Day 58: Cafeteria

[gald_digger]

Anise woke up feeling lucky to be alive. She still felt a bit waterlogged, even though her skin, hair, and clothes were completely dry. During last night's adventures, she'd swallowed a lot of water, and it still felt heavy and disgusting in her stomach. Her arms and legs were tired from treading water. Lying still in her bed, she still kind of

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[timedork]

The military was back in full, it seemed. When the Doctor woke up back in his room (a shame, really; he hadn't made it all the way to the medical wing to have a good look around), he was once again dressed in the crisp uniform from a few days ago. It wasn't long before a soldier to entered the room and escorted him to the cafeteria for breakfast. He helped himself to a plate of eggy bread, with a few sausages on the side, before turning back to find a seat.

He'd have to accomplish more tonight-take a bit of time to explore the medical wing, and see what he could do from there. Maybe he'd take Donna with him this time, or at least see if she wanted to come... The Doctor gave a quick glance around to see if she'd come to breakfast yet; it didn't look like it, but there was another face that caught his attention: Sechs. The android was slumped over the table with a bowl of that pink gruel, but it didn't look like he was going to be eating it any time soon. Even from across the room, the Doctor thought he looked positively ill.

He paused, and then headed for where Sechs was seated, concern spreading across his face. "Are you alright?" he asked once he reached the table, setting his tray down and taking a seat.

[sixth_attack]

The memories of his ordeal were becoming too much for Sechs to deal with. He tried to distract himself before he could feel even sicker. He dully blinked his eyes and focused on the food on his tray. Out of all the colors that stupid gruel had to be, why did it have to be pink? That color and texture reminded Sechs a tad too much of flesh or splattered brain matter...

And with that thought, Sechs shoved his food tray out of his sight with a groan, his stomach threatening to purge itself again if his mind lingered for another second on that thought.

Sechs propped his arms on the table with another soft grunt and lowered his head. Before he could bury his face behind his arms in an attempt to sleep off his nausea, Sechs heard someone with a familiar voice take a seat across from him.

"Uh...?" The Replica barely raised his head, his yellow eyes peering up through his messy bangs. It took a second for Sechs to register the man's messy hair and particular accent before he could recall his name. It was that John Smith guy with that flying blue box thing! Sechs hadn't seen the guy in awhile...

A soft cough escaped Sechs as he carefully straightened up from his slump, he didn't want to start throwing up again. "I... I don't know..." Sechs wearily replied, his throat dry and sore from his morning's episode.

The android felt reluctant to tell the concerned alien sitting across from him about what happened the night before. It had been his own fault for drinking that unknown substance in the first place. Yet Sechs felt anxious over what was going on with his body; his whole arm was still hurting and the bruised state of the skin on his hand wasn't very comforting. John did seem to be a smart guy, even if he did ride a weird, flying blue box. Maybe he would know something that could help Sechs with his predicament?

"I took one of those drugs that the military was offering last night..." Sechs explained, his gaze drifting back down to the table. "And then..." he trailed off, feeling both sickened and abashed over what had happened next. He tried to swallow but found his mouth was too dry, but he didn't feel up to reaching for his drink.

Finally, he took in a deep breath and continued. "...Real bad stuff happened..." he murmured, "Thought I was gonna die last night..."

[timedork]

The look of concern remained as the Doctor listened to Sechs try to explain what was wrong. The Doctor hadn't been able to check out the 'concoction' in the medical wing in the end, but it had sounded rather suspicious from the start-and even with a lack of details about what happened, his suspicions were somewhat confirmed. "Real bad stuff" could have been any number of things, ranging from bad to the end all of time and space bad (though he expected it was probably closer to the former than it was the latter), but whatever it had been had obviously shaken Sechs.

"I'm sorry," he said solemnly, pushing his breakfast aside for the moment. He could eat later. "Are you feeling any better now?" -Wait, that probably was the wrong way to put it. "Well, I say 'better'..... -You don't still think you're going to die, do you?"

The Doctor hoped not. One thing that had been made clear lately was that the survival of the 'patients' was important-but whether that meant their actual survival was important or that the ones who survived were important he couldn't quite say. Sechs seemed to be having some difficulty, but that could have either been trauma over the events of last night, or some lingering effects of the drug he'd taken. It was important to get that straight, first.

"Let me rephrase that: is the drug still affecting you? And as for last night, well... I'd be happy to listen if you want to talk about it."

[sixth_attack]

"Um..." Sechs' tired brain struggled with John's rapidly changing question, unable to fully understand when his head was still dizzy and his stomach cringing non-stop. When John finished, Sechs' mouth pursed into a pained scowl, his mind teetering between telling John everything what happened and snarling at him to screw off.

He already had to explain in detail about his painful experiences to two people so far, his friend Kibitoshin and that sideburned jerk Javert. He didn't want to go through all that again. Yet when it came to describing the torturous experiment he was forced through to his friend, Sechs did feel a little better. Yet with Javert it was more like an interrogation that tore open Sechs' barely healed wounds...

The Replica's eyes flickered back up and saw that the look of concern on John's face remained. His apology slightly eased him, and there were no forceful questions thrown at him like what occurred with Javert. Sechs barely knew John, but so far he hadn't been given reason to distrust him. Besides, Sechs didn't think he could handle the ill state of his arm by himself.

Hoping that John could help and not be so rough about it, Sechs sighed and propped his sore arm on the table for the other man to see. His right hand didn't look as battered up as it did that morning, but it still appeared more blotched and bruised compared to his other hand. In the lights of the cafeteria, the veins coursing through the affected hand were more visible as well.

"I hope not..." Sechs answered, carefully rubbing the sore muscle in his arm. He could have sworn that all the flesh that had fallen off his limb had been stitched back on before he woke up that morning. "It still really hurts and I've been feeling sick to my stomach since this morning..."

The Replica carefully raised his head, leaning his forehead against his left hand as his eyes fell back down to the table. "I took one of the vials that General guy had out for everyone in the infirmary..." he began to explain, steeling himself against the process of describing his memories. "I thought that... maybe he was offering a cure or... or something..."

He trailed off, biting his lip with frustration. "I should have known better!" he growled, his deep anger briefly flashing in his eyes like the flicker of a burning candle. "I was so stupid to take the damn thing and think that it was probably a dud when nothing happened right away...!"

Suddenly, the bright anger in his eyes was snuffed out and his voice fell into weary rumble. "I was with someone that night and we were looking for medical supplies... After I took that drug and when we found the storage room, stuff happened to my arm..."

Crap. Now came the toughest part of the conversation. "My... my arm started to fall apart... like I was dead and decaying..." Sechs explained, his eyes widening as he continued to glare down at the featureless table. "I barely felt anything, just tingling and numbness... then my arm just rotted."

Sechs cringed over the last word he uttered. Despite the direction of his gaze, Sechs' expression showed that he was seeing something disturbing in his mind's eye. "It spread all the way up to my neck and... Another problem I've been dealing with flared up and..."

He took another shaky breath before ending his story, "...I blacked out after."

[timedork]

The Doctor listened quietly as Sechs started to tell him about how he felt now, and what had happened last night. He couldn't fault Sechs for being hopeful about what the experiment in the infirmary had been, but clearly it had been the furthest thing from a cure (for anything).

He frowned, brow drawn, when Sechs recounted what had happened to his arm. Dead and decaying flesh, that had... "Rotted?" he murmured in echo. That was... wrong, to say the least; from what he could see of Sech's arm on the table, it looked a bit bruised, but definitely not decayed. Not any more.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor repeated. "I'm... Well, it's only a thought, really, but your arm looks... better." If 'better' was really the right word-but compared to flesh rotting away, bruises were definitely better. "Do you think the drug from the infirmary could have made you see things? -Hallucinations, illusions, delusions..." Well, probably not delusions.

What he'd experienced (real or not) was horrible, and the Doctor wasn't trying to discount that, but his intention to figure things out didn't necessarily come through in his words. After a brief pause he added, "I didn't get a chance to have a look at the drug myself."

[sixth_attack]

"I was hoping that was the case myself actually..." Sechs wearily replied with a sigh. The Replica knew all too well what the word illusion and all its related terms meant. His fight with the Great Whophon was a powerful introduction to his experience with hallucinations, something which got even worse ever since he woke up strapped to a chair and under that faceless doctor's mercy...

"But like what I said before, I was with someone at the time and he was reacting the same way to my arm like I was..." Sechs added with a slow shake of his shaggy head, "It was pretty real alright..."

Sechs' eyes glanced back up at John, frowning to himself before deciding to recount his memory of what he found in the infirmary. "All that I saw were a pile of pills, syringes and bottles," he explained with discomfort in his voice and posture. "All of them were different and unmarked, so I had no idea what they could do. The one I took was this clear-looking liquid in a vial. I figured it would have helped with this other problem I have but..."

The Replica trailed off once more, clenching his teeth against the frustration he felt towards himself for taking the military's bait so willingly. "Looks like I was pretty wrong there..."

[timedork]

Ah. True, having a second person who saw the same thing reduced the likelihood that it had been just an illusion, but it didn't eliminate it completely. And even if it was, that didn't make it better-it had been real enough to upset Sechs this much, so even if it hadn't happened, it might as well have.

"I wish there was something I could do to help," the Doctor said. The little bit of information Sechs passed on about the drug-the drugs-made it more difficult, however. He could try the infirmary tonight, see if there was anything still there, but he'd have to find the right one before he could even begin to do something for Sechs, or for any of the other victims of last night. There were bound to be other victims who'd either trusted the military or thought the rewards would be worth the risk.

"Your friend didn't take the drug too, did he?"

[sixth_attack]

"...Crap..." Sechs' back and shoulders slumped low to the table, his hand worriedly dug into his scalp as he pondered over John's question. The android hadn't thought of that possibility! Something could have happened to Ritsuka while Sechs had blacked out...

"I don't know... I sure as hell hope he didn't!" Sechs replied, gazing down at the table as he tried to recover any mental images of Ritsuka taking the same bait as he did. "I kinda rushed outta that infirmary when I thought that drug was a dud... So if he did take anything, I wouldn't have seen it..."

Damnit, now Sechs really needed to find that kid and ask him what happened the night before! That was, if Ritsuka was even still alive for Sechs to talk to in the first place...!