Day 37: Breakfast

[scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com]

[for Sylar, I believe]

At the sound of the intercom, Wally jerked awake and blinked around at the room. He’d fallen asleep. He should have been up and keeping an eye open for ZEX, but he’d fallen asleep waiting on his bed.

“Idiot,” he groaned, ruffling his hair and sighing in annoyance. “Way to help a guy out, hotshot.” Hopefully ZEX hadn’t dropped by and thought he’d left or something, or wouldn’t be too mad at him for just forgetting about it like that. If he was lucky, he’d be able to catch up with the other patient at some point and explain what had happened.

Rolling himself a little awkwardly out of the bed, Wally took the opportunity to stretch his injured leg and test how well it was holding up. It was feeling a bit better, not so much that he could abandon his crutch or that it didn’t pull painfully if he wasn’t careful, but better. Tony had apparently made it through the night in one piece as well, which was a relief. He really didn’t feel comfortable about the thought of his roommate wandering about on his own with an injured arm. Not when Wally himself could relax and fall asleep in the apparent safety of their room.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to let himself forget that one in a hurry.

It was at that moment that the door swung open to admit one of the nurses. She seemed surprised to find him awake and ready to go already, but smiled warmly. “Hungry, are we Mr. West? Well in that case, let’s get you to the cafeteria. The staff have provided some delicious French Toast as well as a range of other foods I’m sure you’ll like. Now will you be needing a hand with your leg, dear?”

“No thanks, I can handle it,” Wally replied, smiling back. After all, it probably wasn’t the nurses’ fault that this place was so messed up, so it wasn’t like picking fights with them would do anything. With a cheery wave goodbye, Wally slowly made his way to the cafeteria, keeping a tight grip on his crutch all the while. Obtaining a plate of food was only slightly less difficult than it had been yesterday – he didn’t have the painkillers to work around this time – but he managed well enough, coming away from the buffet with a tray containing a plate piled high with slices of French Toast and slathered in maple syrup, butter, and sugar, as well as a glass of juice. Not quite as good as some coffee would be right now, but the sugar would hopefully make up for it. And, with how few people were here at the moment, he could afford to take more food than might have been considered ‘normal’ – he’d have most of it gone by the time anyone came to keep him company, then he could just worry about how many extra serves would be allowed before he aroused suspicion.

Feeling pretty happy with how things were looking so far, Wally hummed faintly to himself as he dug in to his breakfast.

Comments

[a_sin_for_him]

"No one knows." Lust shook her head. Despite all she had learned about the institute and what it was doing, and how, the 'why' still escaped even her. "Everyone has their guesses, but I'm afraid there's very little information regarding even what the world outside this institute even is."

What little they gleaned from 'visitors' was hardly helpful.

[longlivetheking]

"I doubt our captors are keen on parting with such information." Scar answered. The staff was completely useless in that regard, as they didn't appear to be more than mindless dolls, neither did the visitors appear to be helpful. Doyleton was left, but the visit was once a week and the King had to wonder if it's residents were all that different from the nurses. If they could somehow gain information about the world outside the institute, maybe it'd shed some light on Landels motives. He had many questions about it, at least.

The information was hardly up for grabs, however, so the question was how to acquire it. He let out a small sigh. The only lead available was the case of whatever happened to the discharged patients.

[a_sin_for_him]

"But it has to be somewhere," Lust pointed out. "I'm familiar with organizations such as these. Records of everything are kept, regardless of how trivial or needlessly clerical. There will be files and records, it's simply a matter of finding them."

They wouldn't be out in the open, that certain. Perhaps on the mysterious third floor....

[longlivetheking]

Scar couldn't quite wrap his mind around the fact why any sane person would record something like that when there was a risk of it being found. And other people reading it, especially people who shouldn't be reading it.

In any case, because humanity was dumb everything they needed was written on a few sheets of paper. By their own hand. And they still considered themselves on top of the food chain? Nature must have made a mistake somewhere.

"If our captors have any amount of braincells, they'd keep them firmly locked away. Most likely guarded as well." With the exception of what appeared to be the patient files of both the current and the discharged ones, as the locations of those seemed to be well-known.

Part of him wanted to go for these files, if only to discover more about this world. Going beyond the walls seemed another option, if only it didn't mean he'd run around like a headless chicken. Luck was not a force he enjoyed relying on.

"Wherever he keeps them, there must be a way to gain acces to it." If only they'd knew where to look...

[a_sin_for_him]

"Of course there's some way to access it," Lust agreed, a slice of toast hanging from her fingers as though she had grown bored with the breakfast. "There are ways to access every part of this institute, they're simply hidden or they're only accessible at certain times or on the whim of the madman behind the intercom."

Who's madness grew even as tedious as everything else about here.

"And I'm sure there's something terrible guarding it, of course. I can't imagine any other route Landel would take. He probably has an army of chimera creatures simply to guard what he deems truly important."

[longlivetheking]

"I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be the latter." Scar answered somewhat bitterly. "I bet he'd love to see us try to find its location only to end the night right before we reach it." Landel acted as if this was all but a game to him.

Scar couldn't help but think that cat-and-mouse games were not as amusing when he was playing the mouse.

[a_sin_for_him]

"That would be in his style," Lust agreed, with a nod. "His humor is sadistic, to say they very least." And he exercised his will whenever he felt like it, the smug bastard.

"One has to wonder where he spends the day."

[longlivetheking]

"Probably the same place as he is during the night; next to the item he makes his speech through." Scar answered, not familiar with the term 'microphone'. "He does adore the sound of his own voice, after all."

At first, the headdoctor's ramblings had come as a shock (along with everything else about this facility), but now that said shock had began to wear off Scar didn't consider Landel's words interesting. One simply had better things to do but than listening to someone's endless ramblings when there were monsters trying to eat you, especially if these ramblings hardly held anything of value. Not that taunting was made to be valuable.

Landel simply dropping dead next to whatever item he was making his grand speech through, due to lack of oxygen, was probably too much to hope for. Such a pity...

[a_sin_for_him]

"Which begs the question of which room? Where? How guarded is he?" Lust pushed aside her almost-eaten plate of food, done with the morning meal. "Nothing's going to be accomplished as long as that man is alive. And he can be killed, that much is certain. It's simply a matter of doing so."

[longlivetheking]

"How do you know he can be killed?" Scar asked curiously. Not that he doubted he could be killed, but he merely wished to know how she had acquired such certain information. "Was there been a previous attempt?"

A pity Scar was not familiar with Landel's scent, or he could have attempted to track him down with his (weakened) senses. Of course, there was no saying the scent would linger long enough (considering the facility always looked spotless by morning), or there wouldn't be any locked areas in-between, but it would have been a start.