Day 55: Cafeteria

[mustbethesuit]

Comments

[human_sponge]

It seemed that their new regime, so to speak, couldn't decide on who they wanted to make the intercom announcements, since while getting bandaged up Peter had heard a very different voice speak to them as the night drew to its end. The Spanish accent was what struck him first, and it fit with the name: Aguilar. That had to be their new dictator, and the attitude that he expressed made that even more clear. The man seemed to think that even after all they'd been through, they still weren't good enough. They were disappointments

[human_sponge]

"Is that some sort of rank?" he mumbled to himself.

"Yes," one of the men unexpectedly replied. "You're the second-to-highest rank, which allows you certain privileges."

Peter blinked down at the dog tags again, wondering what he'd done to deserve such a thing. He hadn't been prepared for his question to get answered in the first place, but it just made him more curious. "Like what?"

"That will become clear soon."

So they weren't as open as they wanted to seem at first glance, but Peter could deal with that. He let the tags fall from his hand where they swung against his chest and then forced out a sigh. If only he could have gotten into his stash from the pharmacy, he could have at last taken some heavy painkillers to make this more bearable.

When they made it into the cafeteria, Peter was audience to an explanation about how everyone but the people who had fought yesterday would have to clean the whole room. He glanced over at his escorts, wondering how he could do such a thing, but one of them just shook his head at him

[immortale]

It had been an interesting walk, to say the least.

Firo had expected to start seeing cells any moment-the room with the door could have been an oddity, or a special wing, or something-but as the soldier continued to lead (in the loosest sense of the word) him onward, there was no change in architecture. He'd gone from a hallway full of doors to one long hall that ended in another, before finally being taken through an large, furnished room and into a cafeteria. The whole way, he'd seen other prisoners in the same uniform as he was wearing being escorted in a similar fashion

[human_sponge]

Peter was actually relieved when someone walked up to him, willing to chat. It meant he didn't just have the pain to focus on. He wasn't sure if the soldiers would be all right with it, since the stranger was probably supposed to be cleaning, but it was the kid and not him who would get in trouble if it came to that. Well, it was possible he would be blamed for "distracting" the other patient, but the soldiers had actually seemed reasonable this morning, up until this current incident. The bottom line was that he really didn't know what to expect, not like he had with the nurses

[immortale]

Did he... Man, how to answer that? Jails got new prisoners all the time, but Firo still wasn't sure if he was supposed to pretend to be this 'Vito Saviano' character or something-Victor could have really filled him in on the details better. The last thing he wanted was to answer what he'd been locked up for, but this was also his first real stint in prison. Maybe inmates didn't chat about that kind of thing right away.

"I just got transferred here," he finally answered. "Arrived this morning, and one of th' guards brought me straight here. He didn't say much, and then that lady..."

His gaze wandered towards where the woman giving the orders had been, but it only rested there for a moment before Firo turned his attention back to the man he'd approached. "Could you fill me in a bit?"

Past the man, Firo could see one of the guards giving him a dirty look. He shot a look of his own in the guard's direction and called out, "Yeah; I'm goin', I'm goin'..."

[human_sponge]

It looked like he'd been giving the soldiers too much credit, since it turned out that the stranger was brand new after all. Peter didn't even know where he could start when it came to explaining what was going on, though a few things about the kid stood out to him right away. First of all, he'd said that he'd been "transferred" here, which wasn't usually how most people explained their arrival. Usually it was "kidnapped" or something along those lines

[immortale]

Once he'd come back with a brush, sponge, and a bucket of soapy water, Firo knelt down near the man and set the supplies down, starting to roll up his shirt sleeves. He titled his head up to keep an eye on the guy as he started talking.

The story he was telling... sounded pretty far-fetched, actually. Even if the military guards were new around here, he'd never heard anything about Alcatraz being an asylum-to be honest, he had heard rumors of inmates going mad, but he'd never put much stock in that kind of gossip. That kind of talk was just the sensational speculation of people who'd never been there themselves and never would be there

[human_sponge]

Just like almost any new patient in this place, the kid was skeptical. It wasn't like Peter could judge him for that, but the frustrating part of it all was that it would be even more difficult to prove now that the nurses were gone. Then again, maybe what this place had been didn't matter so much, though he'd figured he'd at least prepare the kid unless it ever switched back. He wasn't feeling too appreciated, though, which meant he was just going to have to press on

[immortale]

Firo switched from the sponge to the brush after he'd said his piece, scrubbing harder in the area he'd been using the sponge to make the whole thing look good for the guards. The floor had looked pretty clean to start with, if you asked him-this 'clean it until it shines' business sounded like it was just some chore to keep busy.

He looked up from the floor when the other guy gave his name-or names, one fake and one real. But it was the real one that had caught his attention: Peter Petrelli. He paused in his scrubbing long enough to ask, "You're Italian?"

As for Peter's story, Firo almost protested that it wasn't that he didn't believe him-only right now? It really was that he didn't believe him. Maybe Peter's words had more weight that those of people on the outside, but the idea that the wardens were trying to convince inmates they were different people was still pretty hard to swallow. Peter seemed lucid enough, but he'd have to hear the same thing from a couple more inmates before he'd be willing to believe it really was

[human_sponge]

It wasn't so often that someone would recognize the origin of his last name that quickly, and so Peter gave the kid a surprised look before nodding, a more genuine smile on his face now. He didn't have an abundance of Italian pride or anything like that, but it was still interesting when it was brought up. "Well, that's my ancestry, yeah, though I was born and raised in New York." He gave the kid a look, as if to say that he'd already made note of the accent. Was it possible that he had Italian heritage, too? If so, then the two of them already had a number of things in common

[immortale]

So Peter was Italian, or at least of Italian descent... and a New Yorker, to boot! Firo wondered if he was a gangster as well-for an Italian in Alcatraz the odds seemed a bit better than average-but he wasn't going to ask... yet. He was definitely curious about whether Peter belonged to an organization and if that had something to do with why he was here, but there would always be time for that later. After he was sure Peter wasn't actually crazy.

He'd started giving Peter an openly skeptical look as soon as he indicated that prisoners could roam around freely at night, and the skepticism only grew when the man started talking about mutated creatures that guarded the grounds.

Firo gave a laugh when Peter had finished, as if the whole thing had been some grand joke. And maybe it was-he'd told Peter right off that he had just gotten here, so this could have easily been part of some kind of prison hazing for the new guy. "Don't tell me you're going to claim that 'monsters' are why this place is always said to be inescapable

[human_sponge]

The laughter was definitely a bad sign. Peter didn't see it as malicious, but it made it rather clear that the kid wasn't taking him seriously. He hadn't believed a word of that, and Peter already found himself sighing through a new wave of pain from his back. Was he going to have to show off his wound to make the kid believe him? Granted, it had been a teenager who was responsible for that wound, not a monster, but he thought the message would be clear

[immortale]

The chances probably weren't bad overall, but to have ended up talking to a fellow New Yorker first thing seemed much slimmer. He still couldn't quite make up his mind about Peter, though-he really did come across as perfectly normal, perfectly sane, but then he'd go off and say something crazy.... Like asking about whether Firo had heard of a famous prison before.

He withdrew his own hand after shaking Peter's, picking up the sponge and dunking it into the bucket again.

"I came here straight outta New York," he answered, sidestepping the question of where he'd been transferred from as best he could. Alcatraz usually wasn't somewhere someone got sent right away, so he'd let Peter draw his own conclusions about what prison he might have been in before-since he hadn't been in one

[human_sponge]

The answer Firo gave to his first question was pretty vague. The fact that he'd come from his home fit the rest of the pattern, but if that was the case then why had he used the term transfer? Maybe it was just a quirk in his speech, but Peter couldn't completely let it go. It was clear that Firo didn't want to give any more details on that part, though, and so he let it go for now

[immortale]

For a minute, Firo had to wonder if he'd been the one to say something strange this time. Maybe it was because he didn't mention what prison he was supposed to have been transferred from?

When Peter finally spoke again, breaking the uncomfortable silence, Firo frowned. "Of course they still keep prisoners here," he protested. Peter was talking like it was some other place entirely, rather than the prison they were both currently in. "We're here, aren't we? And anyway, they only started transferring people here a few months ago..."

That was why all the rumors about the place had been flying around so much lately, Firo guessed. He'd heard the place had been a military prison before, but as far as federal prisons went, Alcatraz was new and flashy. It was being touted as inescapable, and so far the title stood without question.

But there was one other thing wrong with what Peter had said: "Besides, why would anyone want to turn a prison into a museum?"

[human_sponge]

It really seemed like Firo thought they were currently in Alcatraz. Didn't he know that that prison was built on an island? Then again, if he'd only just woken up here, then there was a chance that he hadn't even seen outside yet. However, it probably wouldn't be long until he got that chance, and then he'd realize that he wasn't where he thought he was.

But if Firo had been expecting to go to Alcatraz (during a time when it still functioned as a prison), then what crime had he committed? It was hard to imagine someone who looked like he did was a criminal, but Peter knew that looks could be deceiving. He probably didn't look like he had the ability to blow up a whole city, after all