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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[UH HUH. :| I'M PRETTY SURE YOUR AWESOME WAS JUST NEEDED ELSEWHERE FOR A BIT. ~~SHUT UP AND TAKE THE DAMN COMPLIMENT~~]

Peter leveled his roommate with a flat stare. It was so tempting to up and lecture him on the importance of a balanced diet, but then he hadn't been doing so well with that lately either, had he? But at least I'm making an effort.

He toyed with the idea for a few moments, but ultimately dropped it. Things had finally calmed down, and this was not worth spending another dinner shift in (more) tears over. Call it a hunch, but Brainy didn't seem too keen on getting into another snit either. Honestly, he didn't know if there was anything to worry about: Brainy could have stuffed himself at brunch. It wasn't like he saw him at every breakfast and lunch. If he was still treating his plate like it was covered in Ebola tomorrow, then Peter would intervene. For now, he just wanted to finish his steak with a little dignity.

Except - right. Awkward ahoy. (They should write that on the door. No number, just M-Awkward. They hardly ever talked about anything nice in here.)

"You, um. You had some questions, right? About me and Kurt? You already know about mutants and stuff, obviously, so...is there really anything else I need to say?" God, were his palms going sweaty already?

[/PUPPY EYES AT]

Thankfully Peter didn't pursue the issue of exactly how much and how often he'd been eating. Brainiac 5 was well aware that he needed to eat far more regularly than he had in his normal form, but it was... difficult. More so than he cared to admit. He simply hadn't felt up to it after Clark had been-- had gone, and while it had been a couple of days, the hurt didn't feel any less, and he'd found himself with more problems to deal with...

Food hardly seemed appealing or as important in comparison.

Still, in the interests of appealing his roommate and to stave off any further questions, he picked up one of the slivers of fried potato and took a bite. Of course that would be the moment Peter decided to ask him something else.

Him and Kurt... Mutants and stuff...Brainiac 5 fixed Peter with a scrutinising look as he took his time finishing the piece of his largely ignored dinner, then took a sip of water before finally speaking.

"You mean people who gain metahuman abilities via some sort of unusual genetic mutation?" he asked. He wasn't used to people being called 'mutants' in that situation, though it was obvious enough what Peter meant with the term. "Yes, I'm familiar with such occurrences, but I would like to know more about your own abilities, not to mention why your alien friend was able to retain his normal form. He's the first I've seen who hasn't been forced into a human body after all."

[*PUPPY EYES BACK*]

Meta?

The term wasn't totally unfamiliar to Peter, but to describe mutants? That was new. Almost put a positive spin on it, which meant it definitely wasn't from his world. Or maybe just his time, seeing as how Brainy was from a thousand years into the future. They had to come to terms with mutants eventually, and using the word 'mutant' was pretty derogatory itself. It meant they were abnormal. Unwanted.

He could almost hear the beer bottles flying his way. Yeah, unwanted sounded about right.

Peter almost missed the slip, but drew his brows together after a moment. Where did...what? "Kurt's not an alien. He's a mutant. Human. Just with a few different genes." Sure, Kurt was all too easy to pick out from a line-up, but to call him an alien? That was a big stretch. Insulting, too, but maybe it was common where Brainy came from. Better to let it slide for now.

"I don't know why he changes. Back home he was blue all the time. But he's a different version of the Kurt I know, so maybe this one can change how he looks? It's really weird." Kurt with plain skin and dark eyes looked unnatural. He still had to take a moment and blink whenever he saw him, dumbfounded by the change. "I'll ask him, but he's really nervous about it. People aren't such big fans of mutants in my world, and when you can't hide it things get...things get rough."

"He's human?" Brainiac 5 repeated in surprise. "Oh, my mistake. I had just assumed that he must not have been, considering his appearance and how many of us come from other worlds. But I suppose some sort of genetic mutation or metagene could account for it as well." Stranger things had happened, from his experiences anyway.

Hearing that in Peter and Kurt's worlds people were less accepting of metahumans was unfortunately familiar. The Coluan boy's eyes dropped to his hands, quietly folded in his lap, and his voice took on a more pensive quality. "Unfortunately people aren't often willing to accept what's wildly different from what they consider 'normal'," he said. That hadn't changed, even across hundreds of years and different species.

Brainy had a point. "It's okay," he assured, "just sounds kind of weird to me because there aren't any aliens where I come from. Not many that I know of, anyway." He'd have to ask Johnny or Sue when they let him go back. If anyone had encountered aliens, it would be the Fantastic Four. And there were a couple of times where the news was pretty fuzzy on the details concerning them, so yeah. The possibility was there.

That was a look he recognized. Peter's heart sank a little, because really? A thousand years into the future and things still hadn't changed? Or was his story just written that way for the tension? Either way, he could relate all too well to the feeling. Bad enough when it was just humans and mutants, but aliens too?

He shrugged at the other boy, replying, "Fear of the unknown, I guess. But not everyone's like that, so it's not always...you know. Grab your torch and pitchforks."

"Not surprising," he answered with a slight smile. "Unless your world is similar to the ancient Earth I am familiar with, then there'd likely be few alien species around in your time period." And even though the twenty-first century Earth he was familiar with had experienced many alien visitations and the occasional invasion, it was still something that most normal people were unprepared to deal with.

Of course, he wasn't sure exactly what 'grab your torch and pitchforks' referred to, but from the context he could figure it out well enough. "Yes," he agreed. "People, even self-proclaimed 'evolved beings', might fear and ostracise that which is different but there's always those that are willing to accept you regardless."

Brainiac 5 paused for a moment, then added, "I suppose in that respect I can understand why Kurt was so cautious. But you don't have to worry, I won't draw too much attention to him. Though, if possible, I would like to speak with him at some point about why he is able to look so different at night. It might reveal something about this place."

He turned back towards the desk (again with some minor difficulty) and decided that maybe he would try and ingest a little more of his meal despite how much it had cooled during the conversation, when something in his pocket made a faint crinkling noise.

Brainiac 5 frowned and after a moment found the source of the noise: the lollipop Kio had given him earlier. He held it up critically, debating what to do with it, then glanced back over at Peter.

"How difficult is it to find things like this?" he asked curiously. Kio had mentioned getting more, but if that was going to prove too difficult, then he'd try returning the gift to the man. He no doubt would enjoy it more, after all.

"Yeah, sounds about right," Peter agreed quietly.

Oh man, Kurt was so jumpy already. Not to mention that if he had the choice last night, he would probably have been fighting zombies in that sheet. And there was that message on the board to Indiana Jones, too, asking him not to say anything. Was sending Brainy in after him such a good idea? He could be pretty...blunt. As far as inquiries went, anyway. Peter was just glad they'd cleared up the 'alien' thing right now, because that was a disaster waiting to happen.

"Um, maybe I can do it for you? Or be there when you ask him or something. I mean, he's been wearing a sheet every night because he's terrified someone is going to try to kill him. Or mistake him for a monster. I'll just be like, support?" He shrugged. "I know he's not that great with talking about it, so it might help if I'm there. Sort of."

The crinkle didn't escape his attention. The one word to describe Peter's face when Brainy pulled out a sucker was 'What.' It couldn't have been more blatant if it was stamped across his forehead.

For some reason the concept of Brainy with candy just wasn't clicking. Being a sugar fiend was a little below his brain bracket, right? Too smart for indulgence or however that worked.

"Where did you get that?"

That actually reminded him of the conversation he'd had his first day here with another patient, not to mention the argument he'd had with Elle on his first night. "I can see your point, Peter," he answered. "If someone did spot him looking like that, attack would be the likely outcome. And I've seen a surprising number of other patients who seem to prefer an 'attack first' strategy."

Brainiac 5 sighed, toying with the lollipop wrapper absently. "But, I suppose if you think it would help for him to have someone else there as well, then I can't see why not."

He glanced up at Peter's other question, fingers pausing in their tugging and twisting movements as he took in the other boy's confused expression. "Oh, another patient insisted I take it," he explained. He frowned slightly. "He said it was to make me happy..."

Peter watched as he fiddled absently with the wrapper. Granted, creepy men offering suckers to passerby was something you had to worry about more in the park than in evil insane asylums (and for kids much, much younger than they were), but considering Brainy's track record? This was ringing all the wrong alarm bells.

"Do you...know this guy?" he asked skeptically. It was probably nothing, but he doubted Brainy even thought to be suspicious of people like that. Complete lack of social skills. The thirty first century, Peter decided, was weird.

[asdflkjh I didn't realise I was up to tag here, sorry bbcakes. We can probably wrap it up in a round?]

Brainiac 5 shot Peter a surprised look. "No, of course not. I barely know anyone here, Peter." If he had, it would have solved a substantial number of his problems, after all. He would have had others to talk to and work out a strategy to deal with Grell and Luxord. People he could trust like the Legion. And the closest person he'd know like that here..

"Other than--" his voice wavered a little, and he suddenly found a patch of the wall vastly interesting. "--Clark, that is..."

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Day 43: Intercom, Evening

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