Mar 09, 2011 12:03
leela,
kirk,
s.t.,
klavier,
japan,
tsubaki,
badd,
anise,
minato,
the doctor,
sam winchester,
firo,
goku (dragonball),
taura,
dexter,
franziska,
claire bennet,
kinomoto sakura,
peter parker,
snow,
lunge,
lana skye,
ruby,
mello,
soren,
brainiac 5,
the flash,
roxas,
albedo,
stefan,
peter petrelli,
mele,
damon,
two-face,
ritsuka,
lion,
rapunzel,
erika,
edgar,
canada,
the scarecrow,
sync,
matt,
maya,
zevran,
battler,
spock,
zack,
kratos,
l,
shinji,
kenshin,
bella,
scott pilgrim,
gumshoe,
ax,
claire littleton,
sora,
gren,
prussia,
claude,
renamon,
guybrush,
dean winchester,
byrne,
guy,
kairi,
venom,
nigredo,
ilia,
kibitoshin,
lightning,
rita,
alaric,
yue,
sasuke,
aidou,
claire stanfield,
edward cullen,
kaworu,
mccoy
More than that, the night had given him a lot to worry about. Tear's odd behavior, Anise's memory loss, and the fact that Claude had gotten a nasty wound and yet had acted like it was nothing but a scratch. There had been something weird going on with all three of them, and he could only hope that the man on the radio had been right and that the food was responsible for it. But then why had he been unaffected? Or had his symptom just not been as obvious?
Still, he couldn't think of anything it might be, and he realized it was about time to get out of bed. As he sat up, he felt a cold sensation at the back of his neck -- and more than that, it felt like he was wearing his outfit from home rather than the less flattering uniform the institute required them to wear.
He was half-right about that. The uniform he had on now was closer to his own attire, but it was hardly the same thing either. It looked more like something that a soldier might wear, though it wasn't all that similar to the uniforms that the Oracle Knights wore. It bore more of a resemblance to what the soldiers wore here, which made sense, of course. So they really were going to be treated like soldiers now -- or trainees, at the very least.
That cold feeling was due to something that had been put around his neck; a set of metal tags that had some identifying information on it. Dana Browne, S Class, 48923245M. The number meant nothing to him, but the class seemed to be a rank of some sort. S Class was generally the absolute highest, wasn't it? But in what context?
When a soldier (a male one, thankfully came through the door, Guy glanced up, grabbing for the beret that was clearly part of this new uniform. He noticed a gleaming gold pin on it, tilting his head when he saw the sword and shield design. And what did that mean?
"Mr. Browne, it's good to see that you're up and ready to go already," the soldier said with a nod, and he almost phrased it like a compliment.
"Yeah, I'm ready," he confirmed with a nod, taking a few steps forward.
"Please follow me, then."
After asking a few questions, Guy determined that he'd been right about the S Class, though the soldier didn't completely explain what it meant or what the pin on his beret signified. Both his class and the pin were supposed to be good things, but that was from the perspective of the military, which meant he had to take it with a grain of salt.
On the way through the Sun Room, his request to use the bulletin board was granted, and Guy left a message for his friends. He needed to be sure that everyone was all right after what they'd gone through last night.
But his day took a nose dive when he walked into the cafeteria and was forced to listen to a very severe woman give them a lecture about why they needed to clean up the whole cafeteria. As a servant, this sort of work was hardly new to him, but it bothered him on principle. Luckily, with the amount of patients who would be doing this, chances were it wouldn't take so long. While he hadn't done this sort of work in a while, it wasn't the sort of thing that you forgot, and so he grabbed a rag and started cleaning.
[Free! Come clean with him. 8D]
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Waking up the next morning came as less of a surprise. It was probably some gas they put in the air, set on a random timer--outside the walls Kay wouldn't have to to worry about that. What did come as a suprise was the outfit change. Again. Badd forced down a feeling of mild violation at having for the second time been unconsciously stripped and redressed by unknown forces. They'd given him dog tags, too, some meaningless number and that false name they'd forced on him yesterday. It looked like the general had wised up and realized that a prison needed to actually be run like a prison rather than a nursing home.
That was all right. Badd had done a little time on the prisoner side and a little time on the guard side and he could work with prison rules. The enforced cleaning of the cafeteria seemed a classic technique, as did making an example of the guys who'd started the problem. That 'meatbag' guy, Badd did not rate his survival as very likely if any of the nastier prisoners knew where he slept. Maybe people were a little nicer to each other here than they were in real prisons, if only because the majority were likely innocent civilians or keepers of the law, but Badd knew how little it took for one man to turn on another and he bet the general knew it even better.
He just wished it wasn't specifically this kind of work. Badd picked out a spot near a younger kid, one who didn't seem inclined to be a spoiled brat about the situation, and began cleaning next to him. "This is going to be hell on my knees," he said by way of introduction. Badd kept himself in better condition than most men his age but his joints were starting to get untrustworthy and an hour on the floor scrubbing would probably follow him around the rest of the day.
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Guy took in the older man's appearance, along with the uniform that he wasn't used to seeing on anyone else, let alone himself. It actually suited the man decently just from first impressions, though he'd have to see if that assumption stood up.
Having already crouched down to start taking any stains out of the floor (not that there were many, since there had only been one meal in here since the staff had cleaned it yesterday), Guy could see how this sort of down-and-dirty cleaning could be hard on someone who was older or just wasn't used to it. Luckily, his joints and bones hadn't forgotten this sort of thing so quickly, so he felt fine.
Even though the stranger's demeanor was completely different, the comment about his age reminded him of Jade, and brought a small smile to his face. No matter what this place did to them, at least the company tended to be good. But more importantly, he wanted to address the man's problem. "Maybe work on scrubbing the walls instead? Or the tables? That way you won't have to put too much pressure on them." It wasn't just the floor that needed to be cleaned, after all.
"Oh, and the name's Guy, by the way. What do you think of the new uniform?" he asked, clearly not entirely serious. Even if they had to do work, they might as well make the best of it.
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Up close the kid seemed older than Badd has first surmised, though to him 'kid' was still anyone between the ages of five and thirty. "You seem pretty upbeat about all this, did you hold down a janitor job before you came here?" he asked, making only the most cursory attempt at actual scrubbing. He doubted anyone actually expected the place to be clean, the important part was the punishment. It wouldn't surprise them if they cleaned the place to sparkling and were still harassed over a neglected dustbunny found in a darkened corner.
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The man's first comment almost went completely over Guy's head. He could make some assumptions, which was that part of the man's salary went to a government or kingdom (he had no idea how it worked on other worlds) and he therefore felt like he'd been snubbed, but...
Chances were the man wasn't even from Earth in the first place, right? Then again, there was always the possibility that he was.
But Guy was getting ahead of himself. He smirked in response to the question. "I don't know about upbeat, but I did used to be a servant, so you could say that I'm used to it, yeah." At least the fact that he was doing a thorough job would probably cover up the fact that his companion for the shift wasn't putting as much effort into it.
"Do you mind if I ask where you're from?" Even if he hadn't gotten the man's name, maybe he would answer this instead.
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And if he got asked what planet that was on he was going to feed Guy his own rag because he really did not want to deal with that nonsense. Location wasn't a big deal here, and the last time he'd admitted it he'd gotten the chance to make Gant a new enemy. As to anything else, the kid would have to earn that right. Badd had no idea who to trust around here and if anything a sour face was more trustworthy than a chipper one. It was usually the guilty ones who ran their mouths the most.
"You?" He couldn't quite place the accent. 'Servant', though, that was pretty formal. Maybe he was someone's butler from the wrong place at the wrong time.
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There was another way to find out, though, and that was by answering the question himself. "I'm from Auldrant," he said. "Kimlasca, specifically." Which was both the truth and a lie. He was really from Hod, but he'd lived in Kimlasca long enough that he could refer to it as home to a stranger and not feel too bad about it.
With most of the floor around him pretty much gleaming, he moved on to the seats closest to him, starting at the base of the bench and then moving up with the sponge, dipping it back into his bucket of water periodically. He was doing an admirable job of not dirtying his uniform despite the fact that he was doing a thorough cleaning.
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As Badd scrubbed he looked around the cafeteria at the huddled masses of cleaners and the ne'er-do-wells standing at attention with empty hands. No Kay, they hadn't knocked her out and taken her back in again. Badd felt a small weight rise off his chest at missing her face in the crowd.
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This guy wasn't contributing that much to the conversation, which made Guy wonder if he should just ask the question he'd had sitting in the back of his mind for a while now. He'd noticed how the stranger was looking around and wondered if he was searching out someone in particular, but it was just as possible that he was merely taking in the odd sight of all of the other patients in new uniforms wiping down the large room.
"I've never heard of any of those places you mentioned, either," he admitted after a long pause had grown between them. "Is it on Earth?" It felt a bit surreal to be engaging in small talk when there was so much else going on, but it wasn't like complaining about the changes they'd been put through was going to get them anywhere.
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The next stroke of his rag nearly scrubbed the paint from the top of the table. He wondered if they were even going to feed the populace today, or just starve them until tomorrow morning in order to make them more pliant. Normal prisons had regulations on them, no matter how shoddily they were followed, but Badd doubted there was any ethics board overseeing this operation.
Necks were going to snap when he blew this open and got back to Los Angeles.
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The man's attitude made it clear that he didn't believe that other planets existed, but Guy wasn't going to just deny where he came from in order to have a conversation with him.
"I guess you picked the wrong person to talk to, then," he replied, but despite his words his tone was rather calm. He sighed and got back to cleaning, figuring that the man could move on and chat with someone else if he was going to be picky.
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"Guess I did. I have enough trouble dealing with the maniacs around here who don't think they're from space and have enough sense to be reasoned wtih." Nothing to do now but watch the guards and watch for Kay, making half-hearted attempts to clean in the meanwhile. Badd shifted to the next chair over and started cleaning that portion of the table. At least Guy wasn't violent or babbling and was willing to actually put a bit of elbow grease into his cleaning for the benefit of Aguilar's ego.
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"I'm not... from space," he said as he wrinkled his brow slightly. He knew all about space travel after talking to Claude, who was from Earth. Clearly this man was further back in time if he saw that as crazy talk. "I didn't even realize there were worlds other than my own until I came here. And doesn't it stand out to you that so many people are telling you the same story?" It wouldn't make sense for everyone to be insane in the same exact way, after all. If this guy was truly going along with what the nurses had been telling him, then he had a long way to go. As Guy kept working, he idly wondered what class the man was.
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"If you put a bunch of crazy people in the same box they're going to start spreading their crazy ideas to each other. It's not surprising. Besides, you're the first person who's from...wherever it is that you think you're from. Everyone's got their own personal delusion." Badd moved another seat to the left, scowling. It was a matter to wonder--how many people here were sincerely crazy, how many were sane, how many were sane playing crazy, and how many had come in sane and been driven mad by this place.
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"I'm not the only one here from Auldrant," he said with a shake of his head. "If you meet a young girl named Anise or a teenager named Tear, go ahead and ask them. They can tell you all about it." Normally Guy enjoyed exchanging facts about different worlds with other people, but he wasn't exactly in the mood to do so with someone who seemed to be mocking him.
What also surprised him was just how rude the man was being. Had he actually been crazy, this was no way to treat someone with that sort of disability, was it?
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"You're really assuming I care," Badd said dismissively. "I don't. Wasting my time talking to people who can't understand even the bare bones of reality isn't going to be conducive to finding the truth about this place." What was needed was truth, hard evidence, and this place seemed to change so fast that trying to hang on to anything was pointless. He'd talk with Javert again tonight and see what leads he'd come up with. Now that Kay was out of the picture he could devote the bulk of his brainpower to piecing together Landel and Aguilar's schemes.
...damn. The best thing about going to jail had been a reprieve from decades of detectivework and vigilantism aimed at taking down the criminal populace and here he was stuck right back in the thick of it against his will. Necks and snapping, he'd make sure of it, he'd planned on enjoying his retirement if he was lucky enough to make it that far.
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