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

[scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com]

"You could always make your own, ferment some socks in a still under your bed or something," he suggested. "I'm pretty sure someone's done something like that here, since there's been offers of alcohol over the board." Hopefully not with socks though, 'cause that wasn't something he really wanted to put too much thought into what it would taste like.

At least it didn't sound like Tony was going to be in any danger or anything tonight, so that was one less thing Wally had to worry about. He glanced curiously over at the intercom speaker, then at the radios. He'd have to hope Tony had an idea of what to do with the both of them, 'cause Wally couldn't think of anything.

"Really? What for? See if you can talk to everyone at once or something? Start your own late night talk show?"

[i-dont-paint.livejournal.com]

"Fermented socks?" Tony replied, layering doubt over amusement. "I think I'll pass. I'm not quite that desperate yet." He would have to take a night to look around the doctors' offices, though, he decided. Once he had the time.

He grinned a little at the thought of starting up his own pirate radio show, but shook his head. "I can't say I wouldn't enjoy the chance to annoy the hell out of whoever's running this show now, but no. Communication's our weak spot here. It doesn't exist at night, so all the organizations have their teams running around blind and unable to intervene if anyone gets into trouble. If we're going to have a chance of making it out of here, we need to change that. Of course, setting up the physical mechanism is the easy part."

He paused, considering, then added, "And it's a way to keep myself occupied until I can figure out how to get at a computer that might give me access to HAL up there. They probably aren't keeping them in the patient library."

[scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com]

"Either that or dinner scraps, you think? Unless people are making kitchen raids at night, I guess," Wally mused. He glanced back over at his roommate before he made short work of the rest of his meal and pushed the plate aside. "Why, wanna take me up on that drinking competition?"

He supposed he could see why Tony might want something like that though. This place was... okay it was an absolute hell that seemed designed to find out what really got to you and then take advantage of it. As it was, Wally was beginning to wish his metabolism didn't make getting drunk nearly impossible, otherwise he'd have been seriously considering it as well.

He nodded slowly at the other man's explanation. That did make sense, and would be really handy to have in place. Maybe it'd mean that next time people got dragged away, they could do something to help.

"I hope you get it working," he said, "something like that could help a lot of people. Do you need me to get anything for you or help or something?" A quick, wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Or even just get out of your hair as soon as the doors open?"

[i-dont-paint.livejournal.com]

"If you're game for it," Tony replied, only half-joking. Even if Landel really was dead, even if the situation with I.R.I.S. was one they could exploit, it might be days or weeks until the change saw fruit. Something to decompress with in that time could almost be considered therapy, albeit not a kind the doctors would be likely to approve of even if they were genuine.

He snorted a near-laugh, and looked around the small room. "Radios, mostly," he said. "A lot of what I could use, we probably can't get our hands on here. If we could find an intercom station, that would make things a lot simpler." Unfortunately, he thought it was all too likely any such thing would be locked up behind doors they'd need nothing short of plastic explosives to open.

Before he could say anything further, the intercom sounded again, the automated voice drawing his attention up toward the speaker.