Night 56: M21-M30 Hallway

[human_sponge]

Dinner had seemed to pass by too quickly, while night had come on quietly, with just the click of the door opening. Nonetheless, Peter had managed to get his new duffel bag packed with all of the medicine, syringes, and medical supplies that he might need without it being too heavy to manage. He still had to carry his shovel in his other hand,

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[toxicspiderman]

It was Mario Kart, actually, but Indy hailed from vacuum-tube-and-Nazi territory. The computing power that was squawking out an accent heavier than an North End red-sauce baron who was third generation and faking it could have won the damn war by itself. No banks of British housewives and Navajo braves, just rows of acid-eaten silicon.

S.T. had been winning races left and right with the vicious abandon that came of ten years experience with Boston traffic. The computer opponents cheated like the simpleminded electronic bastards they were, but a well-timed barrage fixed that.

Playing video games during a party was more fun with a big screen, so he flicked the off switch and slid forward on the bed. "Not bad. I'll have a leg up on everyone in," he made a show of checking the back of the machine, though he couldn't actually see the date embossed next to Patent Pending and Made in Japan. "Thirteen years. Assuming no one has shot me by then."

He popped open one of the cans and took a pull. It was still pretty cold; he'd stuck it in the snow while waiting in line. "Yeah, that's it. Unless you want to snort some Vicodin. It's in the box." They'd all been issued cards. If no one else had bought anything, it wasn't his problem.

[unheroed]

Tetris. Right. What other sort of game would they offer here?

Not that Harvey knew much about that stuff, but he at least knew what Tetris was. Didn't everyone? It wasn't like this place was going to offer them anything more interesting than that. He scoffed to himself, though he was actually surprised that Jones even knew what the game was. Apparently he'd learned a thing or two while being caught in the future.

Except that, judging from the way that Sangamon was talking, he was from the past himself. Not as far back, but before Tetris had come out, which was far enough for Harvey. Sangamon would have had a chance of being alive in Harvey's time. Actually, Jones might too, but both of them wouldn't have been fit enough to be running around in this place, would they?

"No, that's fine," he said when the man offered his Vicodin. Even if Harvey had been interested in taking the painkillers -- and he wasn't -- he found the whole idea of huddling into bathroom stalls and snorting drugs to be stomach-turning. So many functioning professionals fell back on substance abuse because they had nothing more important to fill their lives. It was sickening.

And while Harvey had lost everything, his vice was murder. And alcohol. Not drugs. "Do we know if anyone else is coming? I know that Spider kid is off on his own. I spotted him in the halls." It was probably best if the teenager wasn't being encouraged to drink, though, and so Harvey was fine with the group remaining small and in the thirty and above age range.

Though he really hoped that Depth Charge didn't show up. They'd been able to avoid each other last night, but that wouldn't work as well in close quarters like this, and Harvey didn't want to deal with it.

[vsyourface]

[From here]

"Spider-kid, Spider-kid - does whatever a spider did..." Scott sung quietly to himself as he caught the tail-end of whatever Harvey had said last. Clicking off his flashlight and stuffing it in his pocket, he made his way over to the sweet, sweet sounds of the Game Boy.

"Oh dude, you're kicking so many asses. Nice," Scott commented over S.T.'s shoulder, dropping his bat on the bed and setting the sugary cereal with the other comestibles. "I have not played this version since I was a kid. The nostalgia - it burns."

[its_the_mileage]

Indy wasn't sure what Vicodin was, but he was fairly confident he didn't want to snort it. "Er, no thanks," he said politely, following suit in grabbing and opening a beer. He took a long swig and nodded at Pilgrim as he entered. If fewer than six of them showed up, what happened to the extra beer, he wondered idly. "Where'd you get these, out of curiosity?"

He was itching both to drink the rest of the beer and--more importantly--to keep looking at the Raiders of the Lost Ark book peeking over the edge of his jacket pocket, but Indy forced himself to hold back on both in favor of talking with the others. "You manage to keep yourself away from that kid?" he asked Pilgrim with a raised eyebrow. Yeah, he'd told himself he'd stay out of it, but the only ones Skywalker might be in danger of being mauled by were probably Pilgrim and Spider-kid.

[toxicspiderman]

He flashed Scott a grin and gave Indy an answer. "Grocery stores. No blue laws in Hell." Technically those were only the laws that shut liquor stores on Sundays, and not the arcane mess that meant every time you hopped state borders a different kind of store could sell beer.

Then he let Indy and Scott get to whatever eyebrow implications they were trying to make in peace and turned to Harvey. "We might get a second round. Woman named Tifa wanted to know how to hotwire a car. Said she was doing a supply run." He hadn't asked what kind of supply run involved the Doyleton bar. There was a rifle over the bar, a bar full of booze, and a street full of cars with small-town standards on what kind of wheels needed an alarm. I.e. none. Out in the sticks all they did was tell you the wind had picked up when the tornado sirens had already gone off.

"Besides her it's just the guys on the trip last night and any Doyleton zombies who read the bulletin and want to crash the party."

As it happens, Sangamon was wrong, insofar as audio waves insinuating themselves into a medium constituted attendance. The radio clicked on, and two more voices joined the party.

[unheroed]

All right. Jones had grabbed a beer. That meant that Harvey was more than allowed to do so himself. He glanced up when Scott walked in and had to hold back a sigh. It wasn't that he didn't like Scott, but it did break up the pattern of men-in-their-thirties that they had going. And Scott was still a kid, but he was a kid who was legally old enough to grab one of those bottles without getting any flak for it. Which meant less for him.

Well, he'd work on the one he had now and then go from there. Actually, the stuff tasted terrible. He might as well have been drinking gasoline. But he was still going to keep at it, because maybe he'd forget the taste eventually -- and alcohol was alcohol.

Harvey was kicking himself for the fact that he hadn't gone to the grocery store and bought some of this for himself, maybe even something a bit better quality. There was no point in dwelling, though. Actually, what he was more curious about now was what the hell Jones and Scott were talking about, but it was a conversation that was clearly meant to be private and Sangamon was talking to him.

"A supply run to where?" he asked as the man explained, not even sure where you'd get a car or where you'd drive it. Except to Doyleton, but that sounded both impossible and suicidal. Before he could get an answer, though, the radio went off without warning and they were treated to -- well, to Martin Landel's voice.

Martin Landel's voice arguing with the kid who was trying to help them on the radio. Or at least pretending to. Harvey didn't have much of an opinion on the whole thing, but it looked like Landel had managed to escape and hole up with the kid, to Marc's annoyance, and was now trying to run the show from the outside. Harvey wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing, since even if it was coming from a man who had been tossed out of his own institute, he wasn't quick to trust.

Landel was talking about being able to move further after completing whatever was waiting for them in the basement, though, which was promising. Harvey barely had a second's peace to think through it, though, since Scott had spoken up. He glanced over for a moment. "Another clue." A possible way out, if they wanted to believe what the man was saying. But what else could they do?

[toxicspiderman]

S.T. spoke the same time Harvey did.  "Bullshit, man.  Fucking bullshit."  D.C. wasn't here to try to defend Marc's honor, so Sangamon could rip through his rant uninterrupted.  "Always knew that voice of the rebellion crap was too good to be true."

He took a sip to wash the taste of corporate spin-job out of his mouth.  It stank like plug-in air freshener over explosive diarrhea. Just a Jello mold and a crocheted toilet seat cover short of a Honeymooners sketch.

The whole traveling circus just needed Senor Aguilar to serenade them to be complete.  He probably would.  If there was any of that that hadn't come from Fred in Marketing's company picnic script, it was a direct challenge.  Not to the rats in the maze, but the kind that usually involved abstracts and lobbyist money and not-so-double-blind trials.   The rats were engineered to get cancer and die young after they'd outlived their research grants.

Fuck, this was supposed to be a party.

"Sure, there'll be something down there.  Another obstacle course with booby prizes, this time in gold."  He raised his beer.  "May the best rat win."  

[unheroed]

And suddenly, Sangamon showed an uglier side. While Harvey couldn't really judge someone for being negative, it was the "fight the man" tone to what the man was saying that made him sound like an idiot. Maybe it was because Harvey had, for so long, been one of those government workers who tried to fix things the right way, and he still hadn't quite accepted that it hadn't done a thing. But it rubbed him the wrong way.

More than that, Taylor was simplifying things. He assumed that just because the radio kid had let Landel use his equipment, that now meant the two were best of friends. There were way too many factors to consider. It was possible that Marc was trying to find the perfect moment to wedge a knife in between Landel's ribs -- or, as was more likely, he didn't have a choice because Landel was untouchable, even now.

That was a worrying thought.

"Yeah, and I'm guessing that we'll be going right through those doors once we can," he responded after a pause, taking another swig of his drink. They had to keep following the paths that were laid out for him because as far as he could tell? There weren't any other options.

Maybe this would be playing into Landel's hands, but if it meant undermining Aguilar, then Harvey might just have to take it. It would mean screwing someone over, at least.

[toxicspiderman]

It was hard to read Harvey's face, given that half of it was missing. S.T. had spent enough time knee-deep in decaying fish and raw sewage that it didn't really bother him, but it threw tinfoil in the conversational radar. Language was redundant enough to stand up to accents, valley girls, and phone lines patched back together with electrical tape, but body language took a little more doing.

So whether it was something he'd said or the broadcast that had pissed Harvey off, S.T. wasn't sure. Could just be that he didn't like being reminded that they'd all been demoted. No full-splatter press conferences, supervillain hideouts with T.V.s that turned into hang gliders.

Not Sangamon. Sangamon Taylor was used to spitting upwind. While downwind of a factory spewing out stuff that would turn his lungs into a health-class Just Say No slide. One step forward while Basco dumped another dozen toxic cocktails into the outflow pipes of America might be a fart in a hurricane, but it was something. Eyedroppers and boxcars. He made a living telling people the little things mattered, and he couldn't get up there in front of the cameras and lie his ass off. People hated him more when he told the truth, but it was what he did.

"Yeah. Soon as we can all stand up to a stiff breeze." He leaned over and grabbed a couple of cookies. "Maybe I should have picked up a Polaroid camera instead of this stuff. Write a pretty letter to the editor of the Doyleton Weekly alleging patient abuse. See if there's anyone capable of independent thought down in Zombie-Who-ville."

[unheroed]

As far as Harvey could tell, Jones and Scott were looking through some book. Jones had probably bought it at the store in town, but Harvey was wondering what was so interesting about it and he had to fight the urge not to crane his neck to get a proper look at the cover. He might not have minded the private conversation if it hadn't been going on when there were two other people in the room.

Then again, everything seemed to be annoying him tonight. Maybe he shouldn't have come, since the added pain from last night's injuries were making him more irritable than usual. (Which was saying something.)

More beer was clearly the answer, and Harvey winced as he took another sip. The alcohol burned at the edges of his mouth, causing his wounds to sting, and yet somehow this pain was the sort that he needed. He wasn't going to pretend that he understood his own masochistic tendencies and how it only worked in certain ways. Maybe it was because this pain was entirely self-inflicted, whereas last night he'd ended up hurt because of the institute.

He didn't get how Sangamon thought that sort of idea would work. It was possible the guy was just making a joke to lighten the mood, and so Harvey scoffed and shook his head. "We're taken there battered and bruised and they don't seem to care. Besides, you answered your own question. They're zombies. Their brains probably decayed a long time ago."

It was kind of depressing that that was a real explanation, but it was. He didn't know how the whole day and night switch-over worked, but it was one of the more disturbing things about this place.

[toxicspiderman]

The intelligence of small-town losers was the battleground S.T. fought on, more often than not. At least on the East coast, downtowns still had Brahmins and socialites who hadn't all fled to the suburbs, and while they pretended that if they just ignored hard enough, Chinatown would pack it's bags and move back to the hundreds of countries it called home.  That had worked so well for the Indians, but that was how people were.  So companies dumped on the fringes, or in the little towns with one streetlight and two diners.

The people there weren't mindless zombies.  Politicians and industrialists treated them like shit, and they lapped it up, but uneducated wasn't the same as stupid.  S.T. had more patience for hicks than guys who should know better, as long as it wasn't a sob story.  They knew all the answers, if you asked the right questions.  Five cases of rare cancer?  They knew who to blame.  They just didn't, because it took someone like him to swoop in on wings of silver-tongued lawyers and kick ass.  And it wouldn't unbury their dead husbands and sons and daughters.

Then again, the Doyleton crowd might actually just be zombies.  Rebooted each week to pre-decay status.

"No marketable skills.  What the fuck does a chemistry degree do here?  I can prove they're fucking with us, but unless there's a mass spectrometer in desperate need of recalibration behind secret door number three I might as well try stupid shit.  Letters to the editor.  Blowing things up.  You got a better idea?"

Most of S.T.'s tactics presupposed that cause and effect were still in bed together.  Stop up a pipe and someone had an overflow problem right where they least wanted one.  Get people pissed enough and profit margins would drop.  Re-election was only guaranteed if your name was Kennedy.  This place ate terrorism for breakfast and shat conformity, and shattered community and continuity into a stock market random walk.  

[unheroed]

As much as Harvey wanted to argue back, he had to admit that Sangamon had a point. While a chemist wasn't likely to be useful in most areas, Harvey had been a goddamn attorney. He was one of the people who should have really been able to make waves here, and yet that hadn't been the case at all. None of the other prosecutors that seemed to be scattered through the patients had, either. If anything, it was the doctors and nurses who were probably the most useful.

So if the guy wanted to write a letter to feel like he was doing something, then what was the harm? Harvey shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, even though he really hated to admit when he was wrong. It wasn't like they'd been arguing in the first place, but his pride was easily damaged these days.

"Let me know how it goes, then," he said, and as he tilted his head back for another sip from the bottle, he realized that it was almost done.

Hmm. There were only four of them in here and Scott hadn't gone for any of the booze yet. Maybe it was one of those straightedge kids. That would be fine by him, since it didn't look like Depth Charge was showing -- meaning that he, Sangamon, and Jones could each have a second one.

The conversation was going to hit an awkward silence if he didn't say something, though, and so he gave the other man a studying glance. "How are your injuries treating you?" He didn't know where exactly Sangamon had been hurt, but he did remember how he'd been using Scott for support the night before. It couldn't be good.

[toxicspiderman]

Harvey thought he was tilting at windmills. Sometimes he damn well knew he was tilting at windmills, so that was O.K.

A piece of Indy and Scott's conversation drifted over, and he had to cough to get the beer out of his sinuses. Being an arrogant asshole got you more dates in movies than in real life, but not everyone could be Harrison Ford.

"Healing at warp speed. Like normal. I dislocated a kneecap. By all rights it should still be as big around as my head and twice as sensitive." Believe it or not, people called him too sensitive almost as often as insensitive. The ones that did the latter tended to know him better, though.

He poked the knee. It didn't really hurt unless he hit the bruises, which were superficial, or tried to actually use the leg.

"I couldn't walk on it today, but I could put some weight on it. Wrap it up and I should be able to hobble down there tomorrow. Just don't expect me to wrestle anything bigger than a German Shepherd."

Eating the pink pile of nutritionally balanced predigested extruded food product over on his desk would probably help, but junk food tasted better. Part of a healthy breakfast yadda yadda.

[unheroed]

The other two were talking about meeting girls. Well, Scott was, at least. Jones was probably just humoring him at this point, but either way Harvey wasn't interested. Not that talking about wounds was any more interesting, but at least it didn't dredge up as many old memories.

No, all of his wounds were current and made themselves known as often as they could. He would have called his body a sadist if that made any sense; at this point, he was just wondering if his pain receptors would eventually get worn down, but he didn't know if it even worked that way.

"Yeah, well, be glad for it," he said with a shrug. "Not sure when we're going, but I don't know if we can put it off for another night." Scorched and bruised as he was, staying in like this was already driving him stir crazy, and he wouldn't be surprised if the others felt the same. At least there was booze. After glancing around at everyone, Harvey finally reached forward for a second beer.

"It's not like anyone's counting on the two of us for our fighting ability anyway," he pointed out. He didn't know how much Sangamon had contributed to what the other group had done last night, but Harvey was going to guess that he hadn't led the assault.

[toxicspiderman]

He hadn't needed rescuing in there, and he'd done O.K. for someone without a sword or a tailharpoon, but Harvey had a point. "If there's anything left of Landel when we win this I'll be your expert pharmacochemical witness and we can see how much a jury will squeeze out of a pile of little bloody scraps."

Had Harvey ever told him he was a D.A. Fuck. Keeping track of what he knew and what he'd read so many times with a flashlight after lights-out he couldn't reroute those neurons with anything short of a sledgehammer was a pain. He conveniently ignored the fact that they'd done just that a few nights ago, but he hadn't slowed the group down even when he had been a little hazy on his own fucking name.

"If we stay together I can zap us back to the pantry if -- when -- things get nasty. You don't have any idea what's over there either, do you?" It was barely a question.

"I tried the bulletin, but all I got was the usual inability to grasp questions that might have more than one meaning, plus some vague bullshit warnings." He drained the last of his beer, and belched gently.

[unheroed]

For a moment Harvey was ready to nod along with what Sangamon was saying, even though he knew the whole thing was a pipe dream, until he realized that he was pretty sure he'd never mentioned his occupation to this man. They'd only spoken a few times, after all, even though they had risked life and limb together. Jones had probably mentioned it to the man at some point, though, and at this point it really wasn't a huge secret. No one here seemed to recognize his name even though he'd been in the press for a while. Only Gotham's press, apparently.

"I'll hold you to that," he said before taking another sip of his second beer. He was getting a little more used to the taste, but it was going to be finished right as he actually started to find it bearable.

It was good to know that that ring could take them out of danger if it turned out that the coliseum was something beyond their means to deal with, though Harvey got the feeling that it would result in some people being left behind. He made a mental note to stay close to Sangamon when they went down there. Nothing against the others, but this was survival instinct kicking in.

"I haven't heard any more than you," he said with a shake of his head. "People seem tight-lipped about the whole thing. More than a little annoying." And unsettling, but he didn't need to voice that thought.