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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[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.