damned_institute | Day 42, Noon: The Twin Pine Restaurant

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Day 42, Noon: The Twin Pine Restaurant

Yuffie took the long way around, practically making it a tour of the entire town. She collared--not literally, since the nurses would've thrown fits--a few random citizens along the way, asked as many inconspicuous sounding questions as possible, and then moved on. Wash, rinse, repeat. Sneaking a few covert glimpses into stores and windows confirmed what she'd been talking about with Sam earlier; no dates, no explicitly mentioned locations outside of the town itself… how weird was that? Even the most insular of towns back on Gaia would've coughed up some kind of connection with the outside world.

It was almost like a living ghost town.

Well, maybe she was just thinking too hard. Maybe she was throwing shuriken too hard at the wrong target. Back home, she had a concrete frame of reference. Here, she couldn't take anything for granted; she had no local or international knowledge whatsoever. All she could try to do was get a profile of the immediate area and build it up and out from there. Theories were already budding, popping up like weeds hit by Quadra-Haste, but without facts to back them up, theories were like sand in a desert.

Not that she didn't want to share those theories, sand or not. She did. A lot.

Once she'd developed a viable mental map of the place (as viable as she was gonna get given the time constraints), Yuffie swung back around and jogged back to North Street. From there, she took the alley; a quick right turn; slow to a trot, and there. Her cheeks were tinged pink from the cold winter air, and they stung as she poked her head in through the door.

Okay, so maybe she was a little early after all. That was cool. Very cool. She had some time to set things up, to pretend that she wasn't hideously under prepared for this lunch date. Stepping into the warmth, Yuffie surreptitiously cased the place out as she headed to a table. Homey, in a way that almost reminded her of some of the up-and-coming rural towns. Automatically seeking out one of the more strategic seats--one with a good view of the rest of the restaurant, and one that didn't leave her totally vulnerable to mutant chairs or murderous sandwiches--she made herself comfortable, whipped out a few crumpled pieces of paper and a pen, and began to jot down her findings.

[Closed to Edgeworth.]

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First name basis already? She reminded him of one Maya Fey, who tended to be the same way about things. He smiled a little - yes, Yuffie and Maya would most likely get along fabulously. "All right. And yes, lunch sounds good."

First things first, though - tea. The moment the waitress came by, he asked for a large pot of Earl Grey, waited for the girl to order drinks, then nodded.

"All right. As I'm sure you know, there are a lot of places in the Institute that aren't mapped, but I don't necessarily think mapping them is all that needs to be done. A map can be useful, yes, but knowing what you can expect when you go there is more useful than that, most of the time. What do you think, Yuffie?"

Her stomach had settled down by this point, content to stay where it was supposed to instead of trying to crawl up and out of her throat. Since Yuffie'd prefer it to keep that way, she just asked for the house lemonade. She'd have killed for something with even the vaguest of kicks to it, but she was more likely to get flying Tonberries.

But this Miles Edgeworth dude, he'd ordered tea. Yuffie couldn't help a flash of a grin.

Maybe she'd finally come to accept it; her friends were gone, were probably stuck out in this weird world, and could get dragged back to the Institute at any second. Sure, she still missed the old fart, still missed Cloud, but she couldn't keep on trying to forget them. That'd be like… like sticking forks in their eyes, or dancing on their graves. She couldn't mope around and just wait for them, either; they'd kick her ass for that, and she'd kick her ass too. Nope, the Rose of Wutai was fully capable of running this show all by herself.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Maps just show you the layout; that's helpful, but relying on knowing the layout alone is a really, really good way to get yourself killed." And she should know. Infiltration was a tricky business. A total blast, too, 'course. Couldn't forget that.

The waitress was coming back with the drinks. Yuffie paused, thanked her cheerfully, and waited until she was gone to continue. "Especially in a place like this." She took a few short sips of lemonade. "You don't need me to tell you that appearances are deceiving."

"Exactly," Miles grinned, despite himself. He took a minute to order food when the waitress came back briefly, and as soon as she was gone, he flipped open that notebook to the maps. "I've been thinking about where this project should start," he said, pointing to the first floor map. "I don't think there's anywhere on the first floor that someone hasn't explored at one point or another, and I don't think descriptions are necessary for most of the rooms there. After all, everyone's been in the rooms surrounding the Sun Room at one time or another, and the same goes for patient rooms, the courtyard, and the cafeteria. I think the only other places of interest there are the doctors' offices, and the file rooms."

Edgeworth paused to take a long sip of tea, then went on, this time focusing his attention on the map of the second floor.

"To me, the second floor is more interesting just because of all the blanks on the maps. I think that someone here knows what's in those places we haven't been able to label, but hasn't explained it for whatever reason. Maybe it's dangerous, or maybe...someone has seen them, but saw something they don't want the rest of us knowing. It could be that they're protecting people from whatever is in those areas, but I don't think so. If a place is dangerous, someone's going to throw up a warning, as was done with some parts of the basement a few weeks ago, and what's been done every time I post a map of the courtyard lately. No, I think it's that something's there, and whatever it is, they don't want other people to find it."

Yuffie took a moment to order food as well; just a light salad with a dressing, since she didn't want to risk upsetting her stomach. Again. Once was enough for that morning, when she was gonna have to go through the whole hellish thing again in just a few painfully short hours. Sucked to be her, et cetera.

The waitress disappeared off again, and Yuffie nodded. "The stuff on the first floor isn't exactly rocket science," she agreed. "Maps and word of mouth should be more than enough to get people started there." The only thing that would be worth looking into, in her eyes, was a basic inventory of supplies. Nobody would want to know where they could pick up five boxes of paperclips and a half gallon of kiddy-glue, but there was some good stuff laying around. Her knives, for example. … Which she'd found on the second floor. Yeah. The point? Was very moot.

She paused to listen, twirling her pen deftly between the fingers of her left hand. Several times, she nodded; Miles was making some good points, ones that she could agree wholeheartedly. "It's the whole 'knowledge is power' mentality," she said. "Power, and currency. In our situation, it's one of the few things that people have to barter with; weapons are rare and people don't want to give them up, so they turn to the next best thing." She wrinkled her nose, tapped the pen against the table a few times, and then continued: "In other words, like hell they're trying to protect us, and like hell they're gonna share if all we can do is ask nicely and promise that it's for the greater good."

There was another pause, this time so that she could swing her legs a little and take a longer sip of her lemonade. Good stuff. "It's a question of getting access to whatever it is for ourselves, so that we can play catch-up. The network doesn't have enough support yet that we can actually trust all the other clubs to chip in, y'know?" It was like her work on the outside areas; the input she'd received had been useful, but minimal. Like. Sorta like Vincent's word quota was minimal.

"I agree," Edgeworth said, wrinkling his brow. "I've suspected for a while that even posting the basic information on a regular basis has been making some people angry. Devaluing the currency, as it were. I think of it as arming people, because I can tell you right now that without the basics...everyone was stumbling in the dark." He took another sip of tea, frowned and added a little more milk, then continued, stirring the tea as if he'd caught some of Yuffie's - he wouldn't call it fidgeting, so much as it was the constant need to move. Definitely like Maya. Only with rougher language.

"I had suspected it was less altruism and more wanting to keep knowledge for themselves behind the decision not to share what's located in certain areas," he said, putting the spoon down and pointing at the map again. "For example, I can tell you the basic layouts of the...disciplinary therapy rooms, but it's this large area here - " he paused to indicate the large blank space on the southernmost end of the second floor - "that I'm most curious about. I don't have any way to prove this, but if the experiments happen on the second floor, it makes sense that the brainwashing does, too. If that's the case, and this spot is where the brainwashing happens...well, it stands to say that someone's gotten into that area and found something, such as a stock of weaponry, they're not going to be willing to share that."

It really was a case of getting access to that information. "So, that means that the network itself needs to do even more reaching out to the other clubs, or we need to see about doing a lot more exploration. I'm thinking that the latter is going to be easier than the former. Though things could shift, that would take too long."

"'Course it's been making people angry," Yuffie shrugged. You'd always get dissenters, people who bitched and moaned and grumbled just because they could. Gawd, she knew that well enough. Not everybody on Gaia had been grateful for the save, but some had been more outspoken--and extreme--in their protests than others. That, amongst a whole host and bunch of other things, was what she was there for. Not to crush the opposition, no way, since the W.R.O was nothing like ShinRa and never would be. But things would never start to heal if idiots with their heads stuck up their asses insisted on doing dumb stuff like (totally sucking at) infiltrating and-or blowing up various governmental buildings. "We're basically pulling the rug out from under their monopoly. I just hope they don't get the bright idea to, I dunno, resort to active sabotage."

She was an optimist. She really was. But she wasn't an idiot.

Yuffie leaned forward to study the map, setting her drink down. "Either on the second floor, or the third." She paused, cocking her head to the side. Her expression darkened briefly. Yeah, the building did have a third floor; the memories were fuzzy and some part of her liked it that way, but she couldn't bring herself to actively try to forget. "Scratch that last. The brainwashing happens on the third floor, or… I'm pretty sure that it does." She hadn't been feeling up to much investigating when she'd passed through there, after all. "I can't remember everything, so it's totally possible that some part of the process happens down on the second floor, too."

She leaned back again, tapped her heels against her chair legs a few times, and finished off by whipping the hat from her head and dropping it onto her lap. "As things stand, we don't have the right kind of guys to start digging around in the uncharted depths. Well, it's not like we're completely devoid of halfway competent fighters, but we don't have anywhere near enough considering what's out there. Lulu needs to get some good PR going, or we'll keep losing out to History." Yuffie glanced away briefly, eyeing the ceiling. This was gonna make things tricky.

"They haven't touched the primer posts I've been making so far," Edgeworth said, "but I suspect that the only reason that's been the case is that it makes things a little easier for them not having to distribute maps. It's one less thing to have to worry about for them." Realistically speaking, why pull the rug out from under that? No, that wasn't the problem. The problem would be everything else.

"As for everything else, we'll just have to deal with it as it comes. I honestly think, though, that if something that we put up is taken down and immediately afterward someone is hurt or attacked because of the lack of information, that kind of thing - as loath as I am to say it - can be spun in our favor. I certainly hope that isn't the case, but if it happens..." Edgeworth trailed off again, listening to the explanation. So, they're separated by a floor...interesting, that.

"Hm..." He tapped the pen against the table, pausing to scribble a few notes in the margins of the page. "I won't press for more details. But...I have half a mind to figure out if there's an especially well-guarded area on either the first or second floors that leads up there. Figuring out where that entrance to the third floor is would give Lelouch the PR he needs, and more importantly, it would allow people to run rescue missions. It might also lead to a few things on the scientific front. I know that a few people are trying to learn what, exactly, is done during experimentation, in terms of drugs used and the like. If the same could be done for the brainwashing..."

"The primer posts have been established for a while, right? Messing with that would be more trouble than it'd be worth." For more reason than one. "They're not gonna care about information that everybody already knows." It wasn't like they could wave a map under a newbie's face as a way of tempting them into a club, because maps were freaking everywhere.

There was another pause, this time so that she could take a look around that wasn't surreptitious or covert. The place was really filling up, and the buzz of chatter was making a good cover. Not that they were talking about anything particularly secret. Or incriminating. Yuffie's shoulders relaxed minutely, even though the conversation had taken another sharp turn down Serious Avenue -- oh god, not gonna think about any more car metaphors. "That's not exactly what I meant, but you've got a good point anyway." She blew out a long breath, dragging her fingers through her bangs to sweep them to the side. "It's already happened once already, hasn't it? Kind of. With somebody trying to discredit Lulu." And then Lulu had taken the initiative to turn it to his favour. No matter what she thought of the guy, she did have to hand it to him; he was pretty good at this stuff.

Wouldn't press for details, huh? Yuffie's little snort of laughter--not quite bitter, but almost--said it all. "Oh, please. I'm not sensitive. If you wanna ask, go right ahead." The food was taking a while. Despite the casual thought and the fact that she'd idly begun flicking her glass to the beat of a random walking song, she gave Miles' words the attention they deserved. She nodded. It'd give Captain Noodle PR alright, but if somebody knew it already and was keeping quiet about it, there could be fireworks.

Oh well. Fireworks were fun.

"Locating the entrance and actually accessing it are probably two different ball-games," she commented, almost offhand. "Keys, passcodes, really damn good lock picks… we'd need stuff like that before we can spread the word. When that's out of the way, we can move onto the next thing and fork over the responsibility to the rescue teams and the science-y types." She grinned. "I've got a personal interest in the brainwashing stuff, obviously. I'll do as much as I can, when I'm not working on the areas over the walls."

The waitress chose that moment to make her reappearance, food in tow. Yuffie straightened abruptly, tracking her progress through the restaurant. Eager for breakfast? Hell yeah!

It was tempting to ask about the details of the brainwashing session, but only for a brief second. "No, it's..." Edgeworth paused, taking a few bites of food while mulling over the right way to respond. "I have the same personal interest in the experimental sessions as you have in the brainwashing," he said, after a moment. "That's why I won't press for details. I don't expect the procedure was pleasant, nor do I expect you to want to relive it more than you already have."

He was backtracking in the conversation just a little, wrinkling his brow again. "I remember that incident, yes. It was unpleasant, but I must say I'm impressed with how quickly it was handled. It takes a lot to come out with that kind of ability right off the bat." The thought of that ability made him close his eyes and frown, thinking of the powers he and Phoenix had both been given. Both complementary to our personalities, and both more useful in information-gathering than anything else... "I don't think most people would in that situation," he added a moment later.

Miles nodded at Yuffie. "In that case, I'll get cracking on what I do know about the second floor."

The pause didn't escape Yuffie's notice. What was-- oh. Uh. The guy had been experimented on; that explained things, a little. "I don't remember too much about how it happened," she admitted--more like offered--around a bite of salad. "Something about drills. And injections. Y'know, creepy horror movie clichés? That kind of thing. After that, it's kind of…" She waved vaguely with her bandaged right hand. "… Fuzzy, like an overstuffed plush toy on steroids. At least until I snapped to it and started kicking ass all over the sun room; I could give you a frame-by-frame recount, but I guess you don't wanna hear it." She paused. Some people might call her words nervous prattle, or inane chatter, but they'd be wrong. "Anyway. Wanna talk?"

Okay, so that wasn't the smoothest thing she'd ever come out with, but you couldn't exactly yank words out of thin air and eat them. So she didn't press, figuring that he'd say something if he wanted to, and let the backtrack slide into place. "The guy's a total pansy," physically speaking, "but he's got more guts than a lot of people here. If he wasn't such a two-faced jerk, I'd like him a whole lot more." There was nothing accusatory in her tone, no venom. Yuffie took a moment to dig through her salad and graze a little, chewing thoughtfully. When she spoke again, it was with a splash of curiosity: "Would you?"

She grinned again. "Keep me informed, okay? And if there's anything you need me for, lemme know. I'm pretty good at this stuff."

"That sounds about par for the course," Miles said dryly, motioning with his pen. "It lines up with what I've experienced, and what I've gathered from those who are willing to talk about it. In my own case, a whole lot of drugs and a painful childhood memory," he said, dropping his voice low. He looked around to be sure no one was within earshot before continuing.

"My...partner and I were both taken at different times, and the results of the experiments tend to complement our usual roles back at home, to an extent. I have an internal danger radar - " he paused, laughing at his own description "- and he...well. It's something of a lie detector, though less specific. It can tell when someone's hiding a secret, though he's not the kind to actually use that against someone without a very strong reason behind it."

Now, that was interesting. Miles raised an eyebrow at the 'two-faced jerk' comment. His own senses hadn't reacted during their conversation, after all, and they would have, he thought. "And as for that question? I would like to think I would do the same."

He smiled across the table. "Likewise. I'm not much of a physical fighter, but let's just say I've been here long enough to have met a lot of people. If you need any of those connections, let me know."

"Seriously. I'd complain about it being boring, but the more predictable these guys stay, the better it is for us." What was it with Landel and his drug fetish? And the paperwork fetish? And the Japan fetish? Bastard had issues. His issues had issues. She could quite happily punch him in the throat with both hands and follow it up by kicking his nose right out of the back of his head, simply -- simply because. How screwed up was it, how perfectly screwed up was it, that she could sit at a table over lunch and talk about living nightmares like they were normal?

Because after Hojo, after Sephiroth and ShinRa and waking up in Landel's Institute, that's what the nightmares were; totally. Goddamn. Normal.

Fortunately, Miles interrupted her runaway train of thought by making her choke on lemonade. Thanks, dude. Thanks a bunch. "Danger radar? Lie detector?" Remind her never to meet this 'partner', whoever he was. Yuffie and her lies were like noodles and ramen; it was a fact of life that you didn't really get one without the other. She coughed a few times, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. "My experience with those experiments has been that the cons outweigh the pros. Somebody I know from back home, they kinda -- well, they did something totally weird, so she's kind of been on a see-saw between 'normal', 'confused', and 'berserk'."

Hello, raised eyebrow. Yuffie matched it with one of her own. "You got another impression of him?" Interesting, if that really was the case. Maybe it was just because she poked and prodded and bugged him until he had to drop the pretence of professionalism?

"Will do," she added, in response to Miles' offer. "I, uh, wouldn't really need to take you up on the other thing, anyway. The physical fighter bit. Being a ninja, n' all. Anyway, I've got some pretty good connections with the History Club, but networking is cool and I'll probably take you up on that at some point. Anybody you can recommend in general?"

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Day 42, Noon: The Twin Pine Restaurant

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