Day 32: Lunch

[damnrudecock]

Sanosuke hadn't quite been ready to part ways from Kenshin, but his nurse was insistent, and she was offering food. That second thing was what really got Sano off the couch and headed to the cafeteria. And at the very least, the thing about Okita had been settled, which meant the fighter could focus on his meal

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[whohitreset]

The look Matt gave Mello after he said that was half disbelief and half angry glare. Kick the habit? It was easy enough for the blond to say. Maybe if he came across any chocolate while he was here he'd just taunt his friend with it. Oh, but that would be a different case. He could hear Mello's argument already - that chocolate wasn't as valuable a trading commodity (and not as harmful! He was only looking out for Matt's wellbeing). He snorted, shoving his tray aside. "Fuck you."

It would be better, but you didn't just demand that of someone! Especially not someone in the utterly confused position Matt was currently in.

"I'm going to kill you in your sleep," he added, though the threat was only half-hearted. Mello was already dead. Did they even sleep here? He certainly felt very much alive at the moment, despite everything the blond had said. Was it a semblance of living, or was he really alive again? He considered trying to stab himself with the plastic cutlery, but then decided against it. He would assume they'd been brought back to life somehow until he found out otherwise.

[cnflctofintrst]

"That's why I haven't told you my room number," Mello replied, his voice matter-of-fact as if he'd already considered the possibility and managed the associated risks. Although he strongly doubted Matt would kill him (let alone be physically capable of it), he couldn't discount the possibility that his friend wouldn't take well to dying.

"That's another thing," he continued as he wiped the grease from his fingertips. "We don't sleep like normal; we kind of pass out in the middle of whatever we're doing and wake up in bed. You could only do it if you caught me sleeping during the day, and I've got better stuff to do than that."

Which was true, regardless of whether he actually accomplished it.

[whohitreset]

At what point was Mello going to stop? Next he'd find out that after dark everyone's clothing turned into aluminum foil which could be used to bounce back the evil mind-control lasers that the monsters carried around. This was more than surreal.

"Like a sort of controlled narcolepsy?" Matt frowned. "Everyone at once, or-- you know what, don't bother. I'm sure I'll see it for myself. Or not see it, as the case may be." His head was already starting to hurt from the sudden onslaught of impossible information, and he didn't even have a cigarette to calm his nerves with.

"About catching you asleep during the day, though," he couldn't help but add to help lighten his mood, "... how's the caffeine withdrawal coming along?"

[cnflctofintrst]

Mello made a sound that was more than an incomprehensible grunt but less than an actual word. If he'd properly verbalized it, it would have been profane.

"There's tea," he said in a tone that made it clear exactly what he thought of tea, "but for all I know, it might be decaf." It was sadistic enough for this place. His thumbs were still intact, but he figured the torn skin around his other fingernails spoke for itself.

[whohitreset]

"Tea?" Matt made a bit of a face himself. "Not even soda? Shit." What sort of proper eating establishment had pizza but no soda to go with it?

The same sort that had monsters running about at night, apparently.

At least he knew he wasn't going to be alone in suffering the loss of vices. Mello's might seem sillier, but for someone who ate practically nothing but chocolate for years, such a change was going to hit him pretty hard. When he was feeling less vindictive, he might feel some pity. Maybe.

The hated glasses slid partway down his nose and he instinctively pushed them back up with one finger, hating himself for the action even before he'd finished.

[cnflctofintrst]

"Not even coffee," Mello said, stifling another yawn. How long were people asleep, every night? He couldn't use himself as a benchmark in this condition, and although most people looked exhausted, he doubted any amount of sleep in this place could leave someone feeling rested.

He'd noticed on the first day that none of the staff wore timepieces and there were no visible clocks in the institute. He would have expected nothing else, given what he'd learned about the nurses, but even if time was subjective it was still quantifiable. Mello glanced to the ceiling as his mind shuffled through possibilities. The distant expression lasted less than a full second before he sat up and looked at Matt with renewed interest.

"Have you ever built the type of equipment you used out there from scraps?" he asked. Mello knew a fair amount about the way electronics worked, but there was a difference between understanding something and putting it into practice. The radio made it through surgery, but the more complex something was, the higher the chance of error when modifying it. Matt's expertise could be invaluable.

Although his self-satisfied smile was a shade less confident than usual, he felt far more like himself than he had when he entered the cafeteria.

[whohitreset]

The question got an eyebrow raise out of Matt. "Scraps? Oh yeah. Why, just week I constructed a hard drive out of a couple coke cans, some chewing gum, and a few paper clips."

He sighed, leaning forward on the table. "It depends on what I needed made. I can salvage old equipment, sure, but having the right parts to begin with would be the issue. That's delicate stuff. What exactly did you have in mind? I'm not a miracle worker." Mello obviously had a plan, and it was most likely a plan they'd be capable of achieving in this environment, but he was still allowed to be wary when the blond started mentioning 'scraps' while referring to the sort of equipment Matt was familiar with.

[cnflctofintrst]

Mello rolled his eyes, though there was nothing malicious in the movement. "I'll tell you what we have," he started before he pressed his feet against the table and again leaned his chair onto two legs. "Unlimited radios. They're about this big," he gestured a space of less than a foot with his hands, "and they're classic radio tech, old. You can modify them into two-ways. There are a few electronic games in the game room, but don't get excited. You'd be better off playing hangman. However." He paused again, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. It felt good to assume this role after the last twenty four hours of lethargy. "The institute keeps hard records in two file rooms. I haven't seen any computers. Based on the drugs they use to sedate people, this place can't be older than the mid 90s. If they're not using an electronic database, there's a reason for it."

The chair teetered for a second as he reached for his juice, then stabilized. He didn't left the glass to his mouth, but swirled the liquid around a little faster than a person might have swirled it while deep in thought. "I want to know why they don't use computers," he continued. "I also want to understand how time moves--it's weird, but I'm sure you've heard enough weird stuff for now. Any kind of timekeeping device would work, though it would be better if we could create more than one."

He looked up from his glass to Matt, clearly pleased with his current state of affairs despite the fact that, well, he was trapped in a reality-warping mental institution with dozens of potential enemies and little hope of escape. "What do you think?"

[whohitreset]

[*just last week - FAIL. I can't even joke without making a typo in a post!]

Better off playing Hangman? Matt glared again. Clearly Mello had no idea what he was talking about, but he wasn't going to start arguing about it. Not yet, anyway. He took note of the fact that there was a game room. Paying it a visit would definitely be on his to-do list.

"If time moves weird here..." He gave the matter some serious consideration, "then there might not even be any guarantee that any sort of clock would work here even if we made one. Are we allowed to go outside here at all? If so, you may want to try something like a sundial first off." Timepieces were a difficult thing to work with. A few radios wouldn't be enough to get the right pieces - especially not older radios.

"I might be able to rig up something digital - but that's a big maybe. Not with the radios, but some handheld games, even the real old ones, have digital numbering systems I might be able to alter. None of those keep the time?"

[cnflctofintrst]

"I hope the clock doesn't work," Mello said without hesitation. "Then we'd know that time itself's being affected and not our perception of it." The idea of the laws of the universe being broken was far less unsettling than the idea of something in himself being broken.

Matt seemed to be adjusting quickly despite the initial shock, which Mello was grateful for. He'd rather not lose time waiting for someone else to work through the existential questions he'd managed to avoid.

"A sundial wouldn't help," he continued. "All of this happens at night. And yeah, none of the games keep time." He hadn't checked, but based on the care Landel took in other matters, he wouldn't make such a stupid mistake. "We could build an analog clock, maybe. But we'd need two to compare." Although Mello understood the principles of timekeeping, he didn't know the mechanics. If he didn't know, he was sure Matt wouldn't, but it was possible that L or someone else in the institute was capable of providing diagrams if not direct assistance.