Day 44: Sun Room, Second Shift

[superdynamic]

[from here]He really had beat the rush. Suzaku found a chair as close to the corner and as far from the bulletin as he could, and turned it to face the wall before curling up in it. His nurse frowned at him again, but she was still being cooperative, and frankly he didn't care what she had to say in the slightest. He didn't care even if he got

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[high_prosecutor]

"That's true, and there's also the fact that there are very likely people who have seen illusions and haven't said anything about them, either." There was something else, too. Edgeworth had noted that no one had commented to Javert's question about the 'sleep studies'. That meant one of two things: either no one was admitting to having undergone them, or they didn't happen at all. He was leaning towards the latter, but that meant the schedule was off.

"There's something else odd about last night," he said, deciding that the idea was better bounced off a second person. "There's a pattern to when the brainwashing and sleep studies here occur - and forgive me for assuming that you knew about them both. Please, interrupt me and I can explain them," he continued.

"That pattern was changed the night we were stuck in Doyleton overnight. Last night, if the pattern held, it meant there should have been a series of 'sleep studies', but instead, we're hearing accounts of brainwashed patients. I'm wondering if what happened wasn't some kind of large-scale experiment, but damned if I know what the objective might have been."

[unheroed]

Even though Edgeworth went ahead and referred to the exact thing that Harvey was doing, his half-expression didn't falter. He knew a thing or two about lying, as all lawyers did. So far this Edgeworth seemed pretty open and straightforward, which Harvey also liked, but he wouldn't be surprised if the man was also completely capable of lying through his teeth.

It looked like they were moving to another subject entirely, and while Harvey wanted to ponder over what had caused last night's incidents, he had been convinced by now that none of the patients had any more insights than he did. Besides, Edgeworth had already said he'd been trying to forget about what had happened, which probably meant this was a subtle subject change that shouldn't be argued with.

Harvey might have lost it a little, but he could still follow social cues when he cared to.

While he had heard about the brainwashing and the experimentation, this was the first time he'd heard the latter referred to as 'sleep studies.' That was likely some kind of code word, and it didn't trip him up too much. He shook his head when Edgeworth offered to explain and instead focused on what odd thing had happened.

"I'm still not sure if that whole zombie thing was planned," Harvey returned, resisting the urge to roll an eye. "If it wasn't, then we weren't supposed to be stuck in town all night, meaning that the brainwashing that was meant to happen that night didn't. Maybe they were just making up for lost time," he suggested. Sometimes it was easier to look for a simple solution rather than getting caught up in larger ideas.

[high_prosecutor]

Edgeworth caught the slight hesitation, and paused, going back to the prior subject for just a moment. "May I ask a question, Mr. Dent? What do you make of that 'IRIS' and 'Next-Wave' talk that was over the intercom before our esteemed former colleague, Alec Doyle, spoke? Alec Doyle being the former voice on the radios, until a few weeks ago. He was supposedly killed, a fact that the Head Doctor broadcast over the intercom. I find that, combined with what someone helpfully translated for us over the bulletin, interesting."

He hummed quietly, then pointed to the underlined quote: The dead can be more alive for us, more powerful, more scary, than the living. It is the question of ghosts. -- J. Derrida.

"And I agree. I don't know that the zombie thing was necessarily planned, but it seems to be a strange coincidence. It happened, and then the next day, Dr. Landel was conspicuously absent, and today things go back to normal. I'm not sure what to make of it all. Maybe it is just as simple as making up for the lost time."

[unheroed]

While Harvey did like the feeling of importance that he garnered from being asked his opinion (but what was he, some mutt looking for scraps?), he didn't want to admit that he hadn't paid much attention to last night's announcements. Most of it had been strings of numbers, unintelligible words, and screaming. After that, he'd been so distracted by seeing Rachel and then hearing her voice that he hadn't been able to focus on the announcements at all.

"I wasn't around for all of that," he explained, "but it does seem like it might actually be Doyle who's behind it this time." He didn't know about the translated note, either, but once again, he wasn't going to own up to that. So long as he didn't let on that he wasn't quite as invested as Edgeworth seemed to be, all would be well.

"I obviously can't judge whether or not he'd be capable of this sort of thing" -- whatever that meant -- "but I don't see why we should count anything out." He wasn't here to do character studies of the people who were trying to run their lives, and he wasn't going to assume that any of them were above putting them through what amounted to emotional torture.

[high_prosecutor]

Miles nodded. It made sense, really - while he was too polite to ask, he could definitely understand why someone would tune out the intercom in that situation. He had lost track of it himself somewhere in the chaos after Doyle's announcement. He had been too focused on what he was sure would be his dying words to even care about the screaming overhead.

"It's definitely not a possibility anyone can easily rule out. All his past claims to really be on the same side of these things as the patients could have been a ruse to get people to trust him. It wouldn't be the first time someone ever pulled a stunt like that, and it certainly won't be the last."

It wasn't a possibility he liked, because it meant things really were up to a patient population that was nigh-impossible to manage, let alone get on the same side, but such was life.

[unheroed]

If anything, this new knowledge that Doyle had been trying to act like the nice guy who was supporting the patients just made Harvey more suspicious of the man. It was the people who tried to sidle up to you and play nice that were usually looking to stab you in the back. At least Landel was open about it during his nighttime ramblings.

"That's probably exactly what it was," he said, narrowing his one freed eye as he crossed his arms firmly over his chest.

"Hell, for all we know those two are actually working together," he tossed out, knowing that it was unfounded. The point was that there was no one they should feel as if they could trust in this place, not even each other in most cases.

While Harvey had never felt like "one of the patients," meeting like-minded people like this Edgeworth man did make him wonder. He wasn't here to make friends like the nurses kept harping on about, but he was open to talking to people who actually had something interesting to say. If anything, it got his mind off of unpleasant topics and let him shove back his anticipation for the coming night.