damned_institute | Day 50: Patient Library (3rd Shift)

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Day 50: Patient Library (3rd Shift)

Given a choice, as should have been implied by the whole "Free Choice Day" thing, Scott would have gone straight for the Game Room. Maybe it didn't have the greatest selection of games, but he was raring for another epic Tetris match with Indy or anyone else who cared to challenge him. Unfortunately for him, however, his nurse was already onto his line of thinking.

"Now Bryan, I know how much you love your games, but don't you think some more time away from them would be good for you?" the woman asked him in a soothing tone, gently taking his shoulder when he turned toward the Game Room.

"Uh, why would I think that?" he asked, blinking at her in honest confusion.

"Well, I know your family was worried about more than just your condition before you came here. They're hoping you can start to wean yourself down to a more healthy level of enjoyment with your games, too," the nurse explained with continuing gentleness.

"Yeah. And?" Scott raised an eyebrow. "It's Free Choice Day, isn't it? Don't I get to choose and stuff?"

"Of course, Bryan. But I'm still here to make suggestions, and I think you'd do well with a different activity today." The woman smiled at him, genuine care and concern in her expression. "You can always come here later in the week. It'll probably be more rewarding if you wait, too."

Scott was silent, considering the advice. He raised an index finger. "Well, I suppose... Uh, yeah no. Please to be going to the Game Room now, thanks."

The nurse frowned.

Five minutes of irritatingly gentle coaxing later, and Scott found himself in the patient library. "Stupid guilt tripping never even talked to my real mom and dad I bet I could be playing Tetris right now they don't even have any cool books in here..." he grumbled to himself under his breath as he lazily perused the shelves. He picked a book completely at random, The Oxford Book of English Verse. He was half-hoping that maybe pulling the book out would trigger something more exciting, like a secret item appearing, a bonus stage unlocking, or a new shortcut tunnel opening. But no, Landel's reality was boring as ever. "Maybe there'll be an awesome poem or something in here, at least," he told himself as he headed over to an empty seat with a short sigh.

[Unknowingly waiting for Sam]

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Hime looked away from the shelves when she saw another come into the back - just the man she was waiting for, as it turned out.

"Hello again, Aidou," she greeted him coolly. "You're looking as well also." Physically, at least. The Royal didn't really know him well enough to tell if that quiet demeanor was normal or indicative of something. Not that it was her problem. Considering they'd only talked once, she was curious as to why he'd called her out.

"Is there a particular reason for this meeting?" the princess asked. Then a small hint of a smile graced her lips, a change from their last meeting now that she was no longer as confused and cautious as her first day. "Or did you just miss my company?"

The vampire had briefly closed his eyes and nodded, but it was her final question that made him look again, one eyebrow lifted higher than the other. Of the things that had changed between then and now, those animal eyes of hers hadn’t changed.

"I hardly know you well enough to be pining," came his easy reply, "but I was curious to know how your stay has been going." There was but one real answer to a question like his, of course. They were still here, still being toyed with by an arrogant group of cowards, and he didn’t believe she’d been exempt from episodes of degradation any more than he had. But… He turned, leaning his back against the shelves with arms crossed. "You’ve probably acclimatized to the place by now."

Meaning she’d gotten a handle on how the nights worked and had more experience than in the beginning. He didn’t think he needed to spell out what he was getting at.

"If you need a particular reason, though… I do have a question about what you’ve been up to."

"Fufun," Hime chuckled at his reply to her jest, retaining a small amount of that humor as she answered his questions. "Well, I'm still alive. On the other hand, I'm still here. So you could say things could be better or worse."

She was doing well in a poor situations, so it couldn't really be said that she was actually doing all that well or all that poorly. Just as the meaning of Aidou's statement didn't need to be said aloud, so too the fact that she had indeed acclimated go unsaid, her own relatively uninjured presence proof enough of this.

"I could ask the same of you," she replied. "Though I suppose you did first. Currently I and those I've been working with - hmm, but that number has decreased, hasn't it? We've been focusing on arming ourselves and challenging the basement. While we've had some success with the former, the latter yet remains elusive."

Aidou was also still alive and also still working towards flipping the tables on his enemies, so interest in his endeavours hardly came as a shock. She couldn’t have known the first time, but within the Institute’s time frame, he had been around a long, long time. At this point, probably longer than only one or two others that he knew of.

That she’d built up a group of allies in the past week wasn’t strange, either, nor was hearing that it’d experienced some losses already. And neither was mention of the basement, for it was the main reason he’d thought of her.

He let a moment pass, absorbing her answer, before zeroing in on the topic he had the most vested interest in. "I did learn from your bulletin notes that you were going down to the basement…" said the vampire. "We have that in common--I’m keen to know what it all holds. So if you’re willing to divulge, I wanted to know what you’ve accomplished." Even assembling a relatively stable group of three or more to make multiple trips was worthy of some regard, considering Aidou had had just as much trouble as success in that arena.

Thinking about it, there was no reason to be surprised - though of course she had given her message the minimal amount of disguise necessary to pass the nurse's inspection, it was easy enough to read for all those who knew the night's true face.

"Unfortunately there's little to divulge, other than having made it to the main area of the basement and confirming its existence," she admitted a little sourly. "I've only been there once, only for the night to end before we actually challenged whatever trial Landel had set up for us. The attempts following were delayed first by one of our members to go missing and then last night well... you can imagine little progress of a planned nature was made last night." Of course, she'd made far more progress of an unplanned nature. "So at the moment, there's only one other than I can rely on to be able to work with at night - too short of hand to try again."

Of course, if this was where Aidou's interests lay, perhaps that could be changed.

… Well, he sensed no lie. That was disappointing. Consolidating information from someone who had seen an area of the basement he hadn’t would have been very helpful, but the female appeared to have been waylaid by similar challenges. At least where the basement was concerned. Her mention of the previous night’s oddities was rhetorical, needing no reply; he was glad of that. Imagining was about all he could do at the moment.

But one thing at a time.

Aidou glanced at the shelf ahead of him, reflecting on what she’d revealed. By the sounds of it, along with making it to the basement, she also had an inkling of the door system. He thought it more likely than pure dependence on groupwork. Creatures like this Hime, who were neither human nor vampire were more harmful than harmless, he’d found.

“I see. That is unfortunate. But you plan to keep trying?”

If Hime knew of Aidou's nature and thoughts, she would say that he was probably the more dangerous one. Though she would agree that she was far from harmless, the Royal was fine working with others. Preferably with her as the leader.

"It seems like one of the more promising courses of action at the moment," the Royal explained. Promise of danger or reward though, was the question. Still, there was that other matter. "It could be subject to change though depending on what kind of aid we receive from our supposed allies outside."

Marc... Hime had never heard Jack and had little knowledge of Jill, but Marc was a living, breathing human being that she had met in person and had so far proven trustworthy. Between what was likely twisted entertainment for the doctor and what might actually be a helpful ally, the choice was easy.

Aidou had to agree, the area below them still had too many answered questions, compared to the first and second floors of the building. He had yet to explore some of the doorways, nor had he discovered what his miniature shield and Sasuke’s miniature sword were for, or if there were more, or if they even had a purpose. It seemed safe to assume that he and the female had similar ideas in mind, whether or not she had learned anything about the trials herself.

He wasn’t so sure about the outside help she’d brought up. Turning his head, the noble gave her a questioning look. Had she something in mind when she said something like that? Because Aidou rested a lot of weight on the ‘supposed’ part of her sentence and didn’t assume any aid was impending. As of yet, there had been little in the way of physical assistance, only more riddles, excuses, and blind alleys. And the radio was certainly more useless now, during Hime’s stay, than it had been in the past.

“So you believe there are allies working from without?” Though it was mild, there was no mistaking the skepticism in his tone. She wasn’t honestly pinning hope on the possibility, was she?

"I'm not entirely sure, but last night provided some significant evidence towards that," Hime answered. "Last night, we actually met one of them, a man by the name of Marc who is in the same organization as Jack and Jill before him." Well, not that the second name meant much, as far as she'd heard from the patients lately, but it seemed most of the older patients respected the original man on the radio. "He intends to reveal himself tonight, but I figure he wouldn't mind us telling others what to listen for."

The "supposed" part came from the fact that Hime wasn't sure whether they could wholly trust these allies, not as to their existence - a flesh and blood person was far different from just a voice on the radio. Still, either could just be another pawn, so she had to be cautious. Some risks were worth taking though.

Hold on--

“You met him?”

If there was a piece of information the noble hadn’t been expecting, it was that. He’d automatically straightened and pushed off from the shelf, surprise in his features. Claiming to have encountered one of whoever they were, the radio group, would be enough to catch anyone’s attention, as evasive as the so-called organization was. Stumbling across them was no small feat. Still more was the fact she had mentioned a third figure.

Aidou remembered when the first man had made an appearance in the library for a night, though he hadn’t witnessed it himself. Now this other guy was doing the same thing? The back-and-forth from two nights ago had hinted at a third party, but he hadn’t heard a thing about someone actually finding him in the forest like the girl on the radio had said… He began rapidly cycling through the intercom announcements and radio transmissions in his head, looking more closely for the connections. Last night, by “new friend”… Had Landel meant this Marc person?

Absently, he brought a hand to his hair. “How did that happen?” The doors, of course. No doubt something to do with the door problems. “I can’t believe it was random.”

Hime couldn't help but smirk a little at Aidou's reaction - that little piece of information seems to have gotten a reaction from the reserved noble. Of course, the significance of this wasn't anything small, and much the reason why the usually reserved Royal thought it might actually be worth following.

"Indeed," she confirmed with a nod. "Well, it wasn't a random effort on his part, though it was on ours. Apparently he managed to modify whatever spell was being used last night to cause the doors to act the way they were so that the door to his hiding spot was included. We just happened to be the first to stumble across him."

Perhaps not so glamorous as being chosen, but Hime didn't need a silly thing like destiny. The fact that she'd met him at all was enough.

What was with all these shady characters crawling out of the woodwork? Aidou wasn’t even certain Alec Doyle--or Jack or whatever his name was--was really dead, and now another man was making his mark. Thinking of this new person as an ally was out of the question, but he had no overwhelming reason to disbelief the female--that meant there was a new player to consider, at the very least. The act of appearing before prisoners had purpose.

“So where was he? And what did he want? Just to tell you he was going to ‘reveal’ himself?”

This Marc development opened a whole new set of questions. Included was the broad possibility of last night’s travels. Some believed they’d gone home, some had bumped into one of the assumed radio people… What else had happened and where else had people gone?

"Underground, partly. It seemed like some kind of shelter," Hime described, recalling the wet smell of earth among the musty other scents, none of them particularly pleasant. "He said it was in the mountains to the east, hard to access on foot from the institute. Apparently it was where Jack used to broadcast from."

Meaning he had access to many of the resources the original man on the radio had. What that meant though, Hime would have to see, having not gotten more than vague descriptions of the predecessor's work - though his help in directing their travels afterward was an encouraging sample.

"As for what he wanted... I think he just wanted to get in contact with the patients, likely to help spread the word that we should keep our radios handy at night again, since it seems the general population had lately lost faith in the devices." She'd have to leave a notice on the bulletin if Depth Charge hadn't already, or perhaps any other visitors Marc had entertained last night. "And probably to gain our trust, something not easily gotten."

And something he'd still not gotten, at least not entirely, not from Hime. It would take more than just a helpful push to the gardening shed to get anything resembling that, but she wasn't about to disregard what he said out of hand.

The vampire certainly didn’t know of a place near the hospital that met the female’s description. An underground shelter in the mountains, where the radio broadcast was coming from, hm? Aidou could see the peaks in his mind’s eye, the distance between smelling of blood and blurred by mist as they had been each time he’d set foot beyond the Institute’s walls.

Dragging his fingers through his hair, he frowned at a spot somewhere to the left of Hime. It was pure luck that he was finding this out now. With the apparent randomness of the event, and the fact that information such as the kind she had didn’t always pass through enough hands to become public, Aidou had done little more than stumble into the discovery.

And he hated it. Landel and his monstrosities, the radio people and their associates. He hated how they left him grasping at straws.

“Is that all he said? I assume from your words he was enormously vague, whatever was said.” Or it was possible the female was withholding information. Aidou returned his sharp gaze to her. It was possible, though the reasons why someone would reveal this sort of story without finishing it, or modifying it, were questionable. Half-truths weren’t what truly concerned him, anyway, when there was truth to it at all. “What did he look like?”

"He was rather vague about his exact intentions and goals, though he made it clear he intends to succeed Jack's role to the best of his abilities," Hime elaborated. "We spent more time asking about who he was and where he came from in the brief time we had with him, and about the basement - though it seems he knows as little about it as we do. Apparently it's one of Landel's more guarded secrets, which just makes it all the more suspicious, don't you think?"

Perhaps this was just a windfall for Aidou, but it was as much for him as it was for her - but to the Royal, her energy was better spent utilizing these random gains than lamenting their randomness.

"Hmm... Caucasian, short blond hair, blue eyes, somewhat tall features but of medium height," she recalled. "I can't say there was much else that particularly stood out about him - though if he's supposed to be a secret agent or rebel, that's probably for the best."

That this person hadn’t been tangibly helpful wasn’t much of a stretch. Following in his predecessor’s footsteps, indeed. “And did he answer?” said Aidou, though the question was more rhetorical than not. No doubt Marc looked down his nose at the prisoners like everyone else involved with the Institute, and being upfront about his whereabouts and function would go against the spirit of the game. The noble couldn’t think of their situation in any other terms.

Likewise, if Marc did know of the basement, how likely was it that he’d convey his knowledge? It sounded like the encounter had been more of the usual--the dropping of obscure hints and enticement to keep paying attention to one piece of junk or the other, in this case the radios.

Slowly, he brought his arms together to fold them across his chest. Hime’s question required little answer. Any of Landel’s secrets, as well as his truths, were suspect. As were his so-called enemies.

About the lack of notable characteristics… “Does that mean,” Aidou began, “that you couldn’t tell whether he was human or not?”

"He did, actually, though not with much more than could already be inferred," Hime replied. "He gave us his name and told us he was part of the same resistance group as Jack and Jill. He'd been the one Jill had been urging us to save the night before and had traveled to Doyleton after that before coming to his current hideout last night. Though, I suppose it may have been helpful to question where he had come from before that and the origins of their group - I had never met or really listened to any of these people before in the first place, so even knowing as much as he had told us had been something of a surprise." Looking back, their time with Marc had been something of a golden opportunity that wasn't likely to come around again any time soon - but then, how much would Marc have actually spilled? He still was quite secretive about some of the larger things.

"Hmm... well, I didn't see anything that marked him as non-human," she replied, "like some of the tattoos or other subtle things that give us away." A smirk, one that clearly revealed her pronounced, fang-like canines. "But then, just because he lacks those things doesn't mean he's human."

He’d said he’d travelled to Doyleton before moving to the mountains? Aidou followed this line of thought while he listened, reorganizing the timeline in his mind. Why Doyleton?

And then there were these ‘subtle things’…

The vampire blinked down at the female. How much of it was a creature’s appearance and behavior giving them away versus how well she could sense a lack of humanity? She made it sound like Marc hadn’t made an impression on her instincts… which could very well be true, Aidou thought. He couldn’t be confident of his own judgments unless something irrefutable like blood confirmed them. And even then…

He didn’t respond to her pointed gesture. If she didn’t already know what he was (and what he wasn’t), Aidou wasn’t going make a display of baring his fangs in return. “Yes,” he agreed shortly. “Your night was curious, at any rate. You believe he will do something extreme tonight?”

Unfortunately, as knowledgeable as Hime was about various monsters and such, she had no innate sense of them, basing her assessments instead on observation, experience and context. The institute's tendency to humanize its prisoners, as well as the differences between parallel (and not-so-parallel) dimensions made much of that useless. Perhaps a gut feeling, little ways in how he talked and what about made her suspect Aidou might be something other than human, but it was just a feeling and not something she could say with confidence.

"Extreme? I somehow doubt it," she replied with a sigh. "Even if he does promise to be more straightforward and proactive that his predecessors, he's still cautious of Landel - what happens tonight will likely be all through the radio." Though, if he did use that computer of his to do something a bit more flashy, well, Hime wouldn't say no to that. Was Marc capable of something like that though?

The surprise of hearing about the female’s unusual night had stirred his thoughts into a tumult, more so than the information he had gleaned from Anise, being that he had seen the ruins with his own eyes. He could not say the same of this Marc figure.

Now that he knew, well, he would undoubtedly have to take his radio with him…

Aidou let out his own soft sigh and once again stepped back against the bookshelves. The latest discovery was just one more fact to keep in mind, as was Hime‘s opinion of the man she‘d met. He didn’t like that he was on the outside of the equation, but he had to make do with what he could infer from others. Sometimes that was enough. Or it’d have to be, for the moment.

“I see,” he said simply. A beat of silence passed before he added, “And what do you plan to do? The basement?”

"Eventually, but not tonight," the Royal replied. "As I mentioned we're still down enough people. Besides, I obtained some other interesting items last night, but there are some tools I'll need to put them to use - I intend to grab those tonight. Conveniently, that also means being available with the radios when Marc starts his broadcast."

Of course, this would be the real time of assessment for the radio man - whether she abandoned her own short-term goals for whatever clues he gave them would depend entirely on him and if she thought he was worth the time. He'd proven good so far, but there was always room to unimpress the princess.

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Day 50: Patient Library (3rd Shift)

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