Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

Somehow, after their talk in the chapel, Elaine felt simultaneously more accepting of and more irritated by her future husband. On the one hand, seven years had clearly been good to him. He seemed more sincere and thoughtful than he had been before his disappearance, and he had a more mature (dare she say, handsome?) look to him. On the other hand, there were clearly some things that made even time throw up its hands in vain and say, "To hell with this!" Guybrush was still inexorably prone to disastrous accidents if the story about the Pox of LeChuck was anything to go by, and he was so obviously keeping something important from her that any passing dolt in the Institute would have been able to tell. In the end, that eternal underlying sweetness of his that won out, keeping her from punching him again, at least. That was only by a hairs width, though. Her snugglecakes was going to have to stay on his best behaviour if he knew what was good for him.

She left the Mighty Pirate™ alone for the time being when the announcement of the next shift went off. He would want some time to catch up with Morgan next, presumably. As much as the woman's attitude bothered her, she was a friend of Guybrush's, as she had claimed. Elaine could be strict, but she wasn't the kind of shrewish future wife/past fiancé who would keep her man from seeing his friends. Besides, she needed some more time to catch up on the goings-on of the Institute. Patients filled the building to the brim, now, it seemed; there would be a lot to investigate.

After a few quick trips back and forth to the bulletin and a few new leads to follow up on, the governor gave in to her nurse's persistent nagging and headed to the cafeteria for brunch. After the relatively light fare of the day before, Elaine took advantage of the Institute's admittedly scrumptious offerings and loaded up a full, balanced brunchfast of eggs, sausage links, waffles, and vegetable soup. As expected, the selection of drinks did not offer either root beer or grog. Grog she could live without, at least, she thought while making a face. Eugh. For now, she settled for a tall glass of water.

Elaine settled into a seat in the cafeteria and tucked into her meal. Her eyes didn't stay on her food, though, instead gazing around restlessly; she hadn't seen LeChuck so far this morning, and god forbid he wanted to invite himself to brunch with her if he chose now to show up. A certain horribly unpleasant dinner on Mêlée Island came to mind. She was prepared to either move at the first sign of the dread pirate or signal a random stranger to sit with her before he could.

[For Dean]

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[number-crunch.livejournal.com]

Sho was in a foul mood. His second encounter with the questionable Alvin Draper, his second period of time completely wasted. It was a small sample size, but the mathematician didn't exactly have a lot of spare time to experiment.

Arguing with that kid on the board hadn't helped his mood any either. As for the lack of legitimate responses, Sho wasn't sure whether he had positive or negative feelings about the lack of other Reapers. Heck, even some of those parsecs from parallel dimensions would have been at least interesting to investigate.

Filling up his plate with far more food that the nurses thought were necessary, Sho sat down in one of the far corners and brooded worked on his calculations.

[Free]

[catstreetblues.livejournal.com]

The tray of food slammed down first. "So, Composer, how's it hangin'?" Sanae slid into the seat across from Minamimoto and picked an apple off of his tray. He took a bite. "You're musterin' the troops, I notice."

Oh yes, he'd certainly watched that little post with interest. While on one hand he had been more than 99% sure that no other Reapers would answer, the slim chance of one actually answering was, well...too good to pass up. And of course, he had to keep up with Minamimoto's activities somehow. He was still the Producer, even if Josh was dead and he was some sort of criminal now.

[number-crunch.livejournal.com]

Minamimoto glanced up when the tray came down. Upon identifying who it was intruding on his ⁴/₃πr³ of influence, the Reaper was unsure whether to be more or less wary. Well, Hanekoma wasn't likely to actually start something himself, so he could be that much at ease. Likely the guy was just updating his data on him.

"Tch. Below average - the only data I collected was from a previously known variable and a couple of trash factors," he grumbled through a hot dog. There was some more mumbling, but it was pretty much unintelligible until he swallowed. "I mean really... the Harriers are easy enough to spot, but the wall-men? With the change in uniform functions here and no scan, I could probably have run one of 'em over and not even noticed. Landel really puts a whole damper on this thing."

[catstreetblues.livejournal.com]

The lack of violence from Minamimoto was reassuring, but also a little disturbing because violence was supposed to be the norm. What exactly, then, could this non-reaction be? Perhaps the Reaper didn't consider him a threat, which was probably the most plausible reason. There were other reasons, though, and even though the possibility was thin, Sanae would be damned if he overlooked them.

He took another noisy bite of the apple. "So this is your plan, huh? Gather the Reapers and storm the Doc - I got it right?"

It wasn't a genius plan - it was certainly a plan, but Sanae couldn't see Minamimoto coming up with just a plan - and unfortunately, it sounded rather naive. Did this mean that Minamimioto had run out of more creative options? Or was he just tossing ideas around seeing which one would work? So many questions, so little time.

[number-crunch.livejournal.com]

Though violence and yelling where Sho's usual modus operandi, both of these things tended to attract unwanted attention of the chemically sedating kind. And really? Hanekoma wasn't worth starting his day like that - besides, the man was still as potentially useful as he was potentially dangerous.

"Not necessarily, but having a few underlings would be useful - without pins or Noise, there's just too much area for be too accurately control - my numerator's too small for that denominator," Minamimoto grumbled. It hurt to admit, but even geniuses had to know when something was impossible for them - at least at the time. "Figured it's been a while since I assessed my options and might as well check all the possibilities, no matter how improbable. Can't be working with outdated data, now can I?"

It was a tame approach, sure, but considering how much he'd accomplished lately? Sometimes you needed to start over from the ground up - even the most ingeniously balanced sculpture was only just waiting to fall if the base had been chipped away to nothing.