damned_institute | Nightshift 39: West Wing, North Hall 2-B

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Nightshift 39: West Wing, North Hall 2-B

[From here]

Again, Celes waited to hear any suspicious noises, and finding none, continued down the hallway. She lit up the sign of a door, Decontamination Room. Well, didn't that sound lovely? She'd have to be careful. If her childhood under Cid's tutelage had given her anything, it was that those yellow coats of the Scientists were the hard line of defense against tiny blood-borne organisms or strange Esperian pathogens.

And here she was, many worlds from home, without one. Well, Celes sighed mentally and continued down the barren hall, so long as nothing decided it wanted to splash on her, then she was fine. Though weakened magically, Celes hoped all those 'adjustments' to the rest of her body had held true. It would be terrible to get a cold of all things after eighteen years of near-perfect health.

As she came to the end of the hall, another door sign caught the light, Morgue. Well, she'd come to her dubious destination, and here was hoping that the slabs they dissected the patient population on could move, or at least have a nearby gurney. This thought was immediately pushed out of the way when the general realized that the door was locked.

"Oh, for the love of Goddess's tits." Celes knelt down again and removed her poor, battered hair pin before realizing that there was nothing in the hallway with her (and even if there was, taking the time to pick the lock would've made her monster food in no time at all). The general stood up and kicked the door open.

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The words Decontamination Room adorned a small placard placed on the door immediately to the Decepticons' left as they entered the hallway. Starscream eagerly reached for the handle and shook it a few times.

Locked.

"Curses," he grumbled, kneeling down and shining his light into the lock mechanism, as if it would give him a clue on how to open it. He stood up and waved at Lockdown peculiarly. "Stand back...while I do not approve of using such...brutish methods, sometimes force is required to deal with unpleasant obstacles." Pivoting on his left leg, Starscream let out a fierce yell as he kicked forward with his right, striking the door with his heel and producing a loud - and painful - metallic thud.

"OW MY FOOT!" came the reaction, and the Decepticon fell to the floor, clutching his injured limb in agony. "By the Pit...I think I may have fractured one of the bones in here!" He continued whining quite annoyingly, his high-pitched, nasal shrieks carrying through the darkness.

Lockdown stood back when Starscream told him to, and watched the former mech try and kick the door down, with disasterous results.

When Starscream fell down, clutching his foot, Lockdown approached him and knelt down beside him, trying to ignore his annoying screeching. He did not know what Starscream meant by "bone" but it sounded as if he had suffered a serious injury. While he really felt no sympathy for him, Lockdown figured that he had better help his employer. At the very least, he could try and get him to stop screaming.

"Is there anything I can do for the injury?" He asked loudly, trying to make himself heard above the former seeker's whines. As an afterthought he added, "Try and keep quiet, you could draw unwanted attention."

It took a bit of time - ok, a LONG bit of time - but Starscream's whining eventually trickled away, instead giving way to all sorts of colorful Cybertronian swears and curses. The Air Commander attempted to stand; forgetting, once again, that this wasn't his original body, he put pressure on the broken heel, and once again let the explicatives fly. He managed to calm down a whole lot faster this time, however, sitting down carefully with his injured leg extended out delicately.

"No, I...argh, I don't know," Starscream eventually replied hazily; the pain was causing him severe memory recall issues temporarily. "I think...ugh, what do those flesh-creatures do at times like these...DAMMIT! Why do their repair functions have to be so primitive!" The Decepticon moaned for a few more seconds, then angrily retrieved his map and shone his light on it (it hadn't fallen too far from his current position).

"I need medical supplies...it's difficult-ouch-to know exactly which of the small bones in my foot have been broken, but...some sort of splint would help keep them in place while they heal back into the proper form." Starscream continued to peruse the map, then made two circles on it and handed it to Lockdown.

"Here, take this map (http://pics.livejournal.com/david_grana/pic/000288xa) of the second floor," he moaned. "I've circled the locations of two places that might have what I'm looking for, the Nurse's Station and General Storage. If you can get in...I'm looking for two three wide pieces of wood or cardboard, about the length of my foot, along with medical tape - it should be white and have a rough texture on the outside - and some kind of padding, like a towel. Bring them to me and I'll tell you what to do."

Lockdown took the map from Starscream and looked over it for a second. He looked at Starscream again and repeated, "Nurses station and general storage. Wood or cardboard, medical tape, padding. Okay then, I'll obtain these supplies and return as quickly as possible."

The bounty hunter stood up, map in hand, and walked back to the other end of the corridor, exiting.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/584438.html?thread=48452086#t48452086)]

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/584438.html?thread=48459766#t48459766)]

Lockdown stepped into the corridor, and soon found the form of Starscream with his flashlight. The Decepticon had not moved since the bounty hunter had left.

He knelt down next to Starscream, and said, "Okay, I got what I could." He opened his pillowcase, taking out the soft, poreous squares, the medical tape rolls, and the cardboard strips.

"It's about time!" Starscream belted. It hadn't been more than half an hour, at the most, but then again, Starscream was hardly the most patient of Decepticons. Reaching out for the object, he nodded sagely upon inspecting each one. "Yes, yes, very good...very good indeed, Lockdown. Shine your light above me; I'll do the prep work and you can attach what I give you to my foot."

Starscream took three long pieces of cardboard and folded them over in half, then taped them together lengthwise. He then took the pieces of spongy material and covered one side of the new cardboard construct with it. The medical tape was draped over the spongy material to hold it to the cardboard; the end result wasn't pretty, but it would do just fine.

"Alright, now listen up," he said, handing the contraption and the tape back to Lockdown, "Fold the cardboard around my foot so that it forms a kind of shoe around it; the spongy material should be facing toward the foot on its sides and the bottom. Then take the tape and wrap it around the cardboard tightly; one strip just in front of my ankle and two more towards my toes should do it."

Lockdown watched Starscream work with interest. He had no clue about human medical needs, since he thought he would never need to know them. Besides, he just might need to use such a technique if he was ever injured in such a way.

When Starscream finished and instructed Lockdown on what to do, the bounty hunter nodded and obediantly did what the former seeker told him to. Gently lifting Starscream's foot, he wrapped the contraption, soft things facing inward, around Starscream's foot, took the medical tape and wrapped it around tightly where instructed. Once he finished, he placed the tape down, and gently lowered the foot down.

"Very good...yes, that's it...umph." The noises were far from respectable, but it didn't matter; the bounty hunter had done as told, and now Starscream's foot was stable.

Not that it helped matters much, but at least it was SOMETHING.

"I'll need you to be a crutch for me for a while," he moaned, sitting up a bit straighter now as he looked to Lockdown. "Pick me up on my injured side and I'll hop along next to you that way..."

As he spoke, however, he noticed a pair of individuals motioning toward the door he had tried to kick down. Beckoning Lockdown within whispering distance, he quietly commented: "It seems those two flesh-creatures are looking to go into that room, as well. Let's let them open it, then follow along after them. There will likely be more than enough supplies, even if we were all to end up in the same place."

Lockdown did not like the prospect of having Starscream leaning on him all night. But, if he had to, he would do it.

When Starscream made his suggestion, Lockdown smiled and nodded. "Yes, let them do it. The door to the storage closet I gathered the medical supplies from had a rusted handle. I had to use my light to break it." Were it not so dark, he would have shown Starscream the scratches on the bottom of his flashlight.

He then put Starscream's arm around his shoulders, preparing to put both of them on their feet when the door was opened.

Starscream watched in frustration as, rather than trying to open the door to the decontamination room, the two flesh-creatures instead headed north to the Morgue.

"Damnit," he growled, hopping irritatedly on his healthy foot. Suddenly recalling the map, however, he turned to Lockdown. "Show me the map...I think we might be able to get to where we need to go through there," he said, nodding in the direction of the morgue.

Lockdown was also mad that the flesh creatures had not opened the door they desired. He obediently showed Starscream the map, holding his flashlight above it.

"Are you sure there is no way to break the knob?" It had worked well enough for him.

"I've never tried any..." he started, pausing to reflect on his current inventory. "Well, I suppose one could use some kind of blunt object to try breaking the lock, but my worry is that the flash-lights we have would be too fragile."

He then looked up to Lockdown with a scowl. "You had to do this to get my supplies, didn't you?"

Lockdown shrugged. "The knob to the storage room was rusted." Motioning for Starscream to hold his light up, Lockdown showed him the scratches on the bottom of his flashlight, some of which had traces of the rust.

"The flashlight worked well enough."

"So I see," Starscream scowled, a bit hurt that he did not think to do that before breaking his foot. He shined his light onto the doorknob in front of him; true enough, there was a thick ring of rust around the handle, enough that it might succumb to the right amount of force.

"Give it a go," he said, pointing to the door. "At the very least, we'll have my light as a backup."

"Okay then," Lockdown stood up. "Don't move." As if Starscream could.

He moved towards the door, examining the rust for a few seconds, determining the best place to strike the knob. As he had done back at the general storage room, Lockdown repeatedly struck the small end of his flashlight against the rust, making loud metallic noises with every strike.

Luckily, this one seemed to be weaker than the last, and the knob broke within only eleven strikes. Lockdown pushed the door open and went back to Starscream. The bounty hunter knelt down and put the Decepticon's arm around his shoulders, pulling him to his feet. "Shall we?"

Somewhat taken aback by the effectiveness of such a crude action, Starscream nevertheless screwed himself up and sneered. "Of course, you fool! The day slowly approaches; we should try and make up for the lost time my injury has unfortunately stolen. Lead the way, if you would."

Lockdown nodded. "Okay then."

Moving with Starscream leaning on him was slow and more tedious than he liked. "This better be worth it," He murmered.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/592776.html)]

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/584438.html?thread=48604406#t48604406)]

The door into the next hallway had already been broken open. Nataku passed through with the usual caution. Curiosity unrelated to their earlier snatches of conversation nagged at him. Usually he would just focus on the mission. But if he wanted to get to know Joshua better, he should make an effort, right?

"Joshua... what's your world like?"

"That's right, there's only a small number. Though it does seem like some of them, at least, are still accepting requests." Which was rather baffling to Joshua, if truth be told. They had a resource of unimaginable rarity in their hands, and they weren't charging for it? It sounded too good to be true, so the question obviously arose of how the entire thing went about. Hm.

Ah well. The question about his world made Joshua blink, taken off-guard for a second. How many people actually asked him things like that? Not too many, that was for certain. "Hm... well, it's rather complicated, really. There are quite a few areas in it, after all. But the place I'm from is Tokyo, Japan... and it's always crowded. People bumping into people, shouting conversations to no one else around them, shut off into their own little worlds where no one else can see who they really are..."

He went on in silence for a moment, and then he lightly added, "It isn't really so different from here, to be honest."

If he really wanted a sword, he could talk to Homura and at least gather whatever was required ahead of time. Though he had a feeling he could ask for more, he had no intention of doing so. He wanted blades to defend himself and move as he pleased during the night. A real weapon like a sword was for attack and slaughter.

As for Joshua's description of his world, Nataku frowned, his brow furrowed in almost childish contemplation. As if Joshua had just presented him with a butterfly and called it a mundane and gaudy little insect. "It sounds lively. I don't understand - what do you mean they're shut off?"

Did he mean the worlds were similar, or just the people? Nataku thought it had to be the latter.

"Oh, it's like I told someone else from my world, before I arrived here... two people could talk to each other all their lives and never truly know who or what the other person is. It's like each person is their own island, and they prefer keeping their little worlds as small as possible."

Which baffled and aggravated Joshua to no end, even if his voice was as even and off-handed as though he was speaking about something of no real consequence. The idea that people could limit themselves, do nothing with their own lives, just satisfy themselves with mediocre meaningless lives... ugh, how he hated the very idea! But, of course, such a life was not for him.

"...though, I suppose you could call it 'lively'. There's certainly no end of things to do, at least."

Nataku had never really thought about it like that. His whole life had been bound up in someone else's, and he'd pretty much been told who and what he was even if he didn't agree with most of it. He'd been separate from everyone then, too.

And then there had been Goku, and everything and nothing had changed. He hadn't been able to rebel and he hadn't been able to slay his best friend. Now he had neither choice to face, and he was wondering around in the dark.

"Maybe you haven't met the right person. Sometimes it's only a few days...before you even know their name..." He shrugged one shoulder, shaking off the memory as they approached the door. "I still think your life seems really lonely, but if you look at things that way my world is pretty small."

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/585094.html?thread=48715142#t48715142)]

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/584438.html?thread=48535030#t48535030).]

So she was right, there were people ahead of them already. It was a refreshing change of pace from the previous empty halls, and now Naoto felt somewhat more relaxed when it came to moving on. She wasn't intending on looking for weapons, so if they had grabbed anything that could be used as one before she could get to them, that was fine by her. Sharp objects didn't quite give her what she had in mind for the night.

There was another door immediately to their left, so Naoto paused, turning back towards Meche and jabbed a thumb in its direction. "This may be a good place to start."

Meche took several steps forward and tried the door Naoto had pointed to. It was locked. A quick look with the flashlight down to the far end of the hallway told her that the other door had been opened. She pulled out the map again and consulted it openly this time, although at least this territory was pretty familiar. Unfortunately, it was hard to forget.

"We have two choices," she said to Naoto. "We can find a way to open this door--try to bust the lock with the flashlight handle, maybe, if your arm's better than mine at the moment--or go down to the end of the hall and take the morgue door. They'll both take us to the lab, just by different routes."

There was no guarantee that the doors from those rooms into the labs would have been opened already, either. But at least if they went around this door, Meche could be sure that they'd get her objective taken care of by morning. Oh, well. None of these rooms was going to be any fun--maybe it was six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Blast, Naoto thought in mild annoyance. Their luck had finally run out, which was made more unfortunate by the definite lack of anything she could use to pick the door open. It would have been terribly simple if she did, but if there was an easier route to take, then by all means... Potentially breaking her flashlight (or foot, if she decided to kick; and while she was pretty good at doing that, it was normally done with the aid of boots) would be senseless and a waste, whether Meche had a flashlight of her own or not.

"Very well," Naoto said, stepping away from the door, pointedly making her decision. "So long as it brings us to our desired destination, then I have no objections. We can later make our round back to here, if needed."

She walked down towards the end, looking up carefully at the door before drawing her eyes back down to the knob. It looked as though this, too, had been broken with force alone, unlike the previous door to enter this hallway. The inconsistencies of breaking in made Naoto frown in thought, briefly mulling over if perhaps some doors were easier to get into than others. No matter, it would be silly to ponder on it any longer. What mattered is that they could proceed on at all.

"You're correct," she noted aloud. "We can get in through here."

Meche nodded and walked back to the far end of the hall. She took a moment to steel herself, and then she said, as though she had just thought of it, "By the way, would you mind if we ran a quick errand in here? It should only take a few minutes." Assuming Manny wasn't in there, that was. If he was on the slab--or even worse, in one of the drawers--when she got inside, all bets were off. "I've had a friend missing for a few days. I just want to take a look around and make sure he didn't end up here."

Meche wasn't lying, although she was starting to come to terms with what an understatement calling Manny a "friend" was. She just didn't want to reveal how nervous she was, both to keep her own spirit up and to avoid concerning Naoto. As businesslike--policelike, even--as the girl was, Meche was still the adult here, and she felt that she had to act like it. Besides, his being there was such a long shot, after all.

Suddenly the thought hit her: Even if he was dead, how terrible was that, really? The horror she felt was instinctive, and when she tried to think about it, Meche realized that a lot it was really for herself--she was afraid of his leaving her alone here. But if something had happened to Manny, he'd just end up back in El Marrow, wouldn't he? Eva was probably still there; they'd be talking like old times as the agent rang up Manny's Number Nine ticket. He'd just hop the train, and he'd be where he was supposed to be, right? Wasn't that their goal?

It all sounded so logical when she laid it out in her head like that. Meche just couldn't get that logic to square with the heartbeat hammering so hard in her chest it almost hurt.

Naoto was about to push the door further open until Meche spoke up, and once the meaning of her statement truly registered in her mind, she couldn't help but freeze in her steps, boggling in the other woman's direction. It wasn't so much the possibility of a corpse being in the room-- it was... a little expected, it being a morgue and all, even if the idea of deaths happening here bothered her greatly-- as it was that Meche was looking for one that belonged to a friend. Or maybe that was normal-- if you knew someone died, certainly, one would want to be able to locate them for whatever reason, but the very casual delivery of the message is what threw Naoto off.

Once she realized she was giving Meche quite the odd stare, Naoto turned her eyes away, brushing her fingers across her bangs in lieu of the missing cap that came with her normal attire. Quietly clearing her throat to herself, as if to regain her composure (although, in such a deadly silent hall, it could probably be easily heard), Naoto was still able to reply in a level tone despite her expression only moments ago; "Are you sure you want to do something like that? You may say so now, but if you aren't mentally prepared for it, in the end..." She trailed off, placing a hand on the door, preparing to enter. "Well, I would prefer for you not to make any mistakes that will only be a hindrance to you."

Well, that had backfired. She hadn't wanted to come off as callous, or whatever else Naoto must think of her now. That look had just been...well, probably the same look she would have given herself to someone who'd just spouted off like that.

"I'll be fine," Meche reassured her companion quickly. "Really. It's...it's better to know either way, you know?" What to say, how to balance out her apprehension with a level exterior? Usually she was so good at finding the right thing to say to kids; she just couldn't get on Naoto's wavelength. "In a way, as tough as it is to say it, at least if he's in there he's somewhere a lot better than wherever they've probably had him for the last few days." Landel might be able to bring back the dead, and he might be able to snatch people up right at the boundary between the Eighth and Ninth Underworlds, but Meche had to hope that the Land of Eternal Rest, at least, was beyond his control. There was no way a mortal could have that kind of power over Heaven. It would go against everything any religion she'd ever heard of had ever taught. It couldn't be possible.

Assuming Landel was mortal, that was. The alternative was a truly terrifying thought.

"Anyway," she added, "his nurse said he was sick, and he'll be well enough to rejoin the rest of the patients in a day or two. Maybe she's lying, but there are easier lies to tell--why not just say he was released? I'm almost sure he's not in there. I just have to check with my own eyes."

If he was in there, though, didn't that mean that it really was her fault? That might be the real part she wasn't ready for, Meche thought bitterly.

She was incredibly calm about this. Almost too calm for comfort, and suddenly suspicion swelled up in the young detective's mind. Apprehension in her movements, Naoto went back to eying the woman, studying her for a quick movement before returning back to the door in front of her.

A friend, hm? Naoto wondered if this was true or a mere cover up for something deeper, especially when she was looking for a body; no friend would be looking for that-- or even come to that conclusion-- unless they knew they were dead... or wanted them to be.

Of course, with no solid evidence to prove this yet, she very well may had been jumping to conclusions. With it being on her mind lately, however, between the events home and the ones here, it was difficult not to do so. With a mental sigh, Naoto finally opened the door, already feeling the cold chill in the air. "I suppose if I wasn't accompanying you, you might have ended up doing so yourself eventually. If you say you are, then I will not argue it."

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/585094.html?thread=48689798#t48689798).]

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Nightshift 39: West Wing, North Hall 2-B

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