Day 46: Music Room
Kaworu immediately gravitated towards the keyboard. It was not a piano, not truly, but it was attractive in all of the same ways. Music freed the mind from conscious thought, and Kaworu was feeling exceptionally weighed down by exactly that. There was a heaviness, as well as a lightness. He did not know where to begin approaching the situation with
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It was somewhat surprising that the man was still willing to talk to him after so many meetings. Harvey knew he wasn't the best conversationalist anymore, and he wouldn't be surprised if Jones had figured out that he wasn't the savoriest of people either. And yet this. Was it a way to check up on him? Harvey didn't like the idea, and almost scowled at the thought. The last thing he needed was a babysitter doing daily checks on him.
"Don't count on it," he responded with an almost violent shake of his head. Even as a kid, he hadn't done much with music. He'd been far too focused on getting the grades he'd need to become a lawyer, and so he'd only done extracurricular activities when necessary. Soccer had seemed to suit him well enough, but there just hadn't been space for an instrument on top of that.
Harvey glanced over at Jones and raised a single eyebrow in return. "How about you?"
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"I don't think this audience would appreciate it," he replied, tilting his head to indicate the other occupants of the room. "Besides, I'm out of practice." Between everything that happened on his travels and all the catching up he had to do whenever he got back, he didn't have a lot of time for music, something he occasionally regretted. Maybe he'd get back into it when he retired--assuming he lived long enough.
More immediately, he wondered what Dent had been doing with that gun. Under normal circumstances the man seemed like he'd be smart enough not to waste bullets, but he also didn't seem like he'd be stable enough to keep that consistently in mind.
"Anything interesting happen in the last few days?" Indy asked conversationally.
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While he could have asked what instrument it was that the man played, Jones had already gone ahead and changed the subject. As a matter of fact, some interesting things had been going on, but it wasn't like he was going to spill to Jones when the man was obviously an upstanding person. Jones wasn't as righteous and goody-goody as some of the other people here, but Harvey got the feeling that the guy wouldn't be too pleased if he heard about the plans he'd been hatching with Jason.
Still, he didn't have to outright lie. If he said that nothing had been going on, that might be even more suspicious.
"I was trying to look for someone, but it seems like this place doesn't really want me to find him," he said with a sigh and a shrug. "I went looking around the second floor last night, but that's about it. How about you?" The whole ongoing development with Tim would have to stay nice and secret. It was still very much in the works, and he didn't need Jones to go messing it up.
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Those ruins were still bothering him, the thought of them coming up from the back of his mind at intervals. Even if it didn't hold any answers that would actually help him, Indy wanted to get back to the site and have another look around. He recognized that on some level he was trying to convince himself that the place could be useful just so he could satisfy his curiosity, but you never knew. There was always a chance.
Would taking Dent with him be worthwhile? The gun could come in handy--next time they might run across worse than a few imported jungle plants, however snakelike--but Indy wasn't sure he was prepared to trust Dent after that stunt in the pet shop. Had it just been an isolated incident?
And along the lines of figuring out what the guy was like... "You weren't one of the ones who went on 'vacation' yesterday, were you? Somehow I can't picture it." Brainwashed Dent would probably be a real sweetheart whose hobby was kissing babies or something.
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Though he had to wonder: had something happened to Batman as well? Jason apparently hadn't seen the guy around for a while, which could mean all sorts of things. Harvey hoped the vigilante hadn't gone and gotten himself killed somehow. That would have just been so anticlimactic, and after everything else Batman had lived through, it just seemed inconceivable that he'd fall down and die so easily.
When the term 'vacation' was brought up (and Harvey could pretty much hear the quotations in Jones' voice), he had a moment of confusion before he realized what the man was referring to. It was whatever Franziska had been talking about, but Harvey still didn't know too much about what had happened.
"Me? No. I'm still kind of fuzzy on the details, actually. People got brainwashed or something?" It seemed par for the course in this place, and he was just happy that he'd been unaffected. "I'm guessing you dodged the bullet too?" he asked in return. Maybe bringing up gun metaphors around Jones wasn't the best idea, but it didn't occur to Harvey.
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Pipe dreams, probably, Indy thought. The chances of his finding out anything they didn't want him to know were probably slim at best.
"Let me know if you hear anything, but I wouldn't hold your breath." Not that he expected Dent to, really. "Sounds like people who are gone that long usually don't come back. Like I said, I've got other things to look for now."
Didn't Dent read the bulletin board? Someone should get a newsletter started one of these days. "Something like that. Ever had a visitor here?" Indy leaned back in his chair--settling in to talk like an old man. "If so, you've got the idea. Apparently they all just 'remembered' their 'real lives' and decided that everything they'd experienced up until then was some kind of delusion. By this morning it'd all worn off." He had dodged the bullet, in fact, but Indy figured that should be clear enough by the way he was talking.
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"Yeah, if he's not sharing your room anymore, I wouldn't get your hopes up," Harvey agreed, figuring that Jones was the kind of person who appreciated when people were honest with him rather than giving him false hope. He'd already seemed to accept for himself that the man was gone, and at least he had the resolve to not break down about it. Though for all Harvey knew, Jones hated the guy and just wanted to find him to get his flashlight back.
When Jones asked if he'd had a visitor, Harvey was quick to shake his head. And it was a good thing, too. He couldn't imagine who might come see him, but whoever it was? Well, he wasn't going to like it. Maybe the institute was smart enough to realize that, at least.
"Sounds fun," he responded with a frown. "Guess it's not too much of a concern if it wore off that quickly, though." If it had happened to someone who Franziska knew, then she was probably not quite as pissed at Landel today. Or maybe she'd be even more upset that the Head Doctor was apparently just playing with them. Though wasn't that what he'd been doing from the start?
Though now that he thought of it, Jones might be curious to hear about the female prosecutor. "I ran into Franziska yesterday and she had something to say about it. I guess it happened to someone she knows." If Jones was that curious about what had gone on the day before, then he could try and get a hold of her to talk about it.
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Which was the core of the problem, from Indy's perspective. If Pierson had just had an unlucky break and ended up as a midnight snack for a zombie, it'd be regrettable but somehow reassuring--clear cause, clear outcome, and all you had to do to avoid it was keep your eyes open and carry a dog leash around. If they'd done something else with him, there were no guarantees that the same thing (brainwashing and release? experimentation? Indy could think of plenty of increasingly paranoid scenarios) couldn't happen to any other patient. There but for the grace of God, as it were.
"Assuming it doesn't last any longer next time," he commented grimly, not too concerned that he was making the assumption that there would be a next time. With all the brainwashing that had already happened, it seemed almost self-evident that there would be more to follow sooner or later.
Franziska, huh? Indy made a mental note to introduce her to Lunge if they didn't already know each other; they'd probably get along great. "How's she doing? Have anything interesting to say?" He was more concerned with whether she'd turned up any useful information than how she was enjoying her stay at Landel's, but he figured he'd let Dent sort out what of their conversation was important.
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"I'm guessing you already tried the board," he responded dryly. It was never much help, but at least it seemed simple enough to communicate with Jason over it. That was generally the only thing Harvey used it for -- unless something really out of the ordinary was going on, like that night when he'd seen Rachel and heard her last words. "I'll keep an eye out," he said, more to put the other man at ease than because he was personally invested. It wasn't that hard of a promise to keep, which was the only reason he made it.
The idea of yesterday's events happening again in the future was something Harvey hadn't put much thought to. If he hadn't been affected this time, then chances were he'd weasel his way through next time, too. Though maybe he shouldn't assume too much. Still, it wasn't like they had any control over it, so what was the point in getting worked up about it?
"She's... still insecure about her age and her gender, still hoping to bring Martin Landel to justice," Harvey said with a shrug. That last part was her words, not his, but it was pretty amusing, how determined she was. "We didn't talk for too long," he explained.
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