Day 30: Staff, Morning

[damned_nurses]

Burly orderlies and agile Calm Effect nurses flooded the cafeteria from the Courtyard while regular hall nurses filed in from the Sun Room and ushered out those not involved in the rebellion. It indeed seemed as if Landel was sending out all the cavalry, and an effective cavalry they were: The riot didn't continue for much longer after the alarm

Comments

M21

[dawning_dreams]

Cid felt tired when he got back to his room, and he hadn't even been one of the damn rioters. Hell, he kinda wish he had, but then he wouldn't have had the leisure to flop down on his cot and... do nothing.

Shit, this place really was killing his brain cells. What the hell did they put in the food, engine oil? And speaking of engine oil, he wondered what the hell kind of transportation they used around here. Sure, there were buses from that field trip mentioned in the bulletins that he'd apparently slept through, but he doubted Head Doc traveled the country in a Greychocobo, and there must've been some kind of garage somewhere. Of course, there was also the question of how the hell an endless supply of chumps seemed to be constantly cycled through the Institute's halls, and though Cid already had a theory on that, he didn't want to think too hard about it.

See? His thoughts started rising up against him like some punk kid. You ain't getting dumber, you're just getting scareder.Cid thought his brain had a pretty good sense of humor

[fly_petrelli]

Just as Nathan had been more than prepared to take a punch from the asshole standing over Claire, all hell had broken loose, sparing him from a bruised face but separating him from his daughter at the same time. He'd tried to reach her, tried to do something to protect her, futile as it might've been, but there'd been nurses between them in an instant, and what could he hope to do? Take a few hits for her if things got bad? Nathan wasn't a fighter, and he never had been. Not like Peter was

[dawning_dreams]

Cid glanced up from his scribblings and eyed the guy who walked in through the door. Well, looked like his ex-roomie was screwed and he wouldn't be getting a super single. Fuckin' bummer

[fly_petrelli]

Nathan looked over from his seat on the bed, craning his neck to get a look at the notes that his roommate pointed out. Glancing over the list only briefly, he wondered if making it was a good thing or not. For that matter, he wondered if even keeping a journal was a smart idea; if the Company had any hand in this, he had little doubt that their "private thoughts" would actually be kept from a nurse's prying eyes.

"Nathan Petrelli," he offered without any hesitation; the man's gruff demeanor hadn't put him off in the slightest as Nathan himself wasn't in the best of moods after his little run-in with Claire and her bodyguard earlier in the day. "You can put 'fresh meat' next to my name when you add me."

[dawning_dreams]

Cid couldn't help but smirk widely at the comment, adding the note to the guy's name on his paper. He at least seemed to have a sense of humor that the pilot could empathize with.

"Captain Cid Highwind," he returned, glancing up as he tore out the page he'd been writing on. "You can call me a vet, but I never seem to get anywhere at night, so if you got any questions about that, tough shit."

Cid got off the bed and set the journal back down on the desk, pocketing the scrap he'd made notes on. He paused suddenly and turned.

"Lemme guess - never heard of Gaia?"

The response Cid was hoping for was a little more optimistic than he'd like to admit.

[fly_petrelli]

"I think I've got a pretty good idea about what goes on at night," Nathan assured his new roommate, sparing a glance down at his bandaged ankle. It shouldn't have bothered him as much as it did; most new patients probably learned from experience to listen to the crazy talk that drifted around this place.

Cid's next question earned him a perplexed look. Gaia? What the hell was Gaia?

"I don't think I'll be able to help you there," he admitted, wondering whether or not the other man would launch into an explanation about that while he was here. People at Landels always seemed to have stories.

[dawning_dreams]

"Yeah, figured not," Cid sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Sorry; that's the place I'm from, and my world buddies've been droppin' like fuckin' flies."

It seemed like the pilot had found a new routine to follow when meeting new people here, and he didn't even want to think about the implications of that. He shook his head and sat back down on the edge of his bed, looking across the room at the guy. After a moment, he chuckled and scratched his nose. "Since you already know the drill, I guess this is the part where we bitch back and forth about how much our lives suck right now."

[fly_petrelli]

Nathan wasn't exactly sure what to say about that, despite being a man of many words in his prime. Sorry your friends keep dying? It was a sobering notion to entertain, especially now that he knew Claire was here. Sure, she had a better chance of surviving than most of the people here if she had even a fraction her power, but it didn't keep him from worrying. He'd let too many things slip through his fingers, and whether or not he could ever be a father to her wasn't the point.

He couldn't be responsible for anyone else...

Nathan stopped himself short on that, shaking his head and focusing again on the conversation at hand.

"Yeah," he answered simply before tossing in, "Or we could talk about all the morons that got us set to our rooms. Your choice. I'm not picky."

[dawning_dreams]

Cid snorted at that, looking towards the ground as he shook his head.

"If you're fresh meat, then you prolly don't know just how much this place can drive you to that." He glanced back up at Nathan, expression a little more sobered. "New people comin' in all the time, old people disappearin' without a fuckin' trace, people not rememberin' shit because they're from further in the past than the rest of their friends - hell --" his eyes hardened as his tone got a little more frustrated "-- I'm one of that last kind."

He paused and added with a sigh:

"And as if that ain't enough of a hell, there's the brainwashing..."

[fly_petrelli]

"Further in the past..." Nathan's voice trailed off again as Cid's words all but confirmed what had happened to Claire, why she didn't hate or remember him. "Is that even possible? Wouldn't it make more sense that some of the patients have amnesia?"

And the brainwashing... He'd thought after being attacked by the mole men that he'd come to terms with the fact that this place didn't make sense, even by the Company's standards. Nathan leaned forward, shoulders hunched and hands folded in his lap.

Things were getting more and more complicated. Again.

[dawning_dreams]

"Hey, man, I don't make the rules around here," Cid grumbled, running a hand through his hair. "Trust me, I know: I'm a goddamn spaceship engineer, and this place has been breakin' my brain for... fuck, over two weeks now."

Two weeks... Cid had to pause in his speech and just think over that for a second. He finally shook his head and grit his teeth, looking to the side.

"I thought it was amnesia too, at first. Some pretty important shit went down and then I lost consciousness and wound up here - buddy of mine showed up too, but he couldn't remember said important shit. Then, some more of our comrades started showing up, all from a goddamn crazy future, and I wouldn't have believed them unless they looked different..."

He trailed off. The AVALANCHE members had started fading into the literal ether left and right after that, but he'd whined enough to Nathan already.

[fly_petrelli]

The more he thought he was at least beginning to cope with the incredibly hard to buy reality of it all, the more prone he was to being slapped in the face with information like this. Nathan closed his eyes and sighed, taking another of many moments to digest everything Cid was telling him. It felt more and more like the last, couple shreds of sanity he clung to were slipping away, and it sickened him that that was probably just what the sick bastards behind this place wanted, Company or not

[dawning_dreams]

If there was one topic of conversation that could have cheered Cid up from his morose state of mind, it was this. The pilot perked up immediately as the subject came up, and he wore a wide grin as he answered.

"Like to? Hell, it's what I live for!" He said in a tone far more upbeat than his previous muttering. He brushed his knuckle against the side of his nose and smirked. "I'm the best goddamn pilot on the face of the planet - my planet, anyway. Flew in the Wutai War and did enough damage to earn me my own space program once I did some engineering for the company bastards. Woulda gone up in the No. 26 model if it weren't for a faulty oxygen tank and a bunch of goddamn bureaucrats..."

Cid trailed off as his eyes lost a little of their light. There was someone else he could have blamed for all of that, and just a month ago, he would have. Shera had saved his life, even if it'd been in a fucking stupid way, and he'd only repaid her with being an asshole to the point of abuse for yearsHe'd seen her and apologized his damn heart out

[fly_petrelli]

Nathan listened to Cid's animated explanation, actually somewhat amused by the engineer/pilot despite himself. Sure, he didn't understand what the Wutai War was, but he wasn't a moron; it actually seemed like he could relate to his loud, somewhat crude roommate after all.

"You have no idea," Nathan answered him finally, looking away as he thought, not about his time as a pilot in the service, but to something he'd just grown so accustomed to. To be able to fly... it had been like a black mark on his otherwise flawless image for so long, but to now have it taken away, reduced to just being able to hover... Well, if he was being honest with himself, it felt like being shackled to the ground.

"I was in the service as a pilot too." Clearly a better, easier explanation than the other option.

[dawning_dreams]

Cid's head snapped up and he stared at the man in front of him.

"Y'serious?" He asked, and the shock on his face soon turned into a grin even wider than before. It occurred to him that this was too big of a coincidence to be just that, but he didn't really care at the moment. "Well, fuck me if that ain't the best thing I've heard all week! Another dogfighter!"

It was only after his initial response that Cid realized there was another level of excitement to all this. After all, if this Nathan guy was from a different world, it meant that his brand of civilization might have different technology, different methods of propulsion, and different ideas for Cid to take note of and implement once he got back home. Hell, if what Barret and the others had said about cutting off mako-usage was right, he'd have to figure out a new way to power his babies.

"So," he asked, leaning forward and feeling more lively than he had in a long damn time, "what'd you fly?"

[fly_petrelli]

[[ GAWD, now I have to research fighter jets, Erin. Apologies is I fark this up because, yeah, no knowledge of aircrafts whatsoever. ]]

"Don't get your hopes up. After that, I got into politics," Nathan warned the other man, only half-joking as Cid certainly didn't seem the type who would be terribly fond of the government.

His roommate's question did stir up a lot of old memories, though, memories he rarely paid any attention to, so focused on the future and his career that the old days had just become another platform to speak from in his campaign. It was kind of sorry that he'd forgotten so much about where he'd come from. It wasn't until much later that he'd realized how much it all meant, everything. His life, his family...

Nathan sighed and than allowed himself to laugh at the twisted humor of it all. What did he fly...

"F-15 Eagle, among things. It's been a while, though. You?" he asked, surprised to find himself actually acting like a social, human being again.