Day 59: Sun Room (4th Shift)

[contentincloset]

After an intercom broadcast like that, Kurogane felt somewhat better about the little information he'd gotten from Harrington the previous night. The man only sounded competent when he needed to but was an idiot otherwise. Unfortunately that was furthered proof of the General not employing the brightest of staff members, making another option for

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[lovecrafty]

Rose had successfully evaded lunch by virtue of claiming an urgent need for the bathroom, and evoking the mysterious feminine complaints of a thirteen-year-old (who did not, as it happened, know such things except from alarming pamphlets and used them only as fuel for creative flamewarring and, today, unpleasant group activities).

These nonexistent cavellations ceased with the changing of the shifts, and Rose popped her head back out into the sun room. It looked like she was only the second person to emerge, and so she claimed a seat of honor atop her earlier creation and waited for the rest of them to arrive.

Ilia she knew, and Rapunzel would either have unfathomably long hair or a buzz cut for ironic purposes, either of which would be fairly obvious. At least on
a girl; they had enough wannabe shounen-ai and bishounen heroes here to support a legion of hairstylists.

[mission discussion group!]

[thecamellia]

The voice over the intercom, Harrington’s, continued to raise questions for Tsubaki. What had happened last night, exactly? Harrington was, or had been, the one collecting information on the traitor--possibly traitors. It didn’t seem safe to just blurt the question out on the bulletin board without heavily coding it. But even then, the military had to know all the tricks in the book and were watching for messages like that. People who had intimate information couldn’t volunteer without fear of people like Aguilar picking up the trail

[hairraising]

Rapunzel wasn't sure what to feel as she stepped out of her lunch meeting with Albedo. Well, other than hungry. She hadn't touched a speck of her rotting gruel, and now it felt like she was paying for it. Her stomach rumbled loudly as she spotted Tsubaki in the Sun Room.

"Tsubaki, hey!" she waved to her roommate, making her way around the (fun-looking!) blanket forts to meet her. "Ugh, did you get the rotten stuff at lunch too? I couldn't eat a bite!" she whined once she got close enough, arm slipping around her stomach for emphasis.

Her eyes shifted around, looking for people who might be looking for them. "Any sign of the others yet?"

[lovecrafty]

Tsubaki! Rose heard that name loud and clear, which was one of the advantages of her perch. And that had to be Rapunzel.

"Rapunzel, Tsubaki. Over here." Rose waved, but didn't get down. "I'm Rose Lalonde." They were both a lot older, as seen from the perspective of someone only thirteen, though neither of them was Ilia's age.

"You perceived the food as rotten, too? I wonder what differentiates us from the remainder of the population. We were successful in our endeavor, so I doubt it's a punishment."

[avengingfists]

Ilia was a bit late leaving her lunch table. She had been worried about Seishin after seeing his reaction to the food and his overall paleness. She had begun to suspect there was possibly an epidemic. Ryuuzaki had also been a rather pale companion earlier today

[thecamellia]

Someone called her name, and Tsubaki turned around to find Rapunzel headed toward her. “Hello!“ said Tsubaki. She had seen Rapunzel’s notes on the bulletin and had figured the girl would show up for the meeting before too long; in person, though, her roommate looked really down about something, and Tsubaki cocked her head in concern. “Rotten stuff? I didn’t see any rotten stuff. What was wrong with it

SORRY FOR THE WAIT GUYS. I am a-okay with backthreading this, JSYK.

[hairraising]

Rapunzel's head perked up at the sound of her own name, and she glanced around in confusion for a few moments before her gaze turned upward. Her eyes widened slightly, and she blinked. Though the fort wasn't exactly gigantic, it was still tall enough that she felt a very brief, inadvertent twist in her stomach. And who could blame her? She was seeing girl sitting alone atop a high perch, away from everyone else-not exactly an unfamiliar scene, she thought as her front teeth traced her bottom lip.

It didn't help that after her lunch with Albedo, Rapunzel was immediately a little wary of meeting another person who looked like a child but talked more like an adult. Even as she felt that thought forming, though, she gave herself a mental slap, reminding herself that that sort of thing wasn't likely to happen twice in a row. Whoever Rose was and however she had learned to speak like that, she (probably) wasn't going to be as snippy or strange as Albedo.

Probably.Ilia's arrival shortly after did a lot to keep Rapunzel from feeling

[lovecrafty]

Rose pulled a notebook out of the depths of her acropolitic lair and drew what might be the beginnings of a tree structure. Or what plebian folks would recognize as a set of brackets, though without anything beyond the initial round. Each line got a name -- three pairs. Two with two women, one of two men. She drew another bracket just for symmetry, leaving it unlabeled.

As the ill-placed victor for the pair labeled Rose and Ilia, she hesitated, and then wrote Giuseppe. "Yes. Does anyone know if there was another pair last night? It seems likely."

"We were successful." Her tone didn't waver, as if it had been a shopping trip rather than an assassination they'd been sent on. "Was everyone?"

[avengingfists]

Ilia was brought up-short by the discussion beginning with turned food. Bugs even? She raised a hand to her mouth, cupping her jaw in thought. That would definitely explain the hesitancy with her eating companions. That could cause a pale pallor to overcome anyone, thought Ilia hadn't noticed anything rotten on either Ryuuzaki's or Seishin's plate

[thecamellia]

From Rapunzel’s description, Tsubaki could definitely see why people were struggling through the meal shifts. Making food rotten for some but not for others was a cruel thing to do during the day--it was their only time to rest and unwind, after all. And not getting to eat? That was even more cruel

[hairraising]

Rapunzel was glad to hear Tsubaki and Ilia suggest that the effect might be a trial that would go away soon. She hadn't been looking into the drugs or whatever it was that had been going on in the medical wing, but if Tsubaki and the older girl knew about it, she was willing to trust their judgment. She didn't say anything more on the issue for the time being, preferring not to think about it when they could be focusing on more important things anyway.

She nodded when the point about consequences, biting her lip again for a moment. "Yeah, our mission didn't go as expected, to say the very, very least." Wince. "But we pretty much got what they wanted out of us done, so I guess they figured that was the important part.

"And as for another pair... I don't think there was? No one else talked about missions before us or on the same day as us, just after. So I think that means we're all the first people they tried this on. Right?" she asked, again hoping she wasn't on the wrong track.

[lovecrafty]

The fact that they were all women, despite the ratios at the Institute, didn't seem to have played into anyone else's calculations. And she'd coaxed (oh, fine, pestered) the information out of Gamzee and his partner

[avengingfists]

Tsubaki made an interesting point about the mission being a new occurrence. Ilia waited to see if she heard any contradictions, but it seemed everyone here was in agreement. "I have a few friends who have been here for a good amount of time. If there had been surprise missions before now, I'm sure one of them would have mentioned it to me

[thecamellia]

So the four might have been the first guinea pigs for some kind of mission system. And there were others, others Rose was aware of that were probably struggling with theirs at this very moment

[hairraising]

Any means necessary. The imitation would have been funny in any other situation (and still kind of was), but right now, it just gave Rapunzel a shiver

[lovecrafty]

Rose shook her head, too. "Nothing. An entirely quotidian evening. Same room, same roommate."

"We didn't know each other before. Though their estimation wasn't incorrect. If that was their intention." They'd worked as well as a newly-formed team could be expected to, on such a gruesome task. Rose still disagreed with aspects of Ilia's approach, but given that Giuseppe was dead, it was all water under the domicile.

"We could check for these," Rose added, taking off her beret and shining the Eagle badge. "In case we think that there have been others recruited."