arc_wrench
in
damned
Day 43: Sun Room, Second Shift
When the shift changed, HK stayed put. Even after a long night of zombie killing, he had no interest in meatbag fuel, especially after all the discussion of chocolate with that rather strange meatbag. It was just making him crave the stuff even more than he had previously, if that was possible
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"Yes, and no. My existence was not well-known to the public until recently. I am not a policeman, myself; rather, I direct the police involved with a given case, if I choose to accept it."
Even if they had come from the same world, or one that was similar, L himself was aware that the natural consequence of his attempts to keep himself anonymous meant that anyone could claim to be L; he used this to his advantage in his work. That Lunge seemed willing to accept his identity without further preamble or proof might be more "luck" -- but it is obvious that we will each be watching the other to continue to confirm the claims that we have heard.
"It is difficult to know where to begin, Herr Lunge.
"I don't yet know the nature of the patients here. While the primer posted to the bulletin board suggests that they are sane, at least one I have met this morning seemed delusional. He believed himself to be a machine, and was enthusiastic on the topic of murder. The one with copper skin who is now talking to the very large man with dark hair." He inclined his head about an inch in the direction of the pair he had mentioned: not enough to tip off anyone else in the room, who would probably just interpret the movement as an inquisitive tilt.
"However, there are also several people from my own world; I believe them to be reasonably stable. The evidence so far, while anecdotal, supports the possibility that the claim that we can come from different times is true."
L was calm, intense, articulate in his soft, low voice.
"I know that you want to investigate this place. I agree that there is no other plan. I also know that you have appointments with someone who calls himself Javert, with Miles Edgeworth, who is responsible for the primer, and with the Lelouch Lamperouge who appears to be compiling most of the notes that were posted on the bulletin board this morning.
"The use of the name in the first case makes me wonder if the person in question also has investigative training; we know that Lamperouge is conducting an inquiry whether his training is formal or not. Edgeworth is an attorney and would therefore have experience assembling a case. It makes sense, given what we have seen of the nature of this place, to attempt to coordinate these efforts insofar as it is possible.
"There is no ideal way to do this. You understand the reasons. Still, I think that an attempt should be made to either develop a systematic plan, or to become part of any that already exists."
His toes wriggled against the seat of the chair and, since he had finished with his speech for the time being, he shifted the topic.
"You were here last night. Can you tell me what you saw -- how well it matches the warnings about monsters, for example? They seem far-fetched. Also, I am interested in any information about the operation of the radio."
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And that was precisely why he would have to be careful with just who he associated with. Without moving his head he followed L’s nod across the room, to where the two men sat in deep conversation. The fact that L was not so outwardly disturbed was one of the few reasons he kept their conversation going. In all honesty, Lunge had every reason to have doubts about him; false names, withheld information, uncertain identities… everything about the man begged for suspicion. For background checks and research and careful character analysis.
But here, far from the reliability of the office, that luxury was simply not available to him. For now, they were colleagues united by a shared aim- and all the while he would continue assess just who ‘L’ was, calmly and thoroughly, on the side.
The same old threadbare smile returned at the mention of his appointments. Clearly, he was going to be subjected to the same level of observation. “You’ve been doing your research,” he commented. Good. It was a reassuringly appropriate move for one in his supposed position to make under the circumstances. Besides. Lunge didn’t know if he could approve of having a partner without some sense of curiosity.
“That’s right. My reasoning ran similar to your own; all three men seemed to have some kind of investigative skill, or at the very least seemed willing to look further than the obvious.” A depressingly fatalistic feeling that all they could do was survive permeated the Institute, maintaining that research meant nothing. But knowledge was power, and power was exactly what they needed. “Provided they meet expectations, they could prove to be useful allies.”
He shifted in his seat as the conversation turned to the previous night, unlacing his fingers to rest one hand on the arm of the chair while the other formed a rest for his chin.
“I didn’t take my radio with me last night, but from what I’ve heard the current ‘voice’ has yet to prove her worth.” An understatement. Comments had ranged from dismissive to infuriated. “Still, it may be interesting to hear if this ‘Jill’ woman has anything to say on last night’s events.”
“As for the monster sightings…” Here he sighed, face for once betraying a touch of irritation. “I didn’t see anything to confirm or refute them. However, a woman I spoke to this morning was quite insistent that she had seen some kind of ‘zombies’ last night- ‘if you've ever seen Night of the Living Dead, it was just like that’.” The hand resting on the chair sprang to life with the quote, typing out into the plush arm as he recited it before falling back into repose barely a second later.
He continued. “On top of which, there is enough testimony on the bulletin board to suggest that, if not ‘monsters’ as such, there is definitely something to be feared at night.”
For a moment he broke off, head to one side as though something had suddenly occurred to him. “By the way. I couldn’t help but notice your reluctance in using your name over the bulletin board. How should I contact you?”
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"To be honest, it doesn't matter yet whether or not they have investigative skill. There is no quick way to tell who here is sane and who is not, or who is likely to tell the truth, but if they have constructed an identity in which they are in some way involved with law enforcement and investigation, they will probably cling to this identity for as long as possible." The insinuation was there, too: this could also describe either of us.
"As long as the work of an investigator is part of a given patient's identity, there is a strong chance that they will pursue an investigation to the best of their ability. In a place like this, it's the most we can hope for. However, nothing can attest to the quality of their results: at a moment of desperation in terms of maintaining the identity, they might just create -- and later present -- 'clues' that they have 'discovered.' It isn't yet possible to tell."
For what it's worth, Herr Lunge, he thought, you do not strike me as insane -- you do not even strike me as being as simple-minded as many of the policemen I work with.
As the conversation moved on to the radios, L seemed lost in thought, his fingers tapping at his mouth again. "It matches what I have been told. Still, it may be important to take the radios with us at night if we leave our rooms. If, after a few nights, they prove to be useless, the smarter choice could be to dispense with the encumbrance."
He watched Lunge typing against the arm of the chair, and raised his eyebrows, causing his eyes to widen, questioning. He gestured at Lunge's hand with a tilt of his head. "I wondered. It was as if you had posted a transcription on the board. It is a mnemonic of sorts?"
He had strayed from the topic, and returned to it, a note of determination in his soft voice. "Yes, something -- and there is little way to know until we have seen it for ourselves. All we can say so far is that people were attacked; that they appear, in some way, to be attacked every night.
"If I have interpreted your transcript correctly, and if it can be taken at face value, Landel himself may have been attacked last night. It even seems possible that the general population of this place might have been held away from it primarily to distract them from whatever was happening here. That could explain the remark about 'collateral damage.'"
He shrugged -- there is no way to know much more about this yet. However, the concept that people were attacked every night bothered him more than he could say; he had not yet formulated a plan for survival. There were items in his room, like the flashlight, that could be used as makeshift weapons -- but as far as he knew, not yet having any chance to make serious contact with the Cooking Club, he would be on his own that night. Hiding under the bed seemed like it might be a necessity, even if it would keep him from discovering anything useful.
"I am reluctant to use my name anywhere.
"In the matter of contact, we could each address messages on the bulletin board to 'Lars': vague messages, with disguised handwriting. If they are used to arrange meetings, the meetings should always be in public places like this one. That way, neither of us will be endangered by any attempts on the part of a third party to involve themselves, and given the number of people conversing in a public room at any given time, the sender and recipient will not be obvious. If we see a message addressed to Lars, each of us will know that the other sent it."
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As for the men he was going to be speaking with later… well. He would just have to see, wouldn’t he?
His train of thought ground to a brief halt as L commented on his typing, lifting his hand casually and glancing at it as though it had moved entirely with a life of its own. “That’s right. I input the information into my mind the way one inputs information into a computer.” Lunge left it at that. Further explanation was not necessary, especially not when the man seemed so eager to continue their conversation.
“That much is undeniable; considering the sheer volume of patients with injuries of some kind it would be downright contrary to suggest that they were all caused by ‘accidents’.” He folded his hands neatly in his lap. While he hadn’t been prepared to reveal all of his theories just yet, not while they were still barely more than half-formed ideas, this was still where things began to get interesting. “Regarding Landel’s death, that is a distinct possibility, and one that I intend to investigate further. The current favourite for the perpetrator appears to be a man named Alec Doyle, also known as ‘Jack’, the previous radio host.”
“There is, however, also the possibility that the man’s death never occurred- that the entire thing was planned and carefully executed to give the impression that he had been murdered.”
Everything he had read had pointed to Martin Landel as, primarily, a megalomaniac. An egomaniac riding on a wave of his own dominance, revelling in the power he held over those around him. But there was a vaguely narcissistic echo to his actions; the constant need to be recognised, either through public appearances or via constant use of the intercom, that softened the blow. A narcissist was relatively easier to deal with, to understand. Of course the man would have left the speakers on during his own death. To die in silence was to die an unknown.
But. There was always a but. But if the death had been planned. But if the death had been faked. But if there was more to it than craving attention… then the possibility of a far more calculating individual started to emerge.
“If the Head Doctor’s death turns out to have been little more than an elaborate deception…” He shook his head. “If that turns out to be the case, we are dealing with a far more dangerous man. The murdered Landel was a manageable threat, and all that remains is to determine if a similar threat will take his place. The Landel that fakes his own death, on the other hand, is deadly.”
After leaving a few calculated moments for his words to settle, he gave a dismissive shrug. “Of course, I still have a lot of work to do before I can make any definitive judgements.”
And that was that. Lunge leaned forward, ready to move onto the next subject. “I had thought as much. ‘Lars’ it is.” Just why L had chosen that particular name was a matter for another time, and he let the matter rest before the question rose to his lips. “I assume disguised handwriting is a must as well?”
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"Even a body would not tell us much. Any body could be presented as Landel's after the fact, to people who had not seen him before. A description to us would not be enough; the people who have seen him would have to confirm the identity of the body for themselves. Then, we always return to the question of how reliable they are."
He gave Lunge a slow nod, after listening to the explanation of his theory about Landel's psychology. "Yes, I agree -- although I think we are speaking of degrees. If everything we have been told about this place so far is true, Landel was deadly to begin with. The question there is how he was deadly, in the precise sense."
After a pause, during which he dropped his gaze to the floor near his chair, pensive, he added, "Certainly, we can say that he -- or whoever he answers to, if anyone -- that remains to be seen -- has a childish need to control people. He is able to dictate almost every aspect of the life of every person who comes here."
His tone hardened, and he trained the full bore of his keen stare on Lunge's face again. "Someone has a fantasy, but it is difficult to say what it is. Is it that he is a benevolent doctor who helps people? Or is it that he is a benevolent doctor by day, and something else by night? Something -- more powerful? Less? Which persona is the fantasy? Both, or does one only exist to enable the other?" Some of his intensity faded, and he sank back into his chair as he took a moment to consider the idea.
"I agree that, while a surprising amount of information has been available this morning, it is impossible to gauge the motivations of the people providing it. While it is reasonable to suspect that the majority of the patients here would like to leave, we cannot even assume that everyone would. It's the same problem as with everything else: we have less information than we would like, and while it is possible that more is available, our movements have been too curtailed."
He shook his head, echoing Lunge's dismissive shrug. "I anticipate that it will be up in the air for a while, Herr Lunge, but we can make it our goal to pull it down to earth as quickly as possible. Since it seems that we are not likely to be able to leave today, the first thing will be directly experiencing this place at night." Until then, he thinks, we will not even know whether or not some or all of these supposed monsters are hallucinations -- caused by something put in our food? Perhaps.
"The other priorities would be accessing the patient files as soon as we are able to, and, as you suggested, learning whatever there is to know about Alec Doyle." A beat. "Have you considered joining one of the clubs?"
On to the topic of Lars. "Yes, secrecy is a must. I think your handwriting, at least as it has been seen, is easily identified, because you have signed a message on the board." L had not yet used his own real handwriting there, and he had no intention of indicating to anyone what precisely it might look like. "We can use that to our advantage, if necessary. Ciphertext should be avoided, for now; it will make any messages too interesting."
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The corner of the inspector’s mouth twitched in a smile as L added his own links to the chain of thoughts. While this wasn’t the time to discuss the matter of profiling at length, he couldn’t resist continuing. “Naturally. The man already has a sizeable body count from what I’ve heard, regardless his state of mind.”
Lunge’s eyes never left L’s face once. Interesting how the man seemed to intensify along with the conversation. It was as though someone had taken a microscope and tightened the focus for a few moments, or like a cheetah suddenly breaking pace for a brief, blinding sprint before falling back into a trot. The man’s languor seemed similarly fated to be breached by the occasional emergence of sharp insight. A hint of what lay beneath the surface.
“The question of what kind of megalomaniac we are looking at,” he agreed, “is the key one. Until that is answered- which won’t be any time soon, I’d wager- there is little that can be done. For the moment, I’ll be keeping my investigations on a more tangible level, one that I can personally verify in some way. Alec Doyle and the patient files are just a couple of the possible topics, the latter of which I’d like to look into as soon as possible.”
“As for the clubs…” Lunge shook his head. “No. I had considered signing up for something, but eventually I decided that it would be an unnecessary distraction from my work.”
Not that this was any great loss, so far as Lunge was concerned; the tasks they set were well-meaning but of little use to him, besides which he had never worked well with authority even at the best of times. It was fortunate, therefore, that at the worst of times he had never shied away from working alone. If Ruhenheim hadn’t managed to break him, he severely doubted that Landel’s Institute would.
Just why L wanted to keep his identity so carefully under wraps, however… now that was less clear to him. There was taking the necessary precautions and then there was paranoia, but the line between the two seemed less well defined with him.
Something in the back of his own mind made a casual, drifting connection with the mysterious ‘Kira case’ the man had been so reluctant to discuss, but brushed it off with a nod. The relevance of that matter was debatable. Prioritising was necessary. “Of course.”
Having settled that, the chair gave a quiet squeak of protest as Lunge sat back. “Well. I think that about covers things for the moment. If all things go as planned, this should be the beginning of an… interesting partnership.” He held out a hand, but there was something oddly challenging behind the well-mannered smile that accompanied it. “Don’t you think?”
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He was used to working alone, but always with eyes and ears and hands. Only time would show whether Lunge was as reliable and skilled as it seemed that he might be, but L had a fleeting thought: This is someone I might choose to work with even if I were not forced to do so.
Still, when Lunge said he would find membership in a club to be an unwelcome distraction, L tilted his head, frowning a little.
"You are equal to defending yourself?
"Ordinarily, I would agree with you, but I have some small interest in the cooking club. It has been suggested that there is safety in numbers here -- I will need to experience at least one night here to decide for myself. The club dedicated to self-defense seemed the most expedient. If it becomes necessary to join one, appearances suggest that one will be the most advantageous."
He caught the challenge in the smile, and it caused something enigmatic to pass over his face -- a sharpness that was there and gone, a challenge of his own. He was not often in the habit of shaking hands, but this situation was different; he could not control the variables. He took the offered hand and shook it. His own hand was cool and dry.
"Yes. I hope we will be able to accomplish everything we set out to do."
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