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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Maybe Snake was just mellowing out a little. HA HA HA yeah sure.

Heiji leaned back. "Nah, that's okay. I remembered something else about myself, that's all."

Oh? What did you remember this time? Something less insane, I do hope?

Heiji gave him a look -- excuse you, Snake, his life wasn't insane. It was just exciting, ok ok.

"I was up in the attic of someone's house. It was dark, and my wrists had been handcuffed behind me. There were two other people trapped in there with me. One of them was a middle-aged guy named Kusukawa, beat up pretty bad. Fact, I thought he was dead at first.

"We were put there by a woman and a couple of her goons. See, Kusukawa had some dirt on them that would have ruined the woman's career, and they needed his pin number to make sure it never got to the cops. But all he'd left 'em was a coded message that supposedly contained the pin. They couldn't decipher it, so they wanted me to do it for 'em. But I figured even if I gave 'em the answer, they wouldn't let us go. That's when I noticed the dust moving next to Kusukawa's mouth. He was still alive, see? Just pretending to be dead till they let us be for a second. So I decided to take a little gamble.

Long story short, we convinced the woman to let us text the code to a famous detective in Tokyo I knew. Kinda like phonin' a friend in that quiz game. Only what we sent over was a code I made up. We waited, but no answer came, and we were running out of time. I stalled, and got the woman to put down the gun for a second so Kusukawa could go for it. But one of them thugs saw him and stomped on his hand before he could grab it. Even worse, we ended up givin' away that Kusukawa was still alive. So they decided to threaten to kill me and the other hostage unless he gave 'em the pin."

*Snake grew silent in perhaps horrified fascination of the unfolding of this memory. Heiji, what is your LIFE really?* So...then what happened?

Heiji put a finger to the center of his forehead. "Had the lady's gun in my face. 'Hurry up and tell us the pin,' she says. 'You don't want them to die, do you?'

He flashed a grin -- an echo of the defiant expression he'd worn in his memory. "So I say, 'Kusukawa-san, telling them would only delay our deaths a little. Let's not give 'em the satisfaction.'"

"That's when they shove me over on my side, press the barrel of the gun to my temple, and start counting to five. Out of the corner of my eye, I can just see the woman's finger start to pull the trigger... and that's when my cell phone goes off. It's a coded answer from that detective fella, and I know exactly what the answer means.

So I say to the lady, "'This reply is the answer to the puzzle. I know what the pin is now, but so does this detective. He knows Kusukawa created it, and if ya kill us, he'll know that the three of us disappeared around the same time as I sent him this code. How long you think it'll take him to track down that evidence? The way I see it, you got two options. Buy yourself a couple days by killing us, or take me along to get that proof for you. Then you let us all go. As long as you quit your illegal operations and start over with a clean slate, you'll be safe from us. Naturally, if I do anything suspicious on the way there, you can kill me."

"It took them all a second to realize what had happened. The moment that woman realized she was trapped -- I could see it on her face."

*Snake had been hoping maybe the police or something would rescue Heiji, not this!* Jesus Christ, Heiji, again, what kind of life do you have exactly? Who gets almost killed by being thrown off a ship and then have a gun to their head and playing games with your potential killer!

Heiji actually seemed to take the question at face value. He put a hand to his chin, looking off to a far corner of the room. "Well, from my memories so far, guess it's safe to say I spend a lot of time stickin' my nose into crime scenes. In my third memory, the reason I was out there was that grave. I think."

Then he grew a bit more serious. "But listen, Snake. It wasn't a game, it was a gamble. I had two other people with me. I couldn't just wait around and hope the cops were going to somehow notice we were gone. By then, we'd be dead."

Heiji rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. "Besides, I knew I could count on that other fella."

The other one? You mean, whoever was on the phone? *At least he had some friends because Snake couldn't figure out how he'd react in that situation. Maybe just try to use his intelligence to trick his kidnappers?*

Heiji nodded. "Yeah, that detective. He sure waited until the last second, there, but I was sure I could trust him!"

He wasn't even sure why, exactly, but the memory had left him with that rather strong impression.

If you could trust this person, he must be a good friend or yours. *And share in whatever messed up world that allows a guy to take guns to the head all in stride.*

"Not just a good friend," said Heiji, stopping to think about this for a second. "Someone who could decipher the code I sent them, and figure out how to send a message in return so the people holdin' us captive wouldn't be able to tell what it was. I explained the code to Hershel, but the return message told me to lure one of them out."

He grinned happily. "So they'd obviously have to be someone as smart as me."

*Oh God, you mean there's two of you? he thinks. What he says is:* Apparently. If he's one of your friends, he probably gets into all sorts of abnormal situations like you seem to.

"Abnormal?" Heiji repeated, a bit of disbelief creeping into his voice. "You mean like... gettin' your memory erased and ending up solvin' puzzles for some guy in a gas mask and his animatronic mouse while also running from robots?"

Come on, dude, you were in the same ridiculous box now. ONE OF US ONE OF US

Point. *he inclines his head toward Heiji* Let me clarify. Your friend might be the kind of person who gets shot at and potentially kidnapped all the time. I didn't realize Japan was so violent a place.

Heiji thought about that one for a moment. "Well, it goes without saying that if you work in a field where you deal with criminals, you're bound to end up in trouble sometimes. It's just part of the risk. I think it's worth it if you get to help out people that need it and bring cases to a close. I'm sure he thinks the same way."

He grinned happily. "But I definitely wouldn't describe it as violent. It's a really great place, with tons of historic landmarks and stuff to do. Like Koushien."

I'm going to take it that's somewhere in Osaka? *Because of course it is.*

"Yeah, it takes place in Osaka -- that's where the best teams are, too. It's a baseball tournament. It happens during the hottest days of summer, and the best players come from all over Japan to participate! It's all over the news, and even the old fellas come out to talk about how they aimed to win when they were younger."

As he spoke, Heiji's speech took on a tone that was even more animated than usual. "As it progresses, the breaks between games get shorter and shorter. And when you watch the players, you can really see that they put all their hopes into winning. They don't hold anything back!"

"'Course, you can listen to the sports broadcasts on the radio, too. But it's not the same as being there in the stands with the rest of the crowd."

Edited 2014-10-21 06:16 (UTC)

I'll stick to radio, thank you. Having someone try to constantly relay the plays for me would just annoy everyone sitting around me. On the other hand there's probably more raw enthusiasm in person to such an event.

"Wonder if they do broadcasts in English..." Of course, it would also help if Heiji could remember a game he'd watched. Like maybe the one where there was a bomb in the stadium, and he had to prevent it from going off during the finals.

"By the way, you think you're into any sports?"

I don't think I'm a sports kind of person. As I said, I could follow along if someone relayed the information but I can't picture myself being passionate about it.

Heiji nodded. "Yeah, but you mentioned you played in a soccer league once, right? So maybe you used to be a fan. Well... I wouldn't want to drag you to somewhere you don't wanna go, but... Bein' in a crowd while a competition's going on, the air's gotta be intense! Oh, well. Maybe we can just go to a festival or something."

Then he looked a little embarrassed. "By the way, thanks again for leading me out of the cafeteria."

*He supposed he did make a small mention about soccer at some point but he felt disconnected from the idea of him playing soccer. Maybe if he remembered being in a game at some point? He did smile a little at Heiji's thanks.* Not a problem. You didn't do too badly in the dark.

Heiji's face turned a little pink when Snake smiled at him. "Of course! Can't let a little darkness hold me up. And robots..."

"Anyway, you haven't eaten since this all started, right? You wanna go to the cafeteria and get something?"

Okay, that sounds good. I can try a little bit of this spice Clive got for me. *Also good for a distraction.* Let's go.

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