Day 60: Patient Library (Third Shift)
After handling two conversations that had been difficult for completely different reasons, Castiel had to admit that he felt weary. It was not a sensation that was new to him; between Izaya showing far too much interest in his kind and Ruby simply being who she was, some peace and quiet was what he craved
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It seemed he was eager to discuss what had happened last night, and Soma had no objections. She had never been good at small talk.
"I was taken straight upstairs after fourth shift," she began, "to one of the meeting rooms on the second floor. There were two other patients there, each with their own guard. One of them was Cartwright. We were given dinner and briefed on a mission we were supposed to be carrying out that night. Evidently Aguilar wanted us to hunt down Landel and Marc and--apprehend them at least. Possibly kill them. We were given tracking devices on our wrists so they could pinpoint our locations during the mission. Harrington arrived to the meeting late. He said he'd had some business to take care of. Shortly after that, Aguilar came in with a sizable escort and identified Harrington as the mole."
She paused. "Needless, to say, that was when things went wrong for Aguilar. Harrington revealed himself as Claude Prescott, some sort of art collector, and--this is the strange part--he started to glow. One of the other patients' wristbands went off, and that seemed to short-circuit a medal-shaped device on Aguilar's chest. After that...Aguilar seemed to think the battle was lost. He threw the medal to the ground and he and his guard vanished."
She shook her head slightly. It was still slightly unbelievable. "Whatever that device was, it was probably what was keeping everyone's powers in check. One of the other patients picked it up after Aguilar ran. Hopefully it's still in his possession, and someone can figure out how it works."
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"Do you know who the two other patients were?" he asked after a moment, wondering who had ended up with this strange device. If it was magical in nature, he might be able to lend assistance, but if it was this realm's machinery, he wouldn't even know where to start and he was certain there were others with more skill at that than he. "And I take it Harrington's interruption meant there was no hunt on Landel and Marc. He's the voice over the radio now, correct?" he asked, wanting to make sure.
The fact that Harrington wasn't actually Harrington was a note he consigned to the back of his thoughts. Claude Prescott. He wasn't sure what being an art collector had to do with anything. Was that another of the man's riddles? He'd seemed fond of talking in circles, the meaning of what he wanted to say buried in words that said something else.
"You say vanished... As in instantly?" Daemon questioned a moment later, glancing up at her curiously. He wondered if this was more Craft at play. It was new knowledge, that so many of their captors had extraordinary powers. He owed Harrington for that as well.
"Oh, and the woman," he added, almost as an afterthought. "Was there a woman there with Harrington? Prescott. Whatever. She was with them when I encountered them."
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She nodded slightly. "Aguilar slammed his fist on the table--all of his guard did, too--and they were gone. Like they blinked out of existence. Some sort of teleport, probably. And then sirens started going off--you might have heard them, too--and the only military personnel left in the room were Prescott and a woman. That would be the one you saw, I guess.
"It turns out she's Lydia Thayer, the Head Nurse--did she introduce herself to you? Apparently she was working as a mole the entire time, and the return of our powers last night was an attempt to help us escape." Her mouth twisted slightly. "It didn't work, obviously, but that was the intention.
"You can probably guess we were full of questions, but we didn't have time to ask all of them. All they told us were the basic details." She paused, thinking back. If they'd had a little more time--but of course that couldn't be helped. "That they were part of a rebel group, but they weren't working with Landel. Probably another faction. And, more importantly--why this place exists. Apparently this world was attacked by something it couldn't handle, and all of this is a way to prevent that from happening again. A sort of interuniversal barracks, as it were."
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"She didn't introduce herself, no, but it was also pretty evident that she was used to giving orders, so perhaps this shouldn't be surprising," he mused after a moment. "And she wasn't the only mole, although if she was one as well, she'd gone even deeper and longer than Harrington." And wasn't that an interesting fact? He wished he'd known that the night before. he might have had more questions. Hindsight.
"Barracks?' he echoed her, a frown slipping over his lips now as he pondered this new puzzle piece. "Did they give any hint about what this earlier attack might have been? Or why it is us that have been drawn here? Are we to be used as experiments? Soldiers?" Although he didn't see how that was possible, when none of them had their true powers. Unless they were meant to be used as bargaining chips, but that didn't sound right either. This opened up a rather wide scale of possibilities and answered few questions. If anything, it more than doubled the number he already had.
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"They were in a rush, for obvious reasons. That was all she said." She thought back, frowning a little. Perhaps they should have pushed them harder--demanded details, something, anything. But they hadn't had the time. "This world was attacked by something devastating, and it drained the planet's resources. She said a lot of people felt something like this was necessary in order to keep it from happening again. And then I think she must have thrown a smoke bomb, and they were gone. Just like that."
She settled back in her seat, unwrapping her sandwich. She might as well eat something in the meantime. "I think she meant that we're supposed to help fight this threat the next time it comes around, but that doesn't make any sense to me. If they'd wanted people to help protect their world, they could have asked us outright, and I know a lot of people would have come of their own free will. All this secrecy doesn't sit right with me."
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It still didn't make sense, however. None of this did, and that frustrated him. Just when he thought he was making some progress at unraveling parts, something like this came along and tangled things even further. It didn't fit. He supposed the woman could have been lying, but he saw no immediate reason for that, either.
Daemon mimicked Soma, taking a bite of his sandwich as it gave him another moment to think. "What was you impression of her? The woman, I mean. And Harrington. Do you believe them to be telling the truth?" He asked after swallowing. He hadn't sensed a lie from them, but he wouldn't mind a second opinion and Soma seemed observant.
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"Unless," Soma mused, "this enemy that attacked them in the past had the same ability to retrain someone's natural powers. Granted, that only solves one of our problems..."
Still, she had to agree with Daemon; he'd reached the same conclusion she and Allelujah had on the first day of the military takeover. If they were really fighting some unknown enemy and trying to assemble an army to confront it, they were doing it all wrong. She would know.
"I...don't know. I never paid much attention to the radio before, so I don't know what she was like. But she seemed a lot happier after she revealed herself. My abilities were back that night, and I can't precisely tell if someone is telling the truth, but I could tell their emotions were genuine. I suppose that counts for something."
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