Nightshift 49: Patient Possessions Storage

[donetakinorders.livejournal.com]

[from here]

Raphael stepped through the door that opened onto the Rec Field and... found he wasn't in the Rec Field.

"What the hell?" he said, shaking his head to clear the weird feeling of dizziness and staring around the room with blatant confusion. This sure as hell wasn't outside, in fact, it didn't even look like anything he'd seen in the patient blocks. Just where the hell was he anyway?

"Somethin' musta happened when I went through that door," he muttered to himself. The dizzy, faintly sick feeling was kinda like what he'd felt some of the other times he and his bros had been thrown around space and time and other dimensions, but if whoever was running this place had done something to him or something to the building, Raph couldn't tell.

"Great, so where the hell am I now?" Edging away from the door and flicking his flashlight on, Raph took in the numerous boxes around the place and the names written on them, none of which gave him any better idea of what the hell this was all about. There didn't seem to be anything else of interest around though, so he cracked open the closest box and checked what was inside.

Some photos, an empty wallet, and a notebook was the reward for his curiosity. Useless, useless, and useless. He'd have been better off outside.

"Screw this!" Raph snarled, tossing the box away from himself to smack into some others in the dark He picked up a couple of closer ones and threw them as well for good measure. "You're gonna have to try a lot harder 'en that to slow me down!"

He wasn't sure if whoever was responsible was listening right now, but it made him feel better. He'd retrace and try getting outside some other way then. It wasn't like this was the only door, after all.

Turning to head back the way he came, Raph opened the door again to head out to what was hopefully the hallway in the dorms.

Comments

[tender-cruelty.livejournal.com]

Allelujah didn't even bother looking around for his own box. Whatever they had come up with for his 'real life' in this world, he didn't want to know about it. He'd seen other people be affected by the lies of this place, he'd lost Lockon and Setsuna and Feldt that way and he wasn't about to let himself be drawn into their lies. He did look around the room though, pulling out the occasional box to see if there was anything useful, but they didn't seem to keep anything that could be used as a weapon in here. No cigarettes or items for trade either.

He wondered how they could have gone to a room at the complete other end of the building, on a different floor to the one that he had been trying to get to. It wasn't exactly a normal occurrence, even for here and it wasn't anything that he'd heard of before.

He should have just left, he supposed. But he couldn't let the two old men hang around and get eaten now could he? Besides, a tiny (and growing) part of him wanted the opportunity to prove that he could quite handle himself and was better at doing it than they were.

[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

If Dent was going to take a minute to look for his box, Indy intended to do the same. Finding the one labeled "Harry Lucas, Jr." was the work of thirty seconds (no box for Lucas, Sr.), and he followed Dent's lead in moving it from the shelf to the floor, the better to paw through it.

The stuff wasn't his. That was obvious at first glance, but he went over it all anyway, pulling each item out one at a time with his free hand laying it on the floor. On top was a piece of cloth that, when unfolded, turned out to be a dark-colored uniform. "Janitor's clothes," Indy muttered to himself in annoyance. The bastards.

Underneath the uniform were a nondescript white undershirt and belt, and under those was something that felt like a thick magazine. He inspected that more carefully, tilting the flashlight so he could read the cover: American Journal of Archaeology, 99:1. It was dated 1995, but it was so well-thumbed that the cover was threatening to come off in his hand. Indy leafed through it and found that it contained a long article on recent developments in archaeometry, which he made a mental note to read the minute he had time. The section on dendrochronology--still a relatively young field, at least as far as he was concerned--alone was already a worthwhile prize for the night's efforts.

There were still a few small objects at the bottom of the box, though, which turned out to be a set of keys and two slips of paper--no, two photographs. Both looked recent, in the sense that he looked at most a year or two younger than he did now, but otherwise they were mind-bogglingly futuristic. One was of him and Dad(!) at a baseball stadium, grinning cheerfully for the camera. The other was of him and Marion.

He'd never been to those places or worn those clothes, or even seen the type of camera that must have produced these photos. How the hell had they gotten them? And--the thought made his chest seize up with an uncomfortably strong sensation somewhere between panic and fury--did it mean they'd gotten to Marion too?

Indy stood up abruptly, shoving the photos into a jacket pocket in the same motion. He rolled up the journal (completely dislodging the cover, but he needed his hands free) and left that sticking out of the other pocket, then tied the white shirt to the belt and cinched the belt loosely around his waist. The uniform and keys he put back in the box. The box went back on the shelf, and Indy turned toward the door. "Ready?" he asked Dent. He wanted to get out of here.

[dualistic]

Harvey had already opened up his box by the time that Jones got to his, and the first thing he saw was a slightly wrinkled button-up shirt with a tie to match. They looked like the sort of style he would wear (and the shirt was the right size, at that), but they didn't belong to him. Frowning, he pulled both out and set them aside.

The next thing was a thick file of papers. He yanked it out and sat it in his lap, quickly realizing that it was notes on some sort of legal case with "Aaron Eckhart" as the prosecutor. Using his flashlight, he quickly scanned over the details. It seemed like a run of the mill murder case, but once again, the names and the specifics weren't familiar to him. Scowling, he threw the file to his side, ignoring the loud whump sound it made when it hit the floor.

From the sounds of it, Jones wasn't too happy with what he was finding either, but Harvey was too vested in his own box to pay too much attention to the other man. He pulled out a wallet next, flipping it open to see a fake driver's license (with his picture on it -- just the sort of bad-quality mugshot that would be expected) with inaccurate details. The city wasn't even right. There was no cash in the wallet, not even a few coins.

What he did find folded into one of the wallet's sleeves was a crumpled photograph. For a moment, he wasn't sure he wanted to look, but he forced himself. Instead of what he'd been scared of, the picture was of himself and Gordon of all people. He immediately gritted his teeth in response, since seeing that face again was enough to dredge up all of his anger and his need for vengeance.

It was the sort of picture that could have been taken of them before the accident. He was smiling in it, showing his teeth for the camera, while Gordon looked vaguely uncomfortable about the whole thing. They were standing close enough to come across as acquaintances, but not so close that anyone would call them friends. Just business associates.

This picture had never been taken. He knew that much. He would have remembered it, and so his mind wildly searched for a logical explanation. Maybe someone had manipulated it using computer software. It was hard to know for certain, but it had to be something along those lines. Regardless, the picture was clearly meant as a slap in the face and so he crumpled it in his hand and tossed it back into the box along with the wallet and the folder.

He shoved the box aside angrily, not even bothering to put it back on the shelf. The shirt and tie he picked up as he stood, right in time to respond to Jones' question. "Yeah," he snapped. This whole thing had been a waste of time.

Pushing past both of the other patients, Harvey exited the room.

[dualistic]

[To here.]