Nightshift 40: M11-M20 Hallway

[rocksthecourt]

[M12]

There was this 'Avatar' again, the thing that supposedly linked one's consciousness within this video game. Klavier couldn't quite understand how such a thing could help anyone fight, but he was certain that this connection had something to do with how and why Endrance was taken. If this really wasn't something every player experienced, then there was little doubt others might find such a thing interesting, yes? He still wasn't sure how this all worked, but preserving this connection had to be the point of it all. At least in this particular case.

Any further discussion on this or the strange 'Kira' murders was cut short with the intercom announcement. If one could call it that. Herr Doktor's voice and demeanor changed come nightfall, true, but this was stranger than usual. In fact, he couldn't even be sure if it was the doctor. It was far too raspy to identify either way.

This was getting more bizarre with every evening. First taunting then what may or may not have been snoring... and now this strange dilapidated voice?

"Open the box?" he repeated. What could he possibly mean by that? ...Wait. Was this voice even addressing the patient population? It seemed too specific a thing to say to everyone. Could this be a message for Herr Doktor? Or was this a message for a specific party? Maybe someone had managed to do something recently...

Comments

Re: M18

[toobothersome.livejournal.com]

Of course, as soon as he pointed out that strategizing was a bad idea in their current mental state, everyone started asking for plans. To his credit, Shikamaru didn't groan anywhere near as loudly as he felt like groaning, though the sound wasn't silent either. Instead, he took the offered notebook with one hand and rolled onto his side as he dug into his pocket for a pen, careful to avoid the scalpels. It was tempting to completely shut out the others while he focused on developing a code, but there'd be plenty of time to shut people out tomorrow. For now, they had work to do.

"Tomorrow, someone's going to give me a rough map of what's beyond the walls, and I found someone else who will tell me what goes on in the basement with Landel," he said, adding a small shrug to indicate that he didn't have enough information to make any kind of useful conclusion. Shikamaru opened the notebook and scribbled in the corner of a blank page until the cheap pen left a trail of ink.

The cipher couldn't be too complex if all of them were to remember it, and he didn't feel like spending hours a day encoding and decoding bulletin notes on top of everything else he had to do. Several silent seconds of thought passed before he started writing, but once he did, the pen moved without pause as if he were copying letters from one paper to another.

"There are a lot of smart people here, and any code gets weaker the more times its used," he said. "It's not a matter of whether someone will break it, but when. This one's pretty simple, so we'll probably have to change it after three or four days." He tore out the page and flipped it over, then continued on the back. "The second one's practically impossible, but it's a pain in the ass, so only use it for emergencies."

Once he was finished with that sheet, Shikamaru set it aside for someone to pick up and started on the second copy. It took some effort to keep his handwriting legible, but most of his attention was on the others as he waited to hear their ideas for future plans.

[I will give you guys code details later]