Day 50: Arts & Crafts Room (4th Shift)

[jouer_sans_voir]

It barely felt like she'd been outside for any time at all when the intercom sounded and the nurse came to fetch her. "Can't I stay a little longer?" she asked, but the woman only clicked her tongue and frowned, reaching to feel her forehead as though testing for a fever. "The weather simply isn't good enough, Natalie dear," the nurse said, once

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[no_dont_go]

Aigis was again at a loss for where to go for her free shift. After informing her nurse that she was not hungry, the woman then pulled the android to yet another room just off the Sun Room. Another room full of objects Aigis was not familiar with. She sat at a table near the door, unsure of how to approach this room

[stlg13bomber]

Eventually one of the nurses caved and showed Carter how to work the Seedy Player. The concept was fascinating, to keep music in such a tiny place, but the music itself sounded like a train was running over the band. He didn't like the cut of the 'rock' stuff, and the 'metal' stuff just hurt his ears. He asked if there was anything softer like cloth music or pillow music, and received only laughter in response

[no_dont_go]

"Hmm?" Aigis looked up, surprised by an unfamiliar male voice addressing her. She blinked her blue eyes, trying to remember if she had met him before. But no, he didn't register as a familiar face in her memory banks. He seemed quite friendly for a stranger.

"Indeed, it is a dog. But he is not mine," Aigis replied. She glanced back down at her drawing. "He is a friend. Koromaru-san. He worked alongside me back home."

She took a moment and thought back on his words. He had mentioned a prison. "You had a dog when... you were a jailer? Was he a guard dog?" That was the most logical explanation, but it seemed polite to ask rather than just assume.

[stlg13bomber]

"No, I was one of the prisoners. He snuck in from outside." Hah, him a jailer. Carter chuckled at the very thought as he sat down beside her. "But we did have guard dogs. They were pretty nice, we got them trained to obey us instead of the guards so they were never really as mean as they acted." But boy, what an act it was.

Koromarusan was a pretty long name for a dog. Almost a Japanese kind of name, but the girl had blue eyes and blonde hair so she couldn't be Japanese. He knew what she meant, though, some dogs just belonged to themselves and all you did was feed them and pet them and maybe let them inside when Mom wasn't looking.

[no_dont_go]

Aigis had been reaching for a different crayon, searching for a red to use for Koromaru's eyes but she stopped and fully looked to the man when he sat down. He had been a prisoner? Aigis felt herself tensing a little in suspicion. But the more he spoke, the more she felt her suspicion melting into perplexity.

"Dogs are very loyal creatures. It would take someone with a great heart to turn them from their masters." She stated this in a matter-of-fact tone. She put down her crayon and focused all her attention on the man, hoping to read more into his character. He seemed friendly, but she had experience dealing with two-faced men. A gentle smile could not always be believed.

"My name is Aigis." She bowed her head respectfully. "I hope I am not imposing if I ask for your own."

[stlg13bomber]

Carter made a little bow in return, wondering if this also meant she was Japanese. Maybe she was one of those albino types. "Sergeant Andrew Carter, miss!" He offered her a friendly hand, practically radiating a friendliness and trustworthiness that would make a puppy look like Snidley Whiplash. "And it wasn't really their masters, I guess. Herr Schnitzer was the one who kept the dogs and trained them, and he was secretly on our side so he made sure they were friendly to us. Real nice guy, just a bit cranky sometimes." Anyone who liked dogs couldn't be all bad deep inside.

Aigis, Aigis. Carter pronounced the name firmly in his head, to make sure he didn't stumble on it later. So many nice girls here, this was much better than Germany. In Germany half the nice girls turned out to be Nazi agents and that just wasn't very fair of them.

[no_dont_go]

Aigis took his offered hand and shook it a bit stiffly, unused to practicing the greeting. She had witnessed some of the scientists back in the lab greet one another with a handshake, but that had been quite some time ago. She hoped she had not missed anything in her observances. "Sergeant Carter-san, it is a pleasure." The name was foreign, but that was about all she could glean from it

[stlg13bomber]

"No, no, it's not Cartersan, it's just Carter. Car-ter," the bomber corrected. "And I wasn't a criminal sort of prisoner, I was a POW. A prisoner of war." That'd kind of be a hard concept to explain to a girl, especially one who seemed sort of childish and innocent. Because of course Carter was a model of mature wisdom

[no_dont_go]

"Ah, Sergeant Carter then." Aigis said his name in her head a few times, trying to remember to leave off the honorific. It would be like the situation with Heat. Just Heat. Just Carter

[stlg13bomber]

Carter pondered holding on to the piece of paper, it might come in handy explaining his situation to other young or alien prisoners. It felt very odd to be one of the few who knew about World War II, as if he was repeatedly having to tell people that the sun was sort of hot in the summertime. It was such an established fact of life back home that being without it felt a bit odd

[no_dont_go]

Aigis felt a wave of horror wash over her when Carter insisted he preferred Landel's over his own home. His list of grievances was extensive, but certainly nothing could make Aigis wish to remain here. However, she did have to take into account the war Carter had been a part of before his arrival at the institute. She had no experience with war; for all she knew, it could be ten times worse than even Carter described

[stlg13bomber]

Obviously Carter didn't want to stay at Landel's forever, that would be silly. One of these nights, when things didn't go a bit funny, he'd manage to finally get over the walls and see the real future. If their prisons were this great, freedom must be like paradise

[no_dont_go]

Aigis sighed in relief. Accidentally self-inflicted chemical burns were a good deal better than torture and mutilation. She could put aside the thought of him blowing up bridges and things with the off-chance of harming civilians for now. It certainly didn't seem like he meant any harm. Besides, it was not her place to tell others how to win their wars

[stlg13bomber]

"Oh, definitely." Carter brightened up once more. "I love bombs, they're like fireworks but...bigger. And brighter and louder." He spoke of his babies the way a more normal person might talk about their pet or girlfriend. Girls hadn't had that special appeal to him, bar Mary Jane, that they held for the other fellows, but he adored his bombs. "And here there's probably stuff for making even bigger and louder bombs than I could back at Stalag 13."

He doodled a little cartoonish bomb, a ball with a burning fuse, next to the swastika. He heard about the experiments too, but it all seemed like so much rumor to him. Everyone here seemed so nice, besides that weirdo Landel rambling over the intercom. A place this nice couldn't have that sharp of a dark side, nothing was that grey. You had good people and evil people, lines were that sharp.

[no_dont_go]

"That is certainly an... interesting view of ballistic weaponry." Aigis wasn't sure if he quite understood the magnitude of his job by the way he described bombs, but she had to admire his passion.

She raised an eyebrow at the childish image he drew of a bomb, but she didn't comment on his artwork. "Well, if you do find the proper materials necessary, I would appreciate the opportunity to put your work into good use." To an outsider, Aigis probably didn't look to be the type to use highly dangerous explosives, especially now that her body had been altered to look almost completely human. Aigis didn't put much stock into looks, so she hardly thought it strange to talk with just about anyone about weapons.

"Actually, Sergeant Carter, if you need help in gathering any materials, I would like to offer my assistance." She couldn't imagine the ingredients being all that easy to come by, especially if only one person happened to be looking. She was always willing to lend her aid. It made her feel useful, even if it was just an

[stlg13bomber]

Carter tilted his head, confused. "But you're a girl," he said, as if that was some sort of deformity. "What do you know about bombs?"

It wasn't a fair question, even taking into consideration his origins. He'd met plenty of female agents on both sides of the fence, all capable of skill and ruthlessness that made them the equal of any of Carter's gang. But to have a woman involved in the holy and manly world of high explosives just seemed wrong somehow. Carter had enough trouble when he had to present his creations to uninformed men, women were even more confusing.

Carter looked back at his doodle, then drew an X over it and drew something a little more period accurate. There were wires and lengths of TNT and a tiny clock on the top for a timer.