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

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"Yeah, I've seen a few of them but-" Kuzuryuu paused, frowning thoughtfully. His unfinished thought was 'would it be enough?' What if some of those wires didn't do anything. That'd put Heiji in a bad position.

He exhaled heavily. "Nevermind. Guess it's worth a try, at least. But we probably should have a backup plan in case cutting one only makes it mad."

Heiji laughed, and took out one of the flares he'd bought. "Well, this is Plan B. I guess Plan C is booking it outta here like our feet are on fire?"

The danger involved in this plan didn't seem to bother Heiji; rather, his eyes were lit up the way they did when he was solving a particularly difficult puzzle. "You know what they say -- no risk, no reward!"

Despite his better judgement, Kuzuryuu found himself getting caught up in thsi nonsense. What could he say? Heiji's excitement was contagious. "At least you're confident." And in a situation like this, that meant a lot. Definitely not the time to be meek.

"Alright," he said, giving Heiji a small grin. "Let's trap one of those assholes, then."

Now they were talking! Heiji held up a small trash bag which... yeah, that sure was rotten meat inside, but how had he found so much of it?

He set up one piece of rotten meat in one of the empty cells, then one or two more leading inside. "Okay, so the next time one starts sniffing around here, we should be good. I saw one or two of them on the way over, so it shouldn't be too long. You wanna take the rope?"

That was an awful lot of rotting meat. "Did you buy all of that?" Kuzuryuu couldn't help but ask. That would've been a lot of coins to drop on something like that.

He nodded at the plan. "Sure," he said, reaching out to receive the rope and taking another glance around the room. "Doesn't seem like this should be too hard." Provided, of course, that everything went as planned.

Heiji shook his head. "There was some in the trash piles in the incinerator room. Figured it'd do just as well as the stuff in the vending machines. If ya want, I can give you some. It's kinda nasty, though."

He tied the bag off to cut off the smell, and stashed it. "Okay, let's get outta sight for a bit!"

There were a few things to hide underneath in the room, including two tables and the bunks in the other cells. Heiji selected a nearby bunk and slid underneath. Just in time, too, because it sounded like there were metallic noises coming from down the hall...

"It's all nasty. Rotten meat is rotten meat no matter where you get it from," Kuzuryuu replied. Though that raised further, slightly worrying, questions about why there was so much rotting meat in the incinerator room. Still - "But yeah, I'll take some if you've got some extra." Couldn't hurt to be cautious.

Once it came time to hide, Kuzuryuu scuttled underneath one of the tables, pressing himself as flat as he could against the ground and keeping his breathing quiet. He watched the door.

The robot shuffled in the door, clanking and whirring as it entered the room. It found first one piece of bait, then the next. For the moment, it didn't seem to be on alert; after a brief moment of hesitation by the cell door, it shambled into the jail cell.

Immediately, Heiji darted out from under the bunk and slammed the door shut, bumping the robot forward just as it was about to take its next step. Its head whirred around and it struck the inside of the cell door, but Heiji had his weight against it. "Now!" he shouted.

Once Kuzuryuu had heard the slamming of the door, even before Heiji spoke, he was already sliding out from underneath the table and hurrying over toward the cell. He secured the rope as quickly as he could, with only minor fumbles caused by rushing.

As far as he could tell, the way he'd tied it looked secure enough. Despite that, he took a few steps backward, still uncertain of just how strong these things were and whether or not it'd be possible for one of the to snap a rope that thick.

Though it wasn't as good as having the actual key to the cell door, it helped that the robot didn't seem to realize that a better strategy would be to try and untie that rope. That's what happened when you sent defective robots after test subjects.

It slammed against the door, but the door held.

Heiji, meanwhile, stabbed at a section of exposed wires near the robot's knee joint. A few sparks bounced harmlessly out over the cell floor, and the robot's left leg crumpled underneath it, leaving it hopping somewhat comically on its one good leg.

SUCCESS

Kuzuryuu exhaled heavily, walking backward a bit so he could support himself against one of the tables. It was a relief that things had gone as well as they did. "Man, nice work," he said. That had been rather impressive. "Gonna be pretty hard for that thing to move anywhere unless it wants to hop."

The robot truly was unpleasant to look at, especially at this close of a range. He frowned, prying his gaze away from the thing. "Never wanted to get too near one of these things before this. With that skin hanging the way it does, they're just close enough to human to be unsettling."

Edited 2014-10-18 01:55 (UTC)

Heiji watched as the robot attempted to push against the door, but instead unbalanced itself and fell over. It was actually a little pathetic, now that they were looking at it up close.

He bent down a little, but not close enough so that it could grab him through the bars. "Thanks. But yeah, they do look creepy, don't they? If this was an SF movie, we'd all probably be robots at the end. Still... makes ya wonder. Why are these things designed to look like people? ...And why are they attracted to rotten meat?"

"That'd be a really fucking stupid twist. Like something a writer'd come up with at the last minute for the sake of a shock." Basically, Kuzuryuu would not be impressed with this hypothetical sci-fi turn in their lives.

But Heiji was right. It was curious as to why they looked like humans. "I was thinking that if they looked like humans, it must've been because they dealt with actual humans pretty closely at some point. Like - you know how you said you thought this was a medical treatment facility? Maybe these things used to function as some kinda nurse to the patients. Since, y'know, robots couldn't catch whatever disease they had and it'd be way less disturbing for the patients if the things treating them didn't look like a huge chunk of metal. As for the meat... dunno, it's decaying so maybe they smell a little like someone whose sick?" It was a stretch but....

"Yeah, well. This whole situation is stupid," said Heiji, prodding the captive robot. Improbably, it made an angry bleep bloop noise. Heiji DID NOT APPROVE of rat-shaped robots and food poisoning and stabbing dolls as a general rule, thank you very much.

Kuzuryuu's idea did make a certain amount of sense. Of course, it wasn't the only possibility... "Or maybe they're programmed to seek out dead or dying people. You know, kinda like those rescue dogs they bring out to natural disasters, except creepier and more depressin'. Still. How many bodies or patients or whatever else would you have to have in order to need this many of 'em?"

"Hah, you got a point." Screw this entire facility.

As for the number of potential patients, Kuzuryuu could only think that it was a sizable number. "A lot, I'm guessing. Either way you think about it a rescuer isn't just gonna take one body and a nurse isn't just gonna take care of one patient. So - maybe it'd be something like a one to eight ratio? Maybe even more, since robots don't need to sleep or eat."

Heiji looked unhappy with this idea, but he agreed with Kuzuryuu on the point. If his theory was correct, there had to be an awful lot of bodies to justify this many robots. "In that case, instead of a medical facility, maybe a plague ward would be a better description."

After all, there was that strange disease that no one really understood yet. "Either way, I don't think they'd be programmed to hunt people down and toss 'em in an elevator room. Outside of this game, I mean. So maybe they were repurposed. But that'd require someone with the equipment and knowledge to reprogram robots on a large scale... not just putting a robot rat together."

"Which is why I think this has got to be some kinda organization that set this up, not just one person," Kuzuryuu answered, crossing his arms in thought. "This whole thing'd need way too much money and manpower for a single nutcase."

"I think so, too. Kidnapping this many people, gettin' enough supplies to keep this running, keepin' it under wraps -- it can't come cheap."

He shook his head as the robot scrabbled at the bars with its mechanical hands. Little bits of synthetic skin were sticking to the sides of the cell. "You know what, let's find someplace else to hole up for a little while. Lookin' at this thing's just depressing and creepy."

"Can't argue with that." Being in the same room with that thing was growing rather uncomfortable.

With that Kuzuryuu took a few steps toward the door, before looking back at Heiji. "With how much time, effort and money was put into this it makes me wonder what kind of fucked up organization would bother." He exhaled lightly. "Anyway, where do you want to go? Most of the places I've been don't have very good hiding spots. The Gallery is mostly just open space. Guess the Theatre could work, though."

Heiji nodded. "The Theatre it is, then." He picked up the bag of rotten meat and the rest of his things. With one last look at the imprisoned robot, he strode after Kuzuryuu.

"I figure it's gotta be someone with time and money to burn. Plus, Calhoun said somethin' funny that first time we met him. Well... not like what he says is ever normal. But it was... that's right. 'The game is pretty simple: solve the puzzles, risk your life, kill each other, try to escape, that kind of stuff. I've been through plenty of those, so it's not a big deal.'"

Heiji propped the blade of the shovel up against his shoulder as he walked. "I wonder... does that mean he's goin' around testing everything beforehand? But he's just a robot, right...?"

"Well... somebody's gotta try them out to make sure they work properly, don't they?" Kuzuryuu asked, though he didn't sound so sure about it.It wasn't like Calhoun was a person, so did that really count?

"Maybe Zero sends him in there beforehand or something. There's no way in hell Zero's running through them himself."

Heiji snorted. "Yeah. I mean, someone's gotta make sure the barfing dolls work. Can't have those malfunctioning, can we?" Dolls sucked, the end.

"I guess it could just be a bad joke about being a lab rat. But I been wondering if he ain't mean something else. Like maybe there's more than one game." He glanced around a corner in case there were any robots lurking about, then continued down the hall.

"Like what if someone gets through the number 9 door, and all that's waiting for them is another warehouse? The only guarantee we have that they'll actually go free is Zero's word. If I were some nut kidnapping people and setting myself up as an accessory to murder, I sure wouldn't just turn my victims loose."

Kuzuryuu looked a tad disgusted at the thought of barfing dolls. "...I shouldn't even be surprised." Also, what a waste of a doll if it was nice.

Frankly it being a joke wouldn't be surprising considering Calhouns sense of humor but the idea that there might only be another warehouse waiting for them was disturbing. Extremely so. "No way that can be true," he said, anxiety in his tone, mostly because it absolutely could be true. He glanced away. "Dammit. You know the kind of implications there are with that? Like what if every time we get out Zero just erases our memories again and puts us in a different game? That'd mean this might not even the first time we did this."

Heiji nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking. Except... there's at least some proof that we ain't been through this before. Some of us, anyway. Like before I came in, I didn't have any fresh wounds, and Hershel didn't have any at all. We were all clean, none of us were really showing signs of fatigue or malnutrition. I don't think we coulda managed that if we'd come through the warehouse before recently."

"As for the future, though... yeah, I think it's a definite possibility. That's why I'm thinkin' if we do go through that door, it'd be better to go through with a bunch of people. Preferably a bunch of people that actually trust each other. Assuming no other opportunity presents itself."

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CALHOUN HOUR - SURVIVOR

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