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damned_institute2009-08-29 05:22 pm
stiffserpent.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_institute2009-08-29 05:22 pm
NIGHTSHIFT 43: M1 - M10 CORRIDOR
Ignoring the pain in his broken arm, Snake crept along the hallway. He had brought only the matches and hairspray with him, hooked into the band of his pants, needing no light. His feet made no sound. Even that vision of the corridor earlier hadn't phased him like his much-loved old Outer Heaven flashbacks usually did, as he was far too focused on his mission.
He had been checking the men's block rooms, one at a time. Most of them were vacated; some were not, and even the sounds of movement inside those ones were enough to reassure him that they were not the rooms that belonged to Big Boss.
Systematically, he started down the furthest corridor in the block to the south of his own, starting with room M10. The door was, of course, unlocked, and he cautiously pushed it open. Like many of the others, it seemed empty, but for less than a second he caught a trace of Big Boss's smell. It was enough to lure him into the room, even though no-one was visible. Had he imagined it?
[M10]
He had been checking the men's block rooms, one at a time. Most of them were vacated; some were not, and even the sounds of movement inside those ones were enough to reassure him that they were not the rooms that belonged to Big Boss.
Systematically, he started down the furthest corridor in the block to the south of his own, starting with room M10. The door was, of course, unlocked, and he cautiously pushed it open. Like many of the others, it seemed empty, but for less than a second he caught a trace of Big Boss's smell. It was enough to lure him into the room, even though no-one was visible. Had he imagined it?
[M10]
[outside the Terror of M4]
"As I said before, I don't know how I was able to sense it, but I knew that something had happened. And...there are only a few people who would make you react that strongly. I think it was your reaction that I was sensing, more than anything else," he explained. "I don't think it was Atoli. You would be sad to see her, but this was something darker. I've been worried since then, because of what you said the first morning you got here..."
A few more steps forward, then, and that distance was closed almost completely. "And even now, it's still affecting you. That much is clear. I'm worried, Haseo..." Endrance moved then, lightly putting his arm around Haseo's shoulders. "If I could have done anything at all without being stopped, I would have."
[M4 is not a bore! 8D]
In fact, it was probably a welcome veil on both his part and that of the people who knew him. Had the PKs populating the game who knew firsthand of 'The Terror of Death' been aware of how often he used to stray from mere anger when hunting down 'Tri-Edge,' or how much it had affected him when Sakaki was trying so hard to tear him down, perhaps things would have supported an entirely different conclusion. With this and from he knew, Haseo wondered if Endrance would have been able to go through with his false betrayal if it had been staged in this weird place stuck halfway between the worlds of real and online. He'd admitted before that he wasn't incapable of getting tripped up himself, but to have it reflected with that level of concern behind it was disconcerting.
What was also disconcerting was how Endrance thought it okay to invade his space. The word 'shameless' came to mind as Haseo made eye contact, though the thought and his reaction was more exasperated than anything resembling resentment. "I know that," he said evenly, subconsciously leaning away in what room he had. He paused before he acknowledged the earlier observations, and blinked. "I expected Atoli," he answered, "But you're right. Ovan was here in the building, and... Shino was with him."
[we all adore room M4? 8D;; ]
More than that...there was the feeling that relying on anyone else's words wouldn't be enough. There was both fear and a strange feeling of strength in that thought. Anyone could say something comforting, but the words would ring hollow without sincerity behind them. Endrance felt that in spades; it was an almost painful kind of sincerity, the kind that might have broken him had he not experienced the pain of losing someone twice, having them brought back, and losing them again. That last time...thinking about it was painful still, but the experience had changed him for the better. It was a debt that couldn't be repaid simply. He didn't realize he'd moved closer and pulled Haseo into an embrace until it had already been done.
He didn't let go as he answered that statement. "Shino? But...I didn't think that possible." It was strange, in a way, to accept Ovan's appearance as one of the Institute's horrible tricks, but...it wasn't so surprising. They did like to strike at one's weak points. Even so, though, he hadn't thought them capable of waking someone from a coma caused by AIDA. "They were together, then...no wonder you reacted so strongly. I won't ask if you're all right now, but...will you be?"
[Yea, go for M4, to the core! *\o/*]
Haseo managed to get an arm between them, waiting until he had Endrance at arms-length before he answered, still burning in embarrassment and throwing a wary glance along the hall. "I don't even know if it was really her," he said slowly, but wasn't sure himself how he felt about that. She seemed happy enough, but the way she was... as he had said to Ovan, he had doubts regarding that as an acceptable cure.
The bandages on his arm received a glare as he looked down, and the urge to mess with them required strong resistance with the way the wounds stung and itched beneath the layers. At the moment they looked to him like a beacon projecting his weakness, regardless of how he'd actually gotten them, and it suddenly seemed imperative that he do something about it. It was apparently autumn-conditions here anyway, so....
He backed off deliberately and turned into his room with a semi-muttered "hold on." Despite his earlier choice in leaving it behind, he strode to the bed and gathered up his flashlight. Sighing, he bent to retrieve one of the previously-dumped sweatshirts, but the instant he did so, something changed in the wall. He glanced over sharply, feeling his stomach twist in recognition.
Moving back over, he reached out and uneasily put his hand on the cool surface, half-kneeling on the bed. Solid. His brows knitted together as he followed the wall's plane in every direction, but it stayed the same as it was before.
"...Did you see that?"
[I can't think of a rhyme for M4, so I'm feeling a bit sore? orz]
Without thinking about it, he followed Haseo inside, but this time, kept just a bit of distance between them, standing just a little more than arms-length away. That last comment...he didn't want to be the one to say it, but if that had been Ovan, then Shino either had an identical twin or they had been able to bring her back. The latter was what he would have liked to be the truth, but...he had a sinking feeling that it wasn't. Endrance sighed softly, about to make the point, but then froze in place.
Was that...yes. The same thing he'd noticed just after coming out of his own room had happened again. He stepped forward a bit unsteadily, resting his right hand on the metal bed frame. It was just as solid as it should have been.
"...yes, Haseo...you don't think it's Kite's influence again?"
[ M4- perhaps you should try the rhyming store? :|a ]
"I don't know," he replied, "there was something weird going on yesterday after dark too. Like things were being edited." He turned to face Endrance, but at the same time caught the shape of something lying beneath the covers and a tossed-aside garment with his hand. He paused, curious, then tugged at the blanket until it came loose from the end of the bed.
The baffled expression that passed over his face was likely an odd contrast to what he'd been sporting before. "These are the shoes I was wearing yesterday," he observed unnecessarily, pulling them out one at a time.
Re: [ M4- perhaps you should try the rhyming store? :|a ]
He grabbed the frying pan too; embarrassing a weapon as it was, it was still something. With a nod to Kvothe, Tsukasa stepped out into the corridor and headed to Haseo's room. He knocked lightly on the door. "Haseo? Endrance?"
[M4 - but going to the rhyme store is such a chore.]
He glanced around the room again - no more signs that anything was changing. "Did you see that, a few moments ago...it was just like the entry room, only it didn't stay like that. We were just discussing whether or not it might have been 'Kite'..."
Endrance wasn't going to touch the topic of Haseo's visitors - if he wanted to bring it up himself, that was fine, but to speak about it without prior prompting felt like it would have been a betrayal.
[ M4 - What! Say that again and you'll be out the door! >:( ]
Or more precise to his discomfort, the questions regarding their actions from the day and night before. Like how he had demanded a spell from Tsukasa that contributed to driving them from the grocery store into the midst of zombie-infested streets. In light of everything, what the others had been up to didn't seem quite as important as it had earlier. So, despite his misgivings over the process of brainstorming to get answers over going out to beat things up, he decided to go through with the current topic with a frustrated sigh.
"I'm not sure that even matters," he started, sitting up straighter and pulling the high-topped shoes (boots?) into his lap. "Remember, we're in the body of our player characters. Things keep changing or resetting, and now the intercom system and even the walls seem to be glitching up. I can't shake the feeling that maybe his presence is just one piece in the puzzle's whole." Plus, it helped that the last time Haseo had thought him to be behind something, he had turned out desperately wrong.
Re: [ M4 - What! Say that again and you'll be out the door! >:( ]
Tsukasa frowned when Endrance mentioned the entrance room. "Like that flickery thing?" he asked curiously. "I thought I saw something for a moment but it was gone so quickly. I thought I'd imagined it." It had been for less than a second and it was more likely to be his imagination, right?
Hisfrown only deepened when Haseo spoke. "You think this is all some kind of simulation?" he asked. The thought was unpleasant.
[ M4 - I won't do it anymore. T_T ]
"Yes...like the flickery thing. I've seen it twice tonight - the first time, I was sure it was my imagination, but the second, I was just as sure that it wasn't. I don't know what to think anymore. If it's 'Kite', then, that's one thing, but if not..."
Endrance swept his bangs from his eyes, thinking once again. "I don't like disagreeing with you, Haseo, but I truly don't think this is a simulation. I know that the past two days have certainly been eventful, to say the least, but...the two days and one night before that, the days when it was just me here...were less so. I won't say that they were completely quiet, but the overall level of trickery has increased. I'm not sure what to make of it."
[ M4 - Good! Else you hear me roar! ]
He looked away, focusing deliberately on the walls as he thought, as if they would change again with merely his will directed at them. However, apparently in the same way a watched pot wouldn't boil, it seemed glared-upon walls didn't glitch, and after a moment the dark room faded from his vision as his attention was forced inward entirely.
What am I even doing? Whether this is a game or a simulation or none of those things... can I really afford to be acting this way? It wasn't like this was the first time something or someone had tried to knock him down, after all... just the first time they'd done it so thoroughly. "No, I guess it doesn't even matter," he said, slow and suddenly calm. He took a breath, but what influenced the turnaround remained unspoken. "We can only observe and decide for certain when the answer comes in front of us."
"Unless you two think all this shit has something to do with me," he added, in that almost-amused tone that tended to indicate something wasn't all that amusing at all.
Re: [ M4 - Good! Else you hear me roar! ]
He sighed softly, closing his eyes for a moment before giving Haseo a confused look. "Why would we think it was anything to do with you?" he asked. "Might as well be something to do with me or with anyone else who arrived on the same day." Boys were confusing. And occasionally annoying. This was definitely one of those times.
[ M4 - O Haseo, why don't you make En cry moar? ]
He sighed, and uncurled one arm just enough to gesture to the bandages on the others' bodies. "You can't get hurt in a simulation, no matter how realistic it is...and there's more to it than that. It seems to, at least, know our weak points. I..."
Another sigh, and Endrance looked down, staring at the floor. "Seven years ago...we were against an enemy with every chance to learn every single one of our weak points. It had access to the entire network, and it didn't care what damage it did, as long as it wasn't wiped from existence. And yet...not even something with that strong a motivation exploited every single weak point, like this place seems determined to."
That last statement...it was enough to make Endrance want to cry, but he didn't. "Haseo. Tsukasa. None of this is your fault. If anything, it's mine. I was the first one brought here, and I...I couldn't keep them from taking you. I couldn't even protect anyone that was here before, and..." The words trailed off, and he had to stifle a choked sob.
[ M4 - Continue with that and he'll get ignored... >> ]
"That's not what I think," he answered Tsukasa, "It's just that if you heard what some people have to say, I'm to blame for everything." He wasn't being self-deprecating, just honest, even if by this point he half-expected someone to come along and crown him the Emperor of Misunderstandings. "Besides, this isn't the first time people have tried to knock me down, and I know it's not for you either, Endrance. You just said it yourself." Although the flashlights only partly-banished the room's darkness, he looked up at Tsukasa too. He didn't know the guy's full story, but he had a feeling his words probably applied there as well.
"You can't go saying 'it's my fault because I couldn't do this or that,'" he continued quietly, "Unless there was some choice thrown out and you failed it, I really doubt that... and in any case it's already passed. All we can do is focus on what can be done now."
Haseo picked up one of the sweatshirts off his bed, working it in his hands so it would be easier to thread over his injured arm. "Alkaid and Atoli were here before any of us showed up, as far as I know... do you think we should go tell Alkaid she's a failure because she didn't manage to stop it herself somehow?" A faint smile crossed Haseo's face at that, though he had to kick himself a bit for neglecting to mention her information on how he'd been there before Endrance as well. Maybe he'd bring it up later at a less sensitive time... once he'd talked to the girl again, probably.
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He shifted a little awkwardly as Haseo spoke, giving him a surprised look for his words. It resonated with him a little. He remembered being hunted by the knights, being blamed for chaos being brought to The World.
"It's no-one's fault except the person who brought us here," he added quietly but with intensity. "We can't blame ourselves or each other. That's probably what they want."
no subject
no subject
The off-and-on static issuing from the intercom changed, and immediately Haseo's hand was on his short sword, his body stiffening in surprise as he turned his head to the intercom system and then in every direction, as if the input of this "password" would be visible somewhere in that small room.
"What the hell?" he said, "Is that... binary?" There was a brief urge to try and write down the code, but it was already too late and the message was too garbled underneath the... singing. As the broadcast continued, he handed a mental point to the Institute's play in creepiness and applied himself to putting on the boots he'd found with renewed vigor. They were a weird style, but he couldn't argue with something like that- they were better than the 'standard issue' for patient-prisoners, and he'd take every advantage he could get.
"Listen." As the intercom began to die down, Haseo spoke over it, standing once more and regathering his possessions to hide his uneasiness. "I told Leon earlier on the-- bulletin board that we'd come by. M88." He cleared his throat and shifted, for a long moment staring at Endrance before turning to Tsukasa with his eyebrows slightly raised. "I assumed you guys were coming with me, so."