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damned_institute2010-05-02 04:03 pm
hes-deadjim.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_institute2010-05-02 04:03 pm
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Day 49: Late Afternoon - T & M Electronics
The rain was really picking up by the time McCoy left the bar. A roll of thunder rumbled through the air. He paused under the awning, squinting up at the dark sky. He hadn't seen a storm like this in years. Not since Earth. It was looking to outdo any storm he'd ever seen too. Was it safe to even drive through this weather? If he was worried about the possible accidents those antique buses could get into before, now he was imagining even worse wrecks.
The wind whipped at him as he headed down Main Street, forced him to hug the jacket closer to him again. His pants had dried out in the bar, but the wind was whipping water under the awnings and starting to splatter against him.
McCoy was on his way back to his original assigned quadrant when one of the nurses' voice boomed through the street, ordering everyone inside. He managed to make it past another storefront when he caught a glimpse of white out of the edge of his vision. One of the nurses was looking at him lingering outside, and motioning towards a nearby orderly.
The doctor didn't wait around. With a grimace, he ducked into the nearest door.
[For Dean]
The wind whipped at him as he headed down Main Street, forced him to hug the jacket closer to him again. His pants had dried out in the bar, but the wind was whipping water under the awnings and starting to splatter against him.
McCoy was on his way back to his original assigned quadrant when one of the nurses' voice boomed through the street, ordering everyone inside. He managed to make it past another storefront when he caught a glimpse of white out of the edge of his vision. One of the nurses was looking at him lingering outside, and motioning towards a nearby orderly.
The doctor didn't wait around. With a grimace, he ducked into the nearest door.
[For Dean]
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Besides, it wasn't as if he was scared of rain or anything. He was comfortable in water, and while this obviously wasn't the same as taking a swim, it wasn't like getting a little drenched was going to hurt him. (He wasn't even sure if "a little drenched" made much sense, but that wasn't the point.)
Guy was definitely soaked by the time he made it to T & M. He threw off the hood of his red windbreaker as he walked into the store and let out a sigh of relief. "That wasn't so bad," he muttered to himself, despite the fact that he was dripping wet.
None of that mattered to him anymore, though, since he had a veritable goldmine of gadgets to look through. Guy was careful to try and wipe his wet hands off on his leggings, but since those were just as wet, he ended up having to ask one of the employees for some paper towels to dry off with. They weren't too happy about the way he was tracking mud in, but they did appreciate that he was careful about his handling of the electronics.
Once he'd shaken enough of the water off of him, Guy started to browse the store with a large grin on his face. He wished he'd thought to tell Edgar about this place. It would be a shame if the man missed visiting it on his first trip here.
[For Erika.]
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An electronics store was the place she chose, Erika's eyes lighting up with interest. Not because she would be able to take anything useful, but because the state of a town's electronics could tell you much about them. She made her rounds, looking at each object with great interest. She recognized quite a few Japanese brands here and there, but this place was clearly American.
And how advanced it was! Erika recognized the walkmans, a revolutionary (and expensive) little gadget, but here, they were quite affordable to the average person... and varied. Certainly, some of these designs and brands were unfamiliar to her. Technology had advanced here, though not to the point where Erika could consider this the distant future. Still, it was an interesting observation and gave her some more needed information about where and when she was, exactly.
The detective looked up, noticing a man across from her who was staring at the devices with a grin on his face. Clearly, he was happy to be here. Perhaps he knew a little more about these things; she made her way around the display and placed herself right next to the young man, giving him an amused look.
"Are you familiar with these?" She asked, in lieu of a greeting. That could come later.
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There was nothing to be scared of, he tried to tell himself. The young girl, who was probably around Anise's age, only wanted his help. Doing his best to cover up that little hiccup, he cleared his throat and focused on answering her question.
"Sort of," he said with a weak smile. "I'm not originally from Earth, so a lot of it is still pretty new to me, but I've been picking up some knowledge about the electronics during my time here." Guy wished he would have had more time to dedicate to learning about these Earth-style gadgets, but it just wasn't practical most of the time.
"Was there something in particular you were curious about?" he asked with a tilt of his head. "I might not be able to help, but I can give it a shot." That had been a pretty smooth recovery, right? Girls needed to learn to not sneak up on him like that!
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That amused look changed into something quite serious when he answered her question though, saying he was not "from Earth". The detective stepped closer to him, as if trying to examine him. Of course, a mental hospital like this place was bound to have a few patients who were actually mentally ill. This man was starting to fit the description.
"Not from Earth? Then, where are you from, if you don't mind my asking?" Erika quizzed him, adamant in keeping the space between them as minimal as possible. She was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt; there were obviously people here from other timelines, but this was the first time she met someone who explicitly said he wasn't from Earth. Of course, the fact he knew this planet's name was enough for her to doubt him.
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Trying to keep away from her also meant that he was finding it hard to answer the girl's questions. Even though he did want to be able to have a conversation with her, the way the stranger was ignoring personal space made that quite the feat.
"I'm from a place called Auldrant," he said, his voice a bit higher than normal, even as he tried to stay composed. He hadn't actually yelled or anything yet, which was good. That usually only happened if he was actually touched, and this girl had thankfully refrained from doing that. So far. He might have said more about the world he came from if he wasn't under so much stress, but as things were, that was about all he could get out.
yes i am aware this makes her look like a perv and I *like* it.
Normally, Erika would have been puzzling over this little mystery, but she was momentarily distracted by how amusing it was. Would she be able to guide him over the counter like this? Erika tried it, continuing to walk forward while keeping her eyes trained on her destination. It was pretty surprising how malicious she was looking, despite the fact she was keeping a smile on her face the whole time.
"Auldrant? I've never heard of a place like that. Interesting! Would you tell me more about this 'Auldrant'?" Of course, the whole time, Erika was insisting on violating the man's personal space. Anyone looking at the scene might have thought she was bullying him with the way her eyes maliciously glinted as an idea came to her.
If he freaked out this much simply because of distance...
"No, really, I must know! Why don't we talk elsewhere..." She grinned, extending her arm with the intent of grabbing his own in a gesture that made it sound like she wanted to pull him off to a more comfortable corner.
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She was doing this on purpose, wasn't she?
That didn't mean he had it in him to call it on her or even hold his ground. Guy continued to back away until he felt his back press against a solid surface, which meant that he really had nowhere else to go. He tried to search around for someone who could help him, but before he could make eye contact with either a nurse or one of the store's employees, the strange girl started to grab for him.
"AAAAAAAAAAAGH!" The scream was loud enough to pierce through the relative quiet of the store and most likely alerted everyone in there to what was going on. Which hopefully meant that someone would help him. Guy, meanwhile, had crouched down to the floor (anything to get away from her) and covered his head as some sort of defense mechanism.
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She was well aware that the sight of a grown man cowering before a young girl like her was going to raise more brows than prompt actual cries for help. Still, perhaps she thought a little consideration should be showed, just in case people. So Erika took a step back, crouching down so that she was eye level with the man and not so close this time, lest he collapse at the thought of having her breathe on him.
"Forgive me, it seems like I've startled you," Erika pointed out, though her statement was hardly an apology. On the contrary, she looked just as amused as ever. Whatever secret this man was hiding, Erika seemed determined to drag out, now that she had found an obvious weakness. "Did I overstep my boundaries?"
Germophobe, she thought, but he seemed rather enthusiastic about touching the electronics and any germaphobe would have shuddered at the thought of touching store displays. No, that couldn't be it. Perhaps he was frightened of children; there were a few of them around, but more adults than children. A recovering pedophile? Maybe, she would have to see if a nurse would separate them. It seemed a little unlikely though; since there were children here, great care would be taken to separate this man from there. Then, perhaps he was afraid of something else about her?
It was probably a little sad how thoughtful Erika looked, trying to analyze what was wrong with this man.
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His first instinct was to apologize, since he knew it was his issue and not hers, and yet the girl's behavior didn't make Guy feel too inclined to do that. "I just... I have this phobia," he admitted, not wanting to go into more details than that if he didn't have to. Once again, he wished that Luke was around, as his friend was usually able to explain his condition much easier than he could.
It was around that time that a nurse swung by to check up on them. If anything, having another female close-by was just going to make things worse, and yet Guy knew she was trying to be helpful. "Is something wrong?" the woman asked.
He could have said something, could have told her that this girl was pestering him, and yet... she was keeping away from him now. Maybe she really just hadn't understood. She thought it was funny, sure, but... a lot of people felt that way about his phobia, so he wasn't going to demonize her right off the bat.
"Yeah, I just... got a little startled," he said lamely, offering the nurse a shaky smile. "I'll be fine." Or so he hoped.
The nurse hesitated for a moment, glancing over at Erika before she decided to leave them be.
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What kind of phobia? It clearly had to do with her proximity towards him; being near him caused him to back away, and attempting to touch him prompted... well, this pathetic display she was watching right now. Stepping back calmed him down, so it was definitely a distance thing. Touching, he didn't like touching... Germaphobe still stuck out in her mind, but that didn't explain why he was comfortable touching store displays. No, it was something more than that, something that had to do with her.
Was it because she was a child? Her blue hair? That she was female? Possibilities went through Erika's head, and while she preferred to have experimented and figured it out for herself... She cast another glance at the nurse. Even when the nurse arrived to help him, he still seemed tense. Either she added onto the stress, or Erika was some unholy abomination in the man's eyes that none could hope to erase.
The second one seemed much too extreme. She looked at the nurse again, back at him, thought briefly, and made her assessment.
"You don't like it when members of the opposite sex get close to you," She observed, testing out her theory. She left out her assumption that he was gay, at the very least.
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Slowly, he nodded. "That's right. I love women as people, but if they get to close to me..." Well, she'd seen for herself what had happened. Guy sighed and smoothed his hair back, glad that the worst of his outburst seemed to be behind him.
"So, if you wouldn't mind, could you back up just a little?" Maybe once she did so, he could drag himself back up to his feet again and stop feeling like he was making a spectacle of himself. Guy didn't particularly like being the center of attention, so when something like this happened, he just hoped that it would be over as soon as possible.
"I'll tell you whatever you want to know about where I'm from," he continued. That was what she had originally been interested in, so it seemed like a fair trade. It was kind of pathetic, that he had to reduce himself to bargaining, but at this point he'd do anything to stop the assault.
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"It must make life difficult for you. My deepest sympathies," Erika teased, wondering how he got off giving her such a blatant contradiction. How could one love women, yet not be able to stand having them near him? It clearly meant there was something deep in his psyche that found the thought of them repulsive, and Erika could hardly call that love.
Well, she supposed it was the job of the doctors here to figure that one out. Erika's job was to solve the mystery behind this place, not the mystery behind his little phobia, so she let it go for the moment. He did say he would tell her "whatever she wanted to know", after all...
"Where are you from, on this 'Auldrant'?" That was a good starting place. She would ask him to describe the area, and perhaps she could begin matching it with an Earth equivalent. Poor, confused man.
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And she was teasing him. It wasn't particularly hard to tell, and Guy really wanted to just call her on it at this point. He sighed and shook his head, but in the end didn't have the words. This girl was just weird, even more so than Anise. And that was saying something.
"Well, originally from an island called Hod, but I moved around a lot after that." Seeing how she'd been judging him? Guy wasn't inclined to give this girl his life story or anything. Especially not the gritty details surrounding his phobia. While there was the slight chance that it would make her feel bad for all the pestering she'd done, there was also the chance that it wouldn't. It was too early to tell.
"I'm guessing you're from Earth, then?" he brought up with a glance around the store. If that was the case, then why had she been so curious about how the electronics worked? Maybe it was a time issue. Claude had told him that all of this stuff was extremely outdated for him, after all.
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Dean debated continuing on, looking for stuff they needed. Electronics were useful - he could jury rig Sam and him an EMF reader - but there wasn't much of a chance he'd be able to smuggle something out during the day. Not with all the nurses watching 'em like this, and not after he drew all that attention to him last time he was here. Wasn't like there was a real easy way to smuggle a CD player or something in your shoe. Best he could do right now was keep his head down and keep an eye out. If they got stuck here or he could hoof it down here during the night then he'd have a better chance coming back with something useful.
He opened the door, the bell jingling, and was trying to toe some of the water out of the shoe with the hole in its sole when he looked up and...
Hey, he knew the guy.
"Hey," Dean stepped to the side so he wasn't blocking the door, still trying to get most of the water out from his shoe. "You were the guy that helped us out the other day. Didn't catch your name."
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He didn't know where he'd learned his first aid, but it felt more like he was trying to practice something more like frontier field medicine than anything actually safe or sanctioned. Vodka, makeshift tourneys? What was next, amputations and leeches? Bloodletting?
McCoy had managed to stop the patient in time, and that's what mattered. The young woman hadn't risked severe damage to the leg, and the man had been perfectly willing to help all the same. He'd managed to keep a cool head despite all the blood, which wasn't something you saw a lot of from civilians. He really couldn't be too hard on him.
Maybe it was best to start simple before he could go judging him like that. He held out his hand.
"Doctor McCoy," he replied. "How's your friend doing?"
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Although why did he keep getting the weird, niggling feeling that he'd heard that name before?
Try as he might, he couldn't put his finger on it.
"Dean," he said. After the talk with Sam about the possibility of them both having been here longer than a week, his usual alias wasn't gonna work. Not if he could get wiped again and needed to track what he'd been up to. For all he knew, next time he wasn't gonna pick the exact same alias again. "She'll pull through. You did good back there."
Hey, so what if he'd been shoved aside like he might puke at the sight of a little blood? Dean had to give credit where credit was due. The guy knew what he was doing and it wasn't worth getting into a pissing contest over. They kinda had bigger problems on their plate. Dean looked around the electronics store and...man, this was pretty ghetto and old school, 'cause he was pretty sure those were VCRs back there on the shelves. Dean tapped his soaked shoe again against the door frame and moved deeper inside the store, half to keep an eye out on the employees - even if he wasn't gonna jack anything, it was just auto-pilot - half to get a better look around.
"Hey, this's gonna sound weird, but we ever met before?" Dean glanced over his shoulder at McCoy. Man, it was kinda funky. There was something about the guy.
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"That's good to hear. Just make sure she doesn't over-exert that leg in the mean time. It'll need time to heal," McCoy said. Although with the way Dean and his friend had been ready to handle that wound last night, McCoy suspected that they'd consider just 'walking it off' a valid treatment.
With the accelerated healing he'd seen on Jim, it might not even be too much of a concern. He hadn't had a chance to check back up on the woman, but it could have healed just as neatly as the captain's. Accelerated, near inhuman healing or not, that wasn't an excuse to throw caution to the winds just because you thought you could. That leg would still need a chance to recover.
McCoy looked at him curiously when he went on. He didn't recognize Dean, not outside of that encounter that night and certainly not from the Enterprise or any of the planets they'd stopped at.
"I don't think so. Do I remind you of someone?"
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Either he really was new or he'd been wiped too. Man, and Dean'd been thinking it was gonna be tricky before today. This was the kind of BS that made it hard to roll out of bed sometimes, when it looked like everything was stacked against you no matter how hard you butted your head against the wall. It wasn't just running into another person he wasn't entirely sure if he'd met or not. More like everything just piling up, not knowing how much time left there was, and not being able to gank all the evil crap that was roaming around the halls at night. Dean ran a hand through his hair, the rain spiking it into wet clumps, and then dropped it.
Pretending to look around, he didn't have to fake the surprise, "Man, this place looks like an antique shop or something," Dean gestured at a big tube TV. "Haven't seen stuff like this since I was a kid." He wasn't sure yet on McCoy; for all he knew they could have past history together and yet it'd be intros all over again 'cause of how this place worked.
But if there was anything Dean learned on the job, it was that talking about the seemingly random stuff like crap electronics that helped to get real familiar with someone. It also had the bonus of being less shady than running up to someone and grilling them with Twenty Questions until they went "uncle".
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The doctor moved further inside as Dean motioned to the large screen. The back was bulky, looked like you could strain several somethings trying to lift it. And what had they called those things higher up? MP4 players? MP2 players? Whatever the exact name, they were all obsolete by the twenty-third century. You saw these in photos, memory tapes, the odd eccentric's collection and exhibits.
Still, they could still be useful. He hadn't had a chance to mention it yet, but maybe Spock could do something with the thing's innards. If not here, then the ones back at the facility. McCoy wasn't much of a mechanic or engineer, so jury-rigging up some sort of communication device from anything in here would take nothing short of a miracle from his end.
The doctor leaned forward to inspect what looked like it very well could be an actual casette player.
"I'll say. Looks more like a museum," he said, bemused.
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"Hey, casette players are awesome," Dean reached out to pick it up. Wouldn't be the first time he worked with weird crap and he'd already had experience jury rigging a casette player into an EMF reader. At least that was covered if he could find a way down here to make a supply run. "Had one of these babies back home: thing was still working."
Dean was about to say more when someone suddenly let out a blood-curdling yell right in the middle of the store. He tensed up and while he didn't whip around, he swiveled, an unconscious part of him expecting something monster or another to come bearing down on 'em. He eyed the dude who'd shrieked like a little bitch, then carefully checked out the rest of the store. After staring, the guy behind the counter was turning back to business and that was a dead ringer right there that it wasn't anything but a patient wigging out. He'd take that over a poltergeist dicking around with people.
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McCoy found himself appreciating modern technology just a little bit more just now.
"I always thought these things broke at the drop of a hat," he replied. "What do they operate on, batteries?" That was the right term, wasn't it?
They didn't use power cells commonly in the past. That was if he remembered his history correctly. He never thought he'd ever be in a position where he needed to know that particular detail, and yet, here he was, right there. Ancient medicine had had more of an impact, when dialysis and amputations and phlebotomy were accepted practices. He tended to go by his history from the progression of medicine and medical practice.
If those old diagrams in the exhibits were to be believed, the power required to operate one of these things took up over half the player's space and would only yield about five minutes of time on powering up a PADD. In Spock's words, completely inefficient-
Someone shrieked suddenly, almost as if he'd just gotten stabbed. McCoy jumped, just as Dean tensed up like a man always ready for a fight. What he saw wasn't someone being attacked, but just a male patient with a woman, looking like he'd just been on the verge of a panic attack.
"What in blazes..?"
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Okay, what am I doing here? he thought, turning to look out the front window of the establishment- the rain continued pouring, the street nearly empty from the soggy weather. Good enough.
Deciding to spend some time out of the rain, he headed for the nearest wall of products. Radios, some repaired televisions, a CD player that had seen better days- Leonard didn't have time for much entertainment. Songs were okay, but TV shows and movies were out of the question because of their length. He managed to find something to occupy his interest, fiddling with the remote from a newer set. When did they get all these buttons?
[reacquainting himself (again) with Neku]
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Rolling his eyes at the employees as well as their dubious selection, Neku started glancing up and down the aisles. Just a bunch of crap, though he actually wouldn't mind having a cd player to carry around during the day. Anything to beat the moronic elevator music they played all day on Radio Landel: your choice for smooth listenin' days and creepy d.j. nights..
It wasn't long before he spotted Leonard though, who seemed to be confused by a television remote. Well... he supposed he shouldn't be all that surprised. How long had he had that memory problem anyway?
"Hey," he said with a nod as he approached and glanced over the old device. They didn't even have Tivo. What was to know? "You can pretty much ignore everything but channel and volume. The rest is just bonus."
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Leonard grinned with a short laugh at the teen's words, though serious thoughts were on his mind. He was reminded of his condition at every turn, even through something as simple as a remote. How long has it been? Everything else keeps moving forward. When you can't remember the days, can't keep track of time... everything just stops.
He turned the remote to the back, looking for any sign of a date. Just a battery compartment and company name in text so small it was unreadable. Typical.
"This is probably going to sound strange," he prefaced as he returned his attention to the youth, knowing his condition wasn't people expected, "but what year is it?"
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Leonard laughed, but still inspected the remote carefully. At least he seemed to have good humor about his condition most of the time, but it still had to suck pretty bad. Neku had already given him the run-down a few times, so he wasn't going to be too upset if he didn't get all the way through it again. He felt kind of obligated to mention the possibility of getting stuck in a town overrun with zombies though, that would be pretty hard to forget.
"As long as you don't care if the answer is strange," he shrugged, "cuz I don't know. We're stuck in a pretty ass-backward town today, so I don't think this is anything to go by. It was 2008 last time I checked."
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He started to ask where they were normally (by the sounds of it, this was some sort of a field trip), but instead went fishing through his pockets. He pulled from the hooded sweatshirt a journal, his name written across the front of it. "It doesn't sound strange- not in a normal sense, at least. I don't handle dates well. See, I've got this-- "
He cut himself off as he came across his collection of pictures. Right on top was the teen before him. "... Condition." No wonder the kid approached him- they were acquaintances. Or friends. When you couldn't remember your daily activities for more than a few minutes, it was hard to know who you could trust in the long run. He started scanning the other pages, skimming his own handwriting. One of the pictures was burned. "How long have I been here?"
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"I'm not sure. I've been here a little less than a week. You were here before that, but that's all I know," Neku gave a shrug. He glanced over at some of the employees and found it obvious enough they didn't like having the Landel's crew around their town. He could only imagine if they turned into walking dead like the kid on the bulletin implied.
"Anything else, or you ready for some other stuff that's a little harder to swallow?" he asked. Leonard had usually handled stuff well, especially given his condition. Neku had been a wreck almost the entire first week of the game when he hadn't had his memories. He didn't understand how the guy could do it, but he was just glad he did.
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Leonard's eyes moved downward to his notes- he couldn't help but notice they weren't welcome. He'd only started to examine a strange photo of what looked like a guy in a cheap Halloween mask when something Neku said caught his attention.
"What do you mean?" he asked, looking away from his journal once more.
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"It gets dangerous," he said, voice dropping to a softer level. "Just make sure you're near the buses at the end of the day. The people here have been known to get pretty rowdy and there's not always supervision, you get my drift?"
Zombie invasion just had a slightly less believable tinge to it.
[agh, sorry for the fail DX]
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Leonard took another casual look around them, a doubtful smile on his lips- the glares were no better than before. Even when they weren't looking at them, they gave off an appearance of quiet hostility. Neku's serious tone only fueled Leonard's growing suspicions.
"Yeah..." he said as his smile disappeared, looking at the photograph (http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m164/grimmhooke/d_leonard/photo_monsters.png) in his hand. Somehow, that Halloween mask didn't look so cheap the second time around. "I hear you." The picture had to be a fake, though. Despite the writing on the back, his own handwriting, there was no way something like that was possible. Still...
He took a step toward Neku, turning to keep the picture hidden from anyone who may have been looking. "Does this have anything to do with it?"
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"Unfortunately," he nodded, expression grim. "Believe it or not, that's no costume. It's like something out of a bad horror movie only it's real." He just hoped they weren't the fast zombies. Slow and they had a chance, but those fast ones in the movies lately were pretty messed up.