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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Knives ruin lives, so no, he's not super hyped at the prospect. He'll do it if he has to, but as far as random skills go, that's one he'd like to avoid using as much as possible.

"...Alright." He keeps pace with Heiji this time, since he actually knows where the cafeteria is.

Inside is still dark as ever, he sees. Or doesn't. Whatever. At least it isn't too tricky to maneuver around. Given the layout, the storage room should be back... here, right?

Heiji switched on his flashlight, which presumably Mr. Ninja had returned to him earlier, and proceeded down to the storage room. He tugged at the door, which was ajar but difficult to open. "Looks like this thing is busted; it's not opening right. Though I guess at least it ain't locked..."

Something fell over in the gloom of the cafeteria, near the entrance. In the quiet that had fallen over the area, it might as well have been a gunshot. Heiji switched off the light at once, but the silhouette in the doorway of the cafeteria was quite clearly that of a robot. Had it heard them, somehow? Had it seen the flashlight beam?

It took a step toward them.

Why.

His first move is to step back and to the side, hopefully out of the robot's range of vision. Why, why, why did it have to show up now?

He shoots a look over at Heiji, questioning. Should they just make a break for it now?

The robot scuttled into the room, moving fairly quickly considering its model. Maybe this was one of the more competent ones? It was emitting snuffling noises, though of course robots didn't have a sense of smell. Of course... not...

It was following along the path that Heiji and Sasuke had taken into the cafeteria, though, stopping at certain points to make more snuffling noises. Heiji edged out of its path. "Slowly," he whispered to Sasuke very, very quietly.

Who the fuck knew what this new robot was up to?

What the hell there's no way a robot can seriously determine scents there's no way.

He doesn't bother replying, instead holding his breath as he slowly and silently backs away. Please don't ruin his day more than it already has been you crazy thing.

The robot moved up to the door to the food storage room, where the door stood slightly ajar. Just the tiniest bit of light came through from somewhere within the room, outlining the robot's roboty form.

After a moment, it pulled the door slowly open; apparently, it was heavy enough to give even a mechanical creature some trouble. It looked left and right, then stepped inside.

At once, Heiji was running for the door, slamming it shut behind the robot and feeling around for the locking pin. It had to be around here somewhere, he knew it was --

Sasuke moves for the door at around the same time, pushing his shoulder against the door for extra support, injury be damned. His free hand fumbles for the locking pin, apparently having the same idea as Heiji. Okay, there it is, so where's the hole--

There. He pushes it through, hoping it's secure enough. There's only so much he can do with how dark it is; hopefully the robot can be contained by this alone...

The robot pounded heavily on the door, but it was a sliding door and not one that opened on its hinge, so HAHA stupid robot. Heiji wasn't sure how much time had passed, exactly, but the robot's struggles began to slow, most likely as the cold temperatures inside began to affect it. Slow, and then stop.

If they opened the freezer, they'd probably see the robot doing its best Jack Nicholson impression.

"...Well," said Heiji, switching his light back on, "Guess robots ain't like the cold much, either."

...Apparently not.

"At least we know it works." But... boy, is that ever a creepy sight. "...Do you think it'll stay frozen long enough for us to check the room?" Because he's a little curious, but he's also not exactly suicidal.

"Only one way to find out," said Heiji. "C'mon, let's go and see what's in that washroom!"

What was in the washroom, apparently, was a piece of Calhoun.

Oh, yay, would you look at that.

"How did they even get so scattered?" First the head past the vent and in the boiler room, and now this...

"Zero said they were ripped apart," said Heiji. "By the other robots. Kind of weirdly specific for a virus, ain't it?"

He was just going to shove the Calhoun piece in his bag, whatever. "At least now we can use this washroom. I got a feeling the other rooms aren't gonna stay open once the power's on."

...Huh. "They went after Calhoun, specifically?" That's... definitely pretty weird, yeah. He wonders if that doesn't mean this virus was specifically designed against Zero himself, if that's the case...

"No, probably not. He asked for our help, but I think he means it when he says it doesn't matter to him whether we work with him or not. He isn't about to reward us for it, at least." Especially not with anything as big as free access to those other rooms.

Heiji let out a short laugh and crossed his arms. "Oh, but he does care. Maybe not about Calhoun's pieces, exactly, but he did finally show his face. Now he's even deigning to argue with us lowly test subjects. And he's committed to this experiment, too, no doubt about that."

"Whatever this experiment is about." That's one of the big mysteries...

What is even the point to all of this?

"He mentioned other test subjects, too... What do you think he meant by that?" He seemed to be pretty confident the others would be willing to fight them, but over what?

Heiji thought this over. "Well, whatever it is, it's clearly important to him. And it's apparently pretty likely that his experiment is going to fail -- though he wasn't real clear on what that actually meant for us."

"Since he was threatening us with them, there must be another group here like us. At least one. But what's this thing that we have that they don't? That's what I don't understand..."

"We have the necessities I guess, but... as long as you have enough points, you should have access to them." R...ight? Zero wouldn't really make a game where they had to fight to even get that much, would he...?

Heiji sighed. "One thing me and Hershel were kicking around was if they ain't cooperate with each other as much as we do. If so, they might be a lot lower on points. There was a long time where Clive couldn't get into the cafeteria."

Imagine a warehouse full of Zeloses...

...What a terrifying thought.

"So even if they aren't actively working for Zero, they still work as a threat." That... would be just lovely to deal with, yeah.

"Do you think it's really just one other group?" He's not entirely sure how to start with gauging the logistics of any more. All he knows is, the place is huge as it is, and apparently Zero has an incredible amount of resources to support at least two groups participating in his insane 'experiment.'

"It could be more." Heiji had to admit that at this point, even if he'd resisted it as long as he could. "Apparently, Zero's trying to examine 'all possibilities'. Dunno what that means, exactly, but can ya really run a comprehensive 'experiment' with only two test groups? In Zero's book, anyway..."

"I'd really rather not get into conflicts with any other test subjects. We all wanna get out of here; there's no reason we should be fighting with each other instead of addressin' the real problem."

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DOUBLE BLIND

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