Nightshift 36: M-C Block Hallway

[fourtharcana]

[from here]

The second hallway was at least better lit than the first, due to the light from some others' flashlights. So it's not the Dark Hour. That still didn't provide much of an explanation as to where he had awakened, though

Comments

[no_barbarian]

[from here]

The hall was nearly deserted; most of the folks around here must have left while Teisel was making his notes. Just as well.

Briefly, he was tempted to enter the bathroom to see if his eyes really were...well, eyes, or if he'd been somehow mistaken. Or hallucinating, he thought bitterly. He resisted. For the moment, he was a little more worried about keeping the rest of him the way he liked it: all in one piece.

Promising himself that he could study his eyes as much as he liked later, he adjusted his grip on the flashlight and pushed open the door to the larger hall, checking quickly to make sure no one was waiting on the other side.

[no_barbarian]

[to here]

[for_marian]

[from here]

There was one guy hanging around by himself when Leon entered the hall, but that was none of his concern so he ignored the idiot entirely. Hopefully Clark wouldn't feel the need to offer 'help' or anything--the redhead was probably just waiting for someone. He certainly didn't look like one of the brainwashed patients, in any case.

No sign of danger yet, but that didn't mean anything. Tonight it was patients who were the biggest dangers, or at least the most difficult to spot at first, so Leon kept his guard up.

[son_ofkrypton]

[To here]

[toxicspiderman]

[from here]

The hallway was dark, and completely unfamiliar. As were the passers-by, who were all moving quickly and in the same direction. Like lemmings, or corporate drones on the way to an expense-account happy hour. Hell, I could do with a beer.

He walked slowly in the same general direction, scanning the faces of anyone who passed for anyone familiar.

[pleading_ngri]

[from here.]There were a few people walking down the hall, but the blond man wandering just ahead stuck out immediately. Phoenix had learned over the years to trust his intuition. Sometimes people just seemed important, and he didn't actually figure out exactly how until he'd talked with them for several minutes. Or hours. Or days. But when he had a gut feeling about someone, it was usually fairly accurate, and something about the figure he'd fixed on seemed initially off

[toxicspiderman]

The corridor kept going. If this was a set-up, someone had gone to a lot of trouble on his behalf. Which meant real money. Crap. Last time he checked, though, the mafia didn't get their kicks by playing practical jokes. And the bastards from Basco were either in jail or bankrupt, so who would be after him now

[pleading_ngri]

New. Definitely new. Phoenix wasn't sure whether what he felt in response was more relief or dismay, but he didn't stop long to ponder it, either. He glanced at the door several yards in front of them -- he knew that the hall they were in right now had been reasonably safe on every other night, but all bets were off in the larger hallways. And if he answered the question he'd just been asked in the most direct, forthright way possible, he would sound insane and could very well end up sending a stranger off on his own into something potentially deadly

[toxicspiderman]

[from here]

If Phoenix was expecting him to flip his lid, he was going to be disappointed. Yeah, it sounded crazy, but there was an internal logic he couldn't deny.

Experimental test subjects? There were always shitloads of conspiracy theories. When in doubt, blame it on the feds. Say the CIA only said they'd stopped MK-ULTRA because Leary and company had turned Lysergic acid diethylamide into first a counter-culture, and then a way for yuppies to prove they'd been young, once. They could be dosing the patients with all sorts of shit. That would explain the monsters -- psychadelics could turn an actual basset hound into something out of a Ghostbusters' cartoon

[pleading_ngri]

"I haven't seen anyone being given medication." He shook his head, taking the respite of answering questions to consider which way he wanted to walk. He decided on heading north once they hit the next hall, taking the outside shortcut back into the patient blocks. It was the same distance either way, and he hadn't caught a breath of fresh air all day. Not that he was used to fresh air, but being inside all day just made him cagey. Days without the presence of a bike or a bus already seemed half-unreal; days when he never even got out from under a roof were ten times as bad. "And there isn't even much treatment going on. According to the schedule, there's therapy three days a week, but as far as I know we have just a handful of doctors and more than a hundred rooms of patients. I can't imagine anyone gets seen by an actual doctor more than once a week. And about time . . . everyone does talk about that feeling wrong, actually." He knew what S.T. was getting at, and while it some level it would have been nice to believe that this was

[toxicspiderman]

"Depending on what they might be giving you, your cognitive gears might feel more greased, not less." Putting it in the food or water really would make for massive over- and under-doses, though. And if they were keeping several hundred patients docile with a skeleton staff, they wouldn't be making amateur mistakes like that. Which led to the next hypothesis

[theroadsofar]

[From here]

Flashlight was pretty solid, he had to give them that. Dean would've preferred a gun or a knife, but if push came to shove, he'd have something with some weight behind it. Even if this was some kinda hospital, they shouldn't be leaving stuff like this behind, which got him wondering. It was pretty obvious this was no normal hospital, especially not with doors locked from the outside and a basketcase on the intercom. Dean covered the hall, moving cautiously - it was one thing to go in swinging, but he usually liked to save that part for when he knew just what he was supposed to be swinging at. Right now he had that guy on the intercom, an empty bed, and a lot of doors to go by

[theroadsofar]

[To here]