Day 57: Sun Room

[bodhiandspirit]

It figured that night would end before Rita and Taura could progress any further. Rita wasn't particularly disappointed to wake up abruptly, as they had reached a dead end. Really, the institute was doing them a favor by bringing them back to the starting point, where they could regroup.

What she didn't appreciate was the loss of valuable time,

Comments

[unheroed]

Well, that had certainly been an interesting way to end the night. That girl had burst into the room, covered in undead secretions and with a bottle of vodka in hand. It was the sort of thing that you couldn't really argue with, and it had made the night a little more worthwhile. Harvey still couldn't decide whether or not going to that "party" had been a good idea, though the fact that he was ambivalent about it probably meant that it hadn't been a total loss

[fourstonewalls]

Night ended with no accusing shadows, no unearthed ghosts. Maybe the feedback was just that -- or maybe it had only affected the basement.

The intercom was a surprise, for half a sentence; then a wave of static cut rain into snow and made the deception obvious. My, my, was Aguilar already having trouble? What had he said, at the end of night?

Spanish. He'd been speaking Spanish, with an accent most Los Angelenos heard every day. It was the first time she'd heard a foreign language in the Institute since the night Agatha had been brainwashed, though language had taken a back seat to fencing foils from both sides. She hadn't seen the girl lately; pity, since Ema could use more friends her own age.

Not that she'd be easy to pry from one Prosecutor Edgeworth, who was managing to look dignified in what amounted to pajamas the same color as his hair

[unheroed]

Well, if it wasn't Lana. Harvey hadn't seen the woman in three days, since the incident when they'd both witnessed Landel getting sacked. It was odd to think that that much time had passed since then, and he wondered if the man was going to be stuck hiding out in the woods somewhere for the rest of their time here. However long that would be

[fourstonewalls]

"Oh? What happened last night, after that broadcast?" She took a seat across from him, and set her notebook down.

"I didn't think attempting to make it down there myself would be a good idea. It didn't really seem like the sort of place for a poorly-armed legal team, even if we'd known how to get down there." She wasn't sure if he'd answer the implicit question, but she was curious. Her first statement was true; most of what she'd gotten from bulletin posts and radio clues was that it was dangerous. She'd be a liability, and Ema would be helpless, and that wasn't a situation she cared to invite.

"Did anything else happen?" She'd had one theory, and she knew how disastrous clinging to an idea could be when its time had passed, but she would give it a thorough check first.

[unheroed]

"Well, I wasn't down there last night," Harvey quickly clarified. The room was filling up a bit more now, but it still wasn't nearly as crowded as usual. "Went the two nights before that. Believe me, I'm not exactly cut out for any of it, but I was with some capable people." He had to admit that he probably wouldn't have made it through those death traps disguised as rooms without Jones and Spider-Kid. The sphinx hadn't been so bad, at least; Lana would have handled that just fine.

"Last night we all just took some time to rest up." The bandages he was still wearing would make it clear that he probably could do with another night, but he didn't want to wait any longer and he doubted that the rest of the group would either. "Tonight we'll be facing the last part of it."

The coliseum. He still had an undercurrent of something -- not fear, but something; anxiousness, maybe -- running through him about the whole thing, but the only way to get rid of that was to face it head on.

[fourstonewalls]

She opened her notebook to a fresh page, and smoothed it out. She wasn't going to start an interrogation, especially not of someone whose company she enjoyed.

"Sounds a lot more exciting than shelving -- or unshelving -- files. We did manage to make it up there without incident, though." He still hadn't volunteered a detailed description of the basement, so she went on.

"I have to admit I was surprised; the last few times there's been a loud squeal of feedback at night, something unusual has followed it." The systems here weren't primitive, as much as they tried to pretend. "Not that I'm complaining, mind."

[unheroed]

There was the notebook again. It didn't seem like Lana was doing anything specific with it yet, but he was sure that she was going somewhere with it. Harvey had to admire her diligence. It sounded like she'd been accomplishing something, even if it didn't involve the basement. He wasn't sure if the files they (he was going to guess she'd been with her sister -- or possibly Gant) found had had anything of interest, but he was going to guess that she would have mentioned it

[fourstonewalls]

"There are files downstairs for all of the current patients; the ones upstairs appear to be for patients who have left the premises." Her disappointment showed in her voice.

She'd hoped for more general records. Administrative, financial, planning -- anything that would tell her about the Institute as a whole rather than just its victims. "Based on the number of cabinets, hmm." She did some quick math in her head. "Assuming a similar population and rates of change, it's not inconsistent with Aguilar's statement about fifty-four days. She scratched a few letters at the top of the page; a reminder to herself for when she had a chance to get back to the bulletin board and her conversation with Lamperouge.

"They're all very consistent with the cover story, though I didn't have the opportunity to try to look up any of the most recent arrivals." Pity -- there were two who'd arrived yesterday, the night after she'd been in the right files. "I don't know if the new administration has kept up the pretense or not."

[unheroed]

People who had left, huh? Harvey didn't usually concern him with thoughts about that, but part of him did get curious at that prospect for one reason. Jason had said that Batman had been here once. If that was the case, then his file would be up there and it might even mention how he'd deluded himself into thinking he was a man who put on a suit and cape and fought crime in the dark streets of Gotham.

It would bring him one step closer to pulling off that mask, and then--

Well, he was getting distracted. He glanced up as Lana continued to explain and nodded along with her. It would do him well to pay more attention, though he was already planning to look through his maps and figure out where this second floor file room was located.

"I'm guessing they are," he said after a pause. "If they're willing to dress up for the field trip and today just to keep the cover up, then they probably want all their files in order too." Just in case someone else who was curious about this place came snooping around.

[fourstonewalls]

"Mmm, they are almost as convincing as the old set, aren't they?  Pity none of the townspeople have enough wit to notice."  Was that a zombie joke?  Lana's expression was flawlessly serious, challenging Dent to be the one to point it out.  Or not, as the case might be

[unheroed]

If Harvey recognized what she'd said as a joke, he gave no sign of it. Honestly, he'd given up on those drones being useful a long time ago, possibly even before they'd been revealed as zombies in disguise. They were just as brainwashed as the staff were, although he had to admit that the soldiers seemed to know exactly what they were doing. It was the nurses who had always seemed to be blissfully unaware. Though there were still a few around, so who really knew

[fourstonewalls]

"Or if Marc even wants to stop him. I'm not convinced of that, either." She looked down at her hands, and then back up. "I'd like to trust him, but I'm not that kind of person. Not any more."

Some of that was true; some of it was a lie. Even Lana herself wasn't sure how much; how much trust she had left in herself, and how much she'd ever be able to put into someone else. More than she was willing to admit, that was sure.

"There were some carefully vague notes about treatments; barely more than cross-references, really." Relative dates after entry and proved efficacious or disappointing or too early to tell. They did seem reasonable, again, compared to what they knew of this place's history.

"We haven't even begun to unravel this place, or their goals." That was the strangest thing, perhaps, to someone who hadn't known her for long. That seemingly hopeless statement was not despair, but ambition. She'd had it in spades, once upon a time. Maybe she hadn't lost it after all.

[unheroed]

It wasn't as if Harvey was the most trusting guy either, so he could understand why Lana was holding back on that for now. They knew next to nothing about Marc -- not even why he would have had some stake in trying to topple the institute -- so it was entirely feasible that he was some sort of inside man that had been planted.

"Fair enough," he said with a shrug, though it was a reminder to himself that he always had to second guess people. Maybe not his fellow prisoners, though there was even a chance that a patient wasn't what he seemed. He certainly wasn't. Harvey didn't see himself as deceitful, but he was hardly laying out all the cards on the table either

[fourstonewalls]

That hadn't been how she'd seen it at all, no. Hmm. Dent's opinions were usually well-founded, so she couldn't dismiss it out of hand, but it didn't seem to hold up.

The military's long-term purpose might be to win, but if they were looking for foot-soldiers, a bunch of lawyers, at least one of whom was badly wounded, would not have been her choice. They weren't that stupid either, so there had to be a reason

[unheroed]

While part of him was annoyed that she was disagreeing with him off the bat, his more rational side knew that it was good. The more they discussed this, the closer they might get to reasoning it all out. "I don't think choice matters to them," he pointed out. "They don't have to have our cooperation for any of this, do they?" They certainly hadn't asked before bringing them here, and they also didn't ask before sticking needles into them or messing with their heads. Why should they need to ask to get them to fight?

The real question was why they were being kept here instead of used for their real purpose, whatever that might be. Why did they need to be contained? It was almost like they needed to be released slowly, one at a time, hence the slow trickle both into and out of the institute. But once again, he was left to ask why.

"And either way, they have to need us for something. If you don't think it's that, then what? As raw materials?" That was a more gruesome train of thought than he ever wanted to go down, but there it was.

[fourstonewalls]

"I was thinking more of what these men might be attempting to demonstrate. If it's the effects of their manipulation on our intellectual capacities, our investigations are cooperation. In a sense, at least