Day 54: Lunch

[full_score]

All things considered, last shift had been pretty low key. After this morning's disaster, though, that was perfectly fine by Claude. Some fresh air and a chance to make sure Guy and Okita were all right weren't things to take for granted. It was also good to have a fairly normal, conversation with Guy that didn't slip off into awkward territory

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[swornandbroken]

Mello had ended up dozing off in the Sun Room, succumbing to the effects of the sedation, and he was annoyed with himself, in the distant way he was still feeling everything, more an awareness that the annoyance was there than actually experiencing it, everything one step removed. He didn't seem to have missed anything, at least. Wasted time, the bugs chattered, disagreeing. You should have been planning, finding a way to take advantage of the situation. A day like this won't come along again, and what have you done with it? Gotten your dumb ass sedated, and taken a nap. How productive.

He noted the announcement with that same detachment, a far-away satisfaction in the prisoners having made the Head Arsehole's life more difficult, anger he knew he'd feel more fully later over how that had failed to make much of a dent in the smugness. The bastard was still toeing some party line, though, and that was interesting; Mello would have to think about that when the daze wore off. What he needed was more information about the Eagle, and,

[unmocked_lawr]

The previous shift had passed uneventfully. That was irritating at best, though it hadn't taken much eavesdropping on Javert's part to confirm his previous suspicions about what had happened in the morning. Another food fight. Could they honestly have thought of nothing better? As an exercise in testing the limits of the military's patience--whatever military it was--it had worked rather well, but surely there was more worthwhile information to be gleaned from this turn of events.

He accepted a plate from his nurse before turning and scanning the cafeteria as he passed through it, looking for a contact unlucky enough to have been present at breakfast. There--Mello, looking distinctly the worse for wear. He redirected his steps toward the younger man and set his tray down across from him.

"I take it you've had an eventful morning."

[swornandbroken]

"Heh, you could say that. Maybe not as eventful as the poor suckers who were still in here when all hell broke loose."

He worked a bit of fish away from the smaller piece he'd taken, necessarily left-handed, and ate it. It was fortunate Javert had joined him. Mello couldn't have said he liked the older man, but he definitely gave credit where it was due, in two important areas in this case: Javert didn't run from a fight, and his deductive abilities were worth having on one's side, enough that Mello was able to argue to himself that he didn't mind having Javert be one of the handful of people who knew what this place had done to him.

"How about you?" It was difficult to tell from looking at him. Javert was the type who could probably walk through hell without a crack in his composure. "Were you in on any of the fun?" He gave the last word a wry twist.

[unmocked_lawr]

"I'm afraid I slept through it." There was an answering sardonic echo in Javert's own words. And it was true, in a way; he supposed he was slightly disappointed to have missed the whole thing, if only because it would have given him the opportunity to get a closer look at their new guards.

"So what happened? I haven't heard the details yet; my nurse has been unusually uncommunicative all morning, and these fellows in uniform are terrible conversationalists."

[swornandbroken]

"That HK-47 guy started a food fight." Mello chuckled. He doubted the alleged assassin robot had had a greater goal in mind than chaos, and he had achieved that rather admirably. "I got out before the end, but they obviously gassed the place. And since Landel, despite his many faults, hasn't acted like he's got an itchy finger on the canister trigger, seems kinda obvious who's to blame for that."

It came out slightly slurred, he was sure, but it came out understandably, and was a conclusion he hadn't realized he'd reached until now. It made sense. Landel's MO was to fuck with their minds; what fun would he see in simply incapacitating them? Better the devil you knew, some people might say, but if the devil you didn't relied on brute force, that was something that could be taken away from him, and more easily than the ability to bend the laws of reality. Maybe. It had holes, and Mello knew it. He picked a bit of crisped breading off his fish and popped it into his mouth.

[unmocked_lawr]

HK-47. Javert had never met the patient in person, but the self-proclaimed droid's bulletin board messages were certainly memorable enough. Surely a machine's common sense was better than that--or had HK-47 lost that at the same time he had gained something resembling humanity? He supposed he didn't know enough to have an opinion on the matter

[swornandbroken]

"No, they sedated me because I was trying to be a distraction on top of a distraction." Mello gave a huff, halfway between amusement and annoyance. He should've known the attempt wouldn't work, but he'd had to try. Try later, with a better plan, maybe. Impatient as always, expecting--as always--the universe to rearrange itself for your convenience. He began to scowl, then remembered to make his face blank. Javert was one person who might have been able to imagine his train of thought. Mello could predict, by now, how the involuntary commentary would go, not that it made it easier to hear; he could do things to fight it, or at least prove it wasn't making him behave any differently. Pity would've been intolerable

[unmocked_lawr]

"In that case, their modus operandi has changed somewhat. I suppose our special guests are largely responsible for that; the last fight seemed to end as quickly as it started, with little fuss made about the entire business. The staff, as far as I could tell, shut down the entire affair as if they'd been especially prepared for it that morning

[swornandbroken]

"Failsafe," Mello repeated, under his breath, and now he did frown, as it called to mind flipping a switch, doors crashing shut. Free will, but only up to a certain point, and how the hell deep did this thing go? They could have done anything to the prisoners between snatching them and letting them wake up here. Were the loudmouth bugs not the only things running around in his brain?

It was also possible someone had tipped off the staff last time. If it had been organized beforehand, there was next to no way everyone in on it had been trustworthy. The alternative was almost too disheartening to consider. Yes, but you have to consider it, he told himself, and wasn't sure which part of his mind was speaking up. Damn sedative, still making him foggy. He knew from his own experience that the nurses were immune to any idea that strange things happened here. Landel had to be exerting some kind of mind control over them. Puppets, all of you. He just chooses when to yank on the strings. Mello knew that was the bugs

[unmocked_lawr]

"I don't see why he would hesitate to do it today, especially when his employers are here. It doesn't make sense for him to allow the riot to continue, when dispelling them quickly and efficiently would probably make a better impression on this 'Eagle' fellow. If anything, I suppose we can assume the latter. Besides, the last fight started with even less preamble--no announcement of any sort from the patient who started it. By the time I looked up, the rest of the patients had already begun to riot."

He shook his head. "Needless to say, it was difficult to hear anything over the ensuing noise. I could only barely catch Landel's announcement; if there were keys clicking, I doubt I would have noticed."

[swornandbroken]

Mello nodded, toying with the chips on his plate. The Eagle and Landel had a contentious relationship at best; he was sure of that much. Bringing your own troops to what was theoretically an inspection was a giant sign of a lack of confidence in the inspectee. And the Head Arsehole, whether genuinely afraid or annoyed at the interference, was definitely cracking some under the pressure.

"But there's also a chance some of Landel's little tricks are… unauthorized, let's say. Maybe he'd get in more trouble if he pulled them out. Or maybe he's going to use them against the Eagle. It can be useful to be underestimated." Though it annoyed Mello to see even that much common ground between himself and that bastard, it was a good strategy. "Same problem as always, here. We don't have enough information to say for sure."

[unmocked_lawr]

Mello had a point, and Javert's teeth flashed in a quick half-smile at it. So the boy had a head on his shoulders after all. It was gratifying to hear; Mello might prove to be a valuable ally as well

[swornandbroken]

Mello chuckled briefly at the 'King of England' comment. He certainly agreed with that assessment of the nights here. 'Throw a bunch of crap at people and see how they react' spoke more of someone who enjoyed the trauma he could cause than someone with an end in mind

[unmocked_lawr]

"It was, though given the context of the announcement, I'm not so sure I'm surprised. If the goals of this establishment are military in nature, as patients have speculated in the past, then the nightly patient disappearances suddenly find themselves with a purpose."

But was it truly that simple? It couldn't be; there were too many obscuring factors, and while everything certainly seemed to add up, he knew that couldn't possibly the case. Nothing was that straightforward.

"That said, I'm convinced there's more than meets the eye to this entire affair. It's a terribly inefficient means of manufacturing the perfect soldier; as you said, it can't be cheap, and the eventual results must surely be inferior to whatever a more...conventional scientific program would achieve."

[swornandbroken]

"I doubt that's what they're after." Not unless they were taking the most fucking roundabout route possible to that goal. No, Mello thought the point of this place was more obvious, even if what they'd do with it wasn't. "But you can't just outright brainwash and torture people. That'd be a public relations nightmare. They have to refine it first. Which could be what that 'extended selection' is about." But that, too, was entirely too convoluted to be the whole story.

They could flip a switch somewhere, and make you do anything they wanted, the bugs reminded him. But they didn't, Mello argued silently. Absolute control wasn't what they wanted. That didn't make sense, either, when he'd seen ample evidence of how easy it was to achieve. He ate another chip to keep from grinding his teeth in frustration. It looked like the staff was starting to think about gathering their unwilling charges, and Mello was due to butt his head against another problem, that of what the hell they'd done to Matt up there

[unmocked_lawr]

Javert shook his head. "Unless the experimental treatments are precisely as advertised--attempts, perhaps, to discover just how much control they have over the patients here. For all their talk of keeping us trapped, it's possible our captors still don't know how much they can force their prisoners to do, or do to them. Perhaps the lack of a pattern is deliberate in that regard. They can't do it to everyone; they might not have the funds for it."

His nurse was beginning to glance over at him again. Javert lowered his voice. "That may be another avenue of inquiry. Are there any instances of Special Counseling patients appearing to resist their conditioning? Anything that suggests that not everything may be going as planned for Landel? As ever, I doubt it will go anywhere, but it's something to consider all the same."