damned_institute | Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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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Niikura was continuing to chew noisily through his burger and stare off into space when lo and behold, someone showed up. "Hey..." It came out a little garbled. He swallowed hard and tried again. "Hey, what's up, Morgan-san? Feelin' better today?" The teen smiled, although he kept his mouth shut out of decency.

Last time they'd talked, Morgan had been way off the mark - really obviously too. It'd been a little unfortunate, and Niikura had intended to check in with the guy again some time later, but then there had been that field trip. And then last night. Terrible.

"Heh, I'm a cheery ray of goddamn sunshine," Mello drawled. He sat down in his usual sprawl, and started drawing and quartering his pancakes. The loot he'd amassed last night was a good start; he just couldn't stop wishing he'd had a chance to do more. All that time wasted with Matt's temper tantrums, it was ridiculous. Still, he knew if he were back to normal, he'd be perfectly pleased about last night's work, and today's so far, so he smirked.

"I bet that bastard Landel didn't anticipate his little trick being useful to people. I made out okay. How about you?"

"Really? S'nice to hear. Other day you were a little--" Niikura paused as he took another bite of his burger and twirled a finger near his right temple. "--off, y'know?" He grinned. "Glad everything's back to normal."

The teen shrugged. Unlike most people, he hadn't been able to take advantage of anything last night. "Didn't do much. I got lost, talked to this girl for a bit, and then woke up. Nothin' useful." He waited a little bit before adding, "I was lookin' for somethin' a little more weighty; don't wanna break my flashlight over someone's head, see."

"Anyone would be 'off' if they'd been sedated." Mello chuckled, trying to pass the incident off. He believed it had been the beginning of his real troubles here, a major contributing factor to his not having been able to fight harder the night they took him upstairs. No matter how many people told him no one had managed to escape once they were chosen, he remained convinced that there had been a way he'd failed to find.

He took a bite of his pancakes. "I'm working on a plan for getting people set up with decent gear. You'll understand if I don't share the details just yet." The Institute going haywire had actually derailed that plan, for all that Mello had ended up with useful things he hadn't anticipated getting his hands on. It made him feel better just knowing his gun was hidden in his room, even as it reminded him that the chances of finding the people he'd earmarked his two bullets for were vanishingly slim. And the chances of his plan working were negligible at best, he knew damn well, and what was more, felt in his gut with the weight of certainty, as if he'd swallowed a stone. No one would follow a leader who lacked faith in his own leadership. It had been as unthinking as breathing, once, believing that anything he tried would work. Now it took a constant effort to remind himself that he'd earned the right to believe that, and faking it on the outside was still the best that got him.

"I figured," Niikua said, laughing as well. It did make him curious, though: what had Morgan done to get himself sedated? If he was going to push limits, it'd be good to know what was borderline acceptable and what led to the needles getting pulled out.

He nodded. "Aye, sensitive information, open area...I gotcha." But the teen was making it easy to see that he was excited about the prospect that the other man had just brought up. "Let me know when it all starts fallin' together, though."

Mello nodded. "Of course." He considered asking Niikura to keep an ear out for other interested parties. No. Better to be more organized first. One word overheard by the wrong person, one variable left unaccounted for, and the whole thing could go to hell. He stabbed at a pancake with the overflow of impatience. Second-guessing himself, delaying action, this wasn't like him, and he wanted to fight it by doing something right now, to prove he still could.

The thing was, he couldn't. Not here, with the cafeteria lousy with their jailer's lackeys; not now, when he still had no certainty he could get back to normal if--when--the ultimate plan worked and he got the hell out of here.

"The night after we last spoke, they took my old roommate away, and now they claim he was released. Do you know anything about those so-called experiments at night?"

Niikura shook his head. "I only know what can be inferred by any other smart guy: they're certainly not for our benefit, those experiments. They're another game, somethin' else they can dangle over our heads."

If he ever got pulled for one of those things, Niikura wouldn't mind. He was a clone. His whole mind was filled with instances of experimentation - hell, he was an experiment in his own way. And it wasn't like anything here could top what had recently happened to the last Niikura.

"Though by 'released' it sounds like they offed your old roommate in the process, probably by accident."

That certainly hadn't failed to occur to Mello; there were far too many cases of people vanishing after those damn torture sessions for them all to have been coincidentally let go. Then again, 'released' wasn't necessarily a euphemism for murdered. People got dragged in again, and people were still stuck here after having been fucked with. Case in point for both: himself. He wanted to believe Emmett had been one of the lucky ones, and, besides, he doubted slaughter was the goal. No, they'd want their victims to live on to fully experience the damage. Sharing any of these ideas, though, would only lead to questions he didn't want to answer.

"Yeah, sounds like." He sighed. "I've heard they're random, too. So much for incentive for being a model prisoner. They're one of the things I'm looking into. Let me know if you hear anything, okay?" Once he would have let it go at that, his interest being sufficient unto itself to expect an answer. Now, though, some deflection seemed in order. "Just like you said, they're a threat with no rhyme or reason behind it. I want to defuse it."

Niikura watched Morgan's face closely for any sort of interesting reaction. None occurred, but it looked like a lot had gone through the guy's mind before he had answered. Had he liked his old roommate, cared for him a lot? Or was this more data-gathering? Kind of heartless, using someone's disappearance as a way to milk for information, but he was running with it too, wasn't he?

He nodded. "Right." Actually, that sounded like a good thing to do: get more information. He was still too new, too raw. Yesterday night had proved that he couldn't go running around by himself; these weren't the streets of Japan he was roaming now. And Niikura got the feeling that a lot of people here had plenty of gems to offer up if he got them talking the right way. "Sounds good. Let me know if I can help you out with anything."

He was latching on like a ramora. Morgan was going somewhere, and Niikura would come along for the ride as far as he could go before Akumetsu could happen. If that meant playing lackey for a bit, he could deal with that.

Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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