to his memory, too?

"My name is John," he said, holding his hand out. "John C-" he started before stopping himself, mentally giving himself a kick for nearly blurting his last name out to the first pretty girl he saw.

"John Reese," he said quickly. "Sorry about the confusion."

Claire blinked at him again, uncomprehending for a long moment. Then her cheeks flushed with a heated blush and she looked thoroughly embarrassed. "Oh god. I'm sorry. You... you look just like my best friend. It's... it's eerie, you could be twins. Oh now I feel silly. You must think I really am crazy."

"You know, I hear that a lot," John said. Well, that was sort of true only it wasn't some other person he looked like, but himself just younger... or older, depending when the person met him last. "It's ok. I don't mind."

Right, because being mistaken for someone else was really a good sign. At least she liked this kid named Zach. Perhaps it wasn't so bad to be confused with him.

"Well, I do," she gave a sheepish laugh, then apologized again. "I'm sorry. Forget all that, would you? Let's try this again. "Hi, I'm Claire Bennet," she introduced herself, holding her hand out to him. "I'm really not crazy, just prone to being overly affectionate with strangers who look familiar, I guess."

John laughed, finding it difficult not to when she was smiling. "Hey, no problem," he said, shaking her hand. "If you want to be over affectionate with me, go ahead. So, nice to meet you, Claire. Mind if I ask what you and this guy Zach were doing with a video camera?"

The words left his mouth before he realized the way they sounded. "I mean, not like that," he said quickly. "Um, just, you know, if you're having problems with the camera I could help."

Claire laughed and shook her head, smiling at him. "Oh, no, nothing like that. It was a project for school, some special effects for film class," she lied, propping her chin in her palm. "My friend was almost always taping stuff. You didn't often see him without a camera in his hand."

"Sounds like he was a real film geek," John replied. "I'm more strictly computers. I don't have much time for film. I think the last one I saw was four years ago."

It was more like fourteen years but John didn't think correcting himself would sound believable. "I'm sorry I'm not your friend. It sounded as though you had something important to tell him."

"Four years?" she echoed in surprise, then laughed and nibbled on some of her breakfast. "I think someone needs to kick you off your computer a while so you can get a life. And it's alright, it wasn't anything overly important. You just caught me by surprise. He wasn't someone I expected to see here."

"I have a life," John said in his defense. "My Mom and I just move around alot so I don't get much time to see movies. Not much time for computers, either. My Mom is afraid I'll get in trouble if I mess around with them too much. Sometimes me and computers don't mix well."

He took a drink of his orange juice, hoping that he'd stop babbling. "So, do you mind if I ask what year it is where you're from?"

"No? What kind of trouble?" she asked with a smile, looking interested. "And is it just you and your mom? Does her job make you move around a lot?"

She paused to take a few more bites of her own breakfast, wanting to make sure she had enough to hold her over until lunch. "What year?" she asked, blinking at the odd question. Then she remembered the few references to different times on the bulletin board and understanding flickered across her face. "Ahh. It was 2006. What about you?"

"The kind of trouble I'd rather not be in," John snickered. "It used to just be my Mom and me but now, my sister and my uncle have come to live with us. I'm not used to so many people but it's kind of cool. As much as I love my Mom sometimes she gets a bit too much in my business. It's nice to have someone else to talk to."

"When I left it was 2008," he said with a nod. 2006 wasn't that far off but still, it was weird to see so many people from different times, not to mention different universes. "It seems that we've all done a bit of time jumping here."

"I know what you mean," Claire agreed with a shy smile, thinking of Zach, who'd listened to her and believed her when she couldn't go to her parents with what was going on. Who'd helped her find her real mom, even though that had been such a huge disappointment. She hoped he was okay, wherever he was.

"2008? Really?" Claire looked interested by this. "You're from the States, right? Was... is everything okay? I mean, there wasn't any huge explosions or major catastrophes, right?"

John looked at her completely stunned. Did she know about Judgement Day? How was that possible? "No," he said, looking back down at his breakfast. "I mean, not that I know of. There was some sort of explosion in 2001, I think, but I, um, I was out of the country so I sort of... missed it. Why, was there supposed to be an explosion?"

He needed to calm down. His instincts were telling him to run, but maybe she wasn't a cyborg. Perhaps she was someone who knew about Skynet and it's eventual launch. Still, this was a delicate subject and he had to keep his wits about him.

Claire merely grinned with relief and tried to dismiss his worries with a quick wave of her hand. "Oh, no! Nothing like that. I'm just relieved, is all. There were... a lot of people worried that something bad was going to happen, and they were working to prevent it. It's just good to hear that they did."

"Although..." she countered, a puzzled frown slipping across her lips. "I suppose that's still no guarentee. We might not even live in the same universe..."

This multiple universe thing was really confusing.

She shrugged, smiling sheepishly again. "Oh, well, I'll stay optimistic about it anyway. It's not like I can do anything about it here, anyway."

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Day 34: Breakfast

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