Day 57: Arts & Crafts Room (Fourth Shift)

[gald_digger]

When she left the lobby, Anise still didn't know what to think about her visitor. All this time, she thought the one person the institute would never truly get to was the Colonel, and that if he was gone, then maybe he was hiding somewhere, plotting a way to rescue the rest of them. Now that she thought about it... maybe that was naïve of her. She

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[mugenreppa]

Eventually, anger and petulance got tiring, and at the new shift, she wandered out into the Sun Room after the intercom announcement (she'd finally realized something was strange with the thing-for one thing, wasn't it Aguilar now?).

Where a nurse called her name (not her name, ugh), and gave her something. A letter? Mele ducked into the nearest room to see. All the address things were blacked out, but Mele didn't care as much for that as she wondered who would be sending her a letter, of all things.

And that was where her train of thought crashed into a roadblock, as she opened the letter and stared at it for a long moment. Was she still dreaming? Was she about to wake up any second now? Was she still in that cabinet room with Soma? Had she fallen asleep somewhere of boredom after leaving Scarecrow this morning?

There were two things in the envelope: one, a simple card, about 3 inches to 5 inches, with the words "Be well." on it in a scrawl that was naturally neat, even if it wanted to look carefree and spontaneous-handwriting she recognized. She-Airi-had teased him about it a lot. The other thing was a photograph of a single flower in a thin vase that might have been crystal (it wasn't real crystal-he couldn't afford it). It was sitting on what Mele somehow recognized as Airi's desk.

Aware that she'd been standing just inside the doorway only when she really needed to sit down, Mele made her way to a table with her eyes still on her prizes as she sank into a chair. This was...kind of impossible. Combined with the photograph from her file, this was causing havoc with her feelings. Just a ruse. A trick, she told herself repeatedly, but she couldn't bring herself to really mean it.

[free~]

[tasteoftruth]

Badd had given up on his solitaire game and wandered into another room. This one looked like a first grade classroom with all the art supplies scattered around, and Badd felt vaguely insulted. He was 60 years old. It was annoying to be treated like a child during the day and then nearly killed at night, nobody just respected him, as a human being. Then again in this deathtrap respect for human rights seemed to be a rare privilege rather than a default.

"Theo Savalas!"

That name again. Ugh. Badd turned and raised one hand resignedly, only to find himself presented with an envelope.

"Mail," the guard snapped. Badd plucked it from his hand and gave a nod of mocking thanks before finding himself somewhere to sit. Mail? Who would be sending him letters? It was probably just more of Aguilar's games. He forced back the small hope that it was Kay sending him a message that she was all right, hidden in code to sneak in under Aguilar's radar. No, they'd never let it get that far.

Badd tore it open and read "Theo's" letter with a detached expression. It was long and overdramatic, written from a wife to a instituionalized husband begging him to sober up and bend to the institute's lies. The only thing that would make it worse would have been if they'd dripped water on the paper to look like the grieving woman's tears. If they thought he'd roll over for such a transparent appeal to emotion they really didn't understand how he worked.

The part about the earrings was slightly noteworthy, but it could have been a guess. His false self was obviously still supposed to be an officer of the law, and any detective might give his wife something justice-themed as a present. It also neatly explained away his bullet wounds, too, the only evidence of his previous life that they couldn't take away from him.

Badd folded the letter up and slipped it back into the envelope, and it was only then that he noticed something else had been included. A photograph from the feel of it. He tugged it free and turned it over.

"What the hell is this?" he muttered under his breath. It was him in the photo, at least a decade younger and wearing a tuxedo. He was smiling. And his arm was around a woman whose smile and cackle had been permanently burned into his memory. It hadn't been guesswork. They knew who he was and what he'd been doing, and they knew what strings to pull to make him cringe. The photo had to have been doctored but the only way they could have known to make it in the first place was to know everything about him and then twist it into a dark parody of who he really was.

The woman in the photo, the loving wife in his falsified life...it was Calisto Yew.

[mugenreppa]

There was some weird survival instinct that was still active despite her emotional turmoil, and Mele looked up when she sensed movement.

All of a sudden she snapped back into herself. Disgruntled that she had, for what felt like one long, extended moment, been 'Airi' (what just happened), Mele twitched the photo to cover it from the new guy (not that he was looking), and observed him without looking for a minute while she got her thoughts in order.

How did she recognize the handwriting? How did she recognize the desk? How did she know that, because he couldn't visit, he'd gotten her a flower and then taken a picture of it to send her? It was all Airi, and it was like she was being split in two directions, which was stupid, because she'd never been Airi. Was that what her day as 'Airi' had been for? For this?! Even so, it was nice to see him.

-Augh, enough! Shifting in her seat so she could sit on her card and photograph (damned if she was going to let the nurses take it back), Mele leaned forward so she could put her elbow on the table so she could rest her chin on her hand. "Surprised? Nothing is above them, you know."

[tasteoftruth]

Badd shook his head, still staring at the damned picture. "It shouldn't be possible," he said, frustrated once again by Aguilar's machinations. "Why would they go to all this trouble to find out about my life and then mock up a picture to contradict it?"

He pulled the letter out and started reading over it again, now directly searching for little clues and hints related to his real life. The little girl, that had to be Kay, there were no other little girls in his life. The blacked out names were a pretense of censoring things that didn't exist, he'd figure out that part later. But who was this murderer that Theo Savalas had supposedly been so obsessed over? There were hordes of killers and criminals in his life.

No. They couldn't be talking about him.

[mugenreppa]

"To make you feel bad," Mele answered woodenly. Obviously. Anyone who'd been here for more than a few minutes knew that. Maybe he was new. But no, he had some knowledge of the fake life, so... Just shock, probably. While she didn't normally empathize with anyone, right now she knew how he felt.

"Snap out of it, will you? You're embarrassing me." The nurses or guards or whoever was probably getting a kick out of watching this. But most of all, she was angry that she'd reacted with such strong emotions, too. The nurses or guards or whatever had been standing right there! Even if they'd seen her weakness-no, not weakness. Temporary Strong Feelings Point?-she didn't have to confirm it or anything!

"-Is the picture really contradictory?" Not that she wanted to know if those 'fake' things might really- No. Just no. It was a trick! And then they took you and made you believe your loved one was still with you and made you attack people who might possibly maybe kind of be a friend. Oh no, Mele was not falling for that.

[tasteoftruth]

"Of course it is." Embarassing her? He had a right to be emotional, this was a personal attack. They made his greatest enemy his wife and his best friend a killer and a kidnapper. Why? Why go to all this trouble? If it was supposed to be a further attempt to break their wills it was a laughable one, but looking at it still hurt.

Badd pointed to the woman in the photograph. "She's supposed to be my wife, and she looks exactly like the woman who murdered my partner. This never happened. I wouldn't spit on her if she was on fire, let alone marry her."

[mugenreppa]

So...business as usual for the institute? Mele didn't want to try to convince him of anything, but if he got rowdy, the nurses might drag Mele away with him, too, and then how could she look at the photo in her file again? But she didn't know what to tell him; it didn't make sense to her, either.

"Maybe they want you to react like you're reacting now," she suggested. She'd known this one guy who made this other guy really, really angry to make the him more powerful. Didn't work-or maybe she should say it didn't work enough, but it had still resulted in...Mele's death. Ugh, depressing.

"If it never happened, it's okay, right?" she said, then winced a second later. Hey, if she got a letter saying that someone she hated was her husband, it would totally, completely, and utterly not be okay. Quick, follow-up, follow-up- "Just don't look at it!"

[tasteoftruth]

"You don't get it," Badd snarled. "Anyone can fake up a picture, especially given the insane capabilities this institute has." They could snap you back to your from wherever you were whenever they wanted, they could drag people out of time and space or the reaches of death itself. That wasn't the issue.

"What I want to know is how they knew to do it? How do they know what she looks like and how did they know to pair me up with a woman I hate more than anyone in the universe?" He shook the letter at her, resisting the intense urge to tear both it and the photo into tiny shreds. They were evidence. He needed to keep every scrap of information he could wring out of them. "And why would they go to the trouble of faking up a letter that looks like it's from a fake wife talking about how I lost my mind and fell in love with a damned serial killer?"

There was no doubt they were talking about Byrne. It fit the pattern of making him doubt himself, by placing the one person he trusted in a position of doubt. If he ever got his hands on Aguilar's throat he was going to squeeze and keep squeezing until there was nothing left.

[mugenreppa]

"How do you know I don't get it?" she snapped back. Don't blame me for it. Mele leaned back, crossing her arms. And those were some very good questions.

"... Same way they got us here?" she said after a pause. They could make her think she was 'Airi' and they could make her think she was still a Genju Fist practitioner, and they could restore her Phoenix-style abilities back to her even though there shouldn't have been anything to 'restore' in the first place. As far as knowing who the important people in Mele's life looked like... it seemed like common sense.

"Same way they brainwash people for this SC thing or whatever?" He knew about that, right? Well, if he didn't, he would soon.

As for why they would go to the trouble- Mele was lost on that one. There were cheaper ways to cause pain. Maybe it was the type of pain that was important. She refrained from saying that last part aloud, biting her lip. Seriously, if he got any more agitated.... She glanced sideways at the guards, but they didn't seem to be moving.

... Or she could just walk away from him, but that just didn't seem right. Even when she was being yelled at. (Hmph!) And who knows, maybe they'd just blame her for riling him up in the first place. It didn't seem like they'd care if she'd actually done it or not.

[tasteoftruth]

Badd threw one hand up in frustration. He wasn't angry at her, just with the situation the institute had forced him into. "If they wanted to break us, why not just brainwash us and be done with it? They have power over our lives and our freedom, what is the damn point in psychologically torturing us?" There were children here, and weaklings like Meekins, and people like Skye who'd had enough torment in their lives.

Badd's hand fell again and looked again at the horrific picture. His double looked happy there, happier than Badd could ever remember being, and if it didn't mean betraying Byrne and Kay he would have liked to be that man. They made the alternate life seem so alluring.

Why, why, the question always came back to why and it was on the verge of driving Badd insane.

Of course there was one other explanation for all this insanity. "Is this hell?" Badd murmured. He wasn't a religious man, but the universe rarely cared about Badd's opinions.

[mugenreppa]

And she may as well have said it; he was getting angrier anyway. And here she'd finally thought up an answer for why the institute would do this kind of thing when they have other ways. "Because they're bored," Mele muttered under her breath. That was what Long did; messed up lives because he was bored. But before she could bring the thought of Long further down the conspiracy chain, the guy's next utterance interrupted her.

She'd wondered if this was hell the moment she got here. She'd dismissed the idea for...some reason or another, but as a metaphor, it was really, really...appropriate. Except for one, tiny little thing... 'Rio' was writing letters to her and that was enough.

Still... "You're angry, right? Get even." Rage was still power, after all. Mele couldn't even get angry, and that was why she was losing to her emotions. What else was there, jealousy? hatred? She couldn't do those, either. Except...she could. Get jealous of 'Airi.' But that was part of the problem. "Use hatred if you have to."

[tasteoftruth]

"I've got enough hatred to start a world war!" Again, probably shouldn't be letting the young idiot get under his skin, she was trying to comfort him. But she was being so damned obtuse.

He managed to get his voice lower. "And you can't load hatred into a gun and you can't bludgeon someone with it. You need a clear head if you want to get anything done." That was why he shut himself down when a murder started to get its hooks into him. Even Byrne's murder he'd taken with a deadpan expression and only the barest of flinches. You couldn't let rage take over or they'd already won.

[mugenreppa]

Of course you could- Oh, right. "Then what's the point of letting them rile you up?" Were they talking in circles or what? If you couldn't use it and you couldn't discard it, then what? You broke.

But obviously it was different for someone who wasn't a Rin Juken practitioner, but Rin Juken was how she'd become strong. Pointless to impart her philosophy to someone who didn't know this stuff, but she hadn't been thinking. She didn't know any other way- Well, there was the Gekiranger way, but she certainly didn't know the specifics of that. It was all mushy stuff, anyway.

"Take your own advice and clear your head!" It went for her, too. If she couldn't use it and she couldn't discard it.... Unfortunately, as she was starting to realize, this nameless emotion-this...heavy weight-wasn't unfamiliar. It'd been there for...more times than she wanted to admit. So she wasn't going to admit it. Ho hum, nothing important or depressing to see here; move along. "The heck is your name, anyway?"