damned_institute | Nightshift 36: F31-40 Hallway

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Nightshift 36: F31-40 Hallway

[outside F33 to be specific]

Beatrix, with sword across back and chef knife in her makeshift oven mitt sheathe that rests on her hip, stepped into the hallway after warning Maki that one of her wards was coming to the room. She'd attempt to give the other woman and her 'date' some space when she could, but she had no plans on discussing Rena's disappearance with Hanyuu out in the hallway. She was only out there to keep an eye out for the small girl. She didn't expect there to be trouble in the F-Block hallways, but one never knew.

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[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/487011.html?thread=39869539#t39869539). Sorry about the wait!]

Despite Keman's constant self-assurances that Shana was just in Valyn's room and that everything was okay, he still hadn't left the women's block. Deep down, part of him knew that there was something not right about all of this, and he wanted to put it off as long as he possibly could. If he didn't see Valyn or Shadow, didn't acknowledge that there was somebody missing from their little foursome, he didn't have to face the possibility that she could be gone. It wasn't rational, but what part of this place was? How could they take someone as strong and powerful as Mother and do that to her? She would never willingly go along with such horrible lies. They'd changed her, somehow. And now it was Shana's turn, wasn't it?

Keman wandered the hallways in the F-block aimlessly, ignoring everyone he passed. So what if a monster came and got him? If Shana wasn't here, then he had no reason to be either.

She had to be here. She just had to be. He couldn't bear the thought of losing her again.

Turning the corner into another row of bedrooms, he approached the first single patient he saw. She was a thin woman, about thirty, maybe a little older. "Ah...excuse me, miss? I can't seem to find my little sister, and I was wondering if you'd seen her running around. She's about sixteen, has curly red hair, and is a little shorter than you are."

Of course this woman hadn't seen Shana. From the way she was standing, she had probably only just left her room for the night. She might even have been a new patient. Still, it was a way to waste time before he had to go to Valyn's room. He really didn't want to deal with that right now.

Brennan's immediate instinct upon hearing someone approach her was to attack. But when a teenage boy came into view and started asking about his sister, she managed to curb her violent impulse. She compromised, though, by shining her flashlight directly into his eyes.

"No," she answered, very slowly. He was was wearing the same outfit as her, which signaled - perhaps too obviously? - that he has also been brought here against his will. He also showed evidence of damage to the left humerus, and there was something slightly off about his pupils, but she couldn't put her finger on what. Severe hyperopia, perhaps.

"What is this place?" she asked. It would be best to gather as much information as possible, then make a well-informed decision as to whether or not to treat the boy with hostility. Or open up a container of kick-ass, as Booth would say.

Why hello, flashlight. Keman shielded his eyes with a hand, squinting in the suddenly bright light. "Ah, all right," he said, backing away slightly. So the woman was a new patient, and she hadn't seen Shana. Well, he'd already suspected both, but it was nice to have confirmation.

"It's called Landel's Institute. You...just woke up, didn't you?"

This woman was kind of intimidating. In fact, he thought that she might hurt him if he gave her an answer she didn't like. "Maybe...we should move out of the hallway."

Institute, huh? "From what I've observed so far," Brennan pointed out, taking a few steps towards the boy, "'Institute' is probably some kind of euphemism. But the name alone doesn't really answer my question."

So far, he seemed rather harmless, but one could never be certain.

Keeping him in her periphery vision, she glanced around, observing her new surroundings. Yes, it was a hallway, made from concrete, ending in a wall behind her and a T-intersection with another corridor a ways in front of her. The boy's idea was a practical one, but unless he wanted to go back into the room she'd woken up in, she suspected they might have some walking to do. "I think I'd prefer an explanation before I go anywhere with you."

"Well, yes." Keman gave the woman a bemused smile. She was certainly direct, wasn't she? He still wasn't sure if he was warming to her or if he was still kind of scared of her. She did look like she could probably take him down. "It pretends to be a sort of...hospital for the insane, but it's more like a prison." Or some deranged ghost story that the halfbloods would tell each other around the fire at night. Keman had never really liked those. From an outsider's standpoint they were fascinating, but they made him sort of uncomfortable.

Like this woman was now. "Basically, we're trapped here. Nobody knows how we got here, just that we are." Oh, Valyn was out. He could "hear" his friend's magic. If all else failed, Keman could take the woman to him. Valyn was usually better at explaining this stuff than he was. "During the day, it isn't like this. The nurses herd us around like we really are insane, and everything is very regimented. The night comes and the doors open and we have the run of the place. Sort of."

"Oh," Brennan said simply, nodding. She'd suspected something like that, but not as needlessly convoluted. If the prisoners were given the run of the place at night, wouldn't they just escape?

So, someone had found her after she'd pulled herself from the buried car, presumably drugged her to make her forget, and then let her run around on her own? That didn't seem like an intelligent way to run a prison. This whole situation was very bizarre.

She still had a large number of questions, but first she should introduce herself, since the young man hadn't offered her any outright hostility yet. "I'm Dr. Brennan," she said, moving closer and holding her hand out stiffly. "Of the Jeffersonian Institute."

Doctor Brennan? Keman backed away slightly, eying the proffered hand warily. If she was a doctor, why was she dressed like one of the patients? And what was the Jeffersonian Institute? Was that anything like the Landel's Institute, he wondered?

Keman was fairly good at reading people, though, and he didn't think that Brennan was lying. She was probably just as confused as he had been on his own first night, though they expressed it in slightly different ways. Until he could prove otherwise, he was going to trust her.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Brennan," he said eventually, "but my experience with 'doctors' in this place hasn't exactly been positive. At best they treat us like invalids or small children here, and at worse we're violent lunatics. So you'll forgive me if I have trouble looking beyond that title. Do you have a given name I could call you by instead?" It took trust to gain it, though, and he had to give something back in return. "My name's Keman."

"They take the charade of a mental institution so far as to have doctors?" What kind of place was this? If they wanted the people here to believe that they were mental patients that badly... the unpleasant notion of brainwashing sprang to Brennan's mind. Then again, it was probably wise to take everything this young man said with a grain of rice. Or... what was it? Salt.

Brennan withdrew her hand, rather awkwardly. Considering how little trust she had placed in him, she hardly blamed him for being wary of her. But it made her unsure of how to react.

"If it helps, I'm not a medical doctor. Or a psychiatrist," she added. "I... don't like psychology. I'm a forensic anthropologist. But you can just call me Brennan." No one called her by her first name except Russ, and she... didn't want to go there. "It's... uh, it's nice to meet you. Keman."

She moved her flashlight away from him, shining it towards the intersection at the end of the hall. "I have a large but quantifiable number of questions that I would still like to ask you, but if you could show me the nearest exit while we talk, I would appreciate that." She needed to get out of here, figure out where exactly here was, and find a way to contact Booth. They needed to make sure this place was shut down.

"Doctors, orderlies, nurses." Keman shrugged, spouting off words he hadn't even known existed two weeks ago. "I don't know what this place is, but it does it well." Except at night.

Speaking of words he'd never heard...psychology was something he was vaguely familiar with, having been here for a while, but 'forensic' and 'anthropologist' didn't even sound like they were in the same language. Keman smiled and nodded and pretended that he'd understood that. "Same to you, Brennan."

Oh dear, she really was new. And...well-read, apparently. Quantifiable? The dragon could feel himself warming to her. "I can lead you to an exit, but you're not going to get out," he said honestly. "Do you really think that there would be so many people here if we could escape? I'll answer your questions, and...if you want, I can take you to my friend. He's been here longer than I have, and he's probably better at this than I am."

"Since the only person I've encountered so far tonight is you, I really have no way of judging how many people are being held here," Brennan pointed out reasonably. "While there are implications of more prisoners, one cannot assume there to be more until concrete evidence of their presence has presented itself."

She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about meeting a "friend," but Keman seemed harmless enough, and it would make no sense for her captors to imprison her and then lure her into a trap within the prison.

Not that any of this situation made sense, but she felt it likely that Keman could, for now, be trusted. She'd be on her guard, of course, but if his friend could tell her more, she would gladly meet him.

"I would like to meet your friend, yes. But I feel I should warn you: in the unlikely event that you plan on betraying me in some way, I'm a highly trained martial artist." The way she said it, it wasn't a threat, merely an observation he should be aware of. "And I'd like to know in what way, precisely, we are prevented from leaving."

Keman grinned. He was starting to like this strange, oddly logical woman. She loved reason and facts, and he could appreciate that. "Touche," he laughed. "Well, once we get into a hallway that's a bit more crowded, you'll see more prisoners."

It was good that she was trusting him, at least. Keman would have been lying if he had said that he actually wanted to see Valyn; going to his friend's room without Shana meant admitting that she wasn't there, but as long as there was a possibility that she could be with Shadow, or off with her roommate, or...something, he wasn't going to give up hope. Just like Brennan wasn't going to assume there were other patients unless she actually saw them with her own eyes, he wasn't going to let himself think about Shana unless there was concrete evidence that she was actually gone. Circular reasoning, maybe, but it was keeping him going.

He didn't know what a 'martial artist' was, but it sounded mildly threatening and made him think of the light gladiators he'd seen wandering around various elven estates, oddly enough. "I won't betray you, I swear," he said, turning his head to look at her. "And we're prevented because they post guards at all the entrances. Nurses and orderlies during the day, and...other things at night."

[going here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/486650.html?page=2#comments).]

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Nightshift 36: F31-40 Hallway

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