Day 53: Sun Room, Morning

[scarefaux]

With breakfast finished and a new acquaintance made, the Scarecrow's mind turned to his other friends. The disappearance of Depth Charge's friend had brought back memories of how he'd felt when Kaiji went missing: helpless, useless, as though he should have and could have done something more to find him. If only he had his brain, then maybe he

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[shorttank]

That was exactly the kind of subtlety Leela had been trying to think of. "Ooh, and what if Landel hopes Marc will blame himself, not just for what happened to Jill, but for all the patients who had such a hard time last night? Guilt trips all around, that sounds like his style. And maybe it's because the rebels actually managed to do him some damage we haven't been able to hear about!"

This was exciting. Leela had tried to get away from the hospital grounds and track down Marc a couple of times. Admittedly, this was partly because she was interested to see what the scrappy leader of a resistance movement was like in person. Somehow, she'd never been able to get very far.

She was interested enough by this new theory that the cat headbutted her hand, as if to remind her it was there. "Oh, sorry, kitty," Leela said, and rubbed under its chin.

"I kind of think this whole place is an experiment we don't know enough to understand yet. I mean, none of it really makes sense. They can change people from the way they're supposed to look, and they've got to have some way of moving between realities, but everything we see here is so primitive."

[ninelivesonce]

"He's a fool if he does," Taura muttered.  Marc, that was.  "We can take care of ourselves."  Just knowing why -- or having a theory good enough to be going on with -- made it easier to think about.  She still wanted to march up to Landel and pick him up by the lapels and shake until the answers fell out, but she could be patient.

The technology disparity was an interesting point.  "It's not like they've taken things away so that we won't get hurt.  That would make too much sense.  But maybe...it's anything we could use to hurt them?  Swords don't do a he'll of a lot when the enemy has plasma arcs."  Well, the swords might be all right.  Took a good long blast to slag decent steel.  The hand holding the sword, however, was somewhat more flammable.

Realization dawned.  "They...don't think we're a threat.  Defanged."  Taura's bare-teeth smile didn't need two-inch canines to be ferocious.  "That's when we'll strike.  Let Marc and Jill play out their game, and when Landel turns his full attention to them, pow!"

That was missing some important logistics.  Like how a bunch of unequipped bare humans were going to find Landel's hidey-hole, get past the rumored shield he carried, all without anyone noticing, but those were details.  There were only so many places to look, and who go nervous if a few rats were running around the sewers.

No.  Not down.  Up.  The basement was a toy.  Had to be, though taking it apart could tell them a lot about their captors psychology.  The third floor was where the real action was, even if no-one was even trying for it.  Especially if no-one was trying for it.   

[shorttank]

Wow, Taura was awesome. And a little scary, in a way Leela aspired to. Whatever she was planning, Leela wanted in on it. She grinned. "Yeah!"

She couldn't agree that Marc was a fool, not without having met him and heard the whole story. She sort of thought he might have been a patient here once, who had escaped and taken to the woods to hide out, and help those left behind. But she could also see where Taura was coming from. If they waited for help to arrive from outside before doing anything, they'd be waiting forever. Even with time travel in the mix.

"I had a blaster. And my wrist thingie. And neither of those exist yet, in the time this is supposed to be. More to the point, they could do a lot more damage than boots or a closet bar." That went double for the people who'd started out as robots. Their whole bodies could be weapons, and messing with them was personal, way more so than swiping possessions. Now she was fired up with good old righteous indignation. It felt better than just taking things as they came. "Plus, my wrist thingie has a mapping function." Only when it wanted to, seemingly, but that was a minor detail.

"We need our stuff back!" The cat gave her a baleful look at this outburst, and hopped down from the couch. "And..." She thought it over. "Shouldn't we try to help the rebels, so they can act so we can act?"

[ninelivesonce]

"It's not up in that room upstairs, I can tell you that." A purse, a basketball, the bric-a-brac of a life that wasn't hers was all she'd found. At least the purse was kind of pretty.

"Right now, he's not paying attention to us." That seemed even more true today -- maybe Marc had done something more last night. "We can't let him realize we're a threat. He could open a door and drop us anywhere with no return ticket."

Not that that would be a change for the worse for everyone, but Taura wanted to go home, in her own body. It wasn't perfect, but it was hers.

"Getting in touch with them would be a good start, though. A secured commlink would be ideal, but, hell, pen and paper would work if we knew where to send it." Her eyes were nearly glowing with excitement.

[shorttank]

Taura was completely right. Landel had a bunch of parallel-universe boxes handy, or some kind of something that let him act like he did whenever he felt like it, and if he got wise to them, boom. Cowboy hats forever, or worse.

"I talked to a girl one night who was trying to find broadcasting equipment for Marc. She said he was--" Leela stopped, and glanced around to make sure Betty and her might-as-well-be-clones weren't listening; dropped her voice, and kept it vague, just in case. "Hiding out up north."

He wasn't making it easy for them to find him, but she had to think anything he said for the patients to hear, Landel would hear, too. "If we could find a way to make sure his messages wouldn't be overheard or intercepted, things would move a lot faster. I'm just not sure how, with this primitive technology."

[ninelivesonce]

"Well, we could send a courier. But it'd need to be someone who could get through, and wouldn't be tracked. Hrm." Couriers were usually the best bet, but capture was a serious risk. Tracking was a bigger one -- let them get through, to lead Landel to Marc.

That was okay, though; she was just thinking out loud, bad ideas spilling out, in hopes of finding a nugget of treasure amidst the outflow.

"Or he could get someone here. Slip a mole into the staff or the patients -- maybe that was what Jill was trying." So much for that idea. Besides, it depended on Marc making the first move. So many of the best ideas she had did; she was used to being in the little band of scrappy outsiders swooping in to save the day.

"Whatever we do, we need to make it proof against betrayal. We can't assume we can trust anyone else." Last night had been aimed at shaking those bonds, but that just strengthened their importance. Trust was a precious commodity, but not for strategy. Even if they could trust each other absolutely, Landel had the ability to brainwash people, and he wasn't afraid to use it. If he could switch bodies on a whim, he could beat fast-penta allergies -- or not even need drugs to make a captured conspirator sing like a bird.

No, it was just for being able to look themselves in the eye afterwards. "It needs to be traitorproof. The best plans run like that. Heads we win, tails they lose, and a man with a gun at the back making sure everyone plays. We plan something that works no matter who turns on us. A riot, maybe."

[shorttank]

Leela made a quick mental list of the other people she trusted. Gren, Guybrush, Niikura, Chise. Erika, provisionally; the younger woman was a bit bossy. Her admiration for Taura went up even more. Here was someone who'd made plans, real ones that didn't consist of 'kick everyone's butt and hope for the best.' She leaned in closer, hoping she wasn't broadcasting we're up to something.

"It would have to be during the day. Because at night, first of all, who would even notice? And second, that would get the monsters and any evil doubles or houses or anything out of the equation."

Think, Leela, think. She drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch, briefly attracting the attention of the cat again. "I just don't see any way of getting a message to them that isn't in person. And I'd hate to have to count on them just happening to find out what we're doing in time to help, or do their own thing. But hey! I'm a courier. Basically. 'Our crew is expendable, your package isn't.'" She laughed. Who would ever have thought that attitude would come in handy as training for a place like this?

No one, that was who. Leela didn't know anyone insane enough to imagine this situation, and that was saying a lot. "I can try to talk to Marc, and find out if he already has something planned that we could pitch in on."

[ninelivesonce]

A courier? Taura hadn't pegged that as a side business for Leela, but that sounded like a quote well-worn by familiarity. Besides, the best couriers were the ones nobody suspected. Ooh. This could be the first step she'd been looking for. Finally.

Last night hadn't shaken her resolve so much as cured it. Settled it down into the cracks, ready to freeze and blow this place to smithereens. Even if she had to do it one brick at a time.

"Would you? That'd be...an invaluable amount of help." Her go-go-Leela smile was entirely genuine, crinkling the corners of her eyes enough to show where the laugh lines would be in five years, though a photographic comparison might imply she'd swiped the details from the best recruiter she'd ever met. "I'll keep my ears open as well, though I don't know where we're headed tonight. History Club, that is. Got to keep in shape somehow; if it's a fight Marc wants, I'm expendable too. As long as I can take a few of them down with me."

[shorttank]

"I'll try to get out there to-- later." She wasn't sure why the other patients all seemed to think using code to talk about the nights was necessary, but there had to be a reason for it.

"And don't talk like that. You can take them down without going with them." Another bit of on-the-job experience that was helping was having been sent into certain death way more times than even the laxest employee safety regulations allowed, and having gotten out of all of them alive and relatively unmaimed. Landel may have been both more evil and less scatterbrained than the Professor, but Leela was pretty sure she could take on whatever he threw in her path.

"I'll check the board in the morning, and leave you a note if I get there first, okay?" She was smiling, too. This kind of female bonding was much more her style than shopping with Amy.