As the day began drawing to a close, the intercom flickered to life. Instead of Harrington's voice, however, Berg's calm tone filtered through the speakers.

"Attention all personnel: please escort subjects to their quarters for the duration of dinner shift. After that, you are expected to report to your stations -- no exceptions. Anyone caught away from his or her post without direct orders will have to personally answer to the general."

An odd tension hung in the air, but Berg didn't say anything more than that. Once the intercom clicked off, soldiers began to gather up the patients and bring them to their rooms. Most didn't know why Harrington wasn't handling the announcements, or why Berg sounded particularly serious this evening, though no one would admit that to the subjects themselves.

The few who did know had more pressing matters to contend with.

Guy's head was still spinning from finding out that his friend was back once again. He realized that he'd done a good job of keeping his cool while explaining everything to Luke, mainly because nothing would have been solved if both of them had been reeling, but...

What exactly was he going to do now? Tear and Natalia being excluded from the basement group was one thing, but Guy felt a duty to Luke that he was going to have a difficult time divorcing himself from. He realized he wasn't really Luke's servant anymore (Luke had said so himself), but with how often Luke had left this place only to return again, how could he not feel as if he needed to keep an eye on him?

Granted, it was something that they could split up among their whole group. Luke wasn't going to like the idea of being babysat, but Guy didn't know if he was comfortable with anything else. Tear and Natalia could stick with him when he headed off with Claude and Anise, but getting all of that information transmitted in the small time left before night came seemed impossible. In any case, if he made it sound more subtle -- like they were all just taking care to stick together -- then Luke would probably accept it.

The soldiers forced them apart when lunch ended, however, meaning that Guy's only option was to put up a bulletin notice and hope that things worked themselves out that way. He was pretty sure Claude still had an extra sword for Luke, so that was one weight off of his shoulders at the least. But he really didn't want Luke going off on his own at night, so any chance of preventing that was his priority.

Once a note had been posted, Guy finally agreed to go into the Game Room with most of the patients. He realized he had the ability to wander elsewhere, but it seemed pointless when there were barely any others who had the same privileges. Still, he couldn't help thinking of Sai; he still needed to track the man down at some point.

Upon entering the room and finding that it was still relatively empty, Guy started to wander in search of anything interesting to play. He could always check out one of those portable game systems again.

[For Edgar.]

After an intercom broadcast like that, Kurogane felt somewhat better about the little information he'd gotten from Harrington the previous night. The man only sounded competent when he needed to but was an idiot otherwise. Unfortunately that was furthered proof of the General not employing the brightest of staff members, making another option for information closed to them.

Kurogane was again some steps ahead of his escort when he reached the Sun Room and ignored the soldier further as the ninja headed to look over the bulletin. Last time he'd missed something, and he wasn't about to have that happen a second time. With some searching he located Tsubaki's messages to others he didn't know but found nothing either written by the magician or addressed to him. That being the case, he left the board without any of his own writing and sought out a chair over a couch. If he didn't leave open a space by him, he had a better chance of being left alone. Or so he believed.

[free bird! bear]

Lunch service winded down in time for the intercom's signature jingle, with the once energetic Harrington sounding rather strained beneath his business-like air. The cause remained unknown.

"Attention, all soldiers and assigned personnel," he said. "You may now choose to spend the afternoon in the Game Room or the Sun Room until you are collected for dinner. As a final reminder, any and all insubordination will be reported directly to General Aguilar. Thank you."

There was a small stretch of quiet, followed by a harsh, well-accented murmur. Someone had obviously forgotten how to properly turn off the intercom. Or at least hit the mute button.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Dunno how that son of a bitch managed to stand this shi--"

Someone coughed behind him. "Major Harrington. The intercom," they whispered intently.

Another stretch followed. Then: "FU--"

The intercom clicked off.