touchedgod
in
damned
DAY 59: CAFETERIA
Billy surfaced into wakefulness. Sleep receded like an inky tide, and it didn't say anything to him before it was gone. His dreams had been nothing but the sensation of water, rocking him restlessly in his bottle. There seemed to be an ocean beyond his confines, but he couldn't see it and couldn't reach it. He pawed at the glass, but any progress
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She looked at her arms. Red lines traced up her forearms. She followed one of the ones on her left arm up to a wide bandage, which was loose enough for air to get in. She peeled a corner back.
The wound had been drained and stitched, which Taura spent a long time looking at. She'd heard of the technique, of course; it wasn't a bad thing to know how to do in an emergency, but she'd never seen it on anyone's skin, let alone her own. It seemed to work, though, and the expression of the soldier waiting for her said that if she didn't stop staring at her arms soon, something even less pleasant was waiting. Taura looked up.
"I'd ask how you managed to be flexible enough to bite your own shoulder, but it's not my job to make you talk about it." A flicker of curiosity had passed over the woman's face when Taura had first started inspecting what was under the dressing, but it had smoothed out into the bored complacency of a secure position. Taura wanted to rip off the anachronistic stitches and shove it in her face.
What she didn't want to do was bite anyone, which was a good sign. There had been patients affected by this before, back after the trip to town, but she'd heard nothing recent; if that was any indication, the infection wasn't permanent.
The bulletin board dashed some of that hope; others were still affected. Was her faster metabolism giving her an advantage? Or was this merely a respite? After all, the townspeople had been all right during the day.
She limped into the cafeteria and collected her breakfast, which looked about as appetizing as feral cat had been last night. I.e. very, and somewhat disturbingly. The pink goop did seem to be nutrient-rich, if astoundingly boring, and it wasn't likely to fight back, so she took as much of it as they'd allow her and found a seat.
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His clothes had been changed, for they were no longer bloody from the monster encounter last night. Claire pulled his collar away and took a peek at his shoulder wound. It had mysteriously been cleaned and bandaged, just like when he'd gotten that burn on his arm several days ago.
These injuries would take several days to heal, he figured. It seemed that healing was accelerated here in the Institute, but it would still take many days. An annoyance, but something Claire would have to deal with.
Was it worth it though? For Claire, it was an immediate, resounding yes. Last night had been exhilirating. The most exercise he'd gotten since the train. Wait till he told Firo about this!
Claire heard a rap on the door, then his soldier entered without waiting for permission, giving him a look. Right, right, breakfast. Claire reached for his beret and followed the soldier out, in good spirits despite all the injuries he'd sustained.
He decided he was hungry enough that he could deal with eating the pink gruel they were still offering. The bulletin board could wait. He'd post a note to the kid he was supposed to have met with last night. Hey, maybe his healing ability could do something for him! That was an idea. But first, food.
The stuff was still unappetizing, but today, Claire ignored it. He found a seat and sat down to eat, no fuss this time, giving a glance around to see who his tablemates were. Oh hey, this lady looked even worse off than he did.
"Whoa, what happened to you?" he asked in that straightforward way he always did. Claire never bothered to think much before he said anything.
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"I think it's called Landel's Institute. Unless Aguilar's renamed it." That was the usual thing to do, but she hadn't seen anyone running around with signs and labels. New uniforms, but they'd kept the rest of the swap quiet.
"Whatever it was, it's healing." She smiled. If she could change the subject quickly enough, maybe he wouldn't notice she hadn't exactly answered the question. "I'm Taura."
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"Miss Taura, huh? Nice to meet you, I'm--" Right, he wasn't going by 'Claire' anymore, was he? "--Vino!"
He paused a moment to take a spoonful of the tasteless porridge stuff. Unsatisfactory as the food was, he needed it.
"Oh, well that's good, right? That it's healing, I mean," he continued after he swallowed, waving his spoon around while he talked. And then something occurred to him to ask. "By the way, did you wake up with everything already cleaned and bandaged and whatnot as well?"
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She nodded. "They put stitches in there. I'd read about that, but it's different to see it on your own skin, yeah? They seem to work better than they look. She stretched her arm out and made a few circles, feeling muscle and skin pull and ache over her shoulder. "D'you think it'll scar?"
She didn't have many. A few faint lines from needler darts that skipped off her skin, and a few others. First, she was good. Second, Miles had strange ways of demonstrating chivalry. He'd let -- no, revel in her charging into battle, but scar treatments came out of medical, not combat bonuses. He had more than most of the Dendarii combined, when it came down to it. Maybe that was all it was -- he needed to be unique as much as she needed to fit in.
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"Well, 'course they did. It helps it close up or something, see?" He watched when she stretched out her arm. Wow, those wounds looked painful. "Yeah, it might scar. It might not. I'm not a doctor or anything though!"
Claire ate another spoonful, then spoke again.
"It's strange how this place sends monsters your way, then bandages you up in the morning, isn't it? I wonder what they're trying to make us do. Mixed messages, right?"
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Vino hit it on the head, though. They were doing it because they wanted to. Not because it made any sense at all. Keep them guessing, and keep them from even guessing what they were supposed to be guessing about.
"Hell, I think they're not even sticking to one language." Translators, too. The ones they had were perfect. Tapping in at a mental level. "Maybe they don't want us to do anything. React naturally." How many times had she heard those words, followed by a stifled chuckle. Nature hadn't had that much to do with Taura's reactions, except for providing the raw materials. They'd built something new, and then expected it to do nothing surprising.
Landel -- and Aguilar -- seemed a little more broad-minded. And more creative. Unfortunately. "I don't know if anything we do will chang their minds."
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Wait, what did Taura mean? One language? What?
"One language? What do you mean by that?" Claire asked. Of course, he hadn't noticed, since it hadn't been anything important. It just hadn't ever struck him as strange that everyone was speaking American English to him, really.
"Ah, you have a point. A good friend here also told me about how they run experiments or something, right? That sounds like a natural conclusion to come to. If that's the case, all the more reason to find the top guy and off him, right?"
Which had been what Claire had been aiming for all along. For now, anyway.
"Well, we don't have to change their minds. We just have to destroy them!" Claire continued, cheerfully. Despite the fact that the monster fight had ended some time ago, that adrenaline and the pumping excitement hadn't yet gone down in Claire. If this last statement sounded entirely too bloodthirsty for comfort, this would be why.
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Taura wasn't entirely sure how the languages worked, but she had a feeling Vino hadn't heard of electronic translation. Psychic translation would be really weird, then. She didn't have a chance to answer, though, when he hit upon what was obviously a favorite topic.
That was what people saw when they looked at Taura. Back home, obviously. Bloodlust, even if it was just oversized canines and a jaw slung to use them.
She'd lost her taste for revenge the moment Miles had introduced her to a better flavor. Winning. If you did it right, you could have both, but winning had to come first.
"How many do you think you could take? Ten? Twenty?" She'd done both, and, on one memorable occasion, both at once, but this body was a little underpowered. She didn't think Vino could get close to matching that, but it didn't hurt to overestimate. "What are you going to do when they send fifty after you?"
She let him envision that just long enough for the likely sputtering to start, and continued. "If we're going to destroy them, it's going to have to be an inside job." There'd been something about that last night before everything went awful, hadn't there? Huh. Maybe Vino knew something about that.
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Now, this -- this was interesting. Claire leaned in, eyes bright and mouth grinning. And his expression? Confident. He radiated it. He was, after all, secure in his knowledge that he could handle whatever his world threw at him. Whatever situation Taura was creating, Claire was confident that it was nothing he couldn't handle.
"Easily," Claire said, in reply. Whether or not he came across as convincing was up to Miss Taura, but Claire's ego was one that was deeply rooted on his solid belief in his own existence. There was nothing that could kill him, not even fifty of whatever terrors the Institute decided to throw at him. Nevermind that he'd gotten injured at the claws of just one monster the previous night.
"I'd manage, I'm sure. I'm good at improvising," he continued. "In fact, I'd like to see what they could up with, actually! I need the exercise. Last night was a good warm-up, but hardly enough."
He waited for Taura to finish what she was saying before he spoke more.
"Oh, I see. Well, that would be smarter, I agree! A lot more convenient and probably faster, right?"
Claire paused thoughtfully. "Wait, wasn't there something over the speakers yesterday about this? Some soldier in the military...?"
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"You caught that too? I've been trying to find them, but I haven't had any luck." Just seeing a soldier talking to patients -- really talking, not just barking orders -- should stick out, but whoever it was had managed to keep it quiet.
"Unless they're trying to infiltrate us." That was a worry, too, though not as much of one as some might think. The patients had very few ways to keep things from the staff; the fact that they wanted to put together an assault and escape couldn't be a secret. The right tactics had to account for that; allow that everything they did would be predictable, but would succeed anyway. "I think one of the best things we can do is make them underestimate us. The weaker we look, the more surprised they will be." It meant losing their games once in a while -- maybe another riot wouldn't be a bad idea, if they could make sure that it fell apart quickly.
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On one hand, it meant that the military wasn't too hard to infiltrate if they, the 'patients', had a connection on the inside. But on the other, it also meant yet another link on the chain, right? In his opinion, things were much less complicated if there were less links. Besides, what if this rogue soldier was untrustworthy? That would be problematic, right?
"Anyway, it's the first I've heard of it, really! Interesting! The military's only been in charge for a few days, right? Less than a week! Already, they've got a rat! Sort of an incompetent bunch, right?"
Claire hadn't much trust in the competency of government-run justice groups, anyway. In his opinion, they always seemed to miss all the important points of defending justice and the common people, see? That was why he felt like he needed to step up to the plate himself.
"Oh, that's an interesting thought," Claire commented. "But I doubt they'll succeed. I think our lot have already managed to do our own thing, even while being under military watch."
He was silent for a moment as he thought about Taura's suggestion.
"But wouldn't the better idea be to overwhelm them and show them that there's no way they could even try and control us?" he asked. When a man believed himself to be the god of his world, it really was the only solution, wasn't it? "Besides, if they really do underestimate us, why would they do things like send monsters after us and give us free gifts? It's like a test or a challenge more like, don't you think?"
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"Doesn't mean I'm not going to win, though." She had that in common with Vino -- neither of them wanted to lose, though they might define the words differently. Winning meant as many of them walking out alive as they could manage, over only as many bodies as necessary. The messier this was, the fewer of them would survive, and so many weren't fighters.
The cafeteria went into motion before she could make any more suggestions as to how they might manage it, and it was time to go. "It was nice meeting you," she added, before joining the exodus, and she meant it. It had been a good conversation, and it had taken her mind almost entirely off what had happened last night, for which she was doubly grateful.
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Taura's view on this confused him, but if Claire had cared to understand the difference between their opinions, he might have seen her point more clearly. Perhaps it was because Claire's view of the overcoming of an obstacle was different. Having eliminated the outcome (and thus, fear) of death for himself, what followed in his line of priorities seemed only natural to him. A challenge could have one of two outcomes to Claire -- success or failure. And the point was to succeed, wasn't it? It was nice to do well at whatever tests his world threw at him, right?
Claire might have asked Taura to explain her reasoning to him if she hadn't continued on first. Her next statement was one that Claire completely agreed with. He grinned.
"Well, of course!"
But then, Claire realized that time must have passed more quickly than he'd thought, because the soldiers were already moving to get the patients to the next shift. Oh, already? But the conversation had been so interesting and he would have liked to continue!
Claire managed little more than a tip of an invisible hat to her and a "it was my pleasure, Miss--" he couldn't tell if it should be Miss or Ms. or Mrs., really, but he hadn't seen a ring, "--Taura!" before he no longer could help having to abandon an interesting talk. His soldier was already at his soldier, impatient as always, so Claire sighed and stood up, ready to follow to his next shift. Perhaps he'd find an interesting conversation in the Sun Room.
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