Day 43: Intercom, Evening

[damned-intercom.livejournal.com]

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. ]

Comments

M50

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

As ignorant as they were happy to pretend to be about the intercom messages, the nurses were apparently pleased to oblige a request that didn’t involve explaining anything whatsoever. All it had taken was a polite question and his nurse had been only too happy to take him on a guided tour of the activity rooms for the shift. Despite the occasional request to “stop that unbearable twitching, Mr. Jung”, getting a thorough look around the Institute helped; it put a real place to the crude maps on the bulletin board. There was no way he was getting lost here at night now.

There had been, unfortunately, a less pleasant side effect to the tour. Taking note of each room and entering into his system was a sedentary activity that left his mind to run in mental circles. It wasn’t long before he’d set a course of action for the night- the primary objective for tonight is to find my own patient file. With that route exhausted, it was inevitable that his thoughts… strayed.

Tenma. Getting back wasn’t a choice, it was an obligation. Without a key witness a case could collapse like a house of cards in a second, and he knew it. The final page in this one was waiting to be written, and he was going to be the one to author it so that it could be closed for good. And closure was vital, if not legally than for his own good. That was something he hadn’t wanted to think about.

Another corridor opened before him, unnerving in a new way. Before he’d arrived here, he’d been in hospital. Would they have alerted Elsa to his disappearance? Expecting a response from Hanne was beyond pointless, but perhaps Elsa? More importantly, why did it bother him so much that he didn’t know?

It came as a genuine relief to hear the sound of the intercom announcing the end of the day. The changeover gave Lunge a moment or two to refocus and remove any extraneous material from his mind. Intellectual clutter was of no use to him no matter where he was.

A cursory glance about the room was enough to let him know that his roommate had yet to put in an appearance. Settling into the chair set out for dinner, he pushed the plate aside and systematically began to pursue every avenue of thought he had regarding last night as far as he could. His fingertips lightly rapped out his agenda on the tabletop. Number one. To what extent was the death of the Head Doctor last night genuine?

[dualistic]

Talking with that girl (whose name he'd never found out, though it hardly mattered) had more or less been a waste of time, but right now he wasn't too focused on gathering information or anything like that. His mind couldn't stray from Jason and what the kid had promised to him. Tonight, if they could find a good spot and hammer out a solid plan (which shouldn't be difficult, seeing how he knew he was sharp and he suspected Jason was as well) -- then, then he would be so close.

He wanted nothing more than to pull the gun out from where he'd hidden it, both to make sure it was still there and to once again envision how it would feel when he brandished it in the Bat's face. Still, he knew that he couldn't do that around Godot, even if the man did seem surprisingly unfazed about most things. If he could just coax the man to leave before him -- hopefully he wouldn't be spending another night in.

Harvey was genuinely surprised when he entered the room and didn't see a man with near-white hair and sunglasses. He paused near the door for a moment as he scanned the other occupant. He could only see the back of his head at first, but as he started to move further into the room he got a better look at the man.

Older, looked like he didn't eat enough, probably a stoic type. That was all Harvey was willing to guess at just by looks. There was a more important question to be asked, though.

"What the hell happened to my roommate?" He remained standing for the moment, not liking this sudden change.

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

The click of the door alerted Lunge to the other man's presence, but beyond halting his typing he didn't react. In all likelihood he was the invader here. Far better to let the original size him up first and then make the first move, if only as a gesture of goodwill.

Apparently his assessment hadn't been far off. There it was, that touch of hostility in the man's voice making more of an order than a question. Didn't mince words, did he? Taking it as an invitation to move, he turned to inspect his roommate: older (relative to the average age of the patients here), blond and blue-eyed. More interesting, however, were the bandages covering the entire left side of his face. A burn victim, perhaps? If so, when had the accident occurred- before or after arriving at the Institute?

But antagonising the man with intrusive questions would have to wait until they were on better terms. Lunge discarded them in favour of a more typically friendly approach, dropping the analytical edge from his stare and substituting the sufficiently respectful smile he saved for conversations with difficult people.

"I would guess that he's been 'discharged'." He rose and held out a hand. "Inspector Heinrich Lunge."

[dualistic]

It wasn't that hard to tell that the man was sizing him up, and Harvey couldn't exactly fault him for that, seeing how he was doing the exact same thing. It had been strange enough sharing the room with the off-center Godot, but the fact that he now had to adapt to someone entirely different was leaving him irked. He'd at least been getting used to the other man, strange as he was. Now he had to start all over again and he wasn't sure that he wanted to.

Then again, sitting in silence every single night wasn't going to do them much good, and it looked like this new guy was ready to play nice. (Besides, his answer made sense and now Harvey was wondering why he'd even bothered asking someone the man obviously didn't know.)

He stared down at the man's hand for a few seconds before grasping with his own and giving it a brief yet firm shake. "Harvey Dent," he said as he registered the name he'd been given. "Heinrich"? That was in the same league as "Franziska."

Harvey eyed the stranger with a look that straddled suspicion and curiosity. "That's German, right?"

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

'Harvey Dent'. Lunge left his hand fall back to his side with a nod, briefly turning the name over in his head. Most likely the man was American or English. The range of nationalities in this place really was startling, not only in itself but in the suggestion of power than came with it. How far beyond these walls, he found himself wondering, did the influence of this place reach?

Across from him, Dent appeared to be making a few assessments of his own. That he was so wary of him was interesting, although it could equally have been written off as situational rather than a genuine part of the man's character. There was only one way to find out. Lunge watched the side of his face he could see closely, all the while reflecting the suspicion with calm, comfortable authority. With his back to the desk and his hands hanging loosely at his sides, body language-wise he was an open book. As open as it could be, that is, given that almost every movement was being carefully monitored on both sides of the room. If Dent twitched, he would notice.

"That's right. I'm with the BKA." Eileen hadn't seemed to recognise the initials at breakfast, but he let it slide for the moment. Explaining where explanation was not necessary would likely be taken as patronising or smug on his behalf. "I arrived here late last night."

[dualistic]

For someone who was apparently involved with the German police force (Harvey was fairly certain that was what those initials indicated, and he didn't often doubt himself), this Lunge seemed surprisingly open and willing to talk. Then again, if he was an inspector then he probably knew how to coax people into letting their guard down. Harvey had used the same tactics in the courtroom, and while he had no reason to distrust this man, he was definitely going to be careful around him.

Lunge was probably very close to the law and doing the right thing and all of those ideas that Harvey had also once considered worth following, which meant he wasn't going to be too thrilled to see the gun he had pilfered last night. Harvey might even need to find a better hiding place for the weapon.

"That's weird, seeing how I just met a prosecutor from Germany. Name's Franziska. Do you two know each other?" It wasn't such a huge stretch to assume that they did, seeing how there were at least a few people from Gotham here; while he hadn't known Jason, Jason had known him. Harvey still hadn't settled how that worked in his mind, but he was trying not to think about it too hard for the moment.

The second part of what the man said registered with Harvey at a slight delay. Last night, huh? He must have woken up here in the institute, which meant... "It must have been pretty abandoned, then," he remarked.

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

Once again, the initials seemed to get the right impression across even when the exact meaning hadn't carried. Interestingly, they also appeared to be a cue for Dent to start talking more easily; he'd barely spoken more than two or three words without an accusing stare to back them up before, but now the question sounded honest. And in Lunge's experience, that usually meant one of two things: either the subject had genuine respect for the law, or they had something to hide and wanted to sound sincere.

It wasn't difficult to guess which of the two Lunge felt more inclined to believe. I never stop listening either, Dent.

In spite of the diagnosis, he made an attempt to answer truthfully. Fighting lies with lies (particularly needless ones) was not a strategy he particularly wanted to take quite so soon. The hand at his side jerked briefly with recall as he searched the files in his mind for any female prosecutors he had encountered. Dietrich, K. Gerhardt, P... "I've never met anyone by that name," he answered eventually, "although it's entirely possible that we've just never met before."

In regard to last night, he nodded. "Virtually. I only got to look around for fifteen minutes at most, but I didn't see anyone else." Not in person, at least. The mud tracks and blood had let him know that he wasn't entirely alone, but other than that, 'abandoned' just about covered it. "I've heard that the rest of you were in the local town."

[dualistic]

So they didn't know each other, huh? Harvey thought it was strange that the two Germans who had popped up were unconnected, but hadn't he already decided that trying to find a pattern was impossible? He finally took his seat again, though he still didn't acknowledge his dinner. If this man was going to be around every night (and scrutinizing him, since that's honestly what it felt like), then when was Harvey going to find a chance to force down even the smallest amount of food?

He would worry about it later. At least his sense of smell was mainly clogged up by his own scorched skin, meaning that he couldn't smell the steak. He didn't need his hunger to be provoked.

"I guess not," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. It didn't matter all that much to him in the end. "Maybe you should track her down. I don't think there are all that many Germans around." Then again, neither this Lunge nor Franziska seemed like the type of people who would falter without familiarity. Granted, they would still be able to compare stories; it was odd that he was an inspector and she was a prosecutor.

Once again, it wasn't his business and so he said no more about it. At Lunge's last comment, Harvey let out a brief, bitter laugh. "You got that right. You should feel lucky that you were on your own here." There had really been no benefit to getting caught in that mob -- it hadn't given them any new information or any clues (other than reinforcing how messed up this place was). Of course, it had given him the chance to get a weapon, but Harvey certainly wasn't going to mention that to Lunge.