Night 58: Front Desk (Medical Wing)

[spandexorgtfo]

[from here]Following Soma into the medical wing, Kratos closed the door quietly behind them. The lobby area looked as much as it had the previous night, although he did not stop again to draw comparisons between it and the Elemental Research Academy. His awe and curiosity had both been satisfied, so now it was simply business as usual. This part of

Comments

[madeinthehrl]

"We did a little exploring." An understatement, of course, but Soma was fairly sure she didn't want to elaborate.

"We found the infirmary first, then went past it and to the left--" she pointed, indicating the direction of each room as she mentioned it. "But there's nothing but a row of examination rooms there, and nothing really worth taking, except in general storage. We filled some boxes for the healers there. There's an operating room down the hall, too, though the equipment was turned off. It probably doesn't work at night. We were in there when morning came, but we didn't get a chance to check the power."

[spandexorgtfo]

"I see." Kratos frowned as he silently added the rooms Soma had described to the map in his head. In order to get everything down exactly, he would probably need to see each room for himself, which was time-consuming. Perhaps it would be better to just go into those rooms which had not been explored yet- get an idea of the entire wing before dealing with details.

"I too doubt the power will be on, but if you want, we can check again," he said, glancing casually around the room for any signs of movement. No other patients had entered the wing yet, which was actually surprising considering the flurry of activity he had been greeted with last night. He would have thought, drug trials in process or not, that more people would have been interested in exploring, but that didn't seem to be the case.

"Either way, that's" - he nodded in the direction of the next hall - "the only path available to us."

[to here]

[bodhiandspirit]

[from here]

The front area was empty when Rita entered the room. Whoever had broken that lock must have already moved deeper into the wing.

Rita was still a bit miffed at Brook's earlier comment, and so she avoided looking at him as she moved to the center of the room, looking around. Aside from a disturbing message ('Are you a good patient'? Sounded like another sick joke

[promisedawhale]

For a moment Brook had been left in the hallway, stunned for having been so fiercely snapped at by the young woman. He'd only been trying to encourage her to be more positive, yet all he'd managed was to make her angry. He hadn't meant to offend her

[bodhiandspirit]

Pale? Rita had to admit that with that tingly feeling and the coldness she felt, she probably did look pale. Still, it had to be pretty obvious if it could be noticed in such dim light. How sickly did she look just then?

"It's probably the drug's effect," she replied, feeling too ill to snap at him again for rambling so much about something so unimportant. Chances were that the paleness was hinting at a more severe ailment, but... There wasn't time to speculate. "Forget it. Let's keep moving," she insisted, leading the way into what appeared to be the main hall.

[to here]

[gald_digger]

[from here]

"I wonder if it's okay for the military to just let us know where the Major is, though," Anise mused as she entered the room, thinking deeply. "I mean, it wouldn't be weird if some people decided to go interrogate him - or even try to kill him. You know, to get back at the army." Then again, Aguilar didn't seem like the type of guy to half-ass anything. Maybe Harrington had his own guards standing by in case something happened.

Heck, maybe the whole thing was a trap to begin with.

In any case, they were in the Medical Wing now. This seemed to be a front desk area, with nothing out of the ordinary except...

'Are you a good patient?' The harshly scrawled words fell under Anise's flashlight, and she flinched a little as she read them. "... Creepy," she muttered, then looked back up at Gumshoe. There was no use in dwelling on the staff's sick sense of humor. "Any idea where they'd keep medicine in here?"

[ham_fisted]

Gumshoe made sure to stay close to the girl as they entered the Medical Wing, using the light provided by her to check if anything might be lurking in the darkness.

The thought of actually hurting anyone, let alone killing them, had never crossed Gumshoe's mind as a solution. He got why some people might want a piece of them, and he guessed he couldn't really blame them. But you wouldn't get Gumshoe to agree to it! The minute violence became the answer, the minute they could no longer say they were better than the General. "If people try to kill a guy for following orders, it won't solve anyone's problems, pal. If anything, it'd just make things worse

[gald_digger]

"Hee hee. You sound like a real pacifist," Anise commented with a light giggle. She could see where the detective was coming from, but she wasn't sure she could agree completely. When fighting against an enemy that powerful, while being outnumbered that bad, it was best to take every shot at them that could possibly be made. Any soldier would probably agree.

Besides - and there was no way she was saying this out loud - sometimes a little petty revenge felt really good. And all of the bastards running the institute deserved everything that came to them, whether it was the leader or some common soldier.

Even while entertaining such dark thoughts, Anise kept up a cheerful demeanor as she looked around the room. It didn't look like they were going to find anything around the front counter, so after doing another sweep with her flashlight, Anise led the way to what looked like the main hallway of the medical wing.

[to here]

[gargantuanlaugh]

[from here]

The front desk area was just the way he remembered it from last time. Except there wasn't a strange smiley face on the dry erase board. Just the message about being a good patient. Nothing new, as far as Gant could tell.

Now he could gloat a little easier, what with the area being momentarily empty except for the two of them. "Got myself a little bit of protection." He winked at her, pulling the gun partway out of his pocket. "We should be fine. No worries, I got us covered." Or so he expected.

There. With that information out of the way, Gant was pretty certain Lana wouldn't try anything to harm him. And even if she did, he still had his trump care of a transportation ring. He still wasn't 100 percent certain that it would work like people claimed, but so far he had no reason to doubt the grapevine.

[fourstonewalls]

Relief over having her assumption validated meant that Lana didn't question his statement, nor pry into what those effects might have been.

"I see." More relief; Damon Gant with a gun was a normal sight. He didn't win fights with force, he won them with intelligence, and that he'd had with him since he arrived. She attempted to look duly impressed. "It seems a rather significant reward for such a paltry service." Ilia had murdered a man and gotten a bottle of aspirin; had Damon done more than he was letting on? That wouldn't be a surprise

[damned_monsters]

Luck (if one wanted to call it that) was on Lana's side tonight. What could be more distracting than a rattling sigh from the shadows? Every deep breath was an arduous labor, and when the owner began to crawl away from its corner, the two patients could see why. The dragging leftover was supporting a lot of dead weight.

One strong arm, furry and much too big for its body, pulled it across the tile as it gurgled and gasped for air. It had two heads, but only one seemed to have any life at all. The other lulled against its left shoulder, bobbing with every grasping motion its thin, feminine arm made toward Gant and Lana. The razor sharp scalpels the leftover called nails scraped a horrible noise across the ground as it began to stand on twisted animal legs.

It wasn't quick, but its jerky twitching made it seem very unpredictable. An arm stitched to its back would spasm and fall back against the hulk body. Its black, animal eyes darted from patient to wall, trying in vain to keep its focus where it needed to be.

[Claire]

[gargantuanlaugh]

Gant had to admit that Lana had a point. This place was kept pretty much ship-shape, or so it would seem to an unknowing eye during the day. And at night, it was almost just as inscrutable if one was looking for real evidence that would hold up in court. Unless a judge actually visited this place to see the horrors, nothing would ever be proved against Landel or Aguilar or whoever was running this loony bin

[its_the_mileage]

[from here]

They entered into a reception area, dominated by a desk that was topped with a two-foot-high layer of glass to separate whoever was behind it from whoever was in front. To limit contamination, Indy wondered, or to prevent attacks? He went over and rapped on it to see how sturdy it was. When he got close he could see two computers behind it, along with a couple of other items that didn't look useful. There was a door to their right and what looked like a long hallway ahead past the desk.

His general experience with exploring unfamiliar places suggested that the most interesting parts were usually farther in, but this time he didn't really care where they went. It'd be nice to find some supplies, but if they weren't here he knew where to find some tomorrow night; the real goal was just to look around. Indy turned back to Lockhart. "Any preferences on where to start?"

[commentated]

Huh. Harry hadn't been expecting anything, since he hadn't had a lot of time to think about it. Plus, his experiences with mental institutions were pretty much limited to that one single visit that one time, with the Veronica Dexter case, and there hadn't been any guys with machine guns

[its_the_mileage]

[to here]