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
That was the question on Prussia's mind ever since waking up-or perhaps more accurately, ever since waking up and finding out that there had been some minor changes to the prisoner uniform: they finally had real clothes.
A soldier had burst into his room moments as he'd been studying the identifiers on his new dog tags-Gilbert Beilschmidt, C Class, 65337489M. Neither the number nor the class was familiar, but Prussia couldn't help but smile a little at the sight of the tags themselves.
He'd adjusted his beret-and was reminded of Switzerland for all of about a second as he did so-and then followed the soldier out of the room towards the mess while wondering about last night, and how he could have forgotten who and what he was. There was no getting around it: he'd forgotten things. He'd called himself 'Gilbert' around other nations. He hadn't even remembered West was his brother, outside of context clues that had led him to the conclusion.
But he was Prussia. He was the Free State of Prussia and would be for a while longer. A nation didn't just forget about centuries worth of history...
Once in the mess, the lady officer in charge barked for everyone to get to work-save for those who had taken part in "yesterday's insubordination." Prussia had a sinking feeling he was part of that number; as punishments went, not having to join in the work was hardly fitting, but the way she'd termed yesterday's fight... It left Prussia feeling unusually uncomfortable.
A glance at the soldier who'd brought him in earned him a nod and a gruff "I don't want to see you with a sponge, Beilschmidt."
Prussia gave the soldier a narrowed-eyed look, but then nodded, wandering off to see if he could at least find someone-who wasn't one the nations he'd seen last night-to pass the time with. He spotted one familiar face working at the nearest table.
"Dr Jones," Prussia greeted, coming to a stop by the table. He hadn't spoken to his brother's roommate since their (admittedly disastrous) conversation a couple days ago. He wondered if Jones had mentioned what he'd said to West... "It's, uh. Been a while."
Reply
The flicker of irritation died when Indy remembered the man had lost his brother. Rumor suggested room changes did occasionally happen, but Indy hadn't seen his roommate since dinner the other night, and that was a bad sign. Gilbert looked in a remarkably fair mood under the circumstances. Maybe the self-proclaimed living embodiments of nations didn't feel the same way about siblings as ordinary mortals), Indy thought dryly, but still, he should say something, even wary as he still was of the Beilschmidts.
"Good morning," he said, slowly soaking and wringing the sponge so he could focus his gaze on Gilbert Beilschmidt without appearing to stop working. "I'm sorry about your brother."
Reply
Prussia's friendly expression fell away immediately, replaced by confusion. Jones was... sorry about West? What was that supposed to mean? He hadn't actually spoken to his brother since that night with the doppelgängers, and that had been a couple of days by now; had something-...
"W-what do you mean?" he asked nervously.
He really didn't like the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he tried to mentally shoo it away. There were all sorts of things Jones could have meant, really; it didn't mean that something bad had happened. Maybe West had just gotten hurt a little; something like that probably would have looked pretty bad to a human, but really he'd only be uncomfortable for a while.
But despite trying to convince himself it was nothing, he looked away from Jones, scanning the room for any sign of his brother. Finding none-he was probably down on all fours scrubbing-he turned his attention back to Jones. There was concern in his tone as he rapidly questioned, "Did something happen to West? Is he okay? He's okay, right?"
Reply
It was never fun to be the bearer of bad news, but at least hearing that bad news from another person might be better than slowly noticing the disappearance and just wondering. Indy regretted having made the assumption, though.
"Sorry," he said. "I thought you knew already. I saw your brother at dinner the night before last, but not since then. Another new arrival has moved into my room."
The sponge was dry. Indy dunked it and squeezed it again just for something to do with his hands. What could you say in a situation like this, especially to someone you didn't know well? A disappearance might at least be a step up over the violent death a patient might have at the hands (or jaws) of one of Landel's lab rats, but that would be cold comfort. "I'm sorry," he repeated after a beat.
Reply
"Maybe he just changed rooms," he suggested after Jones had apologized again. "I've been moved around to three different rooms already; just because you guys aren't sharing a room now, that doesn't mean......"
Mean what? Mean that West had disappeared? That he was gone?
There was a long pause before Prussia spoke again, but when he did, he didn't finish his previous thought, "You've been here longer than I have, Dr Jones." The man had never said as much explicitly, but ever since they'd met he'd come across as knowledgeable, experienced. Jones knew more than Prussia did about this place; he was convinced of that. "Have you ever heard if... disappearing means anything? Do the folks who disappear get sent home?"
In his own (admittedly limited) experience, the only person that he knew wasn't here any more was dead, but when it came a nation, that would be a tough thing to achieve overnight. The idea that West could have died wasn't even a possibility in his mind.
Reply
Several of the soldiers were glaring at him now (not surprising; they probably weren't supposed to be chatting with the instigators), so Indy turned back to the table and kept talking in a low voice as he scrubbed. "A few of them come back as visitors on Sundays, brainwashed." He stopped, then decided he might as well be honest. "Some others are killed. But for the most part, word seems to get around about those, so you'd probably know already if that was the case. You can check the morgue upstairs if you're looking for evidence.
"Most of them, though..." He shook his head. "We don't have any idea. The nurses will tell you they recovered and were sent 'home.' What actually happens is a question I'd like answered as well."
Reply
And then there was the brainwashing. That seemed just as impossible to Prussia as West dying, but... No matter what he may have said to Austria, Hungary's behavior when she'd visited had been pretty damn weird. Was that what had happened to her? Had she... been here before him, and gotten brainwashed once they were done with her? She was way stronger than that, but...
"I hope they're sent home," he finally said. If West was back home, that would be a good thing. Hell, it would be a great thing-no worrying about what might happen to their country in West's absence, no worrying about being cut off from the land. Maybe West could even do something about this damn place, now that he knew about it.
"You ever get one of those visitors, Dr Jones?" he asked suddenly, trying to steer the conversation from his brother. He wasn't even sure yet that West was gone, so there was no use worrying about it until he knew.
Reply
He didn't answer at first when Beilschmidt asked about the visitors, just kept working his way around the table. It would've been easy to avoid the question, but that didn't quite sit right, somehow. Without looking up, Indy said, "My father. They said he'd been a patient, and he had a partial file in the discharge records, but if he was here, I never knew about it." His voice was grim.
Indy didn't like talking about it, especially to someone he didn't particularly trust. After a pause, he switched topics: "I can't figure these guys out." A quick jerk of his thumb at the armed soldiers along the wall made it obvious who he meant. "It'd be nice if the changing of the guard meant we might actually start getting some answers, but this doesn't seem like a promising start."
Reply
It was interesting, though, that Dr Jones didn't know whether his own father had been here prior to getting visited by the man. It was the same way with Hungary; he hadn't exactly asked around about whether anyone who'd been here a while had known her, but she hadn't made any indication that she'd been here before him, either. There was still the question of how she'd known about the place, but maybe it hadn't been brainwashing after all.
In the space of silence Prussia debated mentioning his own visitor to Dr Jones-comparing notes, or something like that-but then Jones brought up the soldiers. The soldiers were something Prussia could talk about. The military was something Prussia really understood.
"Maybe it will mean that, in the end," Prussia suggested, looking at the line of soldiers Dr Jones had pointed to. Their new guards were a lot more straightforward than the nurses.
All along it had seemed pretty obvious that they were being kept as prisoners (no matter what pretenses they'd kept up), but now... Now he was starting to doubt that, just a little. Maybe they'd essentially gotten shanghaied into someone else's army instead.
"You heard what the lady called yesterday's fight, right? 'Insubordination'. Even if we are prisoners, that's an implication that we owe allegiance. I can't say if they think we're enemies or allies; if it's enemy prisoners, I doubt they'd reveal anything at all no matter what we try. But if it's allies... of course they're not going to tell anything to a bunch of rowdy, ill-behaved recruits. Prove ourselves worthy, and it could be a different story."
Reply
His tone was slightly brusque as he kept cleaning, but he replied readily enough. "Last night whoever was on the intercom--" Aguilar, probably, but Indy wasn't going to make assumptions just yet, "--mentioned wanting improvements in the population that would justify the resources they'd expended on this 'project.'" Improvements in the population--now there was a concept the Nazis were familiar with. "So there could be something to that idea. Can't say I like having to play along with their game if that's what it is, though."
It fit with what he'd already noticed about the unusual nature of the patient population, people who were--or thought they were--supernatural or mutated or otherwise possessed of exceptional abilities. If this was some kind of survival-of-the-fittest scheme, taking already strong subjects and putting them through the wringer to make them even stronger, things began to click into place. What was the next step, then? Eugenics? Forced breeding to produce a new race of Übermenschen? If so, they could've stood to find more women.
How did Indy all fit into this? Maybe Landel or whoever was in charge of recruiting had seen those damn movies and gotten the wrong idea.
The lady soldier from earlier was back now, with her entourage. Indy straightened up and dropped the sponge into the bucket. Looked like cleanup time was just about over.
Reply
While he definitely liked the improvements this military had brought so far-proper uniforms, someone who knew how to give orders instead of all that leading around and coaxing-he agreed with Dr Jones on one thing.
"I can't say I like the idea of playing along either, but it could be worth it if it gets us closer to out of here." Even if he liked the changes they'd brought, it wasn't his military. It wasn't even West's military.
Nevertheless, he instantly straightened to attention at the piercing whistle that was issued a moment later. If he did decide to leave a good impression on the new order around here, he'd already gotten off to a bad start. He needed to improve on that, just in case; he could always change his mind later on.
It wasn't until the woman who knew how to give orders dismissed them that Prussia was at ease once more. The soldiers were already on the move to make sure everyone went where they were meant to, so he gave one last look at Dr Jones.
"If you do see West anywhere, let me know," he requested. "I want to make sure he's... Well, I just want to be sure."
Reply
Leave a comment