Nightshift 45: West Wing, South Hall 1-A

[tyki-pon.livejournal.com]

[From here]

Tyki headed through the double doors into the next hallway, still not seeing anything or anyone around this place. The area was still as empty and boring as ever. He'd almost wish for the head doctor to switch around the lay-out of the place a bit, if only it weren't for the fact that figuring out what was where would be a real pain. Especially on the rare occasion he would need to be somewhere, and considering the guy's excellent sense of timing...

[To here]

Comments

[composers-proxy.livejournal.com]

Neku rubbed his arm self-consciously when Mr. H brought up his taste when it came to pins. Yeah, of course he liked CAT's work. He'd been a fan for what felt like forever. CAT's stuff spoke to people in a way that was undeniable. But having the guy himself call you on it was kind of embarrassing.

At least he changed the subject pretty fast. Neku was quick to latch onto the new topic, something he'd been wondering about himself.

"Static," he said, scratching his head. But he hadn't tried much beyond it. Glancing from Mr. H to the floor, he closed his eyes and tried to focus. It felt similar to the way he could scan in the UG, but it was different too. Like tuning into a channel on a radio. The closer he got to a thought, the clearer it became, but it took a lot of focus to get much.

Phillip. New formula. It was hard to tell where they were even coming from. But he managed to pick up a word or two. Cat food. Neku jerked back at the sudden flood of emotions that followed the last one. Fear. Strong and inescapable. His eyes shot open and he stumbled backward a few steps, tripping over his own feet, as if he'd been the total noob in that monster's sights. His hands were still shaking uncontrollably as his eyes darted back and forth down the hall, trying to locate the cat itself. It was here, wasn't it?

[catstreetblues.livejournal.com]

Alright, so Sanae wasn't beneath making Neku squirm once in a while. What could he say? Throwing people off-balance was how he figured out who they really were underneath all their well-constructed images. But he knew Neku moderately well; perhaps he was being a little over the top--

Eh. Phones would live.

"Static only? Man, that sucks." It wasn't that helpful for his and Josh's current dilemma anyway; Minamimoto's thoughts were pretty easy to read without scanning, and the Reaper had already established his deadline. Being adequately prepared for anything was a better policy as well; Minamimoto had never stuck well to plans.

Sanae frowned as Neku suddenly scrambled backwards, looking as if he'd just been spotted by a monster. (That thing from before?) The kid had only been picking up static; had that changed? "Phones? You alright? What happened?" He approached Neku slowly. "You see something?" He cast a quick look around; no monster in sight, at least not in his sight.

A slight chill ran down his spine. Again he was missing out on something. This couldn't be the same as Joshua, could it? There were no strange intercom broadcasts or randomly appearing doors, nothing to suggest that this was a repeat event. But...who knew?

[composers-proxy.livejournal.com]

It took a second to calm down. That was definitely different. He'd seen and heard things with the Scan before, but never felt it quite like that. He picked himself up, still feeling kind of edgy, but more embarrassed by the reaction than anything else.

"I was trying to listen in. I got a couple of things, but then... I don't know what that was. I think someone was being attacked. Didn't look anything like Noise though." Odd though, he'd never actually felt the same emotions as the people he was scanning. He could see or hear what they'd been thinking, but it was never like this.

He shook his head, "it's fine. I don't know why I freaked like that."

[catstreetblues.livejournal.com]

So the Scan had actually worked; it had just needed more effort than normal. That was good, although Sanae was still wondering about Neku's bizarre reaction. It was almost as if he'd picked up someone's emotions as well as their thoughts, and emotional empathy had never been encoded into the Scan in the first place.

There was only one potential culprit, and Sanae had no problem pointing the blame toward it: the Institute. Somehow they'd managed to interfere with the Player Scan as well, which really only made him more interested in the sort of knowledge Landel had at his disposal.

"Well..." Sanae glanced back to where he'd glimpsed those two patients. "That's not all that unusual around here. Like I said, every kind of crazy--and none of 'em are Noise either, 'least none of the ones I've seen. It's good they aren't, though, because otherwise we'd all be pact-less sitting ducks." For some reason, he felt like he was jinxing them by saying that out loud. "Anyway, you wanna keep going? It's just down this hall and then to the left."

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/753420.html?thread=62156300#t62156300)]