Day 43: Intercom, Noon
I.R.I.S. here again, and we continue to hope that you are enjoying your temporary stay at Landel's Institute! We hope that our staff have proved adequate for your needs so far, and we are now ready to showcase an uncommon - but vital - aspect of the lives of our future patients. Once every week, we will allow 'visitors' from the outside world to
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That was a pretty big surprise in and of itself. He hadn't really been expecting that. Maybe some kind of afterlife--he wasn't entirely sure what sort he believed in, but it would make sense that there'd be something--but it definitely wasn't supposed to feel like this. This was a hospital bed; that suggested that he'd been healed. And that was more than a little surreal. Even going into battle that last time, he hadn't expected to survive; by the end he'd known he wouldn't. But he didn't even feel injured.
He sat up and stared down at his hands, turning them over again and again. No gloves, but that wasn't really a surprise. He'd have to ask for new ones. That was a good thing to focus on: getting his gloves back. That way he didn't have to worry about how he'd survived, who'd picked him up, or what waited for him now (there shouldn't have been anything; he was done, didn't they know that?).
His eyepatch was missing too, although that being a lot newer than the gloves, it took him a few moments to realize it. Then he stopped, realizing something else, and hesitantly lifted one hand to his face: first the left side, then the right. "Huh? ...It must have been a while, then." The thought that not only had time passed, but that his wounds had healed so perfectly, was terribly strange. He backed away from it. It would be better, for now, to focus on doing what he could to adjust. He'd find out more about what had happened later.
Lockon looked up just in time to see a young woman approaching in a non-descript outfit--a nurse's uniform, he assumed, since he was in a hospital (right?). He smiled at her and lifted a hand. "Hey, I'm finally up, so you don't have to worry," he said. She stopped as if surprised that he was addressing her. "We can get to the explanations later. For now, could you get me a pair of gloves? I'd appreciate it."
She regained her composure and smiled back at him. "Why would you need gloves?"
So she didn't know who he was. Either someone other than Celestial Being had rescued him, or she was far removed from the crew of the Ptolemy. He'd have to be careful and not give away too much. He didn't have the composure right now to come up with a lie, though, so he opted for a half-truth instead. "I like to keep my hands safe for some of the delicate work I do."
She was still smiling, but by now he realized that it was a slightly fixed expression, not as friendly as he'd hoped initially. "What kind of work is that?"
Well, if they'd picked him up from a battlefield, they had to know something about what he did. "I'm a sniper," he explained. "So I work with rifles."
And suddenly she wasn't smiling anymore. Instead, she gave him a sympathetic look and patted his shoulder. He didn't resist--he'd done it to other people loads of times, after all--but it didn't help his confusion. In fact, it upped his bewilderment to a whole new level when she spoke again. "You don't have to worry about that here, Mr. Dylandy. You're in--"
He cut her off, reaching up to grab hold of her hand on his shoulder (she tensed as if afraid; what threat could he pose to her, dazed and unarmed?) and staring up at her. "How do you know my real name?" He couldn't even begin to guess what that meant. (A panicky thought: they'd mistaken him for his brother, and it was Lyle who was in danger. He pushed the fear away. As soon as he could check what they thought his given name was, he'd be able to confirm or dismiss it.)
"That was the name you were checked in under, of course," the nurse said.
He looked up at her again, still not comprehending. "Checked in under? You mean I wasn't--" Rescued, he was about to say, but it suddenly seemed absurd. Instead, he asked, "What is this place?"
"This is Landel's Institute," she said. "Surely you remember that much."
Lockon didn't remember it at all, but he knew he needed to, and soon. "All right," he said. "I must be a little disoriented, but I'm sure it'll go away soon. Can you take me somewhere I can talk with the other patients? If that's all right." He doubted he was going to get any more information from the nurse, and he needed to get it from someone. Maybe, if he was lucky, another patient would be as friendly as he was, but a lot less confused.
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