damned_institute | Night 47: Ruins

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Night 47: Ruins

[From here.]

The sound and scent of water had grown stronger as they approached the general area where the ruined town was said to be located.

Two nights earlier, Lunge had certainly seen something, but L had only seen the same empty terrain they'd been trudging through since scaling the Institute's walls. Jones had also managed to investigate on previous visits. One reason L had been keen to make the trip again was to learn whether or not he would ever be able to see the town: was his obliviousness to the ruins specific to him, at least among the three of them, or had it only been an element of his experience as Daniel Laurier?

L made a soft, stifled sound of surprise and gratification as shapes resolved from the darkness and his foot touched down on the road; he had almost tripped on the edge of it. He peered from side to side. Collapsed buildings, an overturned oven, half of a sofa. That was nearby. The fog obscured almost everything else, except the hinted outline of buildings further away.

"Well." He kept his voice as low as before, in the hope that only his companions would hear him.

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The second broadcast was marred by the same static as the first one; if they were any closer to where Jill was, Indy reflected, it wasn't discernable from the radio. The far spot might have something worth seeing. He didn't know how many of the patients would pick up on the reference, but for the three of them, it was crystal clear. "Convenient," he muttered. Coincidence? Could be, but he was already convinced Landel's goons had some way of tracking them out there, to be able to knock them out and bring them back at the end of the night. Indy'd met a lot of people in his lifetime who didn't believe in coincidences, and--at least here--he was starting to think they had something.

Ryuuzaki was obviously on the same page. If Lunge was right, it sounded like the clues typically led to weapons, but there were no guarantees the prize'd be something they'd like. "Are either of you armed?" Indy asked in a low voice, rather than speculating on what might be worth seeing. It was a question he'd wanted to ask for a while now, particularly of the German. If Ryuuzaki was still carrying what he'd picked up a few nights ago, he probably wouldn't be much more help in a fight now than he had then.

As usual, he saw the battered road a few strides before the town itself started to come into view through the fog. No more noise here than there'd been by the compound or out in the woods. It was hard to tell without a watch, but Indy was pretty sure they'd made good time, better than on either of his previous visits. Even if they weren't the only ones headed out to the site tonight, it looked like they were the first ones here. He quickened the pace again, only barely consciously, heading toward the faint shadow of the broken steeple up ahead.

Nearby, Ryuuzaki made a quiet, pleased noise that Indy had heard--and made--more times than he could count over the course of his career: the almost universal sound people made on a discovery. Indy chuckled despite himself. "See it now?"

Another buzz of static and the sound of a woman's voice filled the air again, with Lunge's fingertips chasing out the syllables in the air barely a second after they were spoken. Jones and L were right- that the first message referred to the church in the ruins was patently obvious, and Lunge supposed the second was describing the courtyard, but what did she expect them to find? Something worth seeing and something hidden among the supplies The latter sounded like a weapon of sort, at the very least an object, but the former could have meant anything at all.

Speaking of ambiguity, Jones' murmur hadn't gone unheard. Lunge glanced sideways, catching his eye in silent agreement. There was, in his own experience, no such thing as fortune, and if there was she paid tribute only in the smallest of measures. That Jill happened to speak out on a hidden 'something' in the ruins the very night that the three of them had chosen to explore them... well. It spoke for itself. Particularly when one bore in mind the fact that whatever was hidden there was likely to have some sort of guardian keeping watch of it. "I have a kitchen knife, which I suppose is better than nothing," he said, gesturing loosely to the waist of his pants. Whether or not it would be enough was another matter entirely.

But as the vague shapes in the mist began to harden into the curves of broken furniture and the hard lines of buildings, there was only silence. No movement between the houses, no twitches in the shadows, nothing lurking within the skeleton of the town emerging from the fog. Yet. Only silence and stillness. That was, aside from the sounds of his partners- one in particular. Knowing that L could see the town was, he realised uncomfortably, a genuine relief, and not only because of what it meant for their efficiency. With the time he'd spent working with L here, being left one man short had left him with the feeling of having half of his notes go missing. Half of his mind. It was disconcerting, knowing that he'd become dependent on to any extent. Very, very disconcerting.

Perfectly deadpan as he watched L take in their surroundings, he said, "If you couldn't I'd have had to dismiss you from the investigation," before matching his pace to Jones' and taking off after him.

Well. It had to be addressed somehow.

He shot Lunge a sidelong look, all wide dark eyes and aggressive sincerity. "Yes," he replied, sounding grave, "I suppose in your place I would have done the same." Then, he added, with a resigned sigh, as if the outcome couldn't be helped: "But you would have found that I'm tenacious." No one could dismiss him from his own investigation. The insinuation that it might be possible didn't affect his mood; it was true that he wouldn't have blamed Lunge, but all the same, it would have been Lunge's loss.

He looked around, at first seeming delighted and almost entranced, a peculiar reaction to a site that had obviously suffered some unimaginable catastrophe. "I see everything now. Yes. How strange."

It was figurative, of course: most of what he saw was mist. Yet... the fact that he had been unable to see anything but open ground through Daniel Laurier's eyes had to mean something. A theory -- not of what was happening, but of how he might proceed in the future -- was coalescing in his mind, and the revelation of all the wreckage and decay was one of its final elements. It convinced him that he had something to go on.

After a few seconds, though, the gratified expression faded, replaced by determination: the pensive countenance that was probably more familiar to his companions. It was both his job and his nature to imagine the unimaginable, to concentrate on unpleasant truths that most people would rather put out of their minds. If the reports were accurate, they would be experiencing more than their share of them tonight.

"We can go to the church first, but now that I've had a moment to consider it... if there is an ambush, it will still be there after we have made a general survey of the area. There are therefore only two reasons to prioritize that location. Because it was the only place that Mr. Lunge and I were able to visit the other night, I would like to compare the differences. Also, someone else may choose to follow Jill's insinuations and join us here. That might be advantageous in that they would occupy the attention of anything unpleasant that might be waiting, but on the other hand, we could lose access to useful or interesting items or information." He paused, unable to make up his mind.

"I also have a kitchen knife," he added, to Jones, in an offhand way. He wondered whether he and Lunge actually had the same knife, down to any small identifying marks on its surface. He suspected they might, although it was also possible that Howell had taken the twin, or that there wasn't one. He'd had the idea of comparing them, but it could wait, or he could make another trip to the upstairs kitchen, with the acquisition of duplicates as his specific goal.

Edited 2010-02-21 18:32 (UTC)

Indy reached up to adjust his hat, which was the closest tactful analogue to the gesture he really wanted to make: smacking his forehead in disgust. Kitchen knives. Jesus. Indy empathized with the relative lack of decent weapons around here, but at least he wasn't staking his life solely on something that was designed to cut tomatoes. Even Marcus would have had more sense.

All right, he was forced to admit that last one might be pushing it. But that didn't negate his point.

"And because we have no idea when the night might end," he pointed out as the third reason to look around the church first. Maybe Ryuuzaki and Lunge hadn't been around long enough to realize how wildly your allotted time could vary in here, but Indy had found himself sitting up in bed before he'd even made it out the front door. "And if there's something waiting in there, we have no guarantee it won't come out and try to find us. Maybe we're better off making the first move."

Except that they were carrying kitchen knives, for crying out loud, which meant that he'd have to do the lion's share of the fighting against any lab rats or anything else that might be lurking inside the church. But Indy was used to working alone, including in a fight. They might actually be doing him a favor if they just stayed out of his way.

He flashed his light down the main street ahead of them; the fog was like a wall. Indy sighed. Like it or not, he wasn't going to put together all the pieces of the puzzle by himself. He still couldn't say he trusted or even necessarily liked these two, but they seemed to be the kind of people who assembled puzzles. Once in a while, that necessitated a compromise of some kind. "I don't mind taking a quick look around if you want to get the lay of the land. But trap or not, I don't think we can afford to risk letting that clue out of our grasp."

"Tenacious, hmm?" Lunge caught the man's expression, raising his eyebrow just a fraction- if doe-eyed innocence had a face, that right there would be it. He didn't doubt that for a second. But if L thought for a second tenacity would be enough to get his own way... His smile was ambiguous and, if one were so inclined to see it, challenging. "We'll see."

Meanwhile, Jones appeared to be doing a startlingly good job of covering a minor breakdown at the thought that his two co-workers had armed themselves with cooking equipment. He brushed it off without a second thought- he'd have been at a physical disadvantage, no matter what he'd been carrying- and nodded. "We might never get another chance to get a look at what's in that church- particularly when, as far as I can see, we are the only team to have made it to the town so far."

Even if they weren't, nothing guaranteed that anyone else who arrived would be willing to share the fruits of their labour in the morning. Notices on found treasures were almost nonexistent- 'weapons' was about as specific an answer as one could find to the question of what the fastest of the treasure hunters had found in the night. And that wasn't even taking into account the censorship.

Logically speaking, there was only one course of action: decisive action for what would hopefully be decisive findings. "You're right, Dr. Jones. We don't have any time to waste." Now. If he remembered correctly, the church would be the first building to their right after the crossroads; with the cold of his knife against his waist, he moved towards their destination.

[from here] (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/822045.html?thread=66408221#t66408221)

The quiet inside the institute was eerie when there was a lack of monsters, but the quiet of the ruined town was disturbing. The remains came into vision through the fog, almost creeping suddenly upon them, and Momo took her time navigating through the large pieces of concrete that had once been a road, now fallen into disrepair.

Coming to a halt, she looked down the main street as if expecting to see something in the emptiness. She was, but the souls of those that had died here were gone and she could detect no spiritual evidence of their passing. It was a dead zone in all regards. She hadn't noticed it before, but she was different now and no longer a shambling shell of what had once been Hinamori Momo.

The first glances of walls and structures had made Anise excited at their arrival, but as they entered the town, the girl gradually became more and more quiet. The more she saw, the more she realized she couldn't really make light of a situation like this.

The idea of exploring ruins tended to bring to mind thoughts of old civilizations and forgotten treasure, but actually looking at the place, it really did look like it couldn't have been ruined that long ago. So not that long ago, there were people living here, and not that long ago, everything was destroyed...

"What do you think happened here?" she asked no one in particular, eyes drifting from rubble to rubble. An earthquake, maybe? Something told her it wouldn't be that simple.

The woods had been dark and intimidating but ultimately nothing particularly unnatural in Tsukasa's mind. The ruins were downright terrifying. Tsukasa shuddered as they stepped into the town, a shiver running down his spine as he took in the ruined buildings. It made his skin crawl. Somehow, the silence, the broken buildings, the absolute stillness, was far worse than any monster that Tsukasa could come up with.

He jumped when Anise spoke, hunching up his shoulders a little. It felt like heresy to speak here, to break the stillness with idle words. "It looks like it's been bombed," he said hoarsely. He'd never experienced it, but he'd seen pictures and films, who hadn't?

"I don't know," Momo replied in a quiet voice, finally taking her gaze from the emptiness. "Whatever happened, it was fast and abrupt. Unnatural."

She paused and thought over Tsukasa's suggestion. The shinigami was not familiar enough with mortal explosives to hazard an educated guess. She'd seen a lot of the after-effects and heard even more stories from the Eighth when they were sent to Hiroshima to transition that unprecedented amount of wayward souls. Focusing on the surrounding spirit threads, Momo looked for anything of that could help her. Nothing more than the fleeting wisps of the two with her and those that had recently passed through.

"That is a possibility," she said, releasing the threads and putting two fingers to her temple as she squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden headache. "We should not idle on the outskirts much longer," she added on, starting down the road.

"A bomb? What kind of bomb could do this?" Anise asked, incredulous. She supposed maybe a really big one could do it, but wouldn't it just turn the whole place into a crater? It was hard for Anise, who had such limited knowledge of explosives, to even imagine what kind of device could cause this sort of damage.

The girl followed as Momo led the way down the road, shining her flashlight over the heaps of wood and stone and metal. She saw a few unfamiliar devices among the ruins, though even without knowing what they were, she could tell they were broken.

The gloomy atmosphere was starting to get to her, when she finally noticed a couple structures up ahead, both seemingly still standing. "Oh! What are those?" Anise pointed to those few standing walls as she asked. Maybe the interiors were unaffected enough to hold something useful or interesting? If Momo had been here before, maybe she knew what was inside.

Tsukasa blanches at the question from Anise, remembering too many history lessons and a school trip to Hiroshima. That kind of bomb could do this, couldn't it? Although it seemed weird when there was a town and a hospital built not too far away. If it happened recently, wouldn't it still be dangerous? "There's a kind of bomb that could do it I think. I can't imagine anyone ever using one though." He knew there had been a threat, but he was too young to remember the terror of the Cold War.

He followed after them, peering into the ruins as they passed, lips pursed into a hard line, his face pale. It was an intensely unsettling place.

"Humans have progressed in science to be able to create nuclear bombs, the burn with radiation more than concussion," Momo explained to Anise. And that was the extent of what the shinigami really knew when it came to modern human warfare. "But I don't think that's the kind of bomb that did this. It may be a form I am unfamiliar with."

The skeletons of buildings moved closer as the trio passed by the first few. "Most of them seem to be too ruined to risk entering, but that," she said while pointing, "is the only building I have been inside. It is a one-roomed schoolhouse with modern facilities. It in itself is a conundrum of mismatched eras." Perhaps, they should investigate another building.

If there really was a weapon that could cause that kind of destruction, Anise could think of a few people who might be crazy enough to use it. Since people from Earth didn't seem all that different from people from Auldrant, she wouldn't have been surprised if they had crazies like those, too. Landel himself was crazy enough to prove that she had a good reason to think that.

When Momo pointed at the schoolhouse, Anise ran her light over it a few times, examining what she could. She was a little curious about it, wondering just how different Earth's schools were from her world's... even though Anise had never really gone to a normal school herself. But as curious as she was, she knew there probably wasn't much use in going inside. Momo had already looked through there, and had probably already shared the most interesting information she'd gathered from the investigation. Best to try and cover new ground!

"What about that one?" Anise asked, pointing her flashlight to the building just across the street. One of the walls looked to be partially collapsed, but the others were all standing from what she could see. "It looks like we can go inside."

Humans. Of course, she claimed to be something other than human didn't she? It was still difficult to imagine. Then again, he'd have said the same about truly sentient AIs until meeting Morganna and Aura. "EMPs would probably be a better bet nowadays at least," Tsukasa murmured. Take out the whole power grid in one swoop, wipe out assets, the stock market, hospitals, traffic signals, keep information impossible to disperse... everything. Yeah, that never went well.

He peered at the building curiously. "How modern are we talking?" he asked, giving Momo a sideways look. "There are people from my world with seven years worth of extra technology on me for example." It could be any time. It looked like a pretty old fashioned building.

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Night 47: Ruins

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