Harvey was still of the belief that that hadn't been purposefully leaked to them, but there wasn't much point in arguing it when there was no way to offer solid proof -- only speculation. He shrugged and held back a sigh. It was true that this General had been pretty elusive so far, but...
"If he really plans to take charge of this place, then he's going to have to show himself. I don't know how he plans to try and control us without at least letting us see his face." Granted, Landel had done the same thing, but he'd had the advantage of talking to them when they first arrived here, when they were all too disoriented to ask all the questions they should have been asking.
The patients probably wouldn't take this kind of change as easily, would they? Especially if it meant a change from the routine. As much as everyone complained, humans were creatures of habit.
The sudden change of subject took him by surprise, and he ended up staring at Lana for a moment as he tried to figure out what she was getting at. But then he remembered her sister's claims and everything fell into place. "Spending the night with her? I think most of the chemicals are stored upstairs, but I'd suggest looking at the labels very closely before trying to mix anything together."
"I wonder." Keep the structures people expected in place, and there were a lot of things people would just ignore. One change, at the top, and as long as there was food in the day and things out there at night, how many people would see that everything was changing.
It was easy, when you were standing at the top. Lana should know; she'd done it. It put her in the unique position of being able to watch what she'd wrought come back to haunt her. Not so unique, Skye. Damon Gant. And Martin Landel -- had this been part of what haunted him two nights ago? Or was that merely one of his little games? A Rorschach test, with their own shadows stepping out of the inky darkness.
But enough of that. Harvey had taken her change of subject at face value, and spotted what had prompted it. Good. "I'm afraid I'd have to trust her judgment on that subject. And...hmm." There was trusting Ema, and there was trusting Ema to be Ema. Which this would be -- that wasn't necessarily a question Lana wanted to ask. Her eyebrows knitted; she didn't bother to hide the thoughts. "I think I'll suggest we start with the radios. I've been assured they can be made into walkie-talkies, if one knows how."
Which she didn't, and while Ema might really know the theory, practice took, well, practice.
While Lana didn't sound so convinced, Harvey was still fairly certain that the general -- from what he'd determined about him from the little information they'd been given -- wouldn't allow himself to be a faceless figure the way Landel had. Granted, it wasn't something he was going to bet on or anything along those lines, but he knew which of his instincts to trust.
The woman then went on to imply that she didn't know enough about chemistry to determine what was safe and what wasn't, which... probably meant that the idea should be ditched entirely. As earnest as Ema had seemed, she was still a teenager. And while Harvey didn't know what a chemical burn was like, his own wounds gave him enough of an idea that he would like to think Lana would know better than to risk it.
Which was the case, if the radio comment was anything to go by. This was the first that Harvey had heard of something like that, though, and he had to admit it was intriguing. Seeing how they'd all been stripped of their cell phones, that would be the next best thing.
"Sounds like it'd be a tough job and you might end up down one radio," he said with a shrug. After Lana had lectured him about how he would be better off bringing his along with him, he had to wonder if she would be so quick to dismantle her own.
Or down a patient block if we overload something and start a fire. The radios, as useful as they would be, weren't the point, though. She only had one sister.
"I dropped mine, the other night. Heard it crack. But either it wasn't the same one in the morning, or it had been repaired perfectly." All the surface wounds, swept away. Landel liked doing that.
Harvey had given her a serious -- and probably right -- answer, but it hadn't the real question.
"I guess...I just don't know how much she's really grown up. I did everything in my power to push her away, and now we're having to get to know each other all over again." The words came out in a bit of a rush, once they'd started. And Harvey wasn't the one she needed to say them to, but she could use the practice. He'd understand what she was doing, even if he thought less of her for it.
So the radios repaired themselves if they got damaged? Well, it did make sense, seeing how their wounds got tended to. Still, it wasn't like his metal pipe got repaired when he bent it out of shape at night, but maybe that didn't count since it wasn't something he'd been offered upon arrival.
Though as much as he might want to puzzle through that, Lana suddenly came out with a confession that he hadn't expected from her. She was usually professional, to the point, and therefore distant.
More than that, he wasn't sure what to say in response to it. He was an only child, so sibling problems weren't something he'd ever had to deal with. Still, there was an obvious question to ask, and seeing how she was the one who'd brought it up, he didn't really mind doing so.
"Why did you want to push her away? Was it because of your job, or...?" Harvey could understand that. There was a reason that he'd started dating another lawyer, after all. Most other people didn't understand the sheer amount of work that was involved -- or how obsessive you could end up getting over it, if it really mattered to you.
And at one point, it had mattered to Harvey more than anything.
Harvey bristled a bit at the nosedive the conversation had taken toward the personal. It reminded her of Edgeworth, the few times either of them had been forced to admit to an existence outside the office. It seemed she wasn't quite done putting her past behind her, whether it was by conscious choice or a mind that couldn't stop thinking in terms of clues and cases, dropping hints into innocuous conversation.
She'd given Dent most of the pieces two days ago, though any conclusions he might have drawn would have suffered the same fatal flaw her own had. She wanted to just spit it out; it would be a relief to tell the whole story, top to bottom, to an impartial ear. Not for judgment; the system would do that well enough. Just for connection. Normal conversation, even if the topics got a bit morbid the more lawyers one added to the mix. Two years shoving not just Ema but everyone away had left her starved for it.
She still needed to pick her words carefully. Dent would have enough to piece it together, but she'd offered Gant the bargain of keeping things quiet, and she wasn't going to renege on that without good reason. He'd been an able investigator, once, and his crimes in another jurisdiction.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't at liberty to explain before. I thought Ema was the only one close enough to figure out the truth of what I'd done., and so I pushed her away." Her smile was at complete odds with the words she was saying, but this had become almost as habitual as pinning a neutral expression on had been a week ago. "I was wrong, both about the facts of what had happened, and that the evidence could be hidden." Two rising stars, working from opposite sides, had done what none of them had been able to do from the inside. Jake, Ms. Starr, Bruce -- all of them had been too far inside to see the truth.
Say three rising stars, perhaps. Ema had been the driving force in the investigation. And at my tender age, too! She'd probably be eighty before Ema would get tired of that one. Lana looked forward to it. It was simultaneously the most wonderful and ridiculous part of this whole ordeal -- the certainty that she would have a future, if only she could get back to it.
"Or, more precisely, that it will stay hidden. This is a very strange place, Mr. Dent. But I don't expect you need me to tell you that."
So it went back to that case that was still shrouded in mystery. Harvey had only gotten bits and pieces from Lana and Gant, but he had learned enough to make him wary of the whole thing and distrustful of everyone involved. In fact, he probably would have been happier if their conversations didn't touch on that incident at all, but it looked like that wasn't going to happen.
Granted, what Lana was talking about now wasn't the case itself so much as her sister. Ema had mentioned that the two of them had come to some sort of understanding a few nights ago, so maybe that was why Lana was suddenly trying to play big sister with the science projects.
Harvey wondered if it might be a case of too little too late, but Ema was still young and she seemed like an optimistic girl. While part of him was bitter at the idea of someone else reaching a happiness that he'd only ever grasped at, he did his best to be glad for her.
And yet he still was curious to know if Lana had done something that would have made her a target for his coin.
"Right, Ema hinted at you two reconciling." He knew that asking for details would be a futile gesture, and so he left it alone. "It looks like this place can show you what's really important in the end." The words felt ridiculous coming out of his mouth; it was the sort of scripted bullshit he'd been so good at generating back when he'd been trying to save Gotham, back when he'd actually believed it was all true.
But for the moment, he was doing his best not to be a downer. Easier said than done, of course.
It all came down to two things -- truth, and trusting the ones one loved. Beyond that, even Detective Gumshoe's unusually careful monologue had left her vague on the exact details.
"I hope it can do that for you, too. That some good can come out of this for all of us." She didn't know what demons, precisely, he was running from, but no-one was perfect. And given ex-Detective Badd's revelations this morning, that had been more true than she'd even suspected. A mistake she would probably make again; optimism still came more naturally than cynicism, despite all her efforts.
A murmur was running around the room; Lana wasn't sure where it had started, but her head jerked like someone had just grabbed every muscle in her neck and yanked. She held up a wait, please hand to Dent and stared at the clump of soldiers; there were more of them than there had been a few minutes ago, but they'd been coming and going all day. What had her instincts picked out of the chatter?
Before she could puzzle it out for herself, one of the soldiers answered for her, barking orders out. Then both doors flew open with a resonant bang, and now everyone was looking that way.
From his first impression of Lana, Harvey really hadn't expected her to be so full of hope. He got the feeling this wasn't a side that she often showed to people, and that maybe she hadn't even realized she had it until recently. Maybe due to her sister, maybe due to something else.
But her words fell on deaf ears; the idea of something good coming out of this situation in his case just sounded preposterous. He wasn't afraid to admit it, either, and would have done so if they hadn't suddenly been interrupted.
While Lana had signaled him to wait, it was totally unnecessary as he was just as distracted by the sudden change in events. Their conversation was almost completely forgotten as he shifted in his seat and focused on the entering band of soldiers.
"If he really plans to take charge of this place, then he's going to have to show himself. I don't know how he plans to try and control us without at least letting us see his face." Granted, Landel had done the same thing, but he'd had the advantage of talking to them when they first arrived here, when they were all too disoriented to ask all the questions they should have been asking.
The patients probably wouldn't take this kind of change as easily, would they? Especially if it meant a change from the routine. As much as everyone complained, humans were creatures of habit.
The sudden change of subject took him by surprise, and he ended up staring at Lana for a moment as he tried to figure out what she was getting at. But then he remembered her sister's claims and everything fell into place. "Spending the night with her? I think most of the chemicals are stored upstairs, but I'd suggest looking at the labels very closely before trying to mix anything together."
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It was easy, when you were standing at the top. Lana should know; she'd done it. It put her in the unique position of being able to watch what she'd wrought come back to haunt her. Not so unique, Skye. Damon Gant. And Martin Landel -- had this been part of what haunted him two nights ago? Or was that merely one of his little games? A Rorschach test, with their own shadows stepping out of the inky darkness.
But enough of that. Harvey had taken her change of subject at face value, and spotted what had prompted it. Good. "I'm afraid I'd have to trust her judgment on that subject. And...hmm." There was trusting Ema, and there was trusting Ema to be Ema. Which this would be -- that wasn't necessarily a question Lana wanted to ask. Her eyebrows knitted; she didn't bother to hide the thoughts. "I think I'll suggest we start with the radios. I've been assured they can be made into walkie-talkies, if one knows how."
Which she didn't, and while Ema might really know the theory, practice took, well, practice.
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The woman then went on to imply that she didn't know enough about chemistry to determine what was safe and what wasn't, which... probably meant that the idea should be ditched entirely. As earnest as Ema had seemed, she was still a teenager. And while Harvey didn't know what a chemical burn was like, his own wounds gave him enough of an idea that he would like to think Lana would know better than to risk it.
Which was the case, if the radio comment was anything to go by. This was the first that Harvey had heard of something like that, though, and he had to admit it was intriguing. Seeing how they'd all been stripped of their cell phones, that would be the next best thing.
"Sounds like it'd be a tough job and you might end up down one radio," he said with a shrug. After Lana had lectured him about how he would be better off bringing his along with him, he had to wonder if she would be so quick to dismantle her own.
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"I dropped mine, the other night. Heard it crack. But either it wasn't the same one in the morning, or it had been repaired perfectly." All the surface wounds, swept away. Landel liked doing that.
Harvey had given her a serious -- and probably right -- answer, but it hadn't the real question.
"I guess...I just don't know how much she's really grown up. I did everything in my power to push her away, and now we're having to get to know each other all over again." The words came out in a bit of a rush, once they'd started. And Harvey wasn't the one she needed to say them to, but she could use the practice. He'd understand what she was doing, even if he thought less of her for it.
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Though as much as he might want to puzzle through that, Lana suddenly came out with a confession that he hadn't expected from her. She was usually professional, to the point, and therefore distant.
More than that, he wasn't sure what to say in response to it. He was an only child, so sibling problems weren't something he'd ever had to deal with. Still, there was an obvious question to ask, and seeing how she was the one who'd brought it up, he didn't really mind doing so.
"Why did you want to push her away? Was it because of your job, or...?" Harvey could understand that. There was a reason that he'd started dating another lawyer, after all. Most other people didn't understand the sheer amount of work that was involved -- or how obsessive you could end up getting over it, if it really mattered to you.
And at one point, it had mattered to Harvey more than anything.
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She'd given Dent most of the pieces two days ago, though any conclusions he might have drawn would have suffered the same fatal flaw her own had. She wanted to just spit it out; it would be a relief to tell the whole story, top to bottom, to an impartial ear. Not for judgment; the system would do that well enough. Just for connection. Normal conversation, even if the topics got a bit morbid the more lawyers one added to the mix. Two years shoving not just Ema but everyone away had left her starved for it.
She still needed to pick her words carefully. Dent would have enough to piece it together, but she'd offered Gant the bargain of keeping things quiet, and she wasn't going to renege on that without good reason. He'd been an able investigator, once, and his crimes in another jurisdiction.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't at liberty to explain before. I thought Ema was the only one close enough to figure out the truth of what I'd done., and so I pushed her away." Her smile was at complete odds with the words she was saying, but this had become almost as habitual as pinning a neutral expression on had been a week ago. "I was wrong, both about the facts of what had happened, and that the evidence could be hidden." Two rising stars, working from opposite sides, had done what none of them had been able to do from the inside. Jake, Ms. Starr, Bruce -- all of them had been too far inside to see the truth.
Say three rising stars, perhaps. Ema had been the driving force in the investigation. And at my tender age, too! She'd probably be eighty before Ema would get tired of that one. Lana looked forward to it. It was simultaneously the most wonderful and ridiculous part of this whole ordeal -- the certainty that she would have a future, if only she could get back to it.
"Or, more precisely, that it will stay hidden. This is a very strange place, Mr. Dent. But I don't expect you need me to tell you that."
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Granted, what Lana was talking about now wasn't the case itself so much as her sister. Ema had mentioned that the two of them had come to some sort of understanding a few nights ago, so maybe that was why Lana was suddenly trying to play big sister with the science projects.
Harvey wondered if it might be a case of too little too late, but Ema was still young and she seemed like an optimistic girl. While part of him was bitter at the idea of someone else reaching a happiness that he'd only ever grasped at, he did his best to be glad for her.
And yet he still was curious to know if Lana had done something that would have made her a target for his coin.
"Right, Ema hinted at you two reconciling." He knew that asking for details would be a futile gesture, and so he left it alone. "It looks like this place can show you what's really important in the end." The words felt ridiculous coming out of his mouth; it was the sort of scripted bullshit he'd been so good at generating back when he'd been trying to save Gotham, back when he'd actually believed it was all true.
But for the moment, he was doing his best not to be a downer. Easier said than done, of course.
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"I hope it can do that for you, too. That some good can come out of this for all of us." She didn't know what demons, precisely, he was running from, but no-one was perfect. And given ex-Detective Badd's revelations this morning, that had been more true than she'd even suspected. A mistake she would probably make again; optimism still came more naturally than cynicism, despite all her efforts.
A murmur was running around the room; Lana wasn't sure where it had started, but her head jerked like someone had just grabbed every muscle in her neck and yanked. She held up a wait, please hand to Dent and stared at the clump of soldiers; there were more of them than there had been a few minutes ago, but they'd been coming and going all day. What had her instincts picked out of the chatter?
Before she could puzzle it out for herself, one of the soldiers answered for her, barking orders out. Then both doors flew open with a resonant bang, and now everyone was looking that way.
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But her words fell on deaf ears; the idea of something good coming out of this situation in his case just sounded preposterous. He wasn't afraid to admit it, either, and would have done so if they hadn't suddenly been interrupted.
While Lana had signaled him to wait, it was totally unnecessary as he was just as distracted by the sudden change in events. Their conversation was almost completely forgotten as he shifted in his seat and focused on the entering band of soldiers.
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