Day 56: Bus 3

[full_score]

As the day came to a close, Claude's conversation with Tear weighed heavily on his mind. All the implications hadn't quite sunk in yet, but it unsettled him that she'd been able to feel and experience his time in the basement in such a strong way. Was there some kind of significance behind the fact she'd lived the moment he ran toward Guy in a

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[yin_yang_fox]

Having the belt taken away was unpleasant, though half-expected. That the man who took it glanced at her and told her she would get it back was a bit more surprising. This was another instance that she was suspicious of--the 'staff' going out of their way to offer her a bit more information. Simply because of her rank? Hm. She didn't quite like it, but she was not going to reject it. She handed the item over, then moved her arms as directed. For the majority, Renamon was fine. More invasive touches came with a slight shudder, and the Digimon was glad of the added layers. Skin to skin contact would have been more than she was able to bear

[shorttank]

Leela had decided by now that it didn't make any difference if she started out with a plan for the night or not, but she was still glad to sort of have one. She was more about beating information out of people than going hunting for paperwork herself. Still, if they managed to find out what those jerkwads had done to Gren, they might also get close to information about how they'd given her two eyes. At the very least, she might find out who to beat up over it

[yin_yang_fox]

This one hadn't been seen before. The Digimon glanced up, distracted momentarily by the bright violet hair. Interesting. And not human. There was something under that, but she waved it aside. Decorum. And such. She shook her head, shifting closer to the window. "Not at all. Go ahead."

Of the feeling, it wasn't as one she could place. That she was coming to recognize certain feels told her she had been here too long, but that was obvious before the query. Renamon glanced at the other, bright eyes watching. "Have you been here long?"

[shorttank]

Leela smiled her thanks, and sat down. "Long enough! It's been a week today. How about you?" It was funny how some things had stopped seeming distractingly weird, like looking totally human, and seeing out of two eyes.

And some things would probably never stop being weird, like glancing out the window and seeing pine trees that weren't artificial. They probably still used them as Xmas trees in this time. And of course the whole concept of the place, but that was, disturbingly, more background weird by now. Leela guessed that if you came from a time and place where Robot Hell was real, you were more mentally equipped than most to deal with insane asylums that were more insane than their inmates.

[yin_yang_fox]

[ sorry so short! >_<; ]

A week. More than Byrne, and far less than Renamon. She had lost her sense of what was long here. Weeks felt like months at times, depending on what was going on. "A month," she gave quietly, watching the other woman. "Long enough," she echoed dryly in addition.

"I'm Renamon." Polite and perfunctorily. She wondered what this one knew so far.

[shorttank]

[totally fine!]

"A month? Wow." Leela took a more interested look at her seatmate. "I don't know if I should congratulate you or offer my condolences." Probably a bit of both was in order. A week had felt like an eternity here for her, and the mental toughness required to deal with a month had to be pretty amazing.

"Has anything like this military coup happened before?" Leela's own life, back in the thirty-first century, had seemed to operate on a strangely regular schedule of weird things happening every week. Here, it was more nightly, in her experience, and the Landel's of a month ago, for all she knew, might have been an entirely different place from the one they were forced to live in now.

[yin_yang_fox]

The Digimon smiled slightly, responding dryly. "I would likely say the same." The amount of time was unnatural compared to most and yet it was both a testament to fortitude as well as a curse. To watch others vanish was nothing wanted in the end.

The woman's question, though, existed as something a little bit simpler. "No, it hasn't," she replied clearly. "This has been run as a mental institute from the beginning. A few weeks before I arrived there was a series of changes done to it, but that seemed more visual changes and monsters than the actual core of the institute." She paused momentarily, thinking. "It's quite possible that it was staged, though Landel did seem upset to be dragged out of here."

[shorttank]

That was something that hadn't occurred to Leela, but now that she thought about it, she wouldn't have been totally surprised. Some kind of an even more ridiculous version of a reality TV show had always been a leading contender among her theories. The fact that the monsters were real and people really got hurt would've been just another selling point. Some of the earlier changes Renamon mentioned could even have been set upgrades, or in response to a focus group, or something.

On the other hand, that would kind of mean everything was fake, wouldn't it, and that everyone who wasn't an abductee was just playing a role? The budget for actor overtime alone would be crazy.

"Is there any particular reason you think that? Or it is just good sense not to trust anything at all that happens around here?"

[yin_yang_fox]

Was there any reason? The Digimon thought, but in essence it was what the woman had said--good sense to not trust anything that came from the Institute. "The latter, mainly," she gave after a beat of thought. "However, there have been things over the weeks that attribute to that, off and on."

She tried to think back over the things that had occurred and could not place if any had happened within the last week. "There was a woman, for one. Who took the place of Alec Doyle on the radio. She went by Jill, but another voice on the radio said not to trust her. And now it's rumored that she is Lydia, Landel's head nurse." The suspicion of that was quite simple. "There were other inconsistencies, mainly at night. The usage of I.R.I.S., for one. The zombii, and the return of Doyle...." Though that could be seen as a construct simply skewed. It might not be a possible example. "...A few things," she finally said, falling silent. She had a wish for her notes, to list off the inconsistencies.

[shorttank]

Leela nodded. All of that was definitely very suspicious, and if it had been Marc saying not to trust the woman, it was even more so. Maybe 'Lydia' was a double agent, but they'd heard the head mad scientist mocking 'Jill', even slapping her. Only heard it, though, and that was totally easy to fake. "You need a chart to keep up with all of this. Maybe even a three-dimensional one."

She hadn't been around for the zombies, but she'd heard about them. If this was a reality show, they sure were trying to hit all the genres. Horror was a given, and they'd gone science fiction-y, too, with the doors acting like parallel-universe boxes. Now this whole thing with multiple identities sounded a lot like All My Circuits. Leela wondered if an epidemic of explosive amnesia was due to hit soon.

There was one thing she didn't quite understand. Okay, there were a lot of things, like how all this fit together and what it meant for them, but one main thing out of what Renamon said. "How is I.R.I.S. suspicious? It's just a computer system, right?"

[yin_yang_fox]

Her seatmate was more accurate than she might think. "You would," she agreed wryly. "There's a few more variables than a simple, easy to read version." Which reminded her somehow, of something else. "I'm Renamon." A bit late, but it likely didn't matter. Both of them seemed to care more about the interesting aspects than pleasantries

[shorttank]

"Turanga Leela." She smiled, but only for a moment, because what Renamon had to say about I.R.I.S. was very interesting. Was Landel as stuck as the rest of them in this human zoo, psychology experiment, Near-Death Star for people who weren't old, or whatever it was?

Renamon's theories were close enough to her own that Leela didn't think she'd be written off as a weirdy if she shared them. "I kind of thought from the beginning that we might be in some virtual reality. I'm from a time way ahead of this one, but some of the things that've happened here would still be impossible then. I think it's only simulating the late Stu-- twentieth century