damned_institute | Day 40: Greenhouse [Fourth Shift]

Most days, fish and chips (and a cold beer or three) was pretty goddamned high on S.T.'s list of perfect expense-account lunches. Today, the idea of picking at greasy hunks of unidentified bottom-feeder odds-and-ends (politely known as scrod, to the delight of teenagers all across the Northeast) didn't appeal.

He begged off and collapsed into his bed, after using his damp shirt as an excuse to surreptiously check the contents of his closet. Bingo. His nurse watched his little show, unimpressed but (more importantly) unsuspicious. Not that his hairy chest was much of a catch today, pale and sweating from fever. At least she didn't tuck him in.

The intercom woke up up right on schedule, and pulling the sheets back over his head almost won. But a handful of unanswered missives and a vague sense of duty dragged him out to the bulletin, and from there it was easier to stagger over to the greenhouse.

It was warm inside -- a deep, humid warmth that actually penetrated to the aches in more joints and muscles than he could remember the names of. Like a sauna, without the hassle of finding someplace to look that wasn't a mound of pasty middle-management cellulite. Or a sweat lodge, without the opposite hassle of being conscious that he was the only white guy in the room. In fact, besides the nurses in holding patterns, he was the only person in the room.

He located a tray of tomato seedlings going rootbound in their tiny six-packs, and a potting bench whose location was a quick-and-dirty approximation of equidistantly far from anything blooming. He assured his nurse he knew what he was doing, and after a couple of successful repottings, gently sliding the little seedlings out and loosening the tangled roots, she seemed to agree and backed off. It was, by far, the most fucking theraputic thing he'd found in this hellhole so far, and he let himself sink into the rhythm of the task.

[Free!]

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The violent admission earned Wesker's companion a raised eyebrow. That was certainly strange, though there were quite a few overly violent people here. Violence was all well and good, but violence for the sake of violence was hardly productive. "That isn't a healthy attitude," Wesker remarked. Though dismembering a body was a good way to ensure they didn't get back up in most normal cases.

Wesker moved on to another potted plant, at the rate he was going he would probably be able to finish removing dead flowers by dinner. "While I understand the sentiment, expressing it isn't likely to earn you any favors from the staff." An expression of a desire to harm the staff here was hardly an unpopular thing to do, though in most circumstances Wesker doubted it would be well received. The institute seemed to have a policy about violating social norms. Or anything else normal.

Lockdown narrowed his optics at the man. "I may be pissed about my current condition, but I'm not stupid," He growled. "I know the value of concealment. Pissing off the staff doesn't exactly work in favor of that." If Lockdown had one personal flaw he wasn't willing to admit to, it was that he did not like having his intelligence insulted.

He pulled out another dead plant, made a sour face at it, and tossed aside. "Disgusting," He murmered under his breath.

"Nor does interacting with your fellow patients in such a manner," Wesker replied, maintaining a calm, neutral tone. Clearly the other man didn't take criticism or advice very well, if he was getting defensive over a simple observation.

True, Wesker did prefer to have people here like him, he was willing to allow some animosity in his direction. The man's violent tendencies would likely make him useful, but his outbursts were an indicator that he wasn't particularly good at being subtle. Wesker had little need for people that lacked the ability to be discrete.

"Whatever." While the man was getting on Lockdown's nerves, the bounty hunter did know when to drop it. If he still had his chainsaw, he probably would have sliced the human in two. That was usually the surest way to make someone shut up.

He was used to insults, such as Lugnut continuously shouting at him for not pledging himself to Megatron. But that was different. Lugnut's insults were to be expected, and Lockdown thought nothing of them. This human, however, spoke as if he thought Lockdown was an processor-dead idiot. It also did not help that he was already in a sour mood due to the nurse pushing him in here.

He pulled up a few more dead plants, murmering, "Primus help me, Starscream might be rubbing off on me."

Wesker overheard the murmuring, and was familiar enough with the name that he looked at the other man and raised an eyebrow. "Would you also happen to be one of the recently arrived inorganic beings?" Well, comparatively recent, Wesker had been here quite a bit longer compared to most of the population. The statement was purposefully ambiguous, and Wesker was curious what conclusion would be drawn from the inclusion of 'also' in the question.

He had gathered from their conversations over the bulletin board that most inorganic beings seemed to have a generally low opinion of organic beings. The violence would also fit with what he observed of the known 'machines' bulletin conversations as well.

Lockdown looked back at the human with a raised optic-brow. So far, this man was the only one who seemed to be familiar with his kind. All the other humans he had spoken with who weren't former Transformers themselves had been clueless when he had mentioned what he really was.

"Yes," Lockdown stated. "Yes, I am a Transformer. You've run into my kind before, I take it?"

"You are rather hard to miss," Wesker remarked. There had been artificial intelligence in his world, though Wesker had destroyed the one that had belonged to Umbrella. There were other less sophisticated robots capable of moving and limited thinking, but nothing that would stand up to the level of the inorganic beings here, from what he gathered.

The name was interesting; it applied to a specific type of electrical equipment in Wesker's world, but most likely had a different meaning for the inorganic beings here.

"If you say so," Lockdown said. Then again, back on Earth, his kind, in their real bodies, did tend to stick out quite easily amoung the flesh-creatures.

Lockdown then thought back to how it was the mention of Starscream that brought the man to the conclussion that he was not originally human. Had this human ever run into him?

"I take it you've heard of Starscream?"

"Yes. Is there anyone that hasn't?" Starscream's antics on the bulletin board had been quite amusing, and very notable. Wesker was careful to only give answers that would be very open to interpretation, not giving anything concrete that would reveal the extent of his knowledge regarding transformers.

Wesker was tempted to allow the transformer to see his eyes glow to see what sort of reaction it would produce, but there were too many people in the green house for him to be sure no one else would notice. Discretion was more important than manipulating this one patient.

In all honesty, the only ones who had even mentioned Starscream here were the other Transformers. However, that was not to say that other non-Transformer hadn't heard of him as well. Starscream had been here longer than Lockdown, and thus had more time to interact with other inmates. However, last time he heard, the Decepticon was not exactly famous here.

"Well, here in this Pithole, I can't exactly say for sure. Back in my world, however, he is quite famous, and there isn't a Transformer who doesn't know who he is." He was not about to blurt out that Starscream was also his current boss. There was something about his human that he didn't quite trust.

Day 40: Greenhouse [Fourth Shift]

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