Dayshift 49: Bus 2

[diamondstorm]

Morning hit without warning, with the sheer knowledge hitting the Digimon before anything else that today they were going back to Doyletown. Her feet hit the floor and she rotated her right shoulder experimentally. The skin stretched tight, soreness persevering, but it moved fine. She stretched her fingers then curled them into a fist, staring at the tanned skin that was her right arm. If something happened this time... She would be more useful. Her mind replayed the events of last week, and Renamon stilled, considering.

There wasn't much time left to her as the nurse bustled in with an armful of clothes, the same shade as the weeks before. The woman murmured a cheery complaint that it was too cold for skirts and left Renamon to change. The pants were preferable to the past two weeks, though the other item she was left with gave too much to irony. She frowned at it for a minute, then slid it over her head, reflecting that this motion in days or weeks past would have left her shuddering. It meant she was becoming used to this human body, and that was nothing that boded well. She grabbed her notebook before being led to a bus, and slid into a seat halfway down the aisle, pressing against the window. Again, the previous night had been more than short. Was it just her, or was there something more to it?

[for Haseo!]

Comments

[winged_moon]

Was everything all right? He'd been in this place for uncomfortably close to three weeks now, toyed with, taunted, and even altered all at the whim of a sadistic so-called doctor who smugly paraded his power over everyone several times a day, just to make certain his captives didn't forget exactly what their situation was. No, everything was about as far away from "all right" as it ever could be.

Yue slowly lifted his gaze from the paper bag to the young woman sitting next to him, regarding her with a level stare for several long minutes. The utter lack of expression on his face should, he hoped, convey just how ridiculous he thought that question was, especially in a place like this, and once he decided the message delivered the guardian blinked once and looked down again. "No," he replied, voice flat. "It is not all right."

[ninelivesonce]

Oops. Wrong thing to say. "Um, did you want to talk about it? Anything I can do?" That wasn't awkward at all. Really. "Aside from finding Martin Landel and tearing his throat out? I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I'm fresh out of megalomaniac auto-locator beacons." She grinned, proud of that one. If she couldn't do anything else, at least she could try for a pleasant breakfast. Pretend everything was all right. Smile like she meant it and it might come true. Strange kind of lie, but it worked more often than she'd have ever guessed.

She peeled some of the plastic back from the bagel, and bit off a neat chunk. Cream cheese oozed out the side; she shoved it back in with a finger. Then, seeing no better option, she stuck the finger in her mouth. "I'm Taura, by the way," she said, enunciating around a mouthful of bagel and finger.

[winged_moon]

An 'auto-locator beacon' was hardly necessary to find so-called Doctor Landel; Yue had seen the man himself only a bare handful of nights previously. But even though he'd been there, almost close enough to have attempted the woman's rather violent suggestion, and certainly close enough for the attack he had tried, none of it had worked. His dearest foe had been directly within his sight and yet Yue had remained powerless to do a thing but dance according to the strings the man had affixed.

As the guardian opened his mouth to give voice to some comment just as irritable as the last, explaining something of the sort -- he abruptly paused, eyes going blank for a moment before he blinked and shook his head slightly. What was...he was about to say something, wasn't he? The thoughts drifted away, though, like wisps of cloud in his hand, and he tried to cover for the lapse by reaching into the bag and pulling out the apple.

"I am Yue," he replied, frowning at the piece of fruit as though it had offended him somehow. If he didn't eat something then Yukito would likely be upset, even if his false self never outright complained. And they'd both be weakened, given his limitations here, and being weakened in a place like Doyleton could never be a good thing. "And no. I doubt there is anything that anyone can do."

[ninelivesonce]

"That's true enough. Doesn't stop us from trying, though?" Taura said, her voice a low, contemplative rumble.

The man -- Yue -- still looked singularly abstracted. It wasn't a rebuke for her hands-on solution, or confusion over the mention of technology she wasn't sure they had here. Could be simpler. Depression was an easy trap; giving up had all the mass on its side.

"Guess I wouldn't even know what he looked like. Wouldn't that be funny." Funny wasn't the right word. Funny wasn't even in the right star system. But there wasn't anything to do but make light of it, other than give up. And she'd already turned down that option. "I could walk right past him on the street and as long as he kept quiet, I'd never know." Or put on a fresh body like we put on clothes, and no-one would know.. It wasn't much more difficult than new vocal cords, if you didn't have any ethics beyond self-preservation.

She'd just keep that particular nightmare to herself. Transplant technology made lousy breakfast conversation. Or lousy anytime conversation.

[winged_moon]

It certainly didn't stop some people from trying. It hadn't stopped him for a while, at least, but by now all the trying had done nothing but grind down his will to keep going. Not to shirk his duty or forget those who needed to be safe, of course -- refusing to do that would be like denying who he really was. But escape? Seemed entirely unlikely at this point, and perhaps it was something that everyone needed to realize.

Yue's frown deepened for a moment before he took a careful bite of the apple, then chewed the bite with a small grimace of distaste. Though he'd never seen Landel before that night as soon as the man appeared his identity had been obvious, and not just because nobody else would have been there. Something about his appearance and expression had made it clear that this was the man who would willfully imprison hundreds and inflict whatever he wished upon them, all for some unknown purpose of his own.

"You would," the guardian began once he'd swallowed the mouthful and could speak politely, but after only those two words he hesitated, voice trailing off and eyes losing focus. After half a second he shook his head once, sharply, and blinked at Taura with a frown of annoyance directed more at himself than her. "I apologize," he said stiffly, inwardly chiding himself for the inexplicable lapse. "Did you say something?"