damned_institute | Day 51: Breakfast

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Day 51: Breakfast

Yuffie Kisaragi, indomitable bouncing ball of sunshine and unfathomable ebullience, was tired. It'd been a long night full of gibberish and getting nowhere fast.

"Can't I—"

Plucky, who had been busily loading a plate full of French toast and bacon, tittered. "I'm afraid not, Hanna, darling. A chat over a nice, hearty breakfast would do you a world of good, don't you think?"

"Aaaaactually—"

"Come on, let's find you a seat. Plenty to choose from this morning!"

For a long moment, Yuffie seriously considered doing something—anything—to act out. Punch her nurse, rub jam in an orderly's face, climb a wall and hang off the ceiling, jump on a table and parody Loveless… A ruckus like that would definitely jolt her back into gear, right? Sedation aside. And it'd turn Plucky's good day right on its head, which was always a bonus worth shooting for.

But, by the time she'd reached a decision—and it was an epic decision, a really awesome one; everybody'd appreciate the genius, she was sure—she was already alone. Her breakfast tray had been set down neatly by the nurse, who had left with an infuriatingly winsome smile.

"Wow," Yuffie muttered. Shaking her head, she picked a chair at random and threw herself into it. She kicked back, one arm slung across her eyes, to wait. For what, she wasn't totally sure. Some moron to decide that she looked like good company? That was how it usually went.

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For once, no immediate sign of displeasure appeared on Soma's face, and she made no movement to throw the bowl of fruit at his head. Her grip tightened briefly on her fork for a moment as he approached, but that was all. In a way it was almost--not relieving--but not a bad thing--to see that he was still alive. He was a familiar face in here, and it was good to know the Institute hadn't killed him before she had.

You know, said something in her head, you want to get out more than you want to kill him right now, and she was surprised to find that it was true. Just don't think about why he isn't attacking you here, because that's a dangerous line of thought.

"Yes," she said, still a little wary. Did he know what it did? Well, she wasn't going to ask for his help, even if he already knew she didn't know what it did. She'd ask someone else.

"...what does it do?"

There was no attack immediately forthcoming, for which Allelujah was grateful. He didn't want to get sedated again. He didn't like the thought of having to fight her, even to defend himself and this was exactly why Hallelujah hadn't wanted him to know who the HRL's super-soldier was. Part of him wished that he didn't know now. It would make it much easier to defend himself and kill her if he had to in the future.

But there was time enough for that later, when they were trapped and when they didn't have a common enemy.

It was so much easier to fight when both sides were hidden behind mobile suits.

He set his tray down, settling into the seat opposite her, giving her an uncertain look before starting to eat slowly. She didn't know hm? Had she slept through the announcement then? Or perhaps it was a ploy to see if he was going to deceive her. "If you break the stone, then you travel to the last area you were in the previous night," he said after a moment. "I assume it only works during the night, otherwise there'd be people vanishing in front of us."

Soma nodded slightly, though she didn't make a move towards her food until he had started eating himself.

"If Landel gave it to us, I'm not inclined to trust it," she said firmly. "Does anyone know whether or not it actually works?"

She deliberately left out the part about having fallen asleep: it felt like an admission of weakness, though she was certain it hadn't been her fault.

Allelujah had to agree with that. "I can't help but think that anything he gives us is some part of a game. He doesn't seem the type to offer things with entirely altruistic intentions." Not when he'd been the one to bring them there. Being imprisoned by a person did tend to colour your opinion of them for some reason.

He shook his head at the question, stabbing idly at his food. "No-one that I know. I'm not sure if people will have tried it yet." It was perhaps something that he should attempt tonight. Get as far away from the place as he could, and then break the stone.

That was the thing, Soma wanted to say out loud but didn't, that was the thing about Landel that was utterly infuriating. At least she knew where she stood with Celestial Being; at least the terrorist calmly eating his breakfast across from her was perfectly clear about what his purpose was, even if she hated him for it. She didn't do well with mind games.

"I'll ask about it on the bulletin board," she resolved, taking a determined bite of fruit. "If he's given something that helps us get as far away from the institute as possible, there has to be a catch."

She paused as a thought struck her. Could the ring be fixed once it was broken? "Then again, if the item can only be used once, I doubt anyone will want to try using it so soon."

"I doubt it's going to stop us being dragged back here in the morning, no matter how far we get during the night," Allelujah said, sourness tingeing his voice.Which meant that either the field which held them was much larger than he wanted to contemplate, or the rings were themselves part of that trap. Either way, it was something that just reinforced their position.

It was a temptation to withhold knowledge, to keep her in the dark because it was an advantage, albeit a slim one. But she'd find out sooner or later about the second intercom message. "You can recharge it by dropping blood onto it. But only your own blood. If someone else uses their blood to charge it, they get possession of it."

He was being surprisingly forthcoming with information. Soma didn't comment on it, but she made a note to check what he'd said with someone else. Senna had been awake last night, hadn't she?

"So it's reusable. That means that if we move a little further every night..." Then what? Then they could seek safety in zombie-ridden Doyleton? Soma shook her head. "Landel's influence has to stop somewhere. There have to be cities nearby, especially if we're in America."

"According to Landel, at least," he agreed. "But as you said, there's probably a catch somewhere. I'm not quite willing to take his words at face value." Even if it was the truth, it didn't mean that it was the entire truth. There could be all sorts of hidden prices in there somewhere.

He frowned at the thought and then shrugged. "We don't know what year it is here. Maybe the cities aren't as common as they are in the Union. And we could still be hundreds of miles away."

"I checked the bulletin board some time ago," said Soma, taking another bite of fruit. "A lot of the patients recognized the level of technology here as late twentieth or early twenty-first century."

She paused, then admitted a little grudgingly, "It doesn't change the fact that we don't know where we are in the Union--if we're really in the Union at all."

Allelujah just shrugged at that information. "I wouldn't know. I never really got the chance to study history." Perhaps there was a little bitterness in his voice then, but so be it. He would have been disposed of before getting the chance to learn anything if they'd had their way in the HRL, and Celestial Being had given him the chance to live, even if it wasn't a normal life.

"We have no way of knowing. Even language isn't a help in this matter." He paused, thinking for a moment before continuing. "Did you speak to anyone last night and find that you couldn't understand them?"

She heard the bitterness in his voice, but for once she didn't rise to the challenge. It wasn't worth it here. Besides, her knowledge of twentieth-century history wasn't exactly detailed, either. Supersoldiers had little use for history. "What I know about the time period matches with what I've been seeing and hearing. Still, I would think that it would be fairly simple to replicate all this. We could be in a different world and a different time for all we know."

She shook her head slightly. She might as well tell him the truth; it wasn't as if he could do anything about it now. But she wasn't going to let her guard down again. "I was asleep last night. That's why I asked you about the ring. Did something happen?"

She was right, it did fit with that time period but still... "During the day it fits, but even in our time, no-one has the ability to pull someone from a different universe or keep them from escaping by bringing them back each morning," he mused. "I think if it is our world, it's some time far in the future, dressed up as the past." For what reason, he couldn't imagine. There were theories about soldiers, about what they were being used for, but then, what about the visitors he kept hearing about? The people who were released and seemed to live the life the nurses wanted them to?

His lips quirked upwards a little when she admitted that she'd been asleep, a tiny flare of unkind triumph that the perfect super soldier had given in to weakness when the reject had not. "I met with a few people. There was static over the intercom, and suddenly everyone was speaking a different language. I suppose it means that they were speaking that language all along, and it just sounded like ours somehow."

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Day 51: Breakfast

Indeed it is! :D

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