Night 37: East Wing, Hall 2-A

[yin_yang_fox]

[from here]

This hall was as familiar as the room halls by now. She quickly walked up to the door she needed, and without prelude, slamming her heel down on the knob. It broke off nicely, again. It was somewhat of an annoyance to have to do this every night.

[to here]

Comments

[its_the_mileage]

[from here]

Okay, Jones, almost there. Don't screw this one up. Nothing moving in here. Indy counted the doors on the left as they made their way down the hall--one, two, three, and the jackpot. He stopped outside the door and turned to Pierson.

"I don't know what kind of security they've got in there, but we'd better be ready for anything," he said quietly, settling his hat decisively on his head while he still had time. "If there are unarmed guards, I can probably take 'em down, as long as there aren't too many of them. If they're armed, things might get tricky." Indy realized, with a burst of genuine affection and loss, just how much his whip really came in handy. He was just gonna have to try his luck with the pitcher. Scant comfort.

"What were you saying about encrypted files?" he asked, while they still had some time to talk. If things looked hairy, they might have to grab whatever they could and get out of there fast. Better have a good idea of what they were going after.

[oldest_man]

"Yes, armed guards do generally make things rather messy," Methos replied, wry and resigned. Had there been an option for investigating the information held by the hospital that was rather less likely to bring them into close contact with such individuals, he would have been more than glad to take it. Unfortunately, the options at the moment seemed to be narrowed to 'hope for the best'. It really wasn't his favorite sort of situation to be in.

"Electronic encryption," he clarified. "A popular method of making things difficult for prying eyes in the information age. Of course, if we're looking at hard copy, we've just got to deal with omitted information. And medical jargon might as well be code."

[its_the_mileage]

Indy's suspicions had been growing ever since he got here. As a scientist, he tried to avoid jumping to conclusions, but now the sense that something was off around here was more than just a hunch.

Cameras and intercoms weren't his field, but he liked to think he was pretty well up on new gadgets (he got the Sears, Roebuck catalog, after all--made for good plane reading). All right, Landel's had some shady technology that was more advanced than anything he'd ever seen--fine, he could buy that. Governments all over the world were trying to get the jump on each other, especially in terms of communications systems. If this place was government-sponsored (and whose government?), he could accept that, say, their radios were a helluva lot smaller than the ones being sold to the public. Fine

[oldest_man]

"Perfect," Methos muttered. "Stuck with a bloody paranoid Luddite." He turned a singularly unimpressed look on Jones. His own posture was deceptively relaxed and remote, the picture of irritated academic boredom. "Electronic encryption is exactly what it sounds like. The encoding of electronically stored or transmitted data to disguise its contents

[its_the_mileage]

Electronically stored or transmitted? Indy racked his brain for some kind of recognition, but nothing was doing. Physics just wasn't his field either.

But one of his fields was figuring out who he could trust and who he couldn't, and Pierson had just put himself definitively on the first list. And Indy didn't like his attitude.

They wanted to get him here, he thought. It sounded paranoid, even to him, but this was exactly the kind of trap he was perpetually falling into. The M.O. of every bad guy under the sun--let Jones stumble around in the labyrinth until he's done something convenient, and toss him right back behind bars. Maybe try to pull his heart out of his chest while you're at it. Have a grand old time.

It had been Pierson's idea to go after the files in the first place, and like a sucker, he'd gone along perfectly with the plan. But why string him along like that--he was already here, no weapons, no clue; why not just pick him up and put him down exactly where they wanted him? Because then I wouldn't feel like such a dupe

[oldest_man]

The man was mad. That was the only possible explanation. There was no other way he could possibly think the damned radios were high technology. Unless...but no, Methos would have detected the characteristic buzz if Jones was another Immortal, and besides, after the first few decades he'd either have learned to adapt or he would have been killed by someone younger or smarter. It was a simple fact, like gravity.

Barring time travel, insanity was the only real possible answer.

He knew he should go along with it, play into Jones's delusion somehow. Claim a position in research and development, or an investigative commission, or something else that could explain away his familiarity with commonplace technology. But he was tired of playing along, of proving himself, of being distrusted by people he hadn't actually intended to betray.

'Referral,' jeered the tiny, still-objective voice in the back of his mind. One situation was not at all like the other, and if he were being honest with himself he'd have to admit the suspicion was

[its_the_mileage]

The desire to punch Pierson in the jaw was almost a physical ache in Indy's right hand. Coming to blows over something like this, in a mental hospital of all places, with a guy in a pair of stylized smiling pajamas, while something out there apparently had a history of trying to kill people like them...fine, not the smartest move he'd ever made. But, man, was it tempting to wipe that smug certainty right off that face. This guy and Belloq would've gotten along just great

[its_the_mileage]

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