[M39]

You could get outside now?

Well, he'd heard mention of the walls coming down, but the lack of any reports of successful escape were conspicuous in their absence; Zelnick was inclined to believe Landel that going outside would do as little towards your escape as staying indoors.

Of course, Zelnick did have plans for indoors...

Having finished his dinner a while ago, Zelnick pulled the Oreo package out of his closet and tossed it onto the bed, then settled beside it with his freshly-battery'd flashlight and his notebook, sketching to pass the time until Xigbar arrived.

The intercom came on, and as it did, it seemed to carry a little more interference than usual for a daytime announcement, a little more static. While the patients might have thought for a moment that once again the elusive woman on the radio had hacked into the Head Doctor's system, the man himself soon proved that theory faulty as he laughed over the broadcast.

"Hello, hello, everyone, and I'm sorry for the bad quality of this broadcast; we've been having some technical difficulties lately, you see, and we wanted to make sure everything was fixed by tomo...."

His voice crackled out into inaudibility for a moment before fading back in.

"Yes, hopefully that will be done soon. In any case, now's the time that you all head back to your rooms to enjoy a delicious meal... seasoned salmon! Yes, we have filets of very tasty, very juicy salmon seasoned with herbs and garlic; on the side, we have mashed potatoes, peas, and to drink, our usual assortment of beverages. For dinner, you'll all be enjoying vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce."

The intercom's broadcast crackled again. The Head Doctor laughed, seemingly a little nervously.

"Ah, yes, perhaps we'll be able to finish the repairing tomorrow, when all of you are away at... Doyleton! Yes, yes, you're all in for a fun and exciting day, a day whose activities will be new for some and a welcome familiarity to others. You'll be under strict supervision, of course, but... well, I suppose you'll find out all about the circumstances tomorrow, before you set off, mm? Yes! In any case... I hope you all enjoy dinner!"

The intercom clicked off again as the nurses began ushering patients back to their quarters.

[ All introduction posts for this shift's group of new characters should be made in response to this post. (You can find your character's room assignment here.) Remember, everyone responds to this post with their character's room number in the subject line. ]

Yuffie bounced all the way through collecting her lunch, all the way to a good seat- one with a nice view of the whole cafeteria, which was something she'd been missing out on during the past day or so that she'd been stuck in the Institute- and hell, she even bounced into her seat.

A good mood? No, really?

Despite the occasional blip, talking to Sagara had been awesome. He was a fun guy; he wasn't a prude, didn't have a stick shoved so far up his ass it was poking out his eyeballs, and he'd actually had a conversation with her. One that hadn't revolved around doom, gloom or how much life sucked. If she could find other people like that and keep in touch with Sagara, maybe there was a little hope for this place.

After a quick gulp of pink lemonade, Yuffie settled to munching through her food and keeping an eye on the door.

[Waiting for Dean, I think? :x]

Artemis Fowl was, yet again, exceedingly displeased to be naked.

As much as Haku insisted that since he had experienced public bathing before, this time would be easier, the feeling was not mutual. Artemis' body was his own personal business, as far as he was concerned, and no one else's. His only comfort was the fact that he was not hideously tattooed anymore with various and sundry insults branding him a moron.

Still, that did not stop him from taking a towel into the shower area once again, Nurse Hedgerow grudgingly allowing it. She could see no other way of getting the boy to bathe. He was as stubborn as ten teenage boys. And after that lecture on psychological torture through means of public humiliation...

The boy let the water run over his head, the towel clutched firmly around his body. And he thought. July. How was it July when it had been fall just a week previous? It was impossible, logically speaking. But what part of this place fit in with any sort of logic Artemis had ever encountered? No, if he didn't let go of the fact that things would be as insane as people claimed he was, he would lose his mind.

His fingers brushed the burn mark Caleb had given him for what seemed the fortieth time. ...He had to get himself together, or this would only be a small taste of what awaited him in the hallways.

[For Omi]

((from here))

Omi dropped down from the wall, landing in a crouch. He flattened himself back against the wall as he waited for Yohji to join him, letting his eyes adjust to the dim moonlight. Better momentarily blinded than making himself an easy target with the flashlight, though.

Outside the walls was definitely no paradise, even compared to inside. Then again, Omi would have been happier all around if he'd jumped the walls to find himself miraculously back in the middle of Tokyo, so it was perhaps unsurprising that he was less than pleased with his new surroundings.

[from here]

With the door shut and Toph safe for the moment, Renamon allowed herself to think again. Her body would be feeling the pain soon, as soon as she calmed down, and she needed to search the outside before it set in. She didn't see anything, but she was learning that meant nothing. And then she realized she didn't need her flashlight.

Renamon stepped further out into the night. She was instantly more relaxed. Outside in the night? She was in her natural element. She wasn't confined in a dark place with walls that felt like death. She was outside, at night, when she was the most powerful. Well, when she was a Digimon.

At that second the pain decided to set in, and she breathed in sharply. That was it. She wouldn't wear the sweatshirt anymore, not if it got caught on things and got her hurt like this. She gently peeled it off, then examined what she could of her wound. It was long and diagonal, nearly the length of her upper arm, and seemed deep. She couldn't see the bone, but it was bleeding freely. An inch, maybe. She wasn't good at determining things like this. She balled up the sweatshirt and held it to the wound tightly.

Once all that was completed, then she looked around more thoroughly.

((from here))

Well, he didn't hear anything else in the room. That was a plus. He stopped just inside the door, holding his hand out for Yohji to give him his flashlight back. There wasn't much to see in the dark, but there hadn't been too much to see in the light, either. Not that he'd spent much time looking earlier.

She'd called him Omi. How much of their 'fake' lives were included in those folders? How much of it would ring true? He wanted to find out, but first, "Okay, Yohji-kun?"

((from here))

On the one hand, the lack of people in the dark hallway almost allowed Omi to relax. This, he was used to, working alone or nearly so in the dark, avoiding notice. On the other, of course, there was the constant fear of the unknown that was inevitable in a place like Landel's. You could never plan or prepare enough for something you couldn't predict.

He flashed the beam from his flashlight across the doors of the doctors' offices as he passed them. Some of the names seemed different from the last time he'd been in the hallway during the night, and he hadn't exactly been paying much attention to them when he was being escorted to his own session that afternoon. He trusted Yohji to watch his back, and didn't that feel odd after the last few weeks.

[outside M33]

Now at his destination, Sai knocked lightly on the door with his good hand. "Usopp, it's me." He hadn't even bothered to check and see what his friend's plans were for the night. What if he was meeting up with another group and/or planned to go out for more supplies?

The thought of supplies reminded him of the night before, and with a sudden frown he realized he'd also forgotten to check for Naruto's file.

After slowly [attempting to] excuse herself from Dr. Washu and her over-enthusiastic ideas of using her as a test subject, Maggie managed to finally worm away back to her own office for more coffee and No-Doze.

If she dozed off during a session... During anything, for that matter...

Sigh. Maybe those no-dream-whatever-they-are capsules Washu promised would actually be good for her. It wasn't like she was supposed to be dwelling on things like this during work, anyhow. Which reminded her.

She had two patients this session, didn't she? One after the other, or something like that. She'd get through it, then she could grab whatever the other doctor planned on giving her. Just a little while longer... Everything was going to be fine.

Renamon blinked, and suddenly she was laying flat in the bed she had originally woke up in. The timing was impeccable, accenting Orihime's explanation perfectly. She just hoped that she hadn't freaked the girl out with her little disappearing act. She quickly shifted out of bed, and grabbed the journal she had wrote notes in last night, and jotted down another page. No sooner did she finish did her ever-so-friendly nurse come to collect her. Renamon didn't respond to the nurse's excited talk of making friends and breakfast, and simply followed her, journal in hand.

She paused at the Sunroom to leave a message on the Bulletin Board to Toboe. Hopefully the wolf had simply gotten lost, and wasn't truly gone. On the other hand, maybe she should be hoping that the boy had found a way out, and a way home. No use overly worrying about it now.

She continued to the Cafeteria, only pausing to take a plain muffin and water. It seemed she was early. She sat at a table near the wall, scanning over her notes and waiting for her breakfast date.

[Waiting for Kairi and Sora]

Sanosuke hadn't quite been ready to part ways from Kenshin, but his nurse was insistent, and she was offering food. That second thing was what really got Sano off the couch and headed to the cafeteria. And at the very least, the thing about Okita had been settled, which meant the fighter could focus on his meal.

That may or may not have been a good thing, though.

What the hell was it with these people and their obsession with flat folding things to eat with? Sanosuke had thought that western countries could at least figure out chopsticks at some point. Simple, easy, uncomplicated, glorious chopsticks. But no, instead it was all weird bread things that randomly exploded all over Sanosuke without it being his fault whatsoever. And orange rice, which was just impossible to forgive, but thankfully had yet to reappear.

And as if that hadn't been bad enough, now the weird flat bread things weren't even round anymore. No, Sanosuke was left with some odd triangle shape, peppers that smelled a lot hotter than the kinds he was used to, and this sort of dust that Pinky called cheese, and promised would be good if Sanosuke just tried it.

Which Sano had heard before, plenty of times. Oh yes, he could count the number pretty easily, when Jo-chan tried her hand at some new recipe, some old recipe, or some recipe so simple that even Sanosuke could make it in his sleep, all of which she promised would be good this time, and none of which actually were.

Never stopped Sanosuke from eating them though. Free food was free food.

And dust or no, he'd eat this stuff too. The man had already decided to by the time he'd gotten to his seat. Between the smell and the rumbling in his stomach, Sano didn't figure he had much choice. He would just have to take his time, figure out the best way to go about eating it without getting the stuff all over his face again.

Simple. Had to be.

[Waiting for Zuko?]

Sylar's gears were still turning as the nurse and a burly orderly escorted him down long halls and through a strange, sunlit room. He'd been forced to drop his pen when the orderly had seen it, and since then, he'd realized that this place had better security than he'd originally anticipated, as well as a large population of patients. It looked like he'd have to bide his time for now, pretending to be this 'Zachary Blaine' and trying to figure out how the hell he'd gotten here.

His mind went over and over the events in Mohinder's lab, tracing every second that led up to his unconsciousness. According to the computer logs and the decked-out loft, Mohinder was working for the Company now, so had that woman with the electricity been an operative? Was this all a Company front? Even so, it didn't make sense for them to drop him off somewhere without any close supervision. They knew how dangerous he was. How special he was.

But right now, his abilities had been nullified and he was left only with the option of playing along. It was a very good thing that it was something he excelled at, even with his sudden loss of the cure clouding his thoughts and telling him to do something drastic.

Still, it was fun to take ahold of strings and let someone think they were pulling him when in fact he was the puppetmaster. Who knew? Maybe he could find a new toy now that his last one had worn out.

Sylar took his syrup-covered waffle to a table and tried to keep track of both the security and the people flooding in. Soon, he'd find an opening, a weak link he could exploit. It was only a matter of time.

The night hadn't come soon enough.

Lucivar had spent all day keeping a low profile. He found it was the easiest way to ensure he didn't lose his temper. Oh, he felt it bubbling beneath the surface but keeping his mouth shut and his head down proved to keep him out of trouble. All he had to do was wait until nightshift, that's what he kept telling himself. He could let his temper out then and he looked forward to it.

He ignored whatever the prick had said and instead stood from his bed, stretching. The muscles in his back uncoiled, his phantom wings should have been brushing against the top of the ceiling. The thought stoked his anger and he smiled when he turned the doorknob, seeing it unlock and open the door easily. It was time to show the person behind all of this madness just what he was keeping captured inside his walls. It was time to unleash the eyrien warlord prince.

Lucivar couldn't be more elated.

[headed here]

[Scoobies + Bella's epic field day: readystartgo]

Taking his pick between sun and no sun wasn't that hard of a choice, really. Angel ended up in the Sun Room on a couch near the back, facing the entrance to keep an eye on anyone coming in. And by the window. The window and its resulting sunlight was important.

A part of him felt as if it wasn't quite right to actually like something about this place, but then again, after everything, didn't he kind of deserve to find at least a small source of enjoyment? For a little while, at least? While he sorted everything out after his conversation at breakfast. It was a theory he'd have to ask Willow about when he found her.

He flipped open his journal, looking idly at the half-finished sketch. Sometimes he became worried he'd wake up one day and forget the faces he knew. Drawing was more than just a hobby for him, in that way.

And then he was back in his room again. Sai frowned at the ceiling momentarily, but was soon sitting up. He was back in the Landel's uniform again, which really saved him the trouble of having to change, didn't it?

It was disappointing that he hadn't had the opportunity to finish his discussion with Usopp, but luckily they'd already made plans for the morning meal - to include their new cohort, of course. Hopefully whatever had been responsible for making Usopp act the way he had the night before had worn off with the sunrise. Otherwise things would get troublesome.

The moment his nurse came to get him he was ready to leave, and as usual she was pleased with how willing to go along with the daily routine he was, though he hardly offered her any attention. Breakfast was... unpleasant looking, so Sai stuck to milk and fruit. Finding a table, he didn't yet take a seat but stood so that the two men he'd be meeting with could spot him easier.

Time to get down to business.

[waiting for Usopp and Mello]

[from here]

Renji slammed into the kitchen door full force, though not with the side he had Artemis on. The rusted out lock gave with a metallic shriek, the door springing wide open, and he fell through to the other side of the doorway, hitting the floor gracelessly. He shoved Artemis away and lunged to his feet, slamming the door shut behind Hitsugaya as soon as the captain had come through.

They just had to hope that there wasn't yet another opponent like that waiting in this room.

[[ from here. ]]

The strain of focusing on the troublesome lock for far longer than would have been necessary was making the spots dot her vision spectacularly now. River stumbled through the now-open door and into the empty cafeteria, slumping into a seat as she struggled to collect herself. The effort exerted in climbing the wall coupled with the focus needed to pick the lock, a lock she would've otherwise kicked open were it not for the eerie exhaustion she felt after landing in the Courtyard, was enough to send the stars in front of her eyes spinning in a maelstrom of white and blue and every color muted in black and white.

Hair hanging in her face, River bit her lip as she waiting for the spinning to stop.

[from here]

As usual, the door to the hallway had been open. He was never certain if it started that way or other prisoners opened, it, but he guessed it was probably the first option, now. He paused for just a moment to listen, then continued on. It wasn't that much further until he reached Daemon's room.

[to here]

[M39]

Being dragged away from ZEX mid-conversation was something of a mixed blessing. On the upside, it meant that Zelnick would have at least few minutes to regain emotional balance before spending the whole night with the guy....

Well, perhaps it was more of a mixed curse. Normally Zelnick didn't begrudge allies their oddities, but ZEX had this amazing ability to jump straight from normal conversation to oh-god-awkward innuendo-laden flirting, and Zelnick couldn't do much but hope that he'd keep away from the latter.

In any case, he paid closer attention to where they took him, this time, not just his room number, and he realized he was actually really close to Yuber's room. Wasn't that convenient?

Once he was in his room, he started to get ready for the night; skillet, knife, pestle, all loaded into the apple basket that had wound up in his closet, along with a couple pens and the radio (hadn't Yuber said it spilled hints at night?). This meant he couldn't take all the apples with him, so Zelnick wrapped them in one of the extra shirts and left them in the corner of the closet. All that was left was to get the flashlight, which he found under his pillow like he did last night.

Then the intercom clicked on.

So that was their lord and master, in this place? After spending the first night confused and the first day hearing the voice of the Head Nurse, he found that the guy sounded pretty sane, until he admitted to killing someone. "The man on the radio--" did he mean whoever was on the other side of the little antique, sending out hints? And the method of death sounded... frighteningly personal.

He unloaded the skillet from the basket and held on to it as the doors unlocked, and sat at his desk to wait for ZEX.