damned_institute | Day 43: Sun Room, Second Shift

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Day 43: Sun Room, Second Shift

When the shift changed, HK stayed put. Even after a long night of zombie killing, he had no interest in meatbag fuel, especially after all the discussion of chocolate with that rather strange meatbag. It was just making him crave the stuff even more than he had previously, if that was possible.

Oh, right. He was supposed to be looking for someone who was "VERY LARGE, WITH DARK HAIR." And also seemed to not know what lower-case letters were on the bulletin. As if that would help. He'd seen a likely candidate last shift, but talk of chocolate had distracted him.

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In a way, this morning was nearly as hectic as the night before. Hughes felt like he was drowning under all of the new information and oddities. They'd broken the routine, and that meant something big. The routine was half of their control, and now....

Well, it was a good thing for them. It would shake up the folks who'd gotten complacent. Hell, it was shaking him up. The penny novel army of last night, the strange intercom messages today... if nothing else, at least everyone would be on their toes today.

It was, he had to admit, exciting. He wished Roy was here to go over everything with, or even just to share a pleased smile with. He'd said for weeks that someone like Martin Landel was bound to screw up sometime, they'd just have to wait and watch. And now the day had come, and Hughes found himself missing old friends. Hell, even old not-quite-friends.

It was only him and Ed left now. How many had there been? And why the hell was he still around when Roy was gone? Crap, he was going to bring himself down if he kept this up. Maybe another trip to the notice board would take his mind off it all....

(Free!)

The night had been insane. Insane. Jason was beginning to wonder if he was actually losing his grip on reality. Zombies. He couldn't remember having seen Night of the Living Dead before - but he knew about it, Marie had told him, and they had been trying to find a copy - but as soon as he saw the creatures, he'd known what they were and what their weaknesses were. And the night had become a blur of activity and smashing heads.

When he woke up, Bourne noticed the different announcement. This was not the Head Doctor, or any of the nurses. It sounded almost like an auto-responding phone system (press 7 for more options, etc.), but how the voice sounded was secondary by far to what it said.

Federal training sponsorship. What the fuck was that?

Oh, things had changed. And likely not for the better. Once he was taken to the Sun Room, he accosted the nearest person. "Do you know what's going on with the intercom?" he asked, trying his best to sound concerned rather than cold.

"Damned if I have any idea what's going on with that thing," Hughes said, snapping quickly out of his own thoughts on much the same manner. He offered the guy who'd approached him a smile, as was habit. It wasn't someone he knew. There had been a time when he could at the least put a name to every face he saw in the whole damn building.

Those days were long gone.

But either way, he was pretty used to people just talking. Some days it felt like there was no point whatsoever to learning anyone's name. Would they be around tomorrow? Maybe so, maybe no.

"Sounds like a telephone operator or something," he went on, stretching. "Until further notice, I'm just gonna content myself with visions of Dr. Landel being turned into zombie chow. Wishful thinking, I know, but a guy can dream."

When the guy smiled at him, Bourne was a little taken aback; what reason did anyone have to smile in this place? He tried an uneasy sort of smile himself, half-certain those muscles had begun to atrophy and freeze into what seemed to be a permanent intense scowl.

The smile became more genuine when the asset conjured up the lovely mental image of the Head Doctor being torn apart by the selfsame zombies he'd raised up. "That would liven things up quite a bit." He still couldn't shake the unease he'd felt when he heard the word 'federal'. "Somehow, though, I'm not exactly put at ease by the thought of a computer controlling everything. Landel's a psychopath, but he's a human, at least." People were predictable by their unpredictability. It was how he'd tricked Vosen into providing him with the voiceprint to open the safe. But a computer operated by strict rational rules of logic, and that made it terrifying. Perhaps it wouldn't delight in the fear as the Head Doctor did. Perhaps it would aim to kill rather than to torment.

"On the other hand," Hughes said, leaning back, "it's a hell of a lot easier to take out a stationary machine than it is a man." And from what little he'd been told of different types computers, he assumed they were all stationary. But killing a machine probably wouldn't do much more than offer a fleeting sense of satisfaction at having destroyed something of the institute.

"And I'm not so sure if Landel's actually human, but that's probably another case of 'we'll never know'. Have a seat, by the way. I'm Maes Hughes

"Thanks," Bourne said, sitting down. Hughes was right, of course - a stationary machine would be easier to dispatch. But there was probably another backup system behind it...

He felt the momentary hesitation before introducing himself, as usual; in addition to has habit of guarding his identity carefully, there was the knowledge that his real name was not what he'd been going by for the past few years left him a little confused as to who he was. No, he was Bourne, not Webb. He doubted he would ever be Webb again. "Jason Bourne," he said. "How long have you been here?"

"Oh boy." Hughes shook his head, a little sadly. "Almost three months, maybe longer. It feels like years though, time's messed up here like that." And so much had happened that it was easy to get confused and mixed up on little things like dates.

Especially with no dates anywhere to be found. Hell, not even a clock.

"I've been here a long time," he decided to just go with. "I remember when this place had about a dozen 'patients' and that was it. And now none of them are left but me. See what I mean about how time feels weird? That seems like years ago."

Bourne immediately became more interested. If Hughes had been there since the beginning of it all, maybe he knew more about the why of the place.

"Ten days, for me." But he knew what the other man meant - it felt impossibly longer. Bourne couldn't even begin to imagine being here for three months. And his pet theory about it being a holding cell for political prisoners was fast eroding. Especially after last night. "What happened to the others? Did they escape?"

Hughes shook his head. Now that was idealism. Guy'd been here for ten days already and still asking if people had escaped.

"Dead or disappeared," Hughes said with a small sigh. "People go missing and no one knows what happened to them. A couple of them were apparently 'rehabilitated' and 'released'. Some folks have even seen them back here, for visiting hours. They're different people, fully convinced they were never prisoners, never had a life beforehand. It's damn messed up, all this psychological brain washing. But everything they do here is deigned to make us dependent on them anyway, so..."

He shrugged. He could see, from a detached stance, how it could work. Why, he still had no idea.

Okay. If Hughes didn't know anyone who had properly escaped, then escape must have been very difficult indeed. There was no such thing as an impossible escape. Bourne had been in worse situations before, he just knew it, but damned if he could remember any of them.

That sort of brainwashing chilled him to the bone. But Hughes had mentioned 'visiting hours', which reminded him what day it was. Sunday. Visitor day. Would Marie - or 'Anna' - be back?

"I've noticed there's something off about the visitors," he said as dryly as he could. "I'm not sure how they manage to pick up who they get, though." Marie had died, after all...

"Who knows?" Hughes shrugged. "I know a hell of a lot about how the human mind works, but I can't for the life of me figure out what's going on in the head of the good doctor." And he'd tried, time and time again. And he wasn't the only one.

"But yeah, they're 'off'. I've had a session myself." And he didn't want to talk about it any further than that. "Everything about this place is off. The nurses, the townspeople, the orderlies...." But he didn't get that same sense of 'otherness' from his own 'therapist'.

Interesting, that.

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Day 43: Sun Room, Second Shift

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