vivarium mods. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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vivarium2014-09-19 05:35 pm
vivariummods) wrote in vivarium2014-09-19 05:35 pm
Entry tags:
the garden
 Early in the morning, yet again, the test subjects get to wake up to Calhoun’s dulcet tones. Through a megaphone. “Hey! Lazy test subjects, get your human rears up!” Once everyone is moderately awake and gathered, Calhoun will continue. “You all did such a great job last round, and everyone’s been so pathetic lately, that I, your glorious, merciful host, decided to open a room for you! Remember, rooms are a privilege, not a right! That means!” He takes a deep breath to scream out the next parts: “Don’t. Break. My. Stuff!!” He eyes at a few people in the crowd before leading everyone up to the second floor, where a new door will now be openable. Once inside there is a surprisingly refreshing breeze and bright light flooding from the ceiling. Welcome to the Garden! The roof of the garden is made up of what appears to be grids with screens depicting a blue sky during daylight hours and a starry night during the evening (they must be sunlamps because the light from the ceiling feels warm and, yes, finally some vitamin D for you sad test subjects). It appears to be more of a dome than anything else, but the grass is green, there’s a few trees around, some flowers, a bench here and there, and even a little waterfall that creates a small creek around the garden! Sure, there aren’t any edible plants, fruits, or vegetables around, the water is freezing, everything feels almost artificial, but this is a lot better than the cold, monochrome, and bleak look of the warehouse so far, so unless everyone else wanted to stay in the boring lobby instead of here, there wasn’t much to complain about. Well, have fun! Enjoy your new surroundings. |
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"It's possible, I guess." The whole lack of memories thing continues to make it hard to say. "But..."
Maybe it was just him, but his quiet habits felt like it was something beyond even strict parenting. He's cognizant enough of it to realize that his steps tended to be lighter than the others. During the times when he actively felt like being alone, he often switched automatically to striking the ground with the balls of his feet instead of the heel, making it even less likely that anyone would hear him slip away. It was so ingrained, even a general awareness of the problem wasn't enough to prevent him from doing it without noticing.
...But then again, he could also be greatly over thinking all of this. He finally just gives a shake of his head.
"Never mind. I'll just have to see if I remember anything about it."
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"Yeah, I guess so. You might wanna find out if you're any good at tracking, too."
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He laughed. "Not gonna tell me your last name is 'Sarutobi', right?"
Then he looked around. "This place sure is a lot nicer than the rest of this joint, though. I hope we'll all be able to get outta here. And visit all the parks we want. Heck, I already promised to go visit London and Seattle with Hershel and Li-- Snake. And Akiko... we gotta find her folks first, of course."
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There's a slight flicker of interest when Heiji messes up Snake's name, but it's quickly gone. Was it really an alias after all...? He'd wondered as much from the start, but it wasn't exactly easy to ask about it.
"Sounds like it will be a long trip. She was from... Tokyo, right?"
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"She was either from there, or she lived there for a while. Not that it'd be that hard to get her on the news anyway, I guess, but knowing the general area should help us track her down."
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"Tokyo's a big place, but... Hopefully you'll be able to find them." Her poor parents... As far as they would likely know, their daughter had simply up and vanished. Delivering the news of not only her death, but the cause of it all wouldn't be easy.
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"I hope so." Heiji hesitated for a second. "...Sorry, um. You okay with me mentioning her? I mean, I been thinkin' about what happened a lot, but I know you were feelin' pretty low last time, so... I can try not to bring it up."
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"As long as it's okay with you... You knew her better than I did." He'd rather not bring up something painful for the people who had actually had the time to befriend her.
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He paused for a long moment, trying to figure out a good way to put words to what he was feeling. But it was like Articulation Hard Mode for a seventeen-year-old."And I guess I don't want ya to feel like everyone's expecting you to be her replacement or anything, 'cause that ain't fair."
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"Bright." Even he realizes he's not the peppiest person around. Someone cheerful, who liked to have fun - that's more or less the mental image he's formed, based on the couple of things brought up at the memorial. "She... wasn't the type to make enemies...?"
It's more of a half-question. He certainly hadn't gotten that impression based on what the others had said. What would it take to bring yourself to kill someone like that?
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He crossed his arms, expression darkening. "More likely they picked her because it'd be easiest. See, she was a shorty like Clive, and she didn't look like she'd been in a lot of brawls. It's not like trying to drag Jake somewhere and giving him a shove. Even if they didn't need to pick someone small... well, say I didn't have 9 BP and they shoved me into the cafeteria. Then the suspicion would fall most on anyone my size and up, right? Picking Akiko meant that 'anyone could have done it'."
Heiji rubbed the back of his head. "Well, you could use assumptions about size to frame someone, too. But in this case, it looks like they wanted to maximize the number of people who'd fall under suspicion. Whether that's because they didn't want to get caught, or because they wanted people to suspect everyone else in the group equally, I can't say. But the second possibility is more dangerous. Falling apart is exactly what that rat wants to happen. Else he would've coughed up the name of the one who did it right off."
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"What was the situation like before her death? I think Hershel mentioned something about a 'show?'" Using their memories and secrets as a motive, as he recalled, but that still wasn't a whole lot to go off of. And the topic being what it was, well... He didn't want to push it too much at the time.
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"Hershel and I decided we'd rather just live with the consequences and not throw in. Akiko, too. 'Cause you can guess at the kind of show Calhoun wanted, right? Can't really speak for the others, but I wasn't about to give him the satisfaction."
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"And the one that ended up doing it was a murder... Did anyone else attempt anything before that?" He doubts that everyone would have been so noble as Heiji and Hershel, knowing the sorts they have around here.
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"...I guess that's when them two morons decided that they needed to raise the stakes. See, they made some kinda agreement that they were gonna hurt each other to 'prove' that they were serious. Snake asked to borrow a knife from me, so I said sure, since I figured he was smart enough not to do anything dumb with it. Anyway, I was totally wrong, since he ended up using it to put a cut on Ema's stomach. I ain't know exactly how deep; I never saw it myself. But that's the wound Ema snatched up that med kit for this last round.
"For Ema's half of the deal, she skewered a knife into Snake's hand, right through it into this book he was holding. That I saw up close, 'cause I was the one had to pull it out." Heiji still looked really unhappy about this, Snake you were such a
a
DOUBLE MON-KEIGH.
"Well, I'll spare you the details, I guess, unless you really wanna hear about it. But it still wasn't enough for Calhoun. You know the rest, right? Guess there might have been another attempt at a show or two, but at that point, I had my hands full just making sure Snake wasn't going to... I don't know." So unhappy about this.
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"...But Calhoun was still upset by the death because it was inconvenient for him, right?" He recalls Hershel saying as much. "If none of those worked, just what was he looking for...?"
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He let out a quick, disapproving breath. "Well, he acted like he was upset, sure. But he sure ain't come forward with the one who did it, and I'd say that one act did more to make us distrust each other than everyone havin' their secrets revealed or whatever would have. So he got just what he wanted, didn't he?"