thecapitol | A Bloody Valentine: The Investigation

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A Bloody Valentine: The Investigation

Who| Those selected for the lab search Mission
What| Capitol-soldiers enact a bit of rebellion to find out top secret info regarding what the offworlders a really for... and find a little more that was bargained for.
Where| A lab near to the Romulus Hotel
When| Congruent with the dance auction
Warnings/Notes| Violence, gore, body horror, descriptions of dead bodies in various states of decomposition and mutilation

A quick stop in the gift shop means a nice big hat for each to duck under and pass by Peackeepers. Hopefully. Laughing together in affected Capitol accents and acting like a natural born citizen may well be the best way to sneak by. After that, it's off into the night, just down the block. There's no clear entrance save one door in a back alley, the color blended to match the wall and make it unnoticeable. However, the red graffiti stating, You're playing with fire, and the dark freezer truck at the end of the alley, do both help to bring it to attention. There's some serious business locks on the door except... someone's put a stopper slip of wood in there, keeping it so anyone can sneak in. Odd. You'd think with a place so important looking as this, those working there would be a little more careful.

The inside is just as stark white as the outside, only more so thanks to the bright white lights that shine from the ceiling giving the whole place a glow. Anyone really familiar with the process of Avoxing may find the look of it all to be very familiar. It only gets worse as the group progresses down the sterile halls, through one door, then another, until finally reaching a room with hazmat suits on a rack, masks set by them. The next door is steel, and upon it's closing, a sterilizing spray is unleashed. Only then does the final steel door open.

The first thing to hit is the smell. Only a few times have even the arenas smelled like this. It's the singular warning to the horror that's to be witnessed as the lights slowly turn on, running down to the end of the massive room. It may once have been a building used for the Avoxing of criminals but no longer.

For rows and rows do the metal tables go on, upon them, corpses in very state of decay, dissection, and dismemberment. The bodies have all manner of injuries: burns, bites, stab wounds, more, all injuries that could be managed within an arena. The bodies are yours; the offworlders, the former Tributes, those who have died.

Two bodies of the same person lain out together like twins to be compared can be seen. Others are opened up or half way through the processes of being stitched back together. Some of the corpses have been incredibly preserved, withered and hollow-cheeked, but still like they could simply be asleep. The quarter quell has been running for nearly four years and there's a little piece of every offworlder left from it.

There are great machines of unknown purpose, some appearing perfectly innocuous, others looking like something from a torture chamber. There are separated glass rooms with bottled chemicals, walls with giant tubes of liquid with bodies kept within, and another wall where the bodies appear cryogenically frozen.

Down at the end in a steel room with clear forcefield, is a separate area for those dead with a tendency to get back up. Desks are scattered through out, many filled with documents, hastily scrawled notes, and journals-- no photos of loved ones here, but there may be something that tells of what exactly went on here.

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The far end of the building has the worst smell, the least light, and the greatest chance of the heebeejeebeez. The shelves are higher here, arranged like someone desperately wanted to block out the sight as much as possible. One of the desks has marks in it like someone dug their nails in out of nervousness. The giant tubes with bodies floating within have an option to decrease noise from them. None have been turned on.

It's down here that the mobile dead are kept, steel walls and forcefield windows cutting them off from what was once a room of living workers. There's a red sign, a tack board, and no sign of any dead actually being mobile.

Phi moves past the surgical tables and other obstructions, towards the back of the building. It almost feels like someone is trying to hide something away back here, and her curiosity runs deep. While the lack of light and the floating bodies might unnerve others, she remains stoically calm. They're only bodies. Dead bodies do not generally pose any kind of danger, and even if they did... There's a significant amount of glass and/or steel between them and her. She's not concerned.

The giant tubes holds her interest for a minute before she moves past, walking up to the red sign to see if she can make out what it says.

Derek, too, is moving through the building with a detached kind of curiosity. He can see reasonably well in the dark, and the bodies - they're just bodies. Derek's no stranger to being surrounded by them. He's on alert for any sign of trouble, like he pretty much always is, but for the most part he's focused on gathering information.

He watches Phi move out of the corner of his eye, keeping her in his peripheral vision as he approaches the shelves. They may be up high here, but that's another of the good things about being built so tall. He starts carefully poking through them.

Derek's search along the shelves turns up chemicals and tools but nothing of real use. No notes yet...

The large red sign on the door, leading to where the undead are kept, proves to be a warning. It notes what viruses are most contagious and how to avoid infection. All warnings insist on absolute minimal contact with the infected and on keeping the doors closed. Looking through the forcefield, it seems that every infected subject has died. Actually died with gunshot wounds to the head and then some in certain cases.

Among the rotted is one fresh corpse, holding a gun. The corpse wears the grey uniform of Avoxes and, if checked, will be lacking a tongue.

Phi reads over the list of viruses, her eyes trailing back and forth as she takes in the information. "Is this for real?" she mutters under her breath, but loud enough for Derek to hear anyway. "This feels like a bad horror movie." Which doesn't bode well for her. The skeptic is always one of the first ones to die.

Maybe that should warn her away from the carnage, but all of the bodies except one has been double-tapped in the head, which is the proper pop culture method of disposing of zombies, as any modern age geek worth their salt would know.

"They have zombies over here," she informs Derek, adding on "supposedly" after the fact. There's nothing to say that these bodies were actually animated after death. It only looks convincingly as if they might have been. She steps a little closer to the forcefield, peering through it to look at the one fresher corpse among the older ones. She recognizes the uniform almost immediately--who wouldn't, in this city?

"I think they sent an avox in there to take care of them." It looks like one, but she won't actually know unless she can get in there and check it.

The chemicals and tools catch his interest - but not technically in a way that's related to what they're here for. Still, he catalogs all of them as he pushes them aside to look for notes, the ones that are labeled and the ones he has a guess as to what they are, remembering them in case he can get a picture of what they might have all been used for.

He glances over at Phi when he hears her talking. It takes a moment for him to place the word zombie - he remembers hearing the offworlders use it for the muttations that had shared the faces of the Tributes who had fallen.

He doesn't let it bring up an image of the last arena he was in.

"Had 'zombies' in the arenas."

Derek looks back over to the shelves, still sorting through them even though part of his attention is on her now. "They would. They all take each other out?"

A sealed off button sits over by one side, heavily equipped with alarms and emergency switches, not to mention a key hole. Presumably, a key would be needed to press the button and get inside.

A set of keys hangs on a thumb tack on the board, along with a number of notes.

Had zombies in the areas, he says. Phi turns to look back at him, raising a brow in disbelief. Sure, she's been in the arenas once. She's seen the footage, but it's really hard to get her rational mind to accept that zombies are actually a thing.

Then again, she wouldn't have thought time travel was possible that long ago, either. She relents a little.

"Dunno. The zombies were done right, through the head. The avox... I think they just left her there. She's not alive." Though whether she's now undead remains a mystery. Phi's still a bit of a skeptic in this sense, though even her skepticism is a little unsure in the face of actually checking if a body might get up again.

"Do you want to help me check it?" She's not going in there without someone prepared to watch her back. Not that she thinks anything will happen, but... Just in case. She looks to the encased button to the side of the forcefield. "I think this thing opens it, but we need a key."

Derek shrugs one shoulder at her. "Muttations. Capitol's good at genetic engineering."

He doesn't really get what she's talking about with them being "done right" - but that's mostly because he doesn't really know much about zombie mythology. He still assumes they're muttations just like the genetic experiment that could set itself on fire in his own arena.

His attention is caught by the notes on the board, leaning in to read them, but when she mentions needing a key, he reaches out to grab them. He takes the notes, too, skimming over them as he walks over and holds out the keys at her.

That would be a yes to her question of him helping her, but he doesn't think to say that out loud.

Among the notes is one that's handwritten, a set of instructions upon it:

Scientists are to relocate to the President's palace where they will continue their work using new found discoveries immediately. Current tests will need to be put on hold. Mobile subjects must be terminated. An Avox has been delivered to help with this process. It is to be instructed to enter the containment area and kill the subjects within. The Avox too will then be terminated. These terms are non-negotiable.

Next to this note is a chart, half hidden by other pages on the clipboard.

Phi takes the set of keys when they're handed to her, flipping through them until she finds one that fits into the slot. She turns it a little to make sure it's the right one, but she doesn't fully unlock it just yet. Derek seems to be preoccupied with something, and she's a little curious herself.

"What are those?" she asks, leaving the key in the lock and moving around to read over Derek's shoulder--or over his arm, as the case of her height may be.

Relocated to the President's palace, and Derek finds himself curious even beyond what their mission is. 'Science' is always going to catch his attention, and new found discoveries is a quick way to get him invested into figuring it out.

When Phi heads over, he doesn't answer her question verbally. Instead, he adjusts to her being in his space not quite automatically, but easier than he would for others - though granted, he wouldn't let most people in his space to read over his shoulder or his arm. But because it's Phi, he shifts a little so she can see the notes better as he skims through the other pages to get to the chart.

The chart shows levels of durability and preservation in zombified subjects. There are notes that state, while being rotted in most ways, many of the undead subjects have a greater longevity than stagnant immobile corpses. A hypothesis is written about how to increase longevity in stagnant subjects without passing on the infection. A written conclusion states that curing the virus(es) also destroys the revival and longevity factor in the subject. Further tests pending.

Phi places a hand over the paper when Derek flips to the chart, trying to signal him to hold up. Her eyes skim quickly over the graphic, her brows furrowing in thought. How to increase longevity in stagnant subjects without passing on the infection? She's half distracted for a moment by the talk of infections and subjects, a bit of familiarity creeping back to her from Rhizome 9. But a shake of her head dislodges the thought.

"...Are they trying to create some kind of super human from zombie DNA?" That sounds... ridiculously impractical. But someone somewhere must have thought it was worth looking into--and still worth looking into, judging by the notes on the first few pages.

Derek stops, brows furrowing. It doesn't surprise him that the Capitol is trying to find longevity and durability - Capitolites are always looking to change themselves for the "better," and what could be better than extending their lives even longer?

"Capitol. Modifications are in."

He's never had the desire to do it, but there's no denying that body modifications of varying degree are common. Not to mention the muttations that the Capitol uses in the arena, to fight for them.

"And war. Not above this kind of tactic."

He glances back up at the forcefield, then looks back at her, a silent question.

Time has been ticking away. There's just a few minutes left before the names are announced. You'll have to remember what you've found to pass the information along later. You've got some dancing to get to.

Modifications are in, he says, like it's only natural for them to want to use a supposed virus to give themselves longer life. That idea seems to unsettle her more than anything they've found in this room so far. That someone could be so desperate to live that they would put all of this together.

She catches the look up at the forcefield and back to her. The meaning itself is pretty clear. "Right. Let's take a look on the other side of that door."

Phi heads over the the keys that she left in the lock, waiting for Derek to be ready before she disengages the forcefield. As it powers down, she moves towards the doorway, waiting until it's fully gone before stepping through. The bodies are even more grotesque up close, but it doesn't seem any worse to her than the ones on the tables back in the main room. At least she doesn't recognize these ones.

Reaching the woman, Phi kneels down to check her over.

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A Bloody Valentine: The Investigation

Off-Limits Zone

Phi and Derek

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Safe!

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