Day 56: Intercom, Late Evening

[damned_intercom]

Despite the rough start and the heavier snowfall, the buses managed to stay on route and on schedule. With minutes to spare, they arrived at the gates of Landel's Institute, back to the waiting arms of the military. All pretenses seemed to drop at this point, and the soldiers again took on their patented gruff exteriors. Patients were filed out of

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F11

[unit67]

Her dreams were the same as always, never quite nightmares but never the alternative, aside from one vital exception: Lily was not aware of falling asleep. There had been no bed, no sheets, only the cold roughness of cracked concrete and Heine and Giovanni's voices followed by light, wakefulness. No one had drugged her, no one had moved her into this place. She touched the sheets, understanding that the texture was different from the texture she was used to, and overhead the light cast a slightly yellow-tinged glow, warmer than the stark white she saw every day.

Lily was afraid.

Had she gotten them in trouble? Heine and Giovanni, but especially Heine since he'd been the one to stop her. She knew they could withstand anything but it was impossible not to worry about friends, especially after a blackout like the one she'd just experienced.

There were two beds, but the room was empty aside from her. Lily stood up, noting her unfamiliar clothing and the strangeness of the room--if she wasn't so used to the subtle tells of dreams, she might have suspected she was having one. The closet was yanked open, drawers were pulled to their limits. The changes told her that she had to get to the others, that time was running short, especially if Heine and Giovanni had been separated for what had happened.

Patience did not come easy to her, but she waited. Ignored the dark voice and waited. Something would happen, there'd be a sign, even if it was something as subtle as scrapes against the floor.

Lily continued to wait, back against one of the closed closet doors while she listened for sounds of approaching footsteps.

[Lily isn't wearing the collar she has in her icon...she's just a bit airheaded and hasn't noticed it yet]

[lovecrafty]

Something was happening. Indeed, the thing that was happening was entirely predictable, based on the footsteps outside. The door opened, and two people entered, one substantially shorter than the other.

Rose hadn't survived thirteen years in a house with her mother without learning something about ambushes. Her familiar, if such a word was appropriate for a soldiernurse who was about as hyperintelligent as a park squirrel, had dropped the keyword roommate into what passed for a conversation these days. No roommate was in evidence, so she pressed herself against the wall of the entrance.

This wasn't a long-term strategy. Even less so in the harsh light of broad fluorescent fauxdaylight. Hmm. Rolling into the center might dislodge her coat, necessitating lengthy explanations-cum-diatribes on the nature of wizards, or, to whit, Rose Lalonde's feigned dislike thereof. She bounced, instead, and landed on her feet, ready to see what the game had in store for her this time.

[unit67]

Lily paid close attention to the series of sounds: two sets of footsteps, one heavier and one lighter, then the door opening to another few steps before silence lowered itself into the room. The creatures she fought didn't act like that. They attacked blindly, without foresight or strategy. It was probably a couple of the others, and she was letting her imagination run wild.

Lily relaxed slightly, ready to make her presence obvious, but when the new arrival landed a few feet away she tensed, catching herself before her mind translated it into a threat and acted accordingly. A girl, roughly her age and height with close-cropped light hair. A stranger. There were no strangers in the compound.

Lily took a step forward, her head tilted slightly as a curious expression replaced her startled one.

"You don't have a collar," she finally said, voice friendly but confused. Everyone had collars. Everyone except Mother. What was going on?

[lovecrafty]

There was another girl, about her age, sounding about as confused as Rose had felt all day.

She'd just jumped out at her like she was expecting a ghastly doombeast. This was kind of embarrassing. One hand went to her throat.

"Neither do you. They've taken it along with everything else. Or so I have gathered." Total reset. Everyone back to square one. It wasn't anything like waking up on LOLAR. It wasn't anything like waking up at all, if her previous experiences waking up could be called normal.

This was a subject of heated debate. Her dreams had confounded many a lesser psychologist. Good thing she had a ringside seat.

"Did you just wake up?" Newness would explain the confusion. So would a number of intellectual deficits, but she could afford to be generous.

[unit67]

Lily gasped as her hand went to her neck, but it was just as the other girl had said: no cool touch of metal, no hard edges. Her fingers remained there for much longer than might have seemed reasonable to someone who hadn't spent their whole lives bound by the collar, but her own skin was something she'd never felt. Soft, like all skin. She swallowed, aware of each small muscle, and her hand found scar tissue at the back of her neck. Nothing unusual there: she knew the rough white line that traced down the skin over her synthetic spine and up past her hairline. But the collar...

If it was gone, why could she still hear the quiet murmuring of the dark voice?

Instead of the collar, she touched two thin chains: one made of very small connected metal beads and dangling a silver tag, while the other was smooth to the touch. Lily tried to look at it, but it wasn't long enough to see and didn't fit over her head. She wanted a mirror. She wanted to know what she looked like without the thick band of steel.

"They took it?" she asked, hand still at the side of her neck. Her small voice was filled with wonder; Lily obviously held no grudge over the theft. "Who?"

She didn't think the collar could be removed--not without killing her. But Lily was dysfunctional, perhaps incompatible, and they might have removed it for that purpose, to free her from the wakeless fits and blood. The thought was absurd, though. All of the children would be killing practice for the next generation, just like the generation before had been killing practice for them.

"Yeah," Lily said softly, answering the second question as she looked around the white room. "What is this place? Where are the others?"

[lovecrafty]

A collar? She'd encountered stranger fashion choices before, but the girl didn't seem upset at the loss. Quite the opposite. Like she'd been set free. Entirely, thoroughly, just like that. Fascinating.

"In order, yes, the minions of a man known as General Aguilar, a pale imitation of a psychiatric institution, and I don't know."

She made a conscious effort to smile, and waited until she thought the girl had matched answers back to questions. This was easier over PesterChum. "I'm Rose Lalonde. What's your name?"

[unit67]

It did take Lily a few seconds to connect all of the answers to their questions, and once she'd accomplished the task, her expression of confusion remained until it broke into a grin. Rose Lalonde. She was friendly, maybe even a friend. At the very least, she seemed willing to help Lily understand, and Lily quickly forgot how strange it was to meet someone she hadn't known for her entire life.

"I'm Lily," she said. Was she supposed to have two names too? Lily looked up briefly as she considered it, but despite her efforts, couldn't come up with anything else to offer. They were both named after flowers, she thought. She wondered what a rose looked like.

General Aguilar. The name meant nothing in itself, but she understood that it could signify some kind of overthrow, something important. Lily felt a vague affection toward the man who'd removed her collar, but she recognized the emotion as childish. After all, the voice in her mind remained, and she didn't know what had become of the others.

Lily shifted her weight anxiously. "I have to find my friends," she explained. "Something might have happened."

[lovecrafty]

"I think we can categorically say that, indeed, something has happened. The question remains, was it supposed to happen? Will it keep happening?" She gave the question a moment's mock consideration.

"I haven't been able to find my friends, either. They haven't shown up here, and I haven't been able to get a computer or a connection." This troubled her more than she was willing to let on; they were all helpless without her advice. Except maybe Jade, who sometimes knew a lot more than her silly demeanor might suggest.

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