Nightshift 60: F11-F20 Hallway

[fourstonewalls]

[Inside F16]

Now that Ilia had left, there was plenty of room to pace, and Lana took it. It would help keep her muscles loose, too. Ilia had been a help, but the most important point was getting the basics to Ema -- including the part about running away being the best thing to do if she couldn't help. She would hold onto that guilt; Lana knew

Comments

F16

[stray_shinigami]

[From here]

Renji actually did turn on his flashlight once he got into the last hall. Monsters didn't make it in that far too often, and he also didn't want to miscount the rooms and miss the one he was aiming for.

He walked quickly up the hall to F16 and knocked, then added, "It's Renji," for good measure.

[Lana and Ema. Ladies note, Renji's got his sexy black shinigami threads. XD]

[fourstonewalls]

Lana opened the door wide. After all, the man had claimed martial experience; no amount of caution could help if this was a bad idea. Except for the gun in the top drawer of her dresser, but she had decided to trust.

Instead, she looked him up and down. He certainly looked the part of a warrior; he could have walked off any Samurai set in Hollywood and straight into the drab little hallway.

"I'm Lana. I've invited my sister to join us, but she hasn't arrived." It hadn't been very long, so Lana wasn't more worried than her usual well-concealed abject terror at what this place could be doing to Ema. "Please, come in."

Her flashlight was sitting balanced on her desk, pointed upwards. It provided more shadows to the room than light, but at least they wouldn't be tripping over the beds. Or Lana expected she'd manage to avoid that; Ema could trip over thin air. "I've had a few pointers, but she has had nothing, and we're both very aware of how dangerous that can be."

Both to ourselves and to others went without saying;

[stray_shinigami]

Renji stepped inside the room, then bowed. "Nice to meet you," he said. He glanced at where she had her flashlight, then balanced his on one of the beds. It helped the dark a little.

"My partner's gonna show up to get me at some point, but he's gonna give me some lead time to help you guys out. So it shouldn't be a problem." Renji nodded, then cleared his throat a little awkwardly. "I didn't want to ask on the bulletin board cause... well. But is what you're mostly worried about in this case monster-shaped or people-shaped?"

It wasn't exactly the most delicate way to put the question, but Renji wasn't a delicate guy. And it was an important question, because that would determine what direction any lessons were going to take. Monsters and people attacked differently, had different goals.

And really, for Renji's part, he hoped it was monsters. It was better to deal with a nasty thing just trying to eat your face than some sick fuck trying to hurt you.

[fourstonewalls]

Lana let out the breath she'd been holding, and smiled politely. "We appreciate the help. And it's the monster-shaped variety I'm more concerned about." Her smile sharpened to a razor's edge. "There have been some people here I'd rather have avoided, but all of them generally preferred manipulation to more direct means." And the Chief -- hah -- among them had last been seen lying in a drawer in the morgue, while the staff claimed he'd gone home, so she was cautiously optimistic she wouldn't need to deal with him again

[F16 → F11]

[avengingfists]

It was gonna be a long night. Ilia had felt distracted all dinner but not as distracted as she actually wished. She was dreading tonight as she hadn't in a long while. With warnings from both Claude and Anise about something so horrifying and twisted that the institute itself didn't let them speak of it, Ilia was actually hoping they could maybe find themselves stopped at the threshold. Rose and Gamzee seemed bent on going and Ilia couldn't just abandon them or else their fate would on her hands. There was already too much blood tainting them now, and Ilia was fond of the kids. Especially Rose. She couldn't do that to her.

Grimly, Ilia packed up and slipped out into the night. She moved to room F11, knocking as she had the night before and waiting for Rose to make her move.

[lovecrafty]

Rose answered the door, scarf thrown jauntily around her neck, and the rest of her possessions securely stowed. Ilia stood there, looking like she was heading to a funeral instead of an adventure.

"Careful, I might think you didn't want to go with us." An obvious ploy. Merely an opening gambit in convincing her that this was still a good idea.

"If you're still interested in coming along, now would be the time."

She strolled out the door and down the hall more quickly than her unremarkable countenance might have suggested. She was eager to get going.

> ==>

[thecamellia]

[Tsubaki and Rapunzel's great adventure: start!]Having promised to pass along Sakura’s card to Utena, Tsubaki didn’t want to leave the errand hanging too much longer. So, despite the Head Doctor’s threats, she got ready to make a stop at Utena’s room before she and Rapunzel left the cellblock

[hairraising]

Rapunzel had been contemplating the Head Doctor's message as well while waiting for Tsubaki in the hall. For one thing, his voice was still giving her the chills. She had never heard the man speak at night; that first day in the Institute, that horribly fake-sounding woman had been the one doing most of the talking, and after that, it was all military, all the time. Landel had sounded nice enough during the day, but as sure as her misgivings had told her, he completely broke that character once the lights went out. He was smug, condescending, and more than a little prone to anger. He'd get along really well with Mother, Rapunzel had decided, a sharp bitterness tinging her thoughts briefly

[thecamellia]

“I guess so… It doesn’t sound like the Head Doctor told them to do that? If they weren’t working for him, maybe… maybe they’re connected to the radio people? But the Head Doctor didn‘t sound like he believed that, either… ”

It was too confusing! The threads tying people together were complex, to put it lightly. But she and Rapunzel had seen for themselves that there were soldiers belonging to the military part of the equation who weren’t just blindly following orders, so the culprits could have been people unaffiliated to both Landel and Marc. At least they knew efforts to root out the traitors hadn’t been successful, if they had managed to get the jump on Aguilar and sabotage whatever was repressing the prisoners’ powers.

And if the traitors had been the cause of everything, they had to have had a reason for striking when they did.

“For the Eagle and the Head Doctor, it seems like they just want the Institute to keep standing, no matter who’s in charge.”

[hairraising]

"Maybe it'll make more sense once we get where we're going," Rapunzel offered. It really was the only idea that was coming to mind right now. She didn't know enough about the radio people (whoever they were) to know if the traitors were connected to them or not, and it was almost impossible to tell just how many patient sympathizers existed in the military's ranks. She didn't know what kind of information was on the disc either, but it was the only thing they had right now that gave them the slightest chance of pulling back part of the military's veil of secrecy.

"I guess we should just get moving and find out," she said after a moment of unsure silence, gathering up her hair in her arms and gesturing for Tsubaki to follow her.

[To here]

F14

[roseoverture]

Utena wasn't sure how she'd fallen asleep after lunch, but apparently she had. On the plus side, more rest for the night was probably a good thing. On the down side, she had been hoping to talk more with Anise at dinner. Unfortunately for her, she had woken up too late, and only had time for a scant bit of conversation as she had gotten changed and geared up for the night. She didn't want to waste any time if she could. The more time their group had to get to their meeting spot and to the basement without running into something nasty in the hall again, the better.

"Traitors, huh...?" she said to herself during Landel's announcement. Maybe because of the time she had spent unconscious earlier in the week, but hearing the Head Doctor's voice again didn't seem strange or new at all. All that stood out to her right now were two things: the thing about traitors in the general's ranks, and the outburst about her. Was "her" supposed to be Lydia, she wondered? Now that she thought about it, the Head Nurse hadn't been heard all day, not even

[F19]

[requitedfate]

So this was how the Head Doctor truly was. She shouldn't have been surprised. Her treatment by older men in power in the past had been pretty illuminating. They relished that sense of omnipotence that they felt they had. Toying with the lives of innocents was just as mundane as throwing away a used tissue paper. Shiina burned with indignation.

Well, no matter. She had other things to worry about tonight than the taunting words of an old man who had his just desserts coming. She needed to be there for Shou.

Grabbing her bat from the closet, she wished Tear a better night and ran out into the darkness of the next hallway.

[to here]