damned_institute | Day 43: Intercom, Evening

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Day 43: Intercom, Evening

Hello! I.R.I.S. here once more to announce to you, our honored guests, that you have officially made it through a day of our typical Landel's treatment. Of course, it isn't quite over: we will now have you retire to our designated patient quarters with one of your agency partners to inspect their sleeping area and the tools that we provide them with for the true bulk of our behavioral testing. On an added note, we would like you to notice once again that the meals we provide to our subjects are of the highest quality.

For those of you feeling apprehensive about taking part in our more intensive methods, please be aware that we would never imagine putting all of you in any danger whatsoever. This last shift will be your last at our Institute; afterward, we will escort you to our Head Doctor's personal observation station to survey some of our test Next-Wave participants in the rigorous trials we put them through – all for their betterment, of course.

Once again, we hope that you are satisfied with what you find, and as always, direct any questions you may have to your console.

The nurses began to escort the patients to their rooms. They didn't even seem to be brought to awareness by words such as "testing" and "subjects."

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. (Find all of the newly changed room assignments and shift introductions here.) If you are introducing your character during this shift, you may either choose for them character to wake up before their roommate gets back, or after. ]

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Once again, Lockdown was the first to his and HK's room. Right after the nurse went to bring him his dinner, the bounty hunter checked the desk drawer, making sure the chocolate bar and lotion bottles were still here.

That visit from that Swindle had been weird, to say the least. He was now quite convinced that it had all been part of some sick joke on Landel's part. It seemed that even with Landel suppossedly dead, his influence refused to die with him. The nurses still carried out his orders like good little drones.

Still, everything would be made better tonight. Lockdown smiled to himself. Tonight was gonna be fun.

Ohhh no. Normally HK would have no problem with this. Apart from the food, that was always an annoyance. But being locked in was normally not a problem. It was simply a period of boredom before he was released to go kill things.

Maybe if he just acted like nothing odd was going on, then maybe things wouldn't be so potentially terrifying. "Greeting: Hello," he said, mostly failing at acting like nothing was going on. The nurse continued to be irritatingly cheerful as ever, leaving him with a tray of food (Urgh.) and admonishments to be good. HK glared balefully at her as she left, then realized that he was now stuck here, with the easiest target having removed itself from the room. And locked the door. Bugger.

"...Statement: I made copies of the drawings I gave you in color, for the purposes of unnerving a meatbag," HK held the pictures out. This at least was a topic that was safe.

Lockdown grinned when HK was brought in. "Hey, HK, you miss me?"

The droid was clearly nervous as the Pit now that he and the bounty hunter were alone. Well, Lockdown would change that quite soon. Not right this nanoklik, but soon.

He looked at HK's colored drawings and nodded, "Nice." Lockdown lounged back in his bed. "Showed the one you did earlier today to some meatbag. Her reaction was priceless." Great Cybertron, had he just used one of HK's terms? Perhaps the droid was starting to rub off on him more than he thought.

"Answer: ...Not so much at this moment, no. Meatbags kept on bringing up related subjects," not that this was HK's fault at all, no! He also refused to mention what the subjects were. "Although admittedly dealing with meatbags is harder to tolerate than the alternative." They were just so... meatbag-y, and obsessed with meatbag things!

...This was quite serious if he couldn't even think up a proper way to insult meatbags. However, the word seemed to be catching on! "Statement: That is extremely gratifying. Even the slightly sociopathic one I was stuck with talking to appeared to be queasy in response to this one," he held up the picture of the zombies all lined up on coat hooks. "Very satisfying."

Lockdown chuckled. So, HK had indeed been dreading this shift. Poor thing still probably wanted to hold onto his virginity forever. "I should certainly hope my company would be better than meatbags."

"Humans are so squeamish when it comes to violence," The bounty hunter mused.

While he wanted to get down to business very soon, there was also something else he wanted to discuss with HK beforehand. "You never told me that we got visitors. Are they the real things only brainwashed, or fakes made by the institute?" Either way, it was all a big mind-slag.

"Statement: I have to admit that is true." Yes, he had done just fine with SubZero and the other meatbag was very efficient and quite terrifying. But they were meatbags. It also didn't help that SubZero always tormented him and, as stated before, the other meatbag terrified him sometimes. Putting the two together and then forcing him to remain in the immediate vicinity was difficult when they weren't all focused on killing things.

"Agreement: They most certainly are. However, it happens so much that I have come to accept it as a form of praise."

"Statement: I was only just subjected to one of them myself. An elderly Jedi meatbag who I know to have previously been terminated. While he was just as irritating as he had been before master cut him into tiny bits, I doubt that they are real. Or if they are, they are heavily reprogrammed." How exactly could he tell? He didn't have a meatbag brain diagnostics kit, nor anyone to invent such a tool for him to use.

So HK didn't exactly know either. This whole visitors thing looked like it was yet another institute mystery. This whole institute was a big mind-slag as far as he was concerned now.

"I see. I was visited by a human who bore a striking resemblence to a business aquaintance and friend of mine, Swindle. It seems that this place has even made up backstories for us." As if just being called 'Lance' wasn't bad enough.

"Statement: And the meatbag who visited me acted exactly as if it was the Jedi I had tolerated, if I had always been a meatbag. Yet another reason why this day was a distinct level removed from the fun of last night," HK was almost muttering by the time he had to stop talking for a moment to take a breath, an always-annoying interval between words.

"It seems this facility may have directly guided the meatbag towards torturous conversation topics. Or maybe it was just his senility showing."

"Yeah, Swindle said I was some sort of mechanic, and that he was just some auto parts dealer. He's actually an arms dealer, and pretty much in the same craft as I am when it comes to the war."

Lockdown smirked. He could guess what these 'torturous conversation topics' were. What was the only thing HK hated talking about?

"Statement: Whatever profession I was supposedly involved in, it didn't involve killing," HK said grumpily. "Commentary: Highly unrealistic. If I was actually a meatbag, then I cannot imagine that I would manage to keep from terminating at least a few fellow meatbags every once in a while." Quick deaths. No one important. Just to tide him over. Urgh, he could actually imagine himself as a meatbag. That was unacceptable.

HK for once didn't comment on the look, although he could have. Vociferously. At great length. He just looked vaguely exasperated and poked at his food without any real motivation. He'd already refueled once today. That had been bad enough. He wasn't really hungry. Unless it would be a good distraction.

"Well, according to Swindle, apparently I was accused of assaulting some 'deadbeat customers' in the life they wrote for me. I gotta hand it to 'em for putting in a detail like that. 'Cause I actually have done that to clients who tried to cheat me out of payment," Lockdown gave a satisfied grin at the thought.

HK's reaction wasn't lost on the bounty hunter. He knew how observant the assassin droid could be, and that he'd noticed Lockdown's smirk. "Aw, now, don't be like that, HK." He eyed his own food and took a tiny little bite bite out of it. "What if I told you I've got something you might like?"

"Statement: The meatbag who visited me did not mention why I supposedly had been placed here, beyond the fact that 'they'd always suspected something was a little off about me.'" Which was preposterous. He was a perfectly functional, exceedingly well-programmed assassin droid. His personality quirks were no reason to be worried, unless you were not his master.

For the second time today, his perfect posture broke as probably his most truthful response to the phrase he'd heard quite a lot recently. "Query: What else am I supposed to be like, exactly? ...And what is it?" There was a note of genuine curiosity in the second query that he couldn't quite hide.

"I see," Lockdown murmered. Well, it sounded like HK hadn't been as confused by his own visitor, as Lockdown had been with his.

"Like I really need to answer that first question," The bounty hunter then grinned at the assassin. "Oh, I think you're going to like this very much." Setting his food aside, Lockdown opened the desk drawer and brought out the sweet, still wrapped in plastic, and held it up for HK to see.

HK was just working up a 'Sarcasm:' before curiosity got the better of him. What was it? There were only two things that could be hidden without notice in these rooms that he'd like: weapons, and--

Chocolate. Lockdown had chocolate! HK's eyes widened for a moment before he tried to regain his composure. "H-how--?" He failed. Attempt two. "Query: How did you get that?"

So far so good. "Swiped it from Doyleton during the day. It's amazing how distracting inmate fights are to the staff. Makes for a great window of opportunity."

Still grinning, Lockdown waved the bar around teasingly, "I'll be willing to give it with you. But you gotta do a few things for me first."

HK mentally cursed. He should have thought to look! He specialized in stalking targets, a discipline which required stealth. He could have stolen a supply himself!

But he hadn't. And so that meant the only chocolate he could possibly get for another six days was what Lockdown had now. His eyes were fixed on the bar as it moved, only vaguely paying attention to the bounty hunter holding it. "Very well." Kriff it! "Correction: Statement: Very well."

Lockdown grinned yet again. It was all going according to plan. However, he knew that he couldn't just invite HK into bed right away. He had to work towards it.

The bounty hunter gripped part of the wrapper and slowly unpeeled part of the candy. He went as slow as possible, in order to get HK more riled up. Lockdown had never seen chocolate before, so his first thought was, Oh, so that's what it looks like. His face didn't betray his thoughts however. Plus, seeing as how it was divided into little squares, it would make things much easier.

Lockdown broke the top layer of chocolate off, put the bar down and broke the layer half, so that he was holding two squares of chocolate. He held up said chocolate squares and said, "You get this if you'll agree to help me sew up a poncho every now and then." He tended to go through a lot of ponchos.

HK fidgeted slightly as he waited for the agonizingly long time it took before anything happened, now completely fixated on the visible chocolate. "Agreement: Fine." That wasn't a problem. That wasn't even really an issue, he could have done that anyway, as embarrassing as it was to admit.

He held out a hand for the chocolate. "I'll do it." Now give.

Lockdown smiled and held out the chocolate for HK to take. "We don't have to do that right now, since we obviously don't have the supplies."

Well, that was one favor down. The bar had sixteen squares and he was giving it to HK in squares of two, so that meant he had seven more to go.

"You want more?"

HK snatched the chocolate away and in the interest of making the most of what he was given took a very, very tiny bite. It was heaven. He made a small, pleased sighing sound. It was all he could do to keep from eating the whole thing.

Still, he managed to turn his attention away from it to give the bounty hunter an incredulous look. "Statement: I do hope that was a rhetorical. Of course I do."

Watching HK eat his treat was interesting, to say the least. He savoured it like high grade oil, and he looked like he'd just died and gone to the Well of All Sparks.

Lockdown chuckled, "'Course it was." He picked up the other half of the top layer, but kept it towards himself. "In exchange for this piece, you have to share one human weakness that you already haven't." Work it slowly. Make your way up to the top priority. He reminded himself.

That was easy. There were so many of them! "Statement: the support structures for the attachment points to human meatbag arms are notoriously weak. Breaking the clavicle," he indicated the proper bone with the hand that wasn't holding chocolate(!!! It deserved at least a few exclamation points.) "requires only a little effort and will make it painful or impossible for a meatbag to raise their arm at the shoulder."

He held his free hand out for more, taking another tiny bite of chocolate. This was highly irrational. Chocolate was just processed plant product with some sort of sweetener and yet HK didn't care one bit about logic at this point because it tasted so good.

Lockdown handed HK the second bit of chocolate, then wrote down the given information in his notebook. It was almost no fun, given how easy it was.

The bounty hunter thought carefully on what to use the other six pieces for. He had to use his next one to start to work for the ultimate payoff.

Breaking off another layer and breaking that layer in half, the bounty hunter held out the next piece. "If you want this one, you gotta come over here and get it, and stay still until I say otherwise."

Another easy one. ...Although he did realize what this meant. He hadn't blotted out the memory of the last time he'd been lured over there just yet. He hesitated for just a moment, but...

It wasn't that much of a trade-off, was it? He left his other pieces of chocolate over on his desk "Statement: I am assuming this is what is wanted," he said as he sat down on Lockdown's bed. There was more chocolate over here. He could save the rest for later. "Chocolate, please." He held out his hand.

Lockdown sat down next to HK, pleased that the droid didn't seem too suspicious. That chocolate must have done wonders to cloud his processor. However, he still suspected that the assassin was vaguely aware of something.

The bounty hunter handed the chocolate over, but didn't retract his hand, and instead gently touched HK's cheek with his fingers. Lockdown rubbed his thumb over the droid's cheekbone gently, and rested his other hand on HK's knee.

"Guess that must be real good chocolate," Lockdown mused, just for the sake of saying something. He wanted to measure HK's reaction before he continued.

Day 43: Intercom, Evening

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