Night 49: F21-F30 Hallway

[no-dont-go.livejournal.com]

Sleep studies. Emergency reconstruction. The doctor's first message was just as ominous as his second, and once again Aigis felt herself dealing with a rush of sudden, burning emotions. She had to stay seated for a moment, biting her bottom lip, just trying to cool down. With her cooling jets missing, it wasn't quite as easy to filter in air to calm her. She had to rely on this model's version of human "breathing." Was this how real humans coped with the fluctuations in their systems? It was a tedious process.

Finally, she was relaxed again, but just as determined. Standing to her feet, Aigis retrieved the baseball bat Junpei had prepared for her and made for the door. She would find Landel tonight, and force him to release all the patients here in the institution. If he would not listen to her pleas, she was not opposed to using physical means.

[To here]

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[fourstonewalls]

[from here]

The young woman Lana had seen exiting Ema's room last night was standing just outside it. Which would suggest not everyone had been moved. Perhaps it was just a simple consolidation, then.

Lana marched up and addressed her directly. "Is Ema still inside? I need to speak to her." Lana wasn't sure where else she'd be, if not, but she couldn't bring herself to fault Ema for not wanting to stay in a dark room. And if her roommate was still here, either Ema should be, or she'd had the luck to be returned home.

Lana didn't think she had that kind of luck any more, if she ever had.

[mistressmadgirl.livejournal.com]

Agatha vaguely remembered this woman from last night- she'd been a bit distracted at the time by the promise of tools- but it was obvious that she had something to do with Ema, which meant that this conversation was probably going to be excruciating.

But it was also probably both unavoidable and important, so Agatha plowed into the explanation first. "Some nurses came," she explained, while shaking her head no. "They talked about that 'sleep study'- I was just about to start searching."

[fourstonewalls]

"She...was taken? When? After dinner?" That was only a few minutes ago. God. She'd been calmly eating cream pie and toweling her hair while Ema had been being kidnapped. Could it be called kidnapping when they were already prisoners against their will? Say tortured, then; while Edgeworth's notes had never used that word, they'd spent a dozen dancing around the possibility instead.

Lana's eyes narrowed. Lana's world narrowed, to the space between the young woman fumbling her way through a series of excuses and her own frantic thoughts.

She was at their mercy, and that had been heretofore shown to be be scant. "They're taken upstairs. That's all I know for certain." Not quite all she suspected; the map in her notebook had no point labeled CM-US, but she remembered drawing in a series of unlabeled, small rooms that had looked like cells. Her gut instinct had been right, and now Ema was the one place she'd done everything in her power -- and several things that never should have been -- to avoid.

[mistressmadgirl.livejournal.com]

"Yes, just between the announcements." The woman was certainly being businesslike about this, which Agatha could appreciate. It would probably be much more useful in finding Ema than otherwise. Her ears pricked up a bit, metaphorically speaking, at the information. Little though it was, it would certainly narrow things down a lot, and-

-would Recluse know? He certainly gave the impression of being on top of things, and at the very least he'd been around longer than she had. Agatha wasn't sure if he'd be expecting her again, after the nasty way last night's attempt had ended, but it was far from the most unlikely thing she'd ever tried.

"I have a... kind of guide," she offered. "He might know more. If you'd like to join up to search, that might be a good way to go about it."

[fourstonewalls]

A door slammed with the vehemence of a service revolver. Lana didn't flinch. She merely raised an eyebrow as a young man stalked past them. What did he have to worry about, in comparison...

"Any assistance would be appreciated." While dragging another underage young woman into this debacle wasn't her first choice, it was her only choice. She'd held herself together better than Ema when they'd been attacked, by all reports, and her judgment seemed solid so far.

Lana turned on her heel and strode down the hallway. There wasn't a moment to lose.

[continued here]