Night 47: North of the Institute

[hat_einen_vogel]

[From here]It hadn't been the most graceful landing, but at least Prussia had landed on his feet without injury; a twisted ankle right now would not have been the best thing for his escape

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[its_the_mileage]

Aside from the mild irritation of the radio thumping at his side, Indy's ascent went smoothly. At the top of the wall he glanced around to see how the other two were doing: well enough, it looked like. The ground on the other side was level and obstacle-free--how convenient, Indy thought, a regular welcome mat--and he dropped neatly down onto it, then got out of the way to make room for the others.

There was already another set of footprints in the dirt there, he noticed once he got the light back out and switched it on. Someone had been this way. Indy swept the flashlight beam around, but nothing else seemed to be moving out there--whoever it had been, he was gone now.

As long as he had a minute, Indy dug the gardening gloves out of his jacket pocket and pulled them on. Once he'd unclipped the radio from his whip, he started off again toward the east, still hugging the wall for now.

"Wasn't the theory about Doyle that he came back as a Zombi?" he asked in a low voice. For such an absurd-sounding question, the edge of skepticism in his tone was uncharacteristically thin; Indy'd seen the damn things with his own eyes. "If the girl was responsible, that raises a lot of questions about what happened in Doyleton."

[herr_inspektor]

Lunge reached the top of the wall and swung himself over- first one leg, then the other- with a soft grunt of effort, dropping down onto the damp, cold grass on both feet. Jones wasn't far away, fixing the radio he'd clipped to the dog leash he inexplicably was carrying with him but definitely in one piece (even if Lunge did find himself wondering just how the hat had managed to stay so neatly on the man's head), and he could already see L's feet dangling over the top of the wall.

The brief pause gave him a moment to catch his breath and check his surroundings more thoroughly; by the time he heard the soft thud of L hitting the ground beside him he was standing fully upright and alert again, ready to continue.

They began to walk. Everything, save for the three of them, was quietly, disturbingly still; just as before, the beam of his flashlight picked up nothing through the grey haze that seemed to perptually haunt the area, yet somehow that seemed to make things even worse. It meant that whatever was out there was the perfect predator- if they couldn't hear it now, they wouldn't ever hear it until it was too late.

The best- or, rather, only- thing to do was keep talking. He nodded. "I had heard that theory, yes. Whatever it was Doyle was brought back as, though, it had a far greater degree of awareness and ability than the other creatures brought back that night. It's possible that the zombie attack was an unintentional side effect of Doyle's return. If it was indeed Jill who began the process, it begs the question: why was it that she didn't contact the patient populace to warn them beforehand?"

Lunge paused for a moment, silently playing back his own words. That they'd been reduced to discussing the significance of resurrection and zombies of all things was difficult to stomach, but he swallowed it nonetheless. Jones, too. Only L seemed to have escaped the sheen of cynicism plaguing the conversation, although just how was beyond him- either the man had a more open mind, or his own 'world' was a lot less average than he had first anticipated.

[quarter_english]

As they walked along the wall behind the greenhouse, L found himself feeling envious of Jones's gardening gloves. It was unfortunate that he hadn't been able to steal any gloves for himself earlier in the day; the chill was pervasive; it seeped through his clothing, particularly his Institute-issue sweatpants. While there was a balance between wearing enough clothing to stay warm and wearing so much clothing that it encumbered his movements and endangered him, he determined that he would don an extra pair of sweatpants for any future nighttime jaunts.

Resentment of his situation would only waste time and energy and distract him, but even so, a small part of his thoughts was devoted to a string of complaints. If he had been investigating something like this under circumstances he would consider more ideal, he could send someone with a phone and a video camera, and direct their movements. They would be well-armed, and he would be in a quiet room somewhere with his equipment, a pot of coffee, and a bowl of sugar cubes. The chances that he would need to visit the site in person would be slim, but if he did, he would be well-equipped, instead of straggling around in the dark with a cheap kitchen knife strapped to his back.

-- Jones had a hat, too.

As they walked, L gave an occasional glance over his shoulder, checking with the flashlight, attempting to confirm that nothing was stalking them. It was, he knew, only a small compensatory effort; attacks might come at a charging pace from the wide open spaces much more easily than they'd creep up from behind in the darkness.

Before he could address his companions' statements, the radios sprang to life: the one Jones held, the one in his own coat pocket.

He focused his attention on the woman's voice. So this was "Jill," and she explained Doyle's apparent return as -- a spell?

L's skeptical expression deepened into a frown. The way her broadcast almost sounded like an interjection into their ongoing discussion rankled at him, but he waited to say anything until the instrumental music had begun to fade.

"Well." He was unable to keep a faint sarcastic note out of his tone. "I suppose she has just answered all of our questions."

[its_the_mileage]

One of Lunge's points, at least, he could start to answer. "I ran into one that was smarter. Talking intelligibly, had some kind of weapon. The kid I was with said it was his friend come back to l--"

Indy stopped in his tracks as soon as the radios crackled on, the better to listen. Jill's opening statements didn't exactly impress him (she sounded like a student groping for an explanation as to why her term paper was late), and the broadcast only went downhill from there. Her only evidence for Doyle's resurrection--if you could call it that--was that Landel hadn't been around for a day? More importantly--couldn't hold the spell? Indy snorted and almost missed the girl's next sentence amid an instinctive rush of derision. Jesus, sounded like the patients weren't the batty ones around here. What hokum.

Well, even if she was legitimate, he didn't have a hell of a lot of confidence that they'd be able to follow her out of the proverbial woods, especially if she was working by herself.

"I hope that's supposed to be a metaphor," Indy commented with a grim sarcasm of his own, picking up the pace again. Stumping through a cold fog wasn't on his list of top ten favorite activities at the best of times. Now he had even more reason to feel irritable.

[herr_inspektor]

The crackle of the radio stopped the words dead in Lunge's throat. He turned, staring at the radio for a moment, before snapping into action and letting his fingertips do the work in logging as much of the broadcast as possible before it ended- plus a few notes of his own, for future reference. Sex?: F. Identification: Jill. State?: Agitated; excited? re broadcast? Other: Message is brief/ hazy; suggests interference/ distance. Listen for next broadcast. Reference to not having seen Doyle + weak signal= suggestion that is definitely broadcasting from outside of the Institute.

The radio fell to noise, then silence. Lunge looked up, face blank save for the slightest hint of tension in his forehead while he processed the message, and then all he could manage was a flat, "I see.". Even L was frowning now, with good cause; he himself had been accepting most of what he had seen in the Institute as the product of technology, science advanced beyond his own understanding. To make such a deliberate reference to 'spells'...

"Not all of them, unfortunately, though she seems to have some understanding of exactly what happened to Doyle," he said finally, once he had rearranged his thoughts. Best to ignore the less palatable aspects of the broadcast for now. "It sounds as though it was not her doing- at least, not the majority of what happened. It sounds as though she's placing that with Doyle himself."

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