Day 52: Game Room

[full-score.livejournal.com]

Lunch had taken his mind from his worries, if only for a few minutes. But after the intercom sounded and the nurses began leading patients onto the next activity, one look at the bulletin board brought everything back in full force. No replies from Ashton, Dias or Dad. By now Claude felt like he was practically counting down until the end of the day, when he was going to have to finally grapple with the real possibility that most of his friends from before Landel's, as well as his own father, had fallen victim to the institute.

And now he was going to have to deal with his mother being here on top of that. It didn't seem like a coincidence that she'd show up right when his father's whereabouts were so up in the air. But what did it mean? Why couldn't Landel leave his family out of this?

Normally, the announcement about new video games would have made him perk up, but his eyebrows only knit together with concern as his nurse led him into the game room. That didn't seem to stop her from trying to get him to unwind, though.

"Oh, come now, Thomas, you've worn that expression for most of the day!" she told him with a frown. "Why don't you have a bit of fun now that your eyes are all better? I'm sure you could use it."

The last thing he wanted was to be reminded of his "sleep studies", he darkly thought to himself. But before he could protest, his nurse had sat him down in front of one of the television screens. There was an old gaming console, one Claude had never seen before, and he glanced at her with a confused expression. "Go on," she encouraged as she placed one of the controllers in his hands. "I know how much you enjoy these kinds of things. Someone will come play with you soon, too, I'm sure. Doesn't that sound nice?"

He didn't have time to answer her, because she'd soon bustled off to tend to some of the other patients. Claude watched her leave with a sigh. He realized the daytime staff meant well, which made knowing what they turned into at night even worse to think about. But now he was just being negative for the sake of it, wasn't he?

Taking in a small breath, he reached over to the console and turned it on. As long as he was waiting for some kind of answer from the bulletin, there probably wasn't much he could do except pass the time. Claude watched the title screen appear on the television, his expression growing more curious in spite of himself. Super Mario Bros....

[For Prussia!]

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[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

And sure enough, someone was along a few minutes later to distract Lunge from his less constructive train of thought. Her appearance came as enough of a surprise to shake him off of that at least: a young woman, maybe in her mid-teens, with blue eyes and (more startlingly) bright blue hair. Now that was something he'd never seen before.

Still, after all of his time here, that really shouldn't have come as so much of a surprise. Checking himself, he chose a calm, authoritative smile to face her with (implication is she's come to you for whatever reason for advice of some sort + her age= act as authority figure) and looked up. "You could say that, I've been here for some time now. I'm Inspector Lunge- how can I help you?" Not that being helpful was generally at the top of his priorities, but it wasn't as though he had anything better to do.

[witchoftruth]

[ ♥ we can be slow together. LET'S GO FOR THE RECORD OF SLOWEST BACKTHREAD EVER!!! ]

The minute 'Inspector Lunge' introduced himself as such, one could see Erika's expression brighten a little. A kindred soul, was it? She normally would have been put off by the presence of other detectives and the like on this game board, but Erika had seen enough to know that this was an unusual situation. In any case, it was pleasant to meet someone who would actually be halfway competent for once.

"That's wonderful to hear, Inspector. My name is Furudo Erika, and I'm a detective. I actually wanted to investigate something that was posted on the bulletin board earlier today."

Since they were both introduced and it was clear that business was going on as usual, Erika wasted no time in sitting down, pulling over a chair from a nearby table so she could be sitting across from Lunge. Finally, she laid down a piece of paper that had the layout of a building on it - presumably, a map of Landels, but with none of the rooms marked.

"I'm quite sure this is supposed to be a map of Landels. I was wondering if you could help me confirm some things."

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

Now there was a good reaction. The young woman's face lit up at the mention of the word Inspector. Apparently, authority figure was a good way to go in terms of how to present hims-

Or not. Because in the next moment she was happily introducing herself as Furudo Erika (Name/ order: Japanese?), detective. Even if his expression had barely twitched, it still took Lunge a moment to readjust his approach; the girl couldn't have been more than sixteen or seventeen, but apparently that was old enough to call yourself an investigator in whatever universe she was from. Even more bemusing, she was probably telling the truth. One certainly couldn't fault Landel for his range of test subjects.

Whatever her age, clearly 'authority figure' wasn't going to do. Furudo was addressing him as a colleague rather than an expert. Not that he was complaining. A contact was vastly preferable to a civilian, and he at least couldn't fault her attitude- straight to the point.

Lunge leaned forward, glancing down at the map briefly- his fingers rapped lightly against the table, mentally comparing the image to the one he had memorised, then he nodded. "It looks like the one I have. What is it you want to check? Room locations?"

[witchoftruth]

Inspector Lunge certainly didn't betray Erika's expectations as he also followed her right to the point and confirmed the map for her with one sentence. Erika was actually fairly certain that this map was accurate, simply because of the middle part matching up with the layout she had memorized. But this wasn't 100%, and without the red, Erika had to get as close to 100% as she could with her own observations and testimony. She intended to fully scout the building and verify the rooms herself, but until then, she would have to make sure the map Xemnas gave her was also accurate.

"Yes, that is exactly what I want to do," Erika nodded, taking a pen from a nearby table. "A friend of mine filled in the location names with his own map, so I wanted to confirm them. In particular..."

She placed the second floor map on top and used her pen to circle an area on the western part. It was marked "Sleep Studies" , but Xemnas's map had left it blank, so she only had the layout and nothing else.

"The map I saw on the bulletin board said the sleep studies were done here, and my friend's map had the location blank. So I need to confirm this area in particular," The detective explained, looking back up at Lunge with an expectant look. Surely, as an Inspector, he probably had a better idea of the layout here than she did.

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

Lunge sat back and let Furudo explain herself- true, he was apparently now acting in a senior role of sorts, but even so it was strictly as an advisor- watching patiently while she circled the area in question. Ah. Even if it hadn't already been labelled for him, he wouldn't have needed to check the location against his mental copy of the maps: he had first-hand experience of its purpose.

To let that show on his face would have been unprofessional, of course, but even so he couldn't quite stop his mind flitting briefly back to those rooms before he answered: blinding light and pitch black, clinical perfection and grimy decay, all contradictions. Martin Landel certainly liked his ambience.

He nodded. "That's right. I was in that area a couple of days a go." Naturally he didn't have to (would outright refuse to, depending on the question) give details of just what he'd been doing there, but if Furudo really was a detective the odds were she'd want some sort of backing for how he knew. Even so, she already seemed to be placing a certain degree of trust in him; that look he was getting was undeniably hopeful. Obviously, she was expecting something.

But if there was one Inspector Lunge didn't believe in, it was getting something for nothing- not from him, at least. He turned his attention on Furudo instead. "Why do you ask? Are you planning an investigation around there?"

[witchoftruth]

Hearing that Lunge had been there himself a few days ago was good enough for Erika, as she suspected this man had no reason to lie to her. He was a colleague, after all. More importantly, though, she tried to dissect the sentence he gave her to find out exactly how or why he was there. As far as Erika was aware, they took people for sleep studies... and she was vaguely aware of attempts to retrieve these patients. She was unsure on which party Lunge belonged to, and he was good at keeping himself from revealing too much with his facial expression and tone.

Like a true detective. There was a twinge of admiration in her expression before she redirected her attention back to the paper, nodding to his question as she tapped the map again.

"That is correct. My former roommate was taken for one of these studies. She didn't appear to be acting too different when she came out, but she was then discharged a few days later." Lunge could probably see where she was getting at: a possible connection between the two. Several other mysteries were present too: was Nunnally legitimately insane, or was she truly from another Fragment? The possibility of escape was there but Erika had gathered that people who were discharge did not "escape" in the normal sense.

Otherwise, the rest of them wouldn't still be here. And this gameboard wouldn't either, for that matter.

"I'm sure you know this, but tonight, they are not doing these studies. Since all I want is a look at the location, this suits me just fine. I just want to know if the location on the map is correct."

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

There might have been another something in the woman's face again, but Lunge's instinct told him it wasn't entirely negative and so he chose to ignore it for now. Better to focus on the topic at hand now than to lose focus- losing focus was criminal. There was more than enough of what he had decided about Furudo for a first encounter anyway: confident, aren't you? You're very comfortable in the role of 'investigator', more comfortable than I would expect someone of your age to be- speaking to someone older and ostensibly more 'experienced' than you (poss. future edit in case of age miscalculation) doesn't seem to have rattled you at all.

He only wished he could give the same level of approval to the correlation she had implied. Not from an intellectual perspective, per se, but if she was correct, what did that mean for him? He, who had undergone a sleep study only a few days before? The answer to the problem was obvious: she was wrong. She had to be wrong.

"It's possible that the sleep studies had something to do with it," he said, "but in that case there would be far too many outliers to explain." He paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. "Still, it might have some impact, in terms of breaking down resistance. It's torture, pure and simple." But if they think that's all they need from me... at any rate, his tone there had bordered on bitter, and so he adjusted it back to more acceptable levels of calm before speaking again. "Another observation that's been made is that patients that are discharged often spend a lot of time sleeping or 'sick' beforehand- they could be related. As psychological warfare, inducing sickness and sleep is an excellent way of imposing a sense of control or power on someone; the torture is self-explanatory."

He finished by laced his fingers together, resting his chin lightly on the bridge they formed. "It all depends, I suppose, on just what happened after a patient is 'discharged'." He smiled faintly. "And yes. The location is definitely right. Another man here runs rescue missions there on the nights the studies are running- Javert. It might be worth speaking to him."