vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR

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CALHOUN HOUR - SURVIVOR

At the crack of dawn, presumably, Calhoun gathers everyone in the first floor warehouse to make an announcement.

"That's right, it's time for another of my special events!" He seems pretty pleased with himself. "I noticed you lazy, fat test subjects really let yourselves go last round! It's like I don't feed you here or something."

"Well, I'm worried about your health, always lazing about and not getting proper exercise. So, I decided to be the change I want to see in the world, and so we're going to do something a littttttttllllllle different this time."

"To stop you guys from getting soft from all the fun you're having here, it's time for a little workout."

From one of the doors Calhoun never lets anyone go through there's a loud, metallic banging sound repeating, as if something is trying to get out. Calhoun does not seem troubled at all by this. In fact, he seems pretty excited.

"The rules are simple, everyone's getting sixty coins to use as they see fit. You'll notice the vending machines on both warehouse floors. Anyone who isn't caught will even get a memory back." But what does that mean?

"So go on, survive for 23 hours, I'll even give you a five minute head start. Good luck!"

And with that he scurries off. Should people hang around they'll get to witness that same door open five minutes later. From the door comes several figures, human in shape but something is very, very wrong.

They seem to be robotic, skeletal humans. At one point they must have had some synthetic skin over them but most of it seems to be melting or ripped off. They don't move very fast, mostly they shamble about until they focus on a target. Better hope it's not you!

BASIC INFO ✖ FIRST TEN HOURS ✖ LAST HOURS ✖ POST EVENT MINGLE

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Borrow...?

"Sure. What is it?" It's Heiji, so surely this isn't part of some really dangerous and reckless scheme or anything.

...Well, he'd kinda like to hope not, anyway.

"Look, I know you're probably kinda wary about the knife thing since what happened the other day," said Heiji, speaking more quietly than usual so as to avoid the terrible vengeance that was zombie robots.

"But you seen the way they give off electricity, right? It's gonna be hard for anyone to get close enough to disable 'em without risking electrocution. But you can throw knives and you can actually aim. So I want ya to come with me to the infirmary. They've got a whole pile of weapons there. Maybe if we work together, we can make it a little harder for them to grab people."

Heiji.

Heiji, he just said he was going to stay away from knives from now on. Clive is going to murder him if he finds out.

His own voice is similarly low, but he doesn't sound super pleased: "Are you sure that's safe?" Or rather... you really trust him around knives, even after the whole Snake thing?

"Of course it's not safe," said Heiji. "But you think havin' them robots tooling around chasing people down is any safer? At least this way, you know what you're aiming at, right? I'll hold the knives for ya if you want, but I think it's worth a try. If you don't think you can hit 'em, or if you don't wanna get involved in something dangerous, I'll understand. But..."

He hesitated for a moment. "Look, we're going to be here for 23 hours, at least. There ain't a lot of places for this many people to hide. I think it's worth a shot."

Heiji does have a point, and Sasuke can recognize that much. But after that scare earlier, he's still clearly uncertain about it all; he doesn't even know why he has this skill in the first place, and the reasons that spring to mind aren't all that pleasant to think about.

Then again, as Heiji had said, they're going to have to spend a long time avoiding these robots. If they could eliminate a few so the others would have less to worry about, then...

...

It's with some reluctance, but he does eventually nod his head. "I'll... give it a try." He can't really promise anything, but... He'll give it a go.

He nodded. "Alright. I guess the first step's getting there, then. I think as long as we're quiet, we should be okay." Heiji was just going to use his trusty shovel for this one, because while it wasn't a distance weapon, it was still insulated from electric shock. Besides, he was pretty sure of his kendo skills.

"C'mon, follow me." And with that, he was off in the direction of the Infirmary.

Another nod, and Sasuke will follow silently.

He's never been in the Infirmary before... It must have been for the round before he arrived. But-- wait, if it's the infirmary, just what are the weapons Heiji is talking about? Scalpels?

He rotates his wrists a little as they move, just enough to loosen them up a bit. Who knew if it would help, but hopefully it wouldn't hurt.

Once they were at the Infirmary, Heiji took a quick look around to see if everything was in place. Creepy dolls to the side, check. Three beds of varying degrees of stabbed or burned, check.

Under one of the beds, he started pulling from the small pile of knives. "Good; they're still here. Dunno why they just left all of 'em in here, but just be sure not to touch the dolls or anything, okay?"

...Wow, it really is a pile of weapons. Was Calhoun hoping they'd all stab each other or something?

"Got it." He'll crouch by Heiji's side and refrain from touching anything - knives included, unless Heiji hands them to him. "Were these... part of the puzzle, somehow?"

"Nah," said Heiji. "I think they're just here for flavor, if ya could believe that. Be nice if there was an easier way to carry 'em outta here though. Oh, I got it!"

He took one of the sheets off the bed and tore it into a long strip, so that they could wrap the knives up -- blade to blade, tip to tip. It wasn't ideal, but since they didn't have anything else to work with, maybe it was the best they could ask for. Heiji picked up one of the scalpels lying around in the room, too. Kind of flimsy for robot-fighting, but... maybe one day a black market doctor would show up who played by his own set of rules.

"Okay, so. I'm thinkin' the place we should start out is the Gallery. You've been there, right?"

Lovely. Well, Heiji's probably one of the least likely folks in the whole warehouse to stab someone, so if anyone should have a whole set of knives plus a scalpel, it might as well be him.

"Yeah-- it was my first puzzle room." And also by far the worst one, even including the Music Room. Every. Single. Painting. Jake and Piper, why. "What are you planning to do in there?"

Heiji winked at Sasuke. "Oh, not much. I just wanna see them traps work for us for a change. So. My team ain't set off all the traps in there. You know what each of the paintings do?"

Maybe they could compare notes!

The wince probably says enough by itself.

"...The first one we set off was pepper spray. After that was a spray of needles - they must have been tipped with a mild poison, since I got hit by one and it make me feel sick right away. After that was sleeping gas, but I have no idea how long it puts you out for. Calhoun was the one who woke us up after a while." In a way, the sleeping gas had been kind of nice since the pepper spray's effects had more or less worn off by the time he was up again.

Heiji stopped and uh... "You set off all of 'em?" How did you guys even.

"...Well, okay, none of those sound really helpful against robots, but that's --" He fell abruptly quiet as he caught the clattering sound of a robot making its way down the hall. It was out of sight, maybe coming in or out of one of the nearby rooms. With any luck, it wouldn't come this way...

Jake and Piper are just truly magical people, that's all. The moment he hears the robot, he ducks down even further, his entire body tense as he holds his breath. He keeps his head slightly cocked, listening intently to try to determine the robot's movements based on the sound of its footsteps. If it does come inside, they might be able to move quickly enough to get a head start...

But instead, the robot clanked off down another hallway. Heiji let out a breath as its footsteps receded away from them.

"I hate those things," he muttered. "C'mon, let's keep going."

No need to tell him twice. Without a word, he quietly begins to move, heading for the Gallery - but not without cautiously checking to make sure there are no robots in the vicinity first.

The coast is clear for now... They'll have to hope it stays that way as they move along.

Once they were in the room, Heiji relaxed a bit. "Okay, so here's the plan. We'll lure one of them robots in here and get them to attack that white statue. It's got a pretty powerful grip, and it's heavy. So it should be able to hold the thing down while ya try a bit of target practice."

Easy peasy, right?

Easy peasy... if they can get it caught in the statue. And if his aim proves true. But they've come this far, so backing out isn't much of an option anymore. He'll give another one of his usual short nods.

"Do you want me to lure it, or...?"

Heiji shook his head and handed Sasuke one of the knives. "Can't let you take all the risk, right? Just stay outta the immediate line of sight. I got a bunch of that rotten meat, so I'll use that to attract one of them."

After checking that the white statue was still intact, he went over to the door and looked around, placing a piece or two of the meat in one of the hallway intersections. The faint clanking of robotic feet grew louder, but Heiji waited out of sight until the robot shambled past the small blind spot in which he was hiding.

There was an exposed area on its back, near the area of its waist, where he could clearly see a cluster of old wires. Heiji thrust the blade of the shovel into the junction, knocking the robot temporarily out of its normal balance. Then he ran, straight down to the Gallery, with the robot lurching after him. Its arms pinwheeled crazily through the air, probably a side effect of the damage to its wiring.

It clanged into the doorway, then surged after Heiji, who had assumed a defensive stance in front of the white statue.

Sasuke himself picks a spot behind the dividing wall, waiting until Heiji has left to do a quick test without actually releasing the blade. As with kendo, there was the odd sensation of familiarity as he shifted into the stance, his grip on the blade immediately switching to a more comfortable one for throwing.

...And quickly went back to a neutral one, feeling vaguely disturbed as he allowed his grip on the knife to loosen. What a thing to know...

Once Heiji reenters the room, he's on the alert, the knife held low at his side for now. He's going to be sure the robot is in range before he even readies to throw, whether it puts him at a slight disadvantage or not.

The robot lunged for Heiji, who quickly stepped aside, allowing the robot to barrel straight into the sheet covering the statue's body. Immediately, the statue grabbed for the robot, catching it by the neck (or what passed for a neck on a robot, anyway). The machine beat furiously at the statue, but it was made of stone and thus rather more sturdy than Heiji and Sasuke would have been.

"We're ready!" said Heiji, backing off a little so that he was out of Sasuke's immediate line of sight. "Try and aim for one of those exposed bits!"

That's his cue. He quickly snaps an arm up to throw, the knife not even having the chance to complete a spin before it embeds itself in the wiring at its waist. It's hard to say which one, exactly, but apparently something important is severed, because the robot begins to spasm for a moment before short-circuiting completely.

Victory?

The statue released the robot, which fell to the ground with a thunk.

"What? Was that it?" Heiji actually sounded a little disappointed as he prodded the robot with his shoe. "Guess they don't make them mechanical menaces like they used to."

Before he could say any more, however, the now-familiar clanking sound of more robots began to approach from the hall outside...

Hey, isn't it supposed to be a good thing they were able to stop it? Though he's pretty sure at least part of it was luck...

And then there's that sound. He looks predictably alarmed by the sound of multiple robots coming all at once.

"Don't tell me... are they-?"

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