damned_institute | DAY 45: Sun Room (Second Shift)

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DAY 45: Sun Room (Second Shift)

There was something fishy going on in the Institute today. All over the bulletin board, people were talking about having "woken up", having been "cured"... and it seemed as though ZEX was one of them. Tanaka wouldn't have recognized the note at all if it hadn't been signed - his wording, his handwriting, even his name had changed - and a part of him still wondered if it had been an imposter, trying to pull the wool over the Captain's allies.

But it'd be easy enough to find out the truth. Whoever it was had agreed to meet him, and Tanaka was waiting for him just outside the cafeteria doors, ready to catch him as he came from breakfast. If "Max" was an imposter, then he'd discover the identity of a hidden enemy. And if he was really ZEX...

...well, he'd have a whole new set of things to worry about.

[for a ~~spoiled rich brat~~ brainwashed Admiral]

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[Pst. They're in the sun room, not the library.]

"Hm?" Joshua's eyes flicked open as someone called what used to be his name. It was the guy from the bus to Doyleton, the 'Scarecrow' who thought his nickname literal. "Oh, you. What do you want?"

He sat up, looking far less eager to see the Scarecrow than the other man was to see him. The guy wasn't a bad sort, just...weird. He thought he didn't have a brain. Joshua still had no idea how he reconciled that with the fact that he'd managed to be crazy in spite of it.

[Bother, this is what I get for having both threads open in tabs. I clearly can't read- my bad! D:]

More than happy to escape the nurse's eyes in the hushed library, the Scarecrow continued his way into the adjacent Sun Room, bee-lining for the couch. "It's good to see you're okay, after what happened in town and all." There were a number of people he'd not seen since the trip- his former roommate included. He sure hoped he was okay, wherever he'd gone.

He took a seat on the floor next to the couch. "How are you holding up?"

[Nice save, though. :D]

Oh, geeze. "I'm fine. Better than fine, really." Scourge flipped around and stretched out sideways across the couch. He looked almost embarrassed, although he wasn't sure for who. "Look, about that? I wasn't really myself right then, you should probably ignore everything I said. I'm not a robot from space and I'm not out fighting zombies, I'm just some stupid strung-out crazy guy with weird coping mechanisms." He shrugged awkwardly, long fingernails worrying at one of the seams in the couch. This was probably a talk he was going to have to do with a lot of people after this, especially given how many had believed him right off the bat. To anyone sane enough not to...eh. They probably wouldn't want to hang out with him anyway.

Joshua held out his hand to Scarecrow. "Wanna start over? I'm Josh. Local bearded junkie, no batteries included."

The Scarecrow eyed the offered hand. This was certainly strange behavior for a man who so vehemently insisted he'd been made of metal and machinery just a few days ago, and that a man made of straw wasn't capable of having thoughts. Maybe he was the fickle sort, though being fickle about one's identity seemed unlikely.

Then again, it was something the strawman himself had been worrying about since that visit from Dorothy.

"Okay," he said plainly, the confusing evident on his face. "I'm still the Scarecrow, last time I checked." He shook Scourge's hand carefully.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Joshua joked, his smile fading as he realized the other man probably wouldn't have a clue what he was talking about. Funny how he accepted "Scourge" changing his mind so readily, maybe the straw-brain just took everything at face value.

"You do know you're not actually a scarecrow, right? That sort of Wizard of Oz stuff ain't real." And if he had some Judy Garland fetish he seriously did not want to know about it. Ever, at all.

Okay, he was definitely acting strangely. Maybe it was possible for humans to not have working brains. He wasn't sure how to respond, but he was sure this 'Josh' didn't sound like the guy he'd met on the trip.

"Well, it's pretty obvious I'm not a scarecrow anymore," he said with a tentative smile. "But as for the Wizard, I know he's real! I've seen him with my own eyes! Well, not these particular eyes, but my eyes as a scarecrow, which I'm sure were just as good, if not better."

"Did you happen to be stuffed with substances other than straw at the time?" Joshua asked, amused at how much he sounded like somebody's therapist. "And were you sitting in front of a TV?"

He'd seen the Wizard of Oz when he was a kid and that movie was messed up enough as it was. Combine crazy, drugs, or some mixture of both with watching it and he could see where that would mess up someone's brain.

"No, it was just plain old straw," the Scarecrow said, missing the tone entirely. He crossed his arms, still puzzling over the man's strange change in attitude. "And I'm not really sure what a TV is, but I'm just going to guess it's some sort-- "

He stopped suddenly, his attention drawn to a corner of the room as he saw something just on the edge of his vision. Dark, tangled hair, broken shape- that dreadful witch from the second floor! His eyes widened as soon as he turned to look, just to be sure she was there, but she was gone in the blink of an eye. He felt a tingling sensation make its way through his body. No one else seemed to have noticed her- everyone in the room went about their business.

He cleared his throat, wondering if she would attack during the daylight hours. "... Some sort of robot something," he said, finishing his thought.

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DAY 45: Sun Room (Second Shift)

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