vivarium | DOUBLE BLIND

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DOUBLE BLIND

Shortly after the conversation with Zero ends, Zero opens the doors of the Garden and allows everyone to leave. However, the rest of the warehouse isn't better than the Garden:

The lights are still off, leaving everyone surrounded in darkness. The temperature just keeps on dropping, reaching near freezing point. The air feels more and more polluted, making it difficult to breathe without coughing, and nothing seems to be working as they should be. The electronic doors refuse to open without any power source, cutting off access to the cafeteria and dorms. At the very least, Zero has managed to open all the doors leading to puzzle rooms and has informed the group that new areas are now accessible to them, but they're on their own should they want to enter any other rooms.

Before the screens in the Garden turn off, Zero finally informs them that a new feature has been unlocked on their bracelets: any test subject wearing a bracelet may communicate with one another with the bracelet acting as a communication device. Holding onto the left button will enable the line to open just like a walkie-talkie. As long as test subjects are in the warehouse, they will have no troubles speaking with one another. What if they wish to talk to Zero? Zero's time is not be riffled, but they were generous enough to appear whenever anyone found a screen and pressed the on button a total of three quick successions.

And with that, Zero disappears from the grids and finally leaves everyone in complete darkness, leaving only one last piece:

"Best of luck, Test Subjects."

BASIC INFO ✖ MISSIONS ✖ MINGLE

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With the whole warehouse very dark and quite cold, it was obviously the perfect time to explore those new areas Zero had mentioned. Through a mixture of stubborn hopefulness and not having had to go to the restroom yet, Ema was not afraid of any passing robots, so the click of her heels on the floors made it obvious that not only was someone coming but that she was the someone who was coming. Such is life when you're the only one around who wears girly shoes.

Catching a glimpse of light from down the hallway to the lounge, she wandered down to find a new doorway, and, of course, to check inside. "Hello?"

[ ... just watching. ummmm ]

Are you trying to break it?

It seems pretty well broken by itself, it's not doing anything!

[Hershel just watches this display thoughtfully before moving forward to take a look at the panel. Yeah, he's got nothing, this doesn't look like anything some random teenager would know how to deal with.

He turns to them, about to suggest they ask Zero about it just to see before stopping again. Still not a good idea, probably, at least not until they've exhausted every option.]

Maybe we should just try prying the door open some more. If we can make it budge just a bit at least Ema or I could slip through and pass some food back out, if there is anything in there.

Hershel, meanwhile, was trying to pry the damn thing off one of them at least. Preferably Heiji, given the situation, but besides sputtering and just punching at an octopus there wasn't all that much he could do. Shockingly hitting the octopus only really made it spit ink around, so yes, what was a helpful thing he did.

Ink in his hair at that. This was the worst thing ever. At least in the shallow end he was able to pull himself out of the pool, looking like a drowned sheepdog that somehow got covered in ink, picture that for a second. "Heiji, hit it with the-" He tried, and was immediately shut up because of ink. Seriously man. He hoped this shit washed off.

Heiji got the picture and smacked the octopus with the blunt end of the net. Under the combined assault, the octopus reluctantly began to loosen its grip. Heiji was able to pull free of its tentacles, at least, and he continued bludgeoning the angry cephalopod as best he could.

"C'mon, give it up...!"

Heiji was momentarily absorbed in a paperback novel he'd found and thus did not answer. Instead, he flipped to the next page in the book, reading quickly and intently by the light of his lighter.

The assault sent ink everywhere, so enjoy that buddies, but eventually the shitty little thing fell back into the water. Hershel immediately pushed away from the pool and up onto the wall, half expecting it to come back. When it didn't immediately he let out a sigh.

"That can't be a real octopus! It must... it must be one of those robots or something." He said after a moment, shivering as he stood. "For goodness's sake... are you alright? It didn't aggravate your leg, did it?"

[Why not, right. I'm just going to steal a list thing from tetra too because easier.

A) music room! kind of curiously hovering near the piano like it's gonna bite him.

B) wasting time in the library, he's so upset this hasn't been unlocked yet. that's garbage. he doesn't even have time to read anything and zero/calhoun are probably going to steal back any books he nabs so that blows. come commiserate or tell him to get out of there and do something useful.

C) hanging out in/near the private rooms, trying to dry out his stupid hair with one of the sheets because he fell in the pool earlier, he's going to catch a cold probably.

D) grab bag, whatever you want man, i'm game.]

"I think I'm okay," said Heiji, hiking up his pant leg a little, wow what an awesome adventure. "It just grabbed my calf. Great, now there was ink everywhere.

He tugged at Hershel's sleeve. "C'mon, let's... let's get outta here." God, it was like things got worse every time they ran into that thing. He limped away from the pool, looking over his shoulder just in case the octopus was up for round two or something.

"What about you, you hurt?" It was... hard to tell, Hershel was kind of drenched.

"Hey, Hershel, look what I found!" And here was Heiji, rolling in with a goddamn gurney -- maybe the very same that Calhoun had used to take away poor Mr. Enjolras.

"I bet we could nab a bunch of books and wheel them outta here with this thing, whattaya say?"

As endlessly forlorn as he was because they didn't have time to enjoy the library he had to laugh at that plan, standing up from wherever he had been kneeling to take a look at the gurney.

"Do you really think they'll let us keep them after everything's over?" He asked, the endless optimist, before continuing. "... it wouldn't hurt to try, now would it?"

"I'm covered in ink." Hershel answered, as if that was an actual, useful response and not just complaining. He sighed. "No, I'm quite alright. Besides the ink." Octopus was a fucking asshole.

"Heiji-" He started as he got up, carefully trying to make his way to the entrance without anymore adventures. "-we are not going near bodies of water here again without a gameplan. It's too dangerous."

"I don't understand how it could even survive," said Heiji. "Octopi are saltwater organisms! It got eaten by a shark! What's it even doing here?"

And why

wasn't it

DEAD?

He just didn't even have anything insightful to say, just nodded. Agreed, dude, no more bodies of water. Who even knew when they would next encounter this menace.

"Yeah. And with the power off, maybe the surveillance systems aren't working as well as they should. If we hide them in a bunch of different places, we might get to keep a couple of them for a little while, even if they take a bunch of them back."

Eternal optimist bros. "Hey, check it out! They got a bunch of mystery novels!"

She slowly made her way past the rows of shelves to the back of the room--rushing towards a possibly jumpy person in the dark seemed like a terrible idea, even for her. However, Heiji did not have a history of tossing knives at anyone so far as she knew so once she saw it was him (an easy enough feat since his lighter was the only source of light in the room) she relaxed, if only a little. The idea of a room filled with books as opposed to, say, spare Calhoun heads or powdered gruel mix was a nice bonus, to boot.

"Found the HVAC manual?" That book almost certainly wasn't it, but a girl could dream.

Or so you say, but guess it's my turn.

[ Said with a shiteating grin because haha you couldn't figure it out, excuses excuses, but he steps closer to the door. He traces his fingertips over the edge of the door, trying to see if he can get a good enough grip on it. It's tricky and difficult, but he eventually manages to open the door slightly. It's one of those annoying doors that try to close on their own when you pull them apart, so that was definitely going to be a problem. After keeping it open a slight amount, he lets go and the door slams shut. He then looks back at Ema and Hershel. ]

Slip through as quick as you can. I'll follow in after. You can't leave me out of the fun.

[ And if there's some robot nonsense on the other side, he dooooooesn't really trust these two to handle it on their own. ]

[that is ridiculous, robots don't even eat food]

All of the excitement of a trip to Acme... Okay, I'll go first, hopefully there'll be something we can prop the door with, just in case.

[she's not holding her breath...at least not any more than what's needed to squeeze through. surely this is a great and 100 percent safe endeavor they are embarking upon]

[Hershel follows quickly after, not entirely convinced of his own suggestion here but seeing little else the can do that wouldn't involve just beating the screen up. Once on the other side he pulls the oversized jacket closer because, shock of all shocks, the refrigerated room is pretty fucking cold.]

Looks safe enough. [helpful comments ahoy] No robots guarding the frozen dinners at least.

*Snake ran both of his hands over the walls. He felt the screens across from the doorway they came from. He also felt something with his feet. He picked it up and it felt like a small book. No braille on the pages, alas. If he had to take a guess, it was instructions on how to use the screens that hadn't been there the first time they'd wandered through the maze.*

So you definitely need light to see this. *He handed Heiji the manual and turned his head toward their pursuers.* That poses a bit of a problem.

*A lot of boxes, since they didn't get to eat anything as awesome as cereal.*

I'm on the first floor lobby. I'm considering going for Zero's mission, but I can't do it all by myself. Are you busy?

Heiji took the book; it certainly felt like a manual. "Yeah. We're gonna have to lose those guys first. One of the halls past here had a boulder that chased us down the hallway, maybe we could use that..."

Of course, there was a slight problem in that they'd have to let the robots get a lot closer for that to happen. Robots, so inconvenient.

No...

[ugh doing things for zero ugh ugh

...it isn't long until this internal monologue becomes audible, followed by the click of her heels on the flooring as ema approaches snake]

Why? Why would you want to help that kidnapping jerk?

"Outrunning them could be tough if we're just wandering around aimlessly. These ones look like they're in better condition, too." He doesn't doubt they'd get caught if they messed up. "What do you think would be a good room to lure them to? We could try the waterfall in the garden again, but it's a little small..."

*The robots were getting closer and closer, twanging on tripwires. Because the sound, Snake had no idea how many were coming at them. The safest bet sounded like "many." No doubt that these robots weren't like before. Popping them into a room to be guarded during a game was one thing. What could a horde of them do to the both of them?

*Heiji could brag about defeating them, but if the robots were out to kill them both...and if Heiji was the only one who could read the manual and change the screens...*

Heiji, give me the rotten meat. I'm going to try something. *Snake really had no idea what he was going to do. Only that he had to do something to get them away from Heiji.*

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DOUBLE BLIND

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Re: A?

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B

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I'm assuming the manual is right there?

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let's go with that

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