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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[the flattest of looks (it'd be superman for the random stripping, doesn't Wonder Woman just spin around a lot?]

…You realize I have another layer on underneath this, right? Stop dreaming, it's like 2 Kelvin in here.

[she checks out the closet anyway; if there are useful supplies that don't involve sacrificing clothing that is a definite bonus]

[there's probably buttloads of trays, plastic plates, bowls and utensils, but in the corner there may be one of those wheeled buckets and mop for janitors. probably useful? maybe?]

[of course hershel doesn't see that because he's not going to crowd the closet like an asshole, and just sigh softly to himself before turning to get a better look at the actual food. he picks up a pair of cans that don't seem to have any marking on them, turning back to jake.] It's a bit like what's it called, russian roulette? Who knows what you'll get. [and he pauses.] I suppose it's not like russian roulette at all, really. I hope these aren't just filled with gruel.

Edited 2015-02-13 21:06 (UTC)

Who knows how old this stuff is. Might end up as Russian roulette after all.

[she seems in good spirits though, emerging from the closet rolling a mop in a bucket with a handful of utensils and stuff in it. She looks over another shelf of...TV dinners??? Well, something frosted over in a flat foil package]

What is all this stuff?

[ He waves Ema off on her previous comment while she heads to the closet, while he checks out a different shelf that's full of clear jars, with some... questionable looking frozen liquids inside. Uhhhhhh. ]

Gotta say, I'd get a kick from a round of Russian roulette. Just like home.

[ After uhhhhh-ing the jars enough, he picks two up and walks over to Ema's new mop-bucket. He places them gently in, as best as he can with all the other nonsense in there. ]

Probably what they call "high quality food" at 36 BP, so hope you're just as excited as I am.

It may not be all that bad, whatever it is. [baseless, blind optimism was a good plan. he shakes the cans, making a face at whatever the sound was before deciding to not play nostalgic russian roulette and put them away.]

There must be other food stores somewhere else, hopefully with a better selection than this. I wonder just how big this place is if this is only the tip of the iceberg.

I'm not complaining about jumping the line. [36 BP was a magical, far-off land it was hard to imagine ever arriving at... she picks up another few flat packs for the bucket; they probably were less useful than the cans and jars since they were frozen, but with all this crap going on they may as well have one decent meal at the end of it ]

What'd he say, something like we've only seen an eighth of this place or something? I can't--have we gotten any evidence at all this place is that big? [she continues to idly pull stuff from the back of the freezer shelves as she muses aloud] I mean, where would you even be able to have a complex that big? Think of the power and water consumption this place must need, how would that not be a red flag? And wouldn't somebody augh!!!

[along with the sudden yelp comes a sudden tossing of a freezer bag into the middle of the room; it looks an awful lot like a head]

[ Jake sharply turns and gets ready to fight something, fists partially raised up, but then he lowers them when he sees the source of Ema's yelp. ]

[ Unsurprisingly(?), he doesn't seem too bothered by the head. Sure, he frowns and there's slight disgust, but he does the opposite of what you should do when you see a human head: he walks up to it and bends down to examine it (and maybe try to block the view). ]

Gotta say, this does not help the rep that this "food" has.

What? What's wrong? [Hershel hurries over, stopping at this discovery.]

... there's no way. [Yup, denial is the best way to deal with this.] It must be a prank, he wouldn't keep something like that here.

Yeah, it's obviously just an accident, he meant to keep it as a housewarming present for when you get dorm access, that-- [a deep breath] That's just unsanitary! Cadavers should be in their own separate freezer, honestly.

There's a bunch more bags back here...looks like they're all different, though.

[there are several bags, someone's been a bit of a hoarder, but between the darkness and the freezer burn it's not 100 percent certain what's in any of the bags tucked at the back of the icebox without actually opening. for example, there's something that could be part of a human limb, or maybe just an unfortunately unappealing meatloaf. there's something that could be a dinosaur arm, or maybe just part of a UFO catcher. there's something labeled "fruitcake 943". there's even what looks like a bunch of double A batteries; guess those keep longer in the fridge after all.]

...Should we take some of this stuff?

Glad to see that your priorities are still in order.

[ Jake stands up and just leaves the head on the ground, figuring that he doesn't really want to pick it up and kicking it just seemed pretty tasteless. He crosses his arms as he looks around. ]

... But might as well. We'll sort it out once we get out of here, unless any of you are up for human stew.

But who- [yeah okay there was no way any question he could ask about this now would have an answer that wasn't horrible in every possible way, so he just backs off from their friend the ???head and turns to focus on something else that isn't completely awful in every way.]

[like the thing that also looks like a human limb- alright, okay, yup, he's pretty done with this bullshit. wait, were they talking about things] What? Oh, yes, let's do that. [helpful contribution. he hastily grabs some of the cans around to actually do something useful at least besides being appalled at everything ever.]

Fine. Let's finish up in here, if we don't get moving soon, they'll be making that stew out of us.

[she stuffs another few bottles and jars into the overflowing bucket, piling on some of the less-distressing looking bags of frozen stuff as well. after some consideration, she takes the head, though at least she doesn't put it with the other food.]

Hopefully some of this stuff'll be useful, or at least edible....

[ Jake gets to seeing if he can stuff any cans into his pockets to help, since that bucket isn't going to hold as much as they want it to. He does notice that Ema takes the head and cue icon. ]

Those are my gloves you're using to pick up that head, you know.

[ dude, now they're going to have dead guy on it. he needs those ]

What are you even doing with it, anyway? I was joking about the human stew.

If it is real we should... you know, bury it. Or something. [that'd be a fun thing for some poor unsuspecting person to dig up in the garden, so why not. what could go wrong.]

[she has the grace to look at least a little sheepish]

One, it's in a bag, so calm down. It is very unlikely the bag is made of people. Two, I thought I might try to autopsy it, if whatever it is survives defrosting. Maybe there's some sort of clue. [honestly she doesn't sound very confident on that point but continues anyway] Either way, do we want it in here with what they're presumably feeding us?

...That was what I was thinking, at least.

[ yeah, hershel, that's such a great idea. let the new test subjects come in and dig it up. nothing wrong there ]

Fair enough.

[ he does have to admit that leaving it in here with the rest of the food is an idea he likes. he looks around a bit more, seeing if he can grab anything else, then notices that, oh... well... look at this, it's an arm. what is the best way to respond to this? scream? yelp? ]

Then you want to grab this too?

[ nope, just point to it casually. ]

For goodness's sake- maybe we should just make a collection of bodyparts? I don't really like leaving them here but-

[He's got nothing. sigh.] Can we at least be careful the others don't have to see these if we do bring more out? Everything's unpleasant enough.

It's pretty dark, no one has to see them. But if they're real, they should be destroyed, not in here potentially contaminating our gruel.

--And yeah, I'll take it. I could use a hand around here.

[you asked for that, jake, pun and all. she walks up to grab the hand

it grabs back]

[ that was awful. he knew that she should have left ema out of this, no matter how handy she was. in fact, he was about to groan about it, make a comment or a pun in return because that is his life, but then attack of the hand starts. ]

What the hell--

[ he doesn't waste any time to grab onto the other end of the arm to pull, but it's as effective as, well, trying to pull off a gripping hand. hershel, get to work and pry these fingers off ]

[yeah, why wouldn't this happen. hershel stares a moment before hurrying forward to try and unpry the fingers. that works great, since it's a robot, and sorry ema but it probably just makes the hand dig in tighter.]

Sorry! Um, well- [??? what do they do about this]

[Ema works to catch up more than just 'wtf just happened' and 'ow'. eventually thinking happens]

Try--grabbing its wrist, I think I can wriggle out of the glove.

[she hoped she could, at least... time to work her arm back and give it a try]

[ great, that's one glove that he's going to lose forever in the grips of Thing. he does what she suggests though, and tries to grab its wrist to yank it off, but do you know is worse than just one hand? ]

[ multiple hands ]

[ enjoy that robotic grip on your ankle, hershel. there's probably more around so just go crazy ]

Oh for goodness's sake... [yeah, about expected that. he stumbles back against one of the shelves, probably making some of the things drop, general clatter. there's not a whole lot he can do besides try to kick the stubborn thing off, since it didn't seem to realize he wasn't what they were looking for yet.]

Jake, there's more of these things, be careful! [what if one found a knife and stabbed a shower curtain at them.]

[why this, why is it always robots]

[she's finally able to pull her way out of the glove, stumbling back and hugging her hand to her chest. seriously, robots are the worst]

You okay--

[a foot comes kicking at her next; how many of these things are there?]

We need to get out of here! Can you get the door?

[ jake throws the arm down and stomps on it for good measure (he doesn't dare to go and pick up his glove). he also has these asshole hands clinging to his legs, but really, he'll get the door first then worry about pulling them off. just like last time, it's no problem to get it open but he can't hold it open forever. get you and your dumb mop bucket out of here. ]

Hurry it up!

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