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damned_institute2010-06-12 01:08 am
its-the-mileage.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_institute2010-06-12 01:08 am
Entry tags:
Night 49: Homeworld - Barnett College
[from here]
This time the transition--or whatever the hell it was--made him dizzier than usual, and Indy instinctively put a hand out to steady himself as he went through, the knuckles of his flashlight hand making contact with the wall. "Damn," he muttered, blinking to clear his head and hefting the flashlight to see where in God's name they'd ended up now.
Then he realized he didn't need the flashlight. The lights were off, but pale sunlight was filtering in through what seemed to be undusted windows.
Then he realized he hadn't been leaning on the wall, but a tall wooden shelf.
Then he realized he knew exactly where he was.
His office looked just the way he'd left it. Magnifying instruments and piles of paperwork were still spread across the desk, the shelves were still crammed to claustrophobic proportions with dozens of artifacts he'd picked up during his travels, the refrigerator in the corner was still giving off the same questionable smell (he really needed to get around to cleaning that out one of these months). There was no doubt about it. He was back.
Indy almost stumbled forward into the room and sat down heavily at the desk--his desk. A brief pang of wariness hit him (it couldn't be this easy, could it?), but mostly what he felt was almost shell-shocked, and it probably showed. He rifled through the precarious-looking stack of paper in the center of the desk, sending envelopes over the edges. Irene had even been collecting his mail.
This time the transition--or whatever the hell it was--made him dizzier than usual, and Indy instinctively put a hand out to steady himself as he went through, the knuckles of his flashlight hand making contact with the wall. "Damn," he muttered, blinking to clear his head and hefting the flashlight to see where in God's name they'd ended up now.
Then he realized he didn't need the flashlight. The lights were off, but pale sunlight was filtering in through what seemed to be undusted windows.
Then he realized he hadn't been leaning on the wall, but a tall wooden shelf.
Then he realized he knew exactly where he was.
His office looked just the way he'd left it. Magnifying instruments and piles of paperwork were still spread across the desk, the shelves were still crammed to claustrophobic proportions with dozens of artifacts he'd picked up during his travels, the refrigerator in the corner was still giving off the same questionable smell (he really needed to get around to cleaning that out one of these months). There was no doubt about it. He was back.
Indy almost stumbled forward into the room and sat down heavily at the desk--his desk. A brief pang of wariness hit him (it couldn't be this easy, could it?), but mostly what he felt was almost shell-shocked, and it probably showed. He rifled through the precarious-looking stack of paper in the center of the desk, sending envelopes over the edges. Irene had even been collecting his mail.
no subject
When they stepped through the door, Harvey had been expecting the same level of disorientation they'd been dealing with all night, but this was far worse. His head started spinning as if his body had just been dipped upside-down, but the next thing he knew his feet were on the ground and he was stumbling toward a very cluttered shelf.
He grasped for the side of it to regain his balance and almost knocked a very dirty piece of pottery over in the process. Quick reflexes allowed him to right the artifact before it went crashing to the floor. Finally, his head cleared and he straightened, looking around him with a puzzled expression.
There was sun coming in through the nearby window. Had they just suddenly jumped forward in time, like what always happened at end of night? It hadn't felt the same, and they clearly weren't back in their beds. Where was this place? It was a very cluttered office -- he could tell that much -- but other than that...
Glancing down to the desk that Jones had fallen in, Harvey watched as the man paged through papers with a strange familiarity. He glanced back to the shelf and took in the knick-knacks with a renewed understanding. Were they really...?
"Where are we?" he asked. "Is this your office?" Jones couldn't just leave them hanging here. How had this happened?
no subject
He was relieved then, when the door opened but that was by far the worst of the doorways that Allelujah had been through that night. His vision swam nauseatingly, leaving him feeling dizzy and light-headed and as though he was soon going to get a throbbing headache. It was decidedly unpleasant and left him reeling for several moments, stumbling until he ended up leaning against a wall.
Bookshelf.
Bookshelf?
Allelujah squinted into the surprisingly bright room, finding himself face to face with a shelf full of leather bound books in various states of distress. This didn't look like the Institute library at all. He turned around (slowly, slowly was good) and peered at the room, confusion making his lips curve downwards into a small frown. A heavy desk and windows... windows looking out on bright gardens and... This wasn't the Institute. It wasn't even the town. It was also a completely different time of day but that seemed like a paltry concern when compared to the fact that they appeared to be in someone's office. 'Jones's' office apparently. He certainly looked comfortable enough with the place.
"We're in your own office?" he asked, a little incredulously. And there was that little spark that wondered if maybe... maybe this was it. He was out of the Institute. Wrong time, wrong place, but still out.
no subject
That was the first he'd noticed that the two other men were there with him. He turned back around to them, face still slack with astonishment of his own. "Yeah, it's my office," he explained. "This is Barnett College, Fairfield, New York." 1938, Indy added mentally with a start. Had to be. They were back. But how the hell had it happened? And how was he going to get Dent and the kid (whose name he still didn't know) back where they belonged?
Just as he thought that, a feminine voice edged with a note of panic sounded from the hallway outside the office. "Dr. Brody, there you are! Have you heard anything about Dr. Jones?"
"Irene?" Indy said aloud in surprise (he'd know that frazzled tone anywhere; it seemed to be her default state with regards to him), then added distractedly for the other two, "Secretary." He was already halfway to the door when Marcus--Indy's chest tightened in affection and relief; good old Marcus!--answered, "No, not yet, but I'm sure it will be only a matter of time."
He was trying to sound reassuring, but he wasn't doing a very convincing job of it. Evidently Irene felt the same way, because she said doubtfully, "But he's been missing for two weeks. I know he does a lot of...unexpected traveling during the term, but he always at least mentions that he'll be gone--"
"Dr. Brody!" a third voice piped up, quickly followed by others. Indy finally reached the door and swung it open to see four or five undergrads coming from down the hall and descending on Marcus and Irene like sharks in bloody water. "It's almost finals week and he hasn't even graded our term papers!" "Your teaching's been really interesting, Dr. Brody, but..." "I heard Dr. Snedly said Dr. Jones is really going to be in for it this time."
Indy groaned under his breath and stepped forward. "All right, everyone," he announced in a loud, deliberately placating voice, "I'm sorry for my absence, but I'm back now. And I'll get to those papers as soon as I possibly can." Maybe after the refrigerator and the amphora.
The occupants of the hallway just kept talking. No one even looked up. "Hey!" Indy said, even louder, just in case they hadn't heard him, and he took another stride closer so none of them could miss the fact that he was standing there.
They didn't react at all. Not even Marcus.
Indy paled.
no subject
Fairfield, New York. Harvey had never heard of it, which probably meant that it was some small town in the upper part of the state. At least it gave him some idea of where they were (though did it give them any clue as to where the institute was?), though this was not where he wanted to be. The obvious solution was to hitch a ride to Gotham without looking back, but for some reason, he doubted it was that easy.
When a voice cut in, Harvey raised an eyebrow and then took in Jones' explanation. A secretary, how... old-fashioned. At least he and Rachel had been on equal ground, although he wasn't going to make too many assumptions about Jones just yet. He hadn't realized that the guy taught on the side, though.
As more and more of the situation unfolded as they eavesdropped, Harvey started to put it together. So the man had definitely been missed, which meant that Landel hadn't even bothered with a cover-up. It made Harvey wonder about what everyone in Gotham thought had happened to him, but chances were the press had taken care of all of that.
When Jones opened the door, Harvey took in the secretary, the older man (Mr. Brody, apparently), and... students, who looked like they were dressed for an era-themed play. Harvey's jaw tightened. He had a bad feeling about this, and that only worsened when Jones addressed the whole crowd and got no response.
"Looks like you aren't exactly popular," he spoke up, half to needle Jones and half to see if they responded to his voice, but... nothing. This was getting more bizarre by the minute.
no subject
New York? It... didn't look like the New York that he knew, but that was only in passing and everything that he had seen was so far in the past, this even moreso. There wasn't even a computer on the desk, or a television, definitely not one of the little communicators that Allelujah was used to carrying around. He suspected that if he were to go beyond this building, there wouldn't be anything like that either. "It all looks so archaic," he murmured. "What year is it?" Certainly not his. Not even close to it. The Institute, at least, hadn't looked so obviously in the past but this? This just made him feel uneasy.
He crossed the room, moving closer to the other two men as he listened carefully to the conversation going on outside, frowning as it continued. Time had obviously passed since the man had been in the Institute if they were talking as though he was missing, and that was worrying. He paled a little at the implications. If he had been missing for as long as he'd been in the Institute, he'd be declared dead he was sure, or captured. Not a thought that he relished. He couldn't have been gone for so long! What was happening in the fight if he'd been gone? They were already one man down with Lockon dead. Two Meisters couldn't stand up to the massed forces of Earth!
He tuned back in to the conversation just as Jones called out to the people outside, only to receive no response. Just blank silence as though he had said nothing at all. He felt his throat go slightly dry. "They had to have heard you," he said. "They're only outside, they can't have not heard you." He was half tempted to grab the far too old to care about vase and throw it to get a reaction from the people outside.
no subject
So that was the catch. They were back, but only as observers, like ghosts in a campfire story. But his mail had been solid enough. The amphora Dent had almost knocked off the shelf had been all too tangible. It was just that no one could hear or see them.
Indy ducked back through the door to his desk, groped through the avalanche of mail for a pen, and scrawled "I'M BACK" in rapid block capitals on the back of an envelope. Then he returned to where he'd been standing in the hall, held the sign right in front of Irene's face, tried to push it into her hand. It fell onto the floor without a glance from anyone there except him. But they'd have to realize sooner or later that someone had been in his office; how else would they explain what'd happened to the scattered mail?
Or wouldn't they? Indy remembered with a literal chill what Ryuuzaki had said about the night he was brainwashed: he didn't see or feel the ruins, even though he was standing in them. Landel hadn't just gotten to Dad. He must have reached Marcus, Irene, even the undergrads, maybe others--and then he'd brought Indy here to watch.
He turned back toward the office and the two fellow prisoners in it. "1938," he said flatly. "It's 1938."
no subject
Then again, it wasn't as if ending up here in the first place made any sort of sense, so Harvey had to wonder why he was even still trying to force the pieces to fit.
Watching Jones as he ran off to his desk in a futile attempt to leave a message (which he imagined would just be seen as some sort of prank, if the people here noticed it at all), Harvey continued to eye the secretary, Jones' friend, and all the kids. However, when he heard their tag-along's question (something he had also been wondering but wouldn't have dared ask, because he didn't really want to hear any sort of answer), Harvey glanced over his shoulder at Jones and waited for a reply.
"1938," he said, sounding out the word even though Jones had made sure to say it twice. Harvey frowned and shook his head. Monsters were one thing, but time travel was just... there was no way. He couldn't accept that. "You're nuts. There's no way..."
But Jones was familiar with this place. He knew it, and he thought that it was in the past. How was Harvey supposed to account for that? He could assume that Jones was just off his rocker completely and utterly (despite acting sane enough in other instances), but that still didn't explain this place.
no subject
Watching Jones practically shove the paper into the secretary's face seemed like pretty conclusive proof to him that while they might be present, they apparently didn't exist to anyone else surrounding them. If he'd been more superstitious, or at least more fiction-savvy, he might have considered the possibility that they had somehow died and reappeared as ghosts, but as it was, Allelujah was a staunch believer that those who had died were dead, corpses in the dirt or in the vacuum of space and that was an end to it. He'd never found the idea of an afterlife particularly comforting. "Maybe you should try smashing the pot," he said mildly. "They'd have to notice that."
He just blinked and stared for a moment as he was told the date. "Three hundred and seventy years," he murmured. That was such a long time ago. More than he could imagine. No wonder everything seemed so ridiculous archaic. They didn't even have space flight yet! No satellites. They had cars right? He thought that they had cars. "That's... nearly four hundred years ago." He reached out a hand, steadying himself on the bookcase. He thought that he might have gone white at the information. The Institute was obviously an unreal place, not quite any on thing, but having a definite date, that was...