Day 57: Sun Room
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, ( Read more... )
What she didn't appreciate was the loss of valuable time, ( Read more... )
"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.
He got the feeling that people like Peter wouldn't have associated with him if they knew that he'd killed someone. Multiple someones, even.
Treatments, she said. Harvey's guess was that those were the experiments that seemed to happen with a certain regularity. He thought about Lunge, who was the only person he was acquainted with who he knew had been victim to it. He was sure there were many more out there, maybe even Lana, who weren't spilling the beans. He couldn't blame anyone for that, though, as he would have done the exact same thing.
Lana's last statement sounded surprisingly defeatist for someone who had previously proved herself to be the sort who never left a stone unturned. Maybe that was why, though -- she'd been fastidious about it and hadn't received much in the way of results. "That's not entirely true," he said as he glanced over at her. "This whole military shtick makes it pretty clear that they want us to fight, doesn't it?"
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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.
"I'm not so sure. There are limits to what people will do, even if convinced it is in service to a greater cause, but those only come into play if they're given a choice." The trick was making choice look like none at all; maneuvering defendants towards plea bargains, letting a secret swallow her whole, it was all a part of the same game. Landel had liked it, but Aguilar hadn't seemed to. No nudges to or from anything, aside from allowing that radio broadcast to proceed.
Harvey was playing Landel's game; she would search for what Aguilar's was.
"Perhaps they simply don't need our active cooperation for whatever comes next."
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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. Either way, Harvey seriously doubted this was all for fun and games. There had to be a purpose for it. He might have believed the sadism theory when it was one man running a torture show, but not now, not when a whole military force was involved.
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She stood up, and turned, looking out at the room full of patients.
"If, however, fighting is all they want, why the elaborate artifice. No, I don't think that's the goal. Or not the only one."
She took a deep breath, and turned back to Dent.
"Let's see. Alterations to senses, memory, and induced psychological conditions, both temporary and permanent. More on memory, if we assume that we're returned to our own homes rather than being some sort of duplicates. It's even possible that the effects while in this facility are only side effects, and the true impact is on the societies of hundreds of worlds, when people with at least some amount of influence are returned." That was a far-fetched theory, but sometimes it was worth throwing one out and seeing where it lead.
"Physical fighting, mostly against humans turned against each other -- our fellow patients, the townsfolk, plus some altered animals. There are supposedly much worse out there, but I haven't seen them, and luck isn't usually something I can rely on." True, they hadn't gone outside, which might account for some of their relative safety.
"Third, the population has been selected for a variety of interpersonal conflicts, though that might dovetail with the theory that our home worlds are the targets. None of us from Los Angeles are more than minor legal officials." Gant was the one with the most influence, and his was past by the time he'd arrived. Hmm. "Any other theories?"
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He could concede that fighting couldn't be all of it, but as he listened to what she had to say, he wasn't sure if any of her guesses were right either. Of course, part of that was because he was pretty sure that this place could pull people from different times and dimensions. The time thing he had seen himself, when he'd seen where Jones was from; the dimension part came from the fact that he'd met at least two people here who knew of him but who he had never met. And it hadn't seemed like some overcomplicated prank, either.
Honestly, he didn't think that much of a stink would be kicked up when he returned home. He'd probably already been written off as dead by now, if time really was progressing the way it should be. It was frustrating in its own way, to think that Gotham could forget about its White Knight, fallen or not, so easily.
"There's definitely some pretty bad stuff out there," he said after a pause, in reference to her second theory. "Things that will make you hallucinate vividly, the most horrible kind of stuff that you can imagine." That had happened back during his first night here, but the memory hadn't left him and it likely wasn't going to any time soon.
She was passing the baton to him and so took in a deep breath as he tried to come up with something feasible. "It seems like either way, messing with our minds seems to be the real point here. The brainwashing, the way that people are sent out into the world thinking they're someone else, the memory wiping... Maybe they're testing all of this on us so that they can eventually use it on an entire population." It was a serious conspiracy theory and he knew that, but what else did he have access to at this point? This was all so insane.
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"Unfortunately, it doesn't leave us with very many viable methods of fighting back." Reacting badly, but without knowing what their captors wanted the net result to be, it would be difficult to manipulate the data. If, indeed, that would provoke anything other than further manipulation. "All we can do is keep digging." Her expression showed her exhaustion, but not defeat; she was in this for the long haul.
It was odd, how much the initial trial system had turned her life into a clockwork beast; she'd been here long enough to have run two trials and be almost done with the third -- not counting Sundays. Even as a detective, most cases were done before the ink was dry on the initial statements; the system, when it worked, was a marvel of efficiency. This place, by comparison, was sloppy. Hmm.
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He didn't really know what he was hoping to get back for, other than revenge. It was a petty thing to fight for, but it was venomous enough that it took hold inside of him and gave him the energy to keep going. He didn't care that his goals were impure. He'd tried for too hard to live on the straight and narrow and had received nothing in return. He was allowed this.
It seemed that they had exhausted their ideas, so it was for the best that the intercom went off then. It was more of Landel's copied drivel, but it got the idea across. It was time to eat more of that pink oatmeal that attempted to pass itself as food. "Looks like that's it," he said as he stood from his seat. "I'll see you around, Lana."
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