Night 57: M61-M70 Hallway

[unpriest]

It had sounded all so very hard to believe, the things that Vino-san and Maya-san had told him. Though Seishin had been skeptical, he couldn't help but think that something was terribly wrong with this place, no matter if the nurses were real or soldiers in disguise. The announcement at least confirmed as much, dropping the facade they had

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[doneinthree]

By the time the intercom switched on, Kirk was already fully changed, with all of his nighttime supplies waiting ready.  This time around, he hadn't even entertained the thought of shutting his eyes for a second - and with what he'd found in his box, beside his uniform, he wasn't sure if he could've slept anyway.

On his desk lay three items: an envelope, heavily blacked out with marker; a folded letter written in a familiar hand; and a photograph.  The first two he'd inspected enough times to have practically memorized them, and it was the picture he'd been staring at before Aguilar's voice came on.  His mom, his brother, Aurelan and their son.  The happy circle of his family, warm and complete.  If there was someone missing, it wasn't Jim - and he suspected anyway that that missing person was the one holding the camera with steady hands and an affectionate eye.

Everything in him wanted to crumple the picture up.  It was probably some elaborate ruse, a blatantly manipulative imitation created by whatever sick minds ran this place; same with the letter, no matter how much it sounded like his mother (her prickly defensiveness and poorly masked anxiety, her wry humour, her ability to see straight through him, even after all this time-).  The charade, after all, was for the benefit of your loved ones.  Why bother, if it was a charade?  What business did Landel (or whoever) have to take them - all of them - when they weren't even involved in this... program, this "little enterprise", as Aguilar had termed it.

Kirk exhaled one long breath.  It probably wasn't intentional on the general's part, but his choice of wording reminded Kirk of what he was doing here.  He stood, and firmly shut the envelope and its contents inside the top drawer of his desk.  He had to focus.  If they sought to throw him off his game by giving him this letter right before a mission, then he refused to give them the pleasure of unsettling him.

He was a Starfleet officer, and captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise.  They'd have to do a lot better than that.

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