Day 55: Cafeteria

[bodhiandspirit]

Though five days without bathing was hardly unusual for Rita, she was actually looking forward to showering today. To her, the last shift had been somewhat enjoyable, if only because it allowed her an opportunity to be alone with her thoughts for a bit. Of course, she couldn't be completely alone in the communal showers, but no one was rude enough

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[tasteoftruth]

He was insane. Let's just go with that. It was a combination of drugs and stress and the horrific crazy situation around him that had driven him into hallucinations. When the shift change came Badd wanted to ask, like a schizophrenic, 'Do you see him?', but stopped himself just in time. If he was going insane he refused to bow to it and instead fled into the hallway to escape the phantom's presence.

And it just had to be Byrne. In retrospect it was no surprise that his subconscious would conjure up his murdered, betrayed, nigh-martyred partner. It was what would hurt him the most, and what tended to be on his mind the most. Byrne had haunted him for years, lingered in his memory during the day and encroached on his dreams at night. He'd devoted his life to catching Byrne's killer and the smuggling ring that stood behind her. He'd nearly killed her. He'd testified and gotten her put away. And that only gave him the very barest gasps of peace as he sat, finally satisfied, in his lone jail cell and now it was right back up in his face again just as he found himself forced back into the Yatagarasu role again.

It was only the stress. Still, he caught himself looking around the cafeteria, wondering if Bruce Goodman or Neil Marshall or Cece Yew were going to pop out of the crowd and say hello as if nothing had happened in the intervening years. Badd forced himself down to a table and put his head in his rough hands, staring unseeingly at the man doing random jumping jacks next to him. He needed to pull himself together before he became just another babbling crazy like the rest of them.

(Though if von Karma suddenly manifested before him he might just start talking to him out of annoyance. A von Karma was best when he wasn't alive enough to try and murder him in his sleep.)

[zack_fair]

While two hundred might have sounded like a lot of jumping jacks to the average person, it really wasn't a big deal for someone who was in shape, and so Zack continued to keep a mental count in his head as he jumped up and down. He could have felt ridiculous, but he'd been made to do drills in front of others enough back home that this was really nothing new for him. He was already moving past the fiftieth one...

And then he realized that someone was watching him. The guy looked like he'd had better days, to be honest, and Zack wondered if he was just confused about why he was doing what he was doing or if he actually needed something. No one had made an announcement this shift about what the punished patients would be doing, but anyone who'd been paying enough attention that morning would probably be able to put the pieces together.

The guy hadn't said anything yet, but if Zack was about to get lectured, he'd rather get the first word in. And if he wasn't, then there was nothing wrong with checking up on the man.

"Are you just watching the show, or did you need something?" he asked, not even skipping a beat in the exercise as he spoke up. It was going to be a little harder to keep count if he started chatting with someone, but he'd just make sure he did over two hundred rather than under.

[tasteoftruth]

"Hm?" Oh, was it talking? Badd blinked, shaking himself back into reality. "It's nothing. Just a little headache."

Now that he was actually paying attention to the world like he should have been, he noticed a few other people doing jumping jacks next to their military escorts. They were the same people he'd seen standing during that morning's cleaning binge, probably still the troublemakers from yesterday being given their punishment. Badd couldn't work up much pity.

From the look of him the dark-haired kid wasn't going to have much trouble with the punishment anyway. He was young and athletic, and barely pausing for breath when he talked. It spoke of someone who'd had some kind of training in sports. Or...other physically-inclined areas. The police force was taking them younger and younger these days, and not everyone looked their age. It was possible he was another to add to the tally.

Badd swiped a hand over one side of his face, a look of absolute exhaustion twisting his sharp features. No. He couldn't handle being a detective right now. Just let the world take care of itself for a few minutes.

[zack_fair]

A little headache, huh? It looked like more than that, seeing how the guy was barely talking and generally acting like the world was over. Maybe that was just his default expression, but Zack got the feeling that something was wrong.

Granted, he also understood that sometimes you just didn't want to talk about it, and he was going to acknowledge that fact to an extent. He did have a task he was supposed to be focusing on, after all. He was probably over eighty by now, or so he guessed.

He could have just left it alone, but he figured the least he could do was make a suggestion. As he continued to work at his punishment, not yet breaking a sweat, he made a glance around at the soldiers in the general vicinity.

"You could always ask one of them for something to take for that, you know," Zack said between more heaving breaths. Was the guy too proud for that? If his head was really bothering him, then it seemed like the logical thing to do. At the same time, he couldn't really blame the man if he was suspicious of the substances they gave them here.

[tasteoftruth]

Badd looked to the guard, who seemed absolutely apathetic to his plight. If an aspirin was hard to come by in prison, it would be even more impossible here. "Doubt they care," he said dismissively, holding himself up by one elbow. And even if they did it wasn't that kind of headache and pills were probably part of what started the problem in the first place.

He'd never heard of a drug that could make you hallucinate so vividly, but he'd also never heard of one that could make you forget years of your life as Lana had. Badd tried to clear his mind, to find some hole in his memory that proved the lie to what he'd just experienced.

Maybe he'd been a little hard on the kid this morning. If it took so little effort on the institute's part to make a hardened, well-worn detective skilled at skepticism want to believe his partner had come back from the grave it would take even less convince a naive teenager he was from another world, especially if he'd been here a full week or more. It didn't mean he wasn't completely batshit out of his mind, but it did mean it wasn't his fault.

[zack_fair]

All right, so maybe these soldiers weren't as sympathetic as the nurses, but Zack still thought that was unfair. Just because they were now being treated like trainees instead of mental patients didn't mean that they shouldn't be given a simple pain reliever if they asked.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the man was talking to him, someone who was in the middle of being punished. He hoped that wasn't the case, but Zack also realized that the stranger didn't seem too set on getting himself some medication. If that's how it was, then it was probably best not to push it.

For a while he just focused on his jumping jacks, trying to figure out what number he was at. He restarted the count at an estimate and then kept going, waiting until he'd gotten about thirty over two hundred before stopping and letting his arms fall to his sides.

A glance at one of the soldiers showed that he had passed, and so he moved a little closer to the table where the other man was sitting. The soldier who was watching him made it clear with his gaze and a gesture that he was not allowed to sit or even lean, however.

"Whew! That wasn't so bad. The name's Zack, by the way. Thanks for not demonizing me as one of the culprits." It was possible the guy was just too distracted to care, but he still appreciated it. He wiped the light sheen of sweat off of his forehead and tilted his head at the stranger.

[tasteoftruth]

While Zack kept up his jumping jacks Badd idly stirred the pink gunk they'd handed him in lieu of food. He was hungry, true, and as fickle as things seemed to be now it would be a good idea to eat quickly before they decided to revoke food privileges but right now he couldn't have worked down a steak lunch without feeling ill.

To Zack's thanks he could only return a small shrug. He hadn't even been thinking of demonizing him, not when there were real demons like Gant lurking in the building. The guy who'd actually touched it off, now he deserved a good kick in the face, but not this one.

"You're not the worst of the scum here," he said, trying to be generous. Aside from the obvious physical attributes Zack just seemed...stupid. Or at least too perky to last. This place really had a thing for perky overconfident teenagers, maybe they made the easiest subjects.

[zack_fair]

Not that worst of the scum here, huh? That more or less counted as an underhanded compliment, as far as Zack could tell. Then again, the guy clearly wasn't in the best mood at the moment, so he wouldn't hold it against him, and his original statement still held true. The guy hadn't thrown insults at him for being the reason for the cleaning they'd had to do earlier, and he appreciated that. More than that, he didn't seem to be questioning his motives for what he'd done yesterday either, though that might be due to the fact that the man didn't seem talkative in general.

He didn't get a name in return, but chances were it had just slipped the man's mind. Zack wasn't going to dwell on it, but instead was distracted by the stuff that was on the guy's plate. It looked like Malboro vomit, if he was going to be perfectly honest, and he forced out a sigh as he examined it.

"Suddenly I don't think being robbed of another meal is the worst deal," he muttered to himself as he took a step or two away from the man and his so-called food. "Anyway, what's biting you? Anything I can do?" If the answer turned out to be "leave me alone," then he could always comply with that as well.

[tasteoftruth]

It would have 'slipped Badd's mind' if he had given his name, keeping his identity close to his chest was a purposefully ingrained habit. Even seemingly-carefree teenagers could be hiding a dark side.

Hm. Seemed they still weren't allowing him to sit. Aguilar was playing this right book. Badd had done a few of these in his time before regulations got a bit tighter (and even afterward, when the chief made sure nobody would be watching--it had been convenient at the time for obtaining confessions but knowing what he knew now the memories just made him feel ill). He stirred the pink stuff again and then dropped the spoon back against the bowl.

"How long do people usually last here before they start going insane?" he asked wearily. "Seems like half the population thinks they're from another planet or that time travel is possible, or..."

Phrase it cautiously. Carefully. Make your tone seem dismissive. You don't actually believe this, it's only other people who do. "That the dead can come back to life again."

[zack_fair]

A glance around the room made it clear that most people were reluctant to eat the food, and Zack wondered if that slop was going to be on the menu for dinner too. Would it be what all of their meals consisted of from now on? Even Shin-Ra hadn't been that cheap.

Though the sudden question that came from the man caused Zack to turn to him with a raised eyebrow. Did he really believe that people went nuts while here? He was about to speak up and assuage the man's concerns, but the the guy kept talking and quickly caused him to rethink.

Another plant, time travel, and coming back from the dead. Zack was someone who believed in all three of those things because he had to. This place wasn't Gaia, and he'd seen his own planet's future while here because he hadn't lived to that point. It was all tied up in a neat little package for him, but...

Clearly, admitting to that was not going to earn him any points with this guy, and he wasn't very interested in mentioning it after the conversation he'd just had with Lightning. No, best to play it cool in a situation like this. Zack didn't like to be disingenuous, but he also wasn't an idiot.

"Who told you that last one?" he asked as he crossed his arms over his chest, trying to toe the line between interested and overly curious. "I'd heard the others, but..."

[tasteoftruth]

Well, Zack hadn't immediately jumped to claim that he was from another planet and that Badd was insulting him by doubting his heritage. That was a point in his favor. He twisted the spoon between his fingers like a bare lollipop stick, forcing down his desperate fear and covering it with another casual shrug.

"Just some old guy. He said his murdered partner came up and started talking to him, trying to convince him that he was still alive. Funny thing was that this guy seemed pretty stable on his feet otherwise, he just thought a dead person had reappeared alive again."

[zack_fair]

Murdered partner, huh? While he and Cloud hadn't exactly been partners, the situation wasn't all that different when it came down to it. Zack wished that the man would give him some more details on who these people were, since this was the first he'd heard of someone else who'd been dead before coming to this place.

Still, he was glad that his existence in this place hadn't made Cloud feel like he was going crazy and losing his sense of self all over again. That would have been enough to break him at least a little.

"Maybe tell the guy who saw his dead friend to have a conversation with both you and the dead friend involved? Then you can see if this supposedly dead guy is really real or of it's one big hallucination." Zack already knew that this guy who was back from the dead was one-hundred percent real, but getting a skeptic to believe that would probably take a lot more work. It was better to take the position of the sane yet rational advice-giver at this point.

[tasteoftruth]

Badd shook his head. "Well, what's the guy going to do after he realizes that his dead partner's a hallucination, which I'm pretty sure he already does? It won't make the hallucination go away. He'll still have a ghost following him around."

Now that was just out of the question. 'Hey, Lana, would you come talk to me and Byrne, we're trying to settle an argument. Yes, my partner. Can't you see him?'. As if his credibility wasn't publicly low enough as it was. Badd refused to admit the possibility that it was not a hallucination, because in that case there was still no way for it to be a real figure and not be Byrne Faraday. And he was not that mad yet.

Badd took a firm bite of the pink stuff and winced. It was bad enough to make him miss prison food, at least you could find some form of taste and texture in overboiled vegetables. If the kitchen was left unlocked tonight he could bet on where most of the inmates would be congregating after lights-out.

[zack_fair]

The man wasn't really getting the point. What Zack had been implying was that maybe that ghost wasn't a ghost after all, seeing how he sure as hell wasn't one, but there was no way of proving that. Not that he needed to be tripping into any more people and giving them images of his death, though he got the feeling that that had only been in effect last night. He hoped so, anyway.

"Guess that's true," he said with a shake of his head. "That's got to be pretty disorienting, I've gotta say. Maybe getting some information about it over the bulletin might help, though? If other people have been through the same thing. It's possible we're being dosed with hallucinogens somehow."

Zack imagined it wouldn't be the first time that an army was given drugs to make them more docile. He was lucky that Shin-Ra had never gotten to that point; no, that company had just experimented on its employees, only to turn around and get rid of the black mark on their record by any method possible. That was why he'd bit the dust, after all.

[tasteoftruth]

Now that wasn't something he'd have thought of, what with assuming far too many people were crazy to be reliable. "Hallucinogens won't make you think you're from another planet," he pointed out. "You'd have to screen out the real loonies somehow. Even so, it's a thought. I might put it up the next time they let us out."

Something in the tear gas, maybe, or in the food, or in whatever it was that made them fall asleep before sunrise every night. It wouldn't be hard to slip everyone a bit of something. Drug experimentation with unwilling participants actually seemed low on the list of Aguilar/Landel's sadistic capabilities and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more easily manipulated population.

Another forced bite, followed by a scowl and a large swig of water. He'd choke it down and fill himself like a car with gasoline, disgust aside it was still nutrients. Probably.

[zack_fair]

The guy was clearly having some difficult with eating the food, and no surprise there. Still, the fact that it wasn't making him gag gave Zack hope that when he was actually served the stuff he'd be able to stomach it. He wasn't exactly picky when it came to that sort of thing, so he was crossing his fingers. He was going to have to eat eventually, after all, and he was sure the general -- who was looking for value out of them -- knew that too.

"You seem to have run across a lot of the crazy ones already," Zack pointed out, still feeling bad for basically lying to the guy by going along with his point of view. He'd already been singled out enough today after this morning and the jumping jacks he'd just done, though. "I'd bet you're a pro at picking them out by now."

The irony, of course, being that he would definitely fall into the loony category if he was being completely forthcoming in this conversation. That obviously wasn't going to happen, though.