vivarium | say hello to our new arrivals, and goodbye to the departing

T H E W A R E H O U S E

【 day 23 】

Hello newcomers, welcome to the 【 Warehouse 】.

Once you escape your elevator, you will find yourself here. It's strangely empty for a warehouse. Aside from the elevators you've come out of, there's nothing else here. In fact, the longer you look around, the stranger everything looks.

Every window has been bolted shut, with no way of removing the steel coverings. The only source of illumination comes from the florescent lights above. Along the walls are numerous amounts of surveillance cameras, watching every bit of movement and listening to the sounds of everyone and everything. Every door is locked up tight, with no clear way of opening them, and there's one giant door with a 9 painted on it. It's a rather strange place, and there seems to be a lot of people here, so go introduce yourselves?

For the "old-timers" and "newly-become-old-timers", come meet your new fellow test subjects. You haven't had more than one person arrive in a long while, so what a surprise! This also means that there are two elevators that you can jump into and have a nice, long, cold bath in! How generous of Calhoun.

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Familiar footsteps fell in beside Snake as he made his way along the wall. "Finally up, huh?" asked Heiji. He put out an arm to touch Snake's shoulder -- an offer to lean on him till they got where they were going.

"C'mon, let's get to the cafeteria. Today, you're gonna eat something if I gotta spoonfeed ya!"

NO ARGUMENTS.

Food...yes that's...probably a good idea. *There's not a bite of sarcasm in his voice. He is appreciative that Heiji first let him know where he was before touching him. Nice to see he could be trained, but he really needs the help walking to the cafeteria.*

Hahaha jerk

Heiji lent Snake his shoulder. He couldn't feel any feverish heat radiating off of him, which was good, but Snake seemed frighteningly weak.

"You're gonna love what they're serving today," he said. "I'll let ya guess... it's gruel."

I'll take that or soup. Probably all I can manage. *Snake felt so insubstantial, but he knew he just had to hang in there and eat.* My hand doesn't hurt nearly as much. I think that's why I woke up.

"Good news, then," said Heiji as they made their way inside. As they did, he glanced briefly at the doorway where they'd found Akiko, then made his way past, helping Snake get set up at one of the tables.

"You wait here, okay? I'll get ya something."

Okay. *He leans his elbows on the table and places his head in his hands. Just a little more and he could feel better.* Did...did we get new people? That puts us at 14, right?

Heiji actually paused for a moment as he set Snake's tray down next to him. "...No. Colette and Aoi, they came down with the same thing as the others. Sorry, I thought ya knew."

I only talked to Aoi a few times and Colette less than that but...they both seemed like very nice girls. *He bows his head for a moment, acknowledging their leaving.* I wish we knew what caused it. *He uncharacteristically has to fumble around for where his silverware is. He tenses his whole body as he grips his spoon with his right hand and...it doesn't shoot a pain up his arm. It felt more like he was stretching something stiff with the muscles in his palm.*

"Yeah, they were. Colette especially; she was a real sweetheart." Was he really already talking about them in the past tense? How depressing.

"Go slow with that, okay? You haven't been eating, so you'll make yourself sick if you rush it."

*He was a bit startled with his first taste of food in a while. However, he remains slow in eating, taking a moment pause after a few bites.* Have you met the newcomers yet?

Heiji laughed a little. "Yeah, I did. A guy named Simon Keyes who looks like he's due for a heart attack any day now, and a shrimpy little fella, Kuzuryuu. He seems kind of touchy about it, though. Guess he must be like Clive."

Meaning short and an undisclosed number of years older than he looked. "Well, they both got outta that first trap, so it looks like they're okay for now."

Simon and Kuzuryuu. Another Japanese sounding name. Kind of makes you wonder if we're somewhere in your country. *Slowly he kept on eating until there was nothing left in his bowl.*

Heiji leaned against the surface of the table. "Well, if we are, I don't think our captors are Japanese. See, we ain't come across one puzzle specific to Japan. It's all Western stuff, like art galleries and them jail cell setups. I guess Zero could be a big fanboy or somethin', but..."

Yeah, he would have thought there would have been at least one reference to warlords or kanji or hiragana if they were in Japan.

I suppose you have a point. Then again, we could be in the middle of my country, since we have multiple nationalities there. Except...you're clearly from Osaka so...*he scratches his head*...I don't think I'm up to figuring that out yet.

Heiji let out a short breath that could have been a laugh. "Well, whatever else, I think we can probably rule out Antarctica, so that's 1/7 continents right there! We'll have this mystery cracked in no time!"

Sarcasm was a hell of a drug. It wasn't really directed at Snake, though, more the situation in general.

*The food is already starting to work. Snake still looked a little like death but he was already more alert and less shaky.* Excellent work, Sherlock. It does beg the question of how something this large hasn't been found...unless it's all shoved underground somehow.

"Yeah, that's what Hershel said, too. And it'd kind of make sense. I mean, if this place was aboveground, it'd have to have a pretty hefty soundproofin' job, too."

He frowned in thought. "But then again, that begs another question -- if this place is as big as it seems to be, then shouldn't someone know about it? I mean, I know there're a lot of abandoned research and other facilities out there, but this place is in fairly good shape. Means someone's been maintaining it, right? And you can't maintain something of this size without people to work on it. And that'd cause a paper trail."

It stands to reason Zero might be the leader of an entire organization, but all we know about are Zero and Calhoun. It makes you wonder what the actual point of this is.

"'It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness'," said Heiji. "That bein' said, should we examine what we know so far?"

That sounds reasonable. *Also, a satisfied stomach gives him energy to think.* So let's review, detective.

say hello to our new arrivals, and goodbye to the departing

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