Night 39: M21-M30 HALLWAY
As soon as the doors unlocked and night fell, Kira was up out of his bed and feeling around underneath it to take hold of his sword. When he stood, he paused and looked at the pillow; he recalled the night before when he'd failed to bring the pillowcase, and as such had caused difficulty for himself. He set down the blade and removed the pillowcase
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"We're done," Schuldig confirmed aloud, finishing buttoning up his coat. "Although I think Crawford had some questions for us, first." Glancing over at Crawford, he added, "As for useful people, we've found a few. Artemis Fowl, for one; he's a bit like if you and Nagi had a lovechild, but somehow Farfarello and I are able to tolerate him anyway. He's pretty young, though, and recovering from some involuntary surgery of his own. Albert Wesker is the man you told us to turn to when you vanished last time - a lot like you, personality-wise, but with some regenerative abilities - although he's been almost completely out of contact and no help to us at all. Balinese from Weiss is here, as you noticed earlier, and I've seduced him into almost complete compliance with me, although I suspect he's still ambivalent towards the two of you. Siberian's here as well, although he's neutral towards us at best; the rest of Weiss used to be here, but they've all vanished the way you did. There's a few redheads - Badou and Reno - that I'm working on; they could be useful, though I wouldn't exactly call us allies yet. There's an assassin named Beatrix whom I'm getting along with magnificently who's clearly got a high opinion of my talents, too, which we could possibly use to our advantage. And there's a man named Gin who thinks a hell of a lot like I do, who might become invaluable or a threat; there's no way for me to say for sure either way, yet. I've also got plans for half a dozen others that I have yet to put into effect...oh, and Arty is probably going to be taking a larger position in one of the groups that this place has organized, and thanks to Farfarello's and my connections to him, he'll probably be bringing us in with him, which could give us a hell of a lot of leverage through him."
Pausing, Schuldig tilted his head and grinned. "Keeping up, Crawford? I've been here a long time, and I've been busy."
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He looked back at the paper while Schuldig spoke, scribbling down quick reactions:
no
no
no (Here he shot a disparaging look at Schuldig--again with the bad taste, and it wasn't like Balinese was particularly useful;)
no
no
no
beatrix
gin
arty?
"What did you say the name of the last one was?" he asked, realizing it was also the first name he'd listed. "And what kind of group?" What he most wanted was to destroy the whole damn institute and leave, but leverage was never something to sneer at.
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Schuldig's actual description of Artemis wasn't terribly helpful, either, and Farfarello didn't want Crawford dismissing the boy's potential out of hand just because Schuldig was choosing to be clever. "Artemis Fowl. He's younger than Prodigy, from what I understand, but he's got some healing abilities and genius-level intelligence. He's been infected with morality by the goody-two-shoes types here, but he's not entirely hopeless."
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The Berserker did have a point, however, that Schuldig ought to make Arty's value clearer; the telepath had simply assumed that his willingness to put up with a child who acted anything at all like Crawford or Nagi would be recommendation enough. "He's got more than just healing abilities now, thanks to that surgery," he added. "He's got some kind of low-level empathy as well, although he's going to need some time to adjust to it. But he's generally smart and pragmatic and businesslike; you'd probably like him, Crawford. I imagine he's a lot like a kid version of you." Schuldig could only imagine, of course, because he'd never known the Oracle that young. "Either way, I'll be making use of him even if you don't."
And, finally, to the somewhat tricky part. Influence over one of the clubs could be quite useful, but keeping Crawford from discarding it as a possibility when he heard the name was key. "Well, they're operating under false pretenses, since communications on the bulletin board are generally monitored - although less closely than they used to be, it seems. Arty's been pushing for them to openly acknowledge themselves as a resistance force, but for the moment..." Schuldig waved a hand idly. "They're still calling themselves the arts and crafts club." As an afterthought, he added, "Interestingly, the leadership is in some flux right now, since their former captain was eaten alive a couple nights ago, and one of their other officers was killed by monsters not long before that. Arty's one of the people within the club with the most influence at the moment...and we have an in with him. I don't think I need to tell you how we could take advantage of the situation."
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Luckily Crawford was used to it. He picked out the important things they said and discarded their biases, and on his piece of paper wrote Artemis more neatly. Interesting that even Farfarello spoke highly of him; that, more than the resistance thing, put him at the top of the small list.
"I'd like to meet him," he said finally, tossing down the pen. "What about doctors? Have either you actually talked to any?"
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Doctors. Ah, fun topic. "I had one for a little while. Hannibal Lector. He was fun. He had booze, and people-flavoured snacks. We trashed his office a bit. But he vanished eventually." Which sucked, because they hadn't stocked up on booze as well as they would have, had they known the supply was going to go away.
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The telepath opted to direct an aside at Farfarello before answering Crawford's question properly, if only because Farfarello had done more recently to deserve the consideration. "I earned us a bottle of wine today by doing a telepathic errand for an annoying little brat who calls himself Brainiac; I can share, if you like. I told him to bring it to my room tomorrow night." He couldn't help grinning. "Right now, he's getting mauled."
Finally, though, he did turn to the Oracle. "I've got a different doctor - Gregory House." It'd been on the name plate on his desk, so he hadn't even had to go digging for that. "He's got a bad leg and an attitude nearly as bad as mine; I wouldn't exactly say that we got on. It didn't help that my only appointment with him was almost directly after my brain surgery - I wasn't at what you'd call my best." He grimaced. "I should mention, Crawford, that I can't get into the minds of the staff here. At all. I was able to get into House's that day, I don't know why - maybe a side effect from the surgery, or the drugs they gave me - but I've been shut out since. And I could only graze the surface of his thoughts even then, where there wasn't much of use or interest." After a pause, he added, "And I don't know what they did in my head, but other minds are...contaminating mine more easily, now. When I was in the session with House, I got pain in my leg when I went into his head. There've been other, less dramatic incidents as well." His gaze flickered briefly to his partner. "Sometimes when I'm in Farfarello's head, I lose depth perception." It had always been brief, and never a big enough issue to bring up, but it was disconcerting. "At one point I found myself worrying about a daughter I don't have."
It wasn't like Schuldig to mention any shortcomings he had - he didn't like acknowledging them - but this was Schwarz, and they needed to know in order to be able to take it into account. And he couldn't count on Crawford already knowing here, as he so often did.
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When Schuldig was done talking Crawford was silent for a few seconds, considering him. The honesty threw him, and it meant that Schuldig considered it too important to brush off--but from Crawford's point of view, it was just another small obstacle, and it was manageable. His definition of 'manageable' was twice as broad as it had been the day before; everything had to be manageable here, because there were no options.
"If you can deal with it, that's fine," he said, "and it's fine if you can't get anything out of the doctors. I just wanted to make sure that they're accessible." That was to say, not like the nurses.
He shifted and glanced at the door. "Last questions: one, have either of you tried to walk out; and two, do you have a general idea of where supplies are kept?"
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The wine, on the other hand, was a more welcome surprise. "I've still got some whiskey, but I've been rationing it." Also, his room-mate liked the booze a little too much. So far the jars of acid and lye littering the closet shelves and floor had discouraged Roland from exploring in there looking for the whiskey, but one never knew.
Crawford got a slightly incredulous look, at his last questions. "We know exactly where most, if not all, of the good shit is kept. And we don't need to walk out, we've been bussed to a nearby town twice now for field trips. Makes no difference--same deal there as here. Only more quaint."
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"Still,," he continued, as an afterthought, "you'll wake up with any injuries you've sustained nice and bandaged - and wounds seem to heal faster here, to boot - so there's at least a consolation prize of sorts. Farfarello and I have both taken pretty grievous injuries here, and even though neither of us has been here more than a month, they're already gone." He tapped his chest. "You might've noticed the scars earlier."
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Crawford tapped his fingers on the desk and was quiet again. In a way it was good; at least they knew these things for certain. Understanding the framework one was operating in made planning to smash it easier.
"I'm interested in what's in the doctors' offices," he said. "If you think there's nothing useful, since you've both been in them, I'll trust your judgment; I also want syringes."
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The doctor's offices, huh? Farfarello thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "They're supposed to be shrinks, probably not a lot of use now that Lecter's gone. Syringes would be more likely to be in the medical wing, and one of the storage closets upstairs. We can probably hit the wing with the storage closets, or the one with the lab supplies. Whichever, I'm set for both for now."
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He rolled a shoulder in what was half-stretch, half-shrug. "In any case, I agree with Farfarello. If you're looking for useful supplies, you're better off scavenging the closets. Patient possessions would have the widest variety, but whether or not any of it is useful depends on what you're looking for; as far as our purposes go, we're better off with raiding the institute's own supplies."
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There would be all day to think about it. He pushed the thought aside.
"From the offices I wanted files, information," he explained, looking away. "I want syringes because it's best to be prepared for anything. If you don't think they'll help you, don't take any." He started towards the door; there was nothing more to be discussed, unless either of them had reservations.
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"What exactly would syringes prepare you for?" Schuldig demanded, even as he followed Brad out into the hallway. "Even I can only think of a few applications for them, and I can re-purpose just about anything." Often in entirely inappropriate ways, but that was beside the point.
"Anyway, if you want files, I'm pretty sure there's a room devoted entirely to patient files...but I don't know what good it'd do you. The files are based on the phony information they give us here about our phony identities, so none of it's actually all that useful."
He shot a glance at Farfarello. His partner was getting edgy; true, he never had much patience for standing around and chatting, but it was getting worse - always a sign that the Berserker needed to let off some steam in violent fashion. It was just a matter of figuring out how to let him do so. "We're going to need to find Farfie something to maul soon," he remarked offhandedly.
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