Day 53: Music Room

[rocksthecourt]

Well, if it wasn't his favorite time of the week. They say distance makes the heart grow fonder. Of course in this case, distance makes Klavier feel like an abused, neglected animal who was only now being allowed a taste of actual food. These people were such savages. It was still absolutely absurd that they were allowed access to this room so

Comments

[pullstrung]

Lunch had been kind of a blur, though the weird taste of tomato sauce still clung to the inside of his mouth as the nurse led him out of the cafeteria. He still hadn't quite gotten the hang of that whole eating thing, which was why he hadn't finished his meal. Not to mention it was hard to focus on something like that when he knew for a fact that Buzz was here, and--

"Honestly, Mr. Wheeler, I hope your dinner plate tonight will be completely clean when someone comes to pick it up," she chided him, cutting into his thoughts.

Woody could get why she wouldn't like him wasting food. But in that case, why the heck would they snatch perfectly good toys and turn them into something they obviously weren't supposed to be? It was ridiculous, and made it that much harder for Woody to sound the least bit apologetic when he muttered an insincere, "Yes, ma'am..."

"Mr. Wheeler." Her words were laced with a warning edge now, not unlike the way Mom could get when she was on the verge of grounding someone. "That kind of attitude isn't conducive to a healthy lifestyle, you know."

Yeah, well, neither was getting chased by monsters, but nobody saw Woody sassing the nurse about it. (Like she'd believe him anyway.)

Before he realized it, they were in another room he hadn't seen yet. The nurse called it the music room, and encouraged him to use it to relax before dinner. He was about to look for Buzz, but the woman, as if sensing his intentions, steered him over to a girl he recognized from yesterday -- Rita.

"Oh, great," he grumbled with a small roll of his eyes.

"Paige, dear," he nurse spoke over him with a bright smile, "I saw you and Mr. Wheeler talking yesterday during breakfast. Do you mind keeping him company for the shift? I don't think he's been able to fully adjust to the institute yet, so it'd be nice if you two could be friends."

Without even waiting for an answer, she turned and hurried off, leaving the two of them alone.

[bodhiandspirit]

It was bad enough to be interrupted when she was in the middle of something, but an annoyed frown crossed Rita's face when she saw just what she was being interrupted for.

Oh, great. Rita's thoughts echoed Woody's perfectly.

Rita didn't hate Woody or anything, but she certainly didn't like him, either. For someone who was used to being viewed as a genius by most people, there were few things more insulting than being treated like she didn't know what she was talking about. So it wasn't any surprise that she wasn't happy to see him, was it?

Lowering the circular device to her side, Rita looked the man over. He didn't appear to be injured, which made her wonder if he encountered any dangers last night. Surely he saw those 'shadow' things everyone was whispering about... unless he'd somehow decided to ignore the intercom, stay in his room, and sleep all night. But that was unlikely.

After regarding him for those short moments, Rita turned back to the shelf and began looking over its contents for something that might work with the device. "So, how was your first night?" she asked as she examined some oddly-shaped object. "It looks like you're still in one piece, so I suppose it couldn't have been that bad."

[pullstrung]

To be honest, he'd half-expected her to just ignore him the way she initially had yesterday morning. If that had been the case, he might have been inclined to walk away in favor of searching for Buzz. But, to his surprise, she asked after his first night, and so he decided to stick around (for the moment, anyway).

"If getting chased around by a giant bird qualifies as 'not that bad', then, yeah, sure, I got off real lucky," he said with a soft snort. It was true he hadn't gotten hurt, though, which he owed to his friend. In that sense, last night definitely could have been worse. "But I did run into a buddy of mine from back home, so I guess there's that."

Woody glanced at the CD player in Rita's grasp, unnerved at just how neatly it would fit in his hands should he pick one up of his own. But he didn't really see a reason to rummage around just then, so he kept his arms to himself, instead crossing them over his chest.

"How, uh...how about your night?" he asked after a brief pause. No reason why he couldn't extend the same courtesy to her, he supposed, even if he wasn't Rita's biggest fan right now.

[bodhiandspirit]

Considering how dealing with giant birds was practically a daily routine back home, where all kinds of monsters roamed outside the cities, Rita could comfortably say that Woody didn't have it that bad. Okay, so it was possible that he didn't have any combat experience. Rita still would have gladly traded places with him, regardless. Fighting a bird monster bare-handed sounded like a walk in the park compared to a night of listening to Kida's delusional ramblings.

And on top of that, he ran into a friend. For a moment, Rita's body went still, her eyes staring ahead at the shelf, but not really looking at it. Woody had only been here a day, and he'd already found a friend by chance. Rita, who had been searching and leaving notes day after day, still had no one. Compounding that with her 'shadow' reminding her that her friends could be dead by the time she got out... Rita almost resented Woody for his good fortune just then. She knew that was irrational, though, so she tried to push those thoughts out of her mind.

"Awful, but I've had worse," she replied somewhat bluntly to Woody's question. At that moment, she discovered a wire connected to one of the oddly-shaped objects, with an end that looked like it would fit into the circular device. She pulled the item down from the shelf, and continued speaking as she worked to untangle the wire. "I went to their so-called Patient Possessions Room, but it looks like it was made to support the nurse's stories. Our real possessions must be somewhere else."

[pullstrung]

The way Rita grew still all of a sudden wasn't lost on Woody. At first, he had no idea why him finding Buzz would make her act lie that. But then he remembered something she'd said -- right now, I'm the only person from my world here. Well, the fact that she hadn't found anyone else from Jupiter, or wherever it was she claimed to have lived, wasn't so surprising. But it also meant she didn't have any friends she knew from outside of this place.

Woody remembered how desperate he'd felt when he thought he was the only one of Andy's toys to wind up here. Even after finding Buzz, he felt sick to think that the rest of his friends had been abandoned at the dump. Because right now, that would mean that they...

Her answer to his question shook him out of his thoughts, thankfully. In all honesty, he couldn't see how a single night in this place could be less than awful, but maybe people who'd been here long enough learned how to work with varying degrees of bad. That was kind of depressing, so Woody chose to focus on the fact Rita went to some kind of possessions room.

"You mean there's only stuff that's supposed to belong to the people the nurses say we are," Woody said, mostly to make sure he was on the same page as Rita. "What kinds of things did you find? And what is it you're actually looking for?"

[bodhiandspirit]

"Right," Rita confirmed. "The room only had things like clothing, jewelry... cell phones, and other personal items." There was a short pause before 'cell phones', as she had to think back to Kida's explanation to find the word. It was an item she would have liked to examine more, if it would work at all.

Rita wasn't sure she wanted to go on to talk about what it was that she was looking for. If this idiot wouldn't believe that she was from another world, he'd most likely just find her strange. But Rita had already decided not to care about his opinions, so she went on to answer his second question. "I was looking for my blastia. It looks like a red gem on a gold choker. Besides that, I was hoping to find any sort of weapon. If we're going to get out of here, it isn't going to be by asking nicely."

Part of her attention returned to the foreign objects in her hands. Rita fit the end of the wire into the gently whirring circular device. From the horseshoe-shaped part of the component, a faint sound like music could be heard, but only if one listened closely. It didn't seem very functional if this was the best it could work... Was there still something that needed to be done with these?

[pullstrung]

Yeah, none of that stuff sounded particularly useful, though a cell phone could maybe help get in contact with someone outside. On the other hand, Woody was betting they weren't charged, in which case they were out of luck there.

When Rita said she'd been looking for a...blastia, he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at her. Woody had never heard of anything like that before. A red gem on a gold choker? Sounded like some kind of jewelry. Maybe it was the latest fad among girls Rita's age. Woody had no way of knowing for sure, but it made as much sense as anything else.

At least she wasn't digging around the institute for a laser gun or something stupid like that.

"Well, if you're looking for a weapon, you might have to get creative," he pointed out. "I kind of doubt they'd leave something dangerous just lying around." Especially in a crazy house, but that went without saying. "The best thing I've found so far is a clothes rod."

He glanced down at the CD player in her hands, then at the headphones, then back up at Rita. He could hear the quite chords of a song being played from the headphones, but Rita was just holding the thing and looking at it. "You know, you'll waste the batteries if you leave it on like that," he told her. To a toy, that was basically the same thing as a person throwing a bunch of food away.

[bodhiandspirit]

Fortunately for Rita, many of her weapon choices tended to be creative anyway. "The most I found was a chain that's supposed to be some kind of belt. It's not as strong as I'd like, but it should work for now." Using a clothes rod wasn't a bad idea, though Rita didn't have any experience with that sort of weapon.

When Woody commented on the device, Rita gave him a blank look for a moment. Batteries? ... Right, the power core. Just like with the cell phone. If they could be 'wasted', then that had to mean they had limited power. Unfortunately, while Rita didn't know how to use the device properly, she didn't know how to turn the thing off, either.

"You know how these work?" she decided to ask rather than hit buttons indiscriminately. Mashing buttons when she didn't know what they did could potentially damage the device or the disc inside.

[pullstrung]

Woody raised his eyebrows at the chain belt bit, though mostly because he could see how something like that could be useful under the right circumstances. Of course, when it came to defending himself, Woody was more inclined to just whack someone, whether with an object or his own two fists. But, hey, if a chain belt kept Rita safe? More power to her, then.

But now she was looking at him as if she hadn't heard of a battery before. He could see how some kids might be put off by a portable music player that wasn't an iPod or something. With the way she was letting the CD run like that, though, you'd think Rita had never even seen a pair of headphones.

"Let me see," he said, suddenly leaning down to get a better look. Squinting, he looked over the buttons. They sure were a lot smaller than he was used to. (So were people like Rita, for that matter.) "Well, for starters, the 'play' button is what you pressed to make it turn on just now." He pointed to the button with an arrow on it. "You're supposed to push this 'stop' button when you're not listening to it." Reaching in, he mashed his finger over the button with the square on it.

[bodhiandspirit]

The whirring stopped as soon as the button was pressed, and the device went silent once again. Rita noted which button was which; triangle for 'play', square for 'stop'. From the sound she heard earlier and how Woody mentioned 'listening' to the device, Rita inferred that its purpose was to play music, but...

"How is it normally used?" she asked, though she felt as though she might regret it. If Woody still didn't believe she was from outside Earth, she'd probably just look ignorant for not knowing how to use common items. However, Rita wasn't one to accept not understanding something and walking away. It hurt her pride somewhat to rely on the knowledge of people she didn't necessarily like, but it was better than staying ignorant of the world she was in and the technology around her.

[pullstrung]

He found it sort of hard to believe that she honestly had no idea how something like this was supposed to work, and it showed in the skeptical look he gave her. Was it because of her weird space-girl delusions? Or did her parents just never give her one of these?

Well, whatever, Woody thought with a sigh. It wouldn't hurt to explain it to her. Maybe she'd think twice before wasting batteries again.

Gesturing toward the headphones, he said, "See those? You fit them over your ears." Woody glanced at the CD player in her hands. It was different from the one Andy had owned as a boy, but he couldn't imagine this one was any harder to work. "There should be a knob or something that you use to control the volume."

[bodhiandspirit]

That look on Woody's face wasn't lost on Rita, but she didn't react to it, paying attention only to the information he was giving her. Following his instructions, she fit the oddly-shaped component over her head, aligning the soft parts with her ears. She then located the triangle-shaped button once more, and pressed it.

Rita winced when a jarring sound burst from the device, straight into her ears, though it wasn't unbearably loud - just unfamiliar. Not only the sensation of music being played directly into her ears, but also the music itself was strange to her. What the heck kinds of instruments were those? Rita couldn't identify half of the sounds she was hearing.

After hearing a chorus of Backstreet's back, all right! Rita decided that was enough of that. She pressed the 'stop' button and removed the thing from her head. "...Hm," was the only comment she had to give. "Are devices like these common?" Rita supposed they had to be, given Woody's reaction to her questions, though she hoped he might give her a clearer idea of how widely used they were.

[pullstrung]

Woody guessed he should have warned her about the sound, but it wasn't like he'd ever used one of these things himself. His experiences with them mostly consisted of watching Andy listening to them as grew older. It was kind of funny that a toy was having to explain this to her, though that was just going to have to be Woody's private little joke.

"Common enough for a lot of Earth kids to know what they are," he replied as he gave Rita a pointed look. Then he glanced back down at the CD player and gave a shrug. "'Course, these days, those MP3 players are starting to get more popular, so I can't say how much they'll be around 10 years down the road from now."

That wasn't so surprising, though. Before CDs there were cassette tapes, and before cassette tapes there were records. Woody had seen each come and go. People didn't seem to have much reason to hold onto those sorts of things once they became dated or lost their use. He understood that very well by now.

[bodhiandspirit]

Rita merely rolled her eyes at that pointed emphasis on 'Earth kids'. If he still didn't believe she was from another planet, that was his problem.

The CD player was set back on the shelf, its examination now complete. But then Woody mentioned something else that seemed relevant, and Rita promptly interjected with, "MP3...?" Was it some other kind of audio technology?

She didn't get an opportunity to hear an answer, however, as the familiar jingle of the intercom sounded just then. It didn't take long for one of the staff to make her way over to escort them away. Rita noted the nurse with a sideways glance, then looked back to Woody. "Guess that's all the time we have. I'll see you around, maybe." It was only 'maybe' because she didn't really plan to seek him out, and also because one or both of them could be gone before that happened. Rita personally hoped she would find an escape by then.

[pullstrung]

He should have figured that he'd have to explain that, too. Just as he was about to open his mouth to do so, though, the intercom went off, interrupting them both. It was kind of annoying to have to deal with the staff shuffling them around on top of the whole trapped-in-an-asylum thing, but there wasn't much Woody could do about that now. Still, he couldn't help himself from giving the speaker mounted to the wall a brief, irritated glare.

"Uhh, yeah," he replied, glancing over at Rita. Given the way the nurses had apparently decided they ought to be friends, though, he wouldn't put it past them to shove the two of them together again.

Hesitating a second, Woody added, "Be careful tonight, all right?"

By now his own nurse had shown up to walk him back to his room. Giving the girl one last look, he let the woman gently take his arm and lead him away.