Day 60: Recreational Field (Third Shift)
It was definitely a good thing that Tear had tracked him down, seeing how she'd had a wealth of interesting information for him. Granted, a lot of it he could have guessed himself, especially the details about Landel's capabilities, but it was always good to have it confirmed by a trustworthy source
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One of the women at the hospice led him outside with a jacket and told him to get a bit of fresh air. It was fresh, alright. It hurt his lungs trying to breathe in the nasty, cold air. At least it was sunny Luke noticed as he squinted up into the clear blue sky. It was comforting to know that this planet looked a lot like Aldruant, if you forgot about the fon belt.
Having no desire to freeze his butt off sitting in the grass, the replica held his bag of food tightly under one arm where he stood while the other went about the frigid task of stuffing his face. The oddly squat cake was consumed quickly, as was the first half of his grilled cheese sandwich.
It gave him something to focus on besides his crappy thoughts and this crappy weather. Did she expect him to stay out here until dinner? Luke gave a short snort. He'd like to see her try just that. There didn't seem to be much to do out here or the other prisoners were just too cold to try anything more than stand and freeze or walk around and freeze. Hell, he could have done that inside and be warm.
"Wha ah pam," he groused between bites of his sandwich. His bored gaze drifted from prisoner to prisoner before noticing a familiar bond head.
"Hmmm! Gmm!" Swallowing the last bite he took, Luke tried again to get his friend's attention. "Hey! Guy!"
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Still, his face was pink from the cold as he moved over to meet Luke. He nodded to him in greeting, glad to see that he seemed to be in good health. Not that he ever would have expected Tear to lie about something like that.
"Hey. So Tear told me that you two managed to stay safe last night." Guy realized how confusing the morning had to have been for Luke, seeing how he'd arrived in the middle of the military stuff, only for it to get switched around on him a day later.
With any luck, he had figured some of it out already. The fact that he was scarfing down his food without much worry made it clear that he wasn't too disturbed at the moment. "So has anyone explained all of this to you?" Guy could have clarified what he meant by "all of this," but he and Luke had known each other for long enough that he was pretty sure his friend would know what he was talking about.
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"Yeah, everything went... fine," he confirmed with a reassuring smile. Hopefully it wasn't overly re-assuring. Guy knew him too well to let bullshit slip under his radar. "Oh, and thanks for that sword again! It came in real handy!" He was still alive, so he had to assume it had at the very least. Augh, this whole discussion and side-stepping was hurting his head.
The change in subject was jumped on like a monster on a lone caravan. "Uh, yeah, Anise's been telling me about all of... this." He waved a hand around his surroundings, much to his chagrin. "Apparently, I picked the best time to show up now that there's actual, you know, food. I dunno how you put up with that other stuff." Luke had eaten it for one day and he had been sick of it the minute he saw it slopped down in front of him. The replica would have starved in a matter of days! Waste away in the face of crappy food. It was rather foolish when he thought about it that way, since people actually starved on a daily basis. Maybe after a day without food would have him changing his tune.
"She said some stuff about Lan... Lan-something... Lan--Landle! He's back, or whatever. He was here before? And then the military came through and--Yeah, it's a lot to take in..." he conceded with a disparaging huff. It wasn't the content so much as the cramming on top of his other problems. He needed to get with Tear and maybe get her in a conversation about what they did last night without actually... coming out and asking. That sounded like a daunting task...
"I just don't get why they'd go to such lengths and concoct this crazy theory--I mean, how long can those nurses' play dumb? What's the point?"
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It was good to hear that the sword had gone to good use, but Guy couldn't help but be curious about what the two of them had come across. "Were you attacked by any monsters?" With the state of things last night, Guy figured they probably had been. That was nothing new for Luke, at least.
As it turned out, though, Anise had at least picked up some of the slack when it came to the task of filling Luke in, which Guy appreciated. There was a lot to cover, so he wasn't sure how well he would have been able to manage on his own. "Well, I never had to deal with that gruel," he admitted when the food was mentioned. "Since I was a higher rank, I always got to eat from the original menu.
"But yeah, it is a lot, so feel free to ask questions anytime." Better that than Luke assuming things and then getting in trouble as a result. Guy realized that his friend was past that point, though. He'd learned a lot over the past few years. "And now? I don't really know what the point is. After Aguilar we all know the truth anyway, so..."
Clearly, Landel just wanted things his way. It wasn't like he'd ever presented himself as anything but an egomaniac.
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At the mention of ranking, the young man inwardly groaned for forgetting. On his first day, Guy had eaten an infinitely more appealing lunch than he had been given. Anise may have warned him not to underestimate this Landel guy, but he was at least giving them real food. If he was so evil, wouldn't he have done away with good food altogether? Well, whatever. There was no point in jinxing them all by complaining.
"So we're stuck here for the amusement of someone else. That is so messed up." His green eyes wandered across the field, watching the white women scurrying after patients like mother hens. "Do they actually know? Is it an act or are they just as clueless?
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"Well, either that or we're going to be used as weapons in some kind of war," Guy pointed out, since the presence of the military had definitely implied that. If patients like Ilia had been sent on missions like Claude had told him about, that made it even more certain. The question was whether or not Landel would keep that up.
When Luke asked about the nurses, Guy let out a sigh and shrugged. "It's impossible to know for sure. My guess is that they really don't know what's going on. Landel can brainwash people, so it would make sense." They probably thought they were really helping the patients, when in reality it was more or less the opposite. It was kind of sad, actually.
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"And no one's been able to escape? No one?" That just seemed so hard to believe. As hard to believe as being plucked from one planet and placed on another who spoke fonic... Okay, so maybe it was believable that no one had found a way out. But Luke didn't want to think that way! The replica was going to cling to some silver lining of hope; it was all he could do for now.
"What about weaknesses? I mean, there has to be something! You've been here for awhile, you've had to have found... something."
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"Well, I can't say for sure that no one has escaped, but if it's happened then I certainly didn't hear about it." He shrugged, digging into his bag of lunch for the fruit slices there. "It's possible a few people managed to get away last night, even. Let's hope for that." And more than that, that those people would either come back or send information to them.
Of course, they had unearthed all sorts of details about the history behind this place over the weeks, but it was impossible to know what was useful and what wasn't. Still, there was one fact that he was going to have to make clear to his friend. "Well, as a matter of fact..." He paused to chew on the apples and glanced across the field. "Anise, Claude, and I have been working our way through the basement. There are rumors that it'll lead somewhere, but we haven't made it all the way through yet."
If they did find a way out, though, how were they going to take the others with them? Tear and Luke wouldn't have any access to the part of the basement that they were exploring now, and Guy doubted there was any way to get around that. What did they do, tell them to go through the coliseum challenge? How could Guy encourage his friends to do such a thing?
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This endeavor might be fruitless, but at least he would be making some kind of progress. The young man had a lot to catch up with, if Guy's admissions to uncovering some basement were anything to go by.
"Is that what you guys were doing last night?" If that were the case, then: "Why didn't Tear go?" She was the trained soldier in their bunch. Trekking through new territory seemed pretty reckless without a skilled guide. True, they had Anise, but it seemed like Tear's perspective would be a bit more critical and calculating as they moved through a treacherous place.
Then again, she seemed to have an important roll within the small medical circle. If there was a shortage of healers, Tear would need to use her expertise in order to save others. You couldn't always do what you wanted, he reminded himself. Sometimes you had to do what was needed.
"I guess if she needed to help out with healing..." Luke answered his own question, even if it wasn't exactly the answer he was looking for.
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"Basically, you have to have gone through another part of the institute to even get there. If you pass one challenge, it leads to another. So Claude, Anise, and I did that first challenge together, so we're able to go into the caverns together too." It was good that the three of them were all able to stick with each other, at least.
Granted, Tear focusing on making the most of her healing abilities was another good point. "Tear hasn't expressed too much interest, probably because she's been working on the healing thing, yeah." And he had no idea about Natalia at this point. No one really seemed to, honestly. Had Luke even met her? Probably not...
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If it had been anyone besides Anise and Guy, Luke would have felt concerned, but he knew they could handle whatever was thrown their way. Actually, now that he thought about it, concern was the furthest thing from his mind. He felt rather numb.
"You know--" the young man started as his eyes shifted between Guy and the ground below him. "--the longer I sit here, the more I feel like I'm going to wake up any minute from a crazy dream..." so why concern himself over any of it? This world or this thing he had created was too bizarre to truly exist. Maybe it was a side effect of his dispersion. Maybe he was cracking up. And maybe this was all real and he had to suck it up like everyone else.
With a frustratingly heavy sigh, Luke leaned over and propped his chin on his left hand. "What a pain..."
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Except this was the fourth time that he'd been new, and so Guy realized that he was being a bit impatient with his friend. Not that he was showing any of that outwardly, but he still felt bad for it.
"Yeah, it is a pain, but it's also the reality of it. You're not dreaming." If Luke couldn't separate the real Guy from some dream version, then what kind of friends were they? He gave his friend his most charming smile and then reached over to clap a hand on his shoulder. It was real, he was real, and while it didn't make sense for Luke to come from essentially sacrificing himself to ending up here, that was still what had happened.
"Don't worry, you'll get the hang of this place soon enough." It was probably pretty obvious that he and Anise were used to it. Tear and Luke were bound to follow along -- Natalia, too, if she was still here.
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