A Bloody Valentine: The Investigation

[etcircenses]

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.

Comments

[ka_sera_sera]

"Miss Harleen." Roland sounds a little surprised to see her, but doesn't waste time with any kind of greeting. They've quite a few men looking around here, but their time is short. They've none to waste on lingering hellos, and none to waste thinking too closely on what will happen should they be caught. Roland is not one to worry too much on consequences, not usually, but a part of his mind still remembers the Capitol's threat and, if Roland listened to that thought echoing faintly from behind a thick-walled and well-locked room in his mind he would be thinking, They will send me back, they will send me back-

"I didn't know you were in the Capitol again," he says, eyeing the whole arrangement of this place for a moment before gathering up all the books, reading over their covers and flipping through their pages as he talks. Books are important. And even if there is no great hint in any of them, if the books are here in this place then they must at least tell him something about whatever was done here.

He didn't know Harleen was here, though, as it happens, and perhaps this is the best time for him to learn. Occupied as he is with these books, he can not think too deeply on how much having missed her presence disturbs him. A gunslinger ought to notice everything, or at least ought not miss something as important as a fellow prisoner, one he knows in the way he knows her, being chained back up in this place.

"I'm sorry to see it," he tells her, because he is, and because he ought to get something out of his first real opportunity to speak freely in all the time he's been in Panem.

Then he turns to the man behind him, looks him over. "Signless, what've they put you in this time? Any zippers or pins on those clothes you could use to pick the locks on that desk, if there are any? Any jewelry?" Because they were meant to be headed somewhere, because even now the Capitolites will have their parties, and with parties come the outfits. These damned clothes may as well come in handy, at least once.

[69problems]

This is a risk. It seems almost silly to even think it to himself, of course it's a risk. Much like Harley -- Harleen -- the Signless is subdued and withdrawn, and much like Roland he's trying not to show the panic bubbling at the back of his mind. He's already on borrowed time in his opinion; he should have died four or five times over by now even without his death on the District One battlefield. The Capitol should have executed him the moment he first returned for fighting with District Thirteen, and it astounds him they've been as lenient as they have. A little brainwashing, a little torture, when he was expecting death that had some finality to it.

He really cannot afford to fuck up now.

"There may be something in my hair--" he says and reaches up to comb through it with his blunted and painted claws. No sharp points for him; they're too cautious for that. Otherwise he might have been able to just jimmy the lock with one of his nails. A bobby pin from his curly overly-decorative bun will have to do.

"You're lucky I've picked locks before." It's meant to lighten the mood but there's something hollow to his tone, something that stems from that not-quite-yet-panic. "It won't take long. Anything interesting on those papers?" The last is directed to Harley, and he swivels an ear in her direction in wait of an answer.

[revvinguptheharley]

"I don't think so..." She lamented but brought the papers over to Signless and then to Roland to see if the words meant anything to them. "I-I um...have some more hair pins if yours break." she added helpfully. Picking locks was also among her skill set and so it always gave her some comfort when the Capitol stylists put pins in her hair.

After giving the papers a careful look over she moved over to the desk with Roland to help him sort through the mess. "Someone left here in a hurry...do you think they knew we were coming?" Harleen suddenly stiffened and her voice rose in fear as her eyes darted for the door, but of course no guards came to kick it in.

Not yet anyway.

"How did you guys find out about this place anyway?" She added once it became clear they weren't about to get shot and she could go back to looking at the paperwork.

[etcircenses]

The crumpled papers don't contain much, but it's easy to see where they came from. A journal sits on the desk with torn bits sticking out of it. With sweeping up the papers from the floor, it's also clear to see the broken bits of wood. They match that of the desk.

[ka_sera_sera]

"Cry pardon miss Harleen, but that's the kind of information we ought to be keeping to ourselves, don't you think?" Roland sets the books down - nothing helpful there - and picks up the journal instead, flipping it open to skim through. "You aren't wrong, though. Either some Capitol man found out this place was lost, and found out very late, or someone's laying a trap for us."

Roland may not have been at his best lately. He knows that, and knows it well. But fear, fear when there is a job to be done, that's a thing he is well used to managing. Not everyone is, however. Not everyone can be a gunslinger, and it's maybe a testament to his uneasy mind that he's forgotten it. It's only after he speaks that he realizes that, and so realizes he probably ought to soften those words a little.

"Don't think they are, there's too much here. More than they'd need to put here simply to keep us busy. We'll know very soon, in any case. Signless, while you work on that desk, look out for anything broken. You see those splinters on the floor there?"

[69problems]

"I do," he affirms. He's already eyeing up the wood as he works at the lock to see if he can spot the corresponding break. It's not even particularly dark in this room but he's glad all the same for his bright troll vision. If there's anything under the desk more likely than not he'll see it-- If he's very very lucky there's already a way into the drawers and he can abandon the bobby pin entirely.

[revvinguptheharley]

"O-oh...yeah I suppose....suppose we should..." she looks apologetic and a little ashamed at not realizing it was a bigger risk for them to speak those sorts of things out loud. Not just a risk to those in the room but to their sources. Her fingers trace over the books slowly while she mentally kicks herself more then she should and it's after the third kick her eyes fall upon the journal that Roland's thumbing through.

No sense reading over his shoulder though. Instead she tries to help signless find where the wood was broken from. After all picking locks tends to be distracting work on it's own.

[etcircenses]

It doesn't take long for Signless to work it out. There's a broken bit off the desk's leg. It matches the piece used to stop the door perfectly.

Harley turns up even more.

The journal that was on the desk has a red ribbon slipped between the pages. All pages prior detail someone in deep mourning, up to the front pages which seem to more detached, notes about projects of a different sort, most relating to electronics.

The page mark with the ribbon reads:

For once, it was not I who broke. A man simply dropped to his arse right upon the floor and began to wail like a child, begging to go home in that same manner. I suppose it was a tad pathetic but we could all only watch as what was in our hearts was voiced aloud. He picked back up within ten minutes and carried on as though it were nothing and we also did the same.

I miss my family. Sometimes I forget and believe that when the work is done I can simply return home. I forget that until this work is done, there is no home anymore. It has been over a year. In just a few months, it shall be two. Even if we are successful here we cannot undo what's been done. I can only hope for one and even that may be much.

The page is torn here. See the next page?

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland is a slow reader, and he knows it. As much as he wants to know this, it's better if he's not the one in charge of its reading.

"Out loud, please," he murmurs, holding the journal out for one of the two of them to take. "This page and the ones after, all of them. Until it stops seeming relevant. I don't think this is something we'll be able to take with us."

Slow may his reading be, but Roland is well trained to listen. There is more here than he knows how to interpret, and maybe much that is going to be important. Maybe nothing, but maybe everything. He intends to memorize every word.

[revvinguptheharley]

Harley accepts the book and scans over the words once quickly before she begins to read out loud for them. Her trembling soft and somewhat broken voice grows stronger as she reads taking comfort in the simple action even if the implications of the words are distressing and horrible sounding.

At his bidding she continues to read turning the page completely absorbed in the writings of what sounds like a man on the edge.

[69problems]

Signless listens as well as he continues with the bobby pin. He's not so great at memorizing as Roland but he takes note of what he can, just as he takes note of that splinter of wood propping the door open -- like an invitation. Well. That's not so surprising -- they were in a sense invited here.

Still. It combined with the scattered but useless papers have seeded a niggling doubt in his mind that perhaps this is a setup. Perhaps The three of them are meant to take a fall. He puts that out of his head. Thinking that way won't help.

[etcircenses]

The next page of the journal reads:

For two days we had a heartbeat. For two days, I felt I did too for the first time in a long time. Subjects eyes opened on day two, though there appeared to be no cognive recognition whatsoever. Still. The Subject was alive.

I was not involved in anything like this sort of science. I feel I am winging it most of the time, enough so that I wonder if the old myth of Frankenstien went much the same. Or perhaps, to bring real and more recent events into focus, if this is how everyone felt when they opened a portal to whole new worlds and times. Revival mechanism, I mean. I must remember to use the technical terms. It is the best means of surviving around here.

I recognize the subject from their time as a Tribute. I recognize everyone and I know I am not alone in that. We can never decide collectively if we are more careful with those Subjects who use to represent District three, or less. I imagine some of it is jealousy.

I did not feel jealousy today. After two days of heartbeat, we'd lost it again. Subject passed away at 21:09. I've not left this place for hours. All our celebration before seems a joke. I simply wish to stop now.

For several pages it is nothing but dry note taking. There's nothing of real interest until three more torn out pages can be noted by the rips they've left behind. There is one written page left...

[ka_sera_sera]

Before Harleen gets too far into the notes, Roland's raising a hand and twirling two fingers in the air, his old, get on with it gesture that matches so well the tense lines of his face. Time, no time - no time for the how of all this, as much as he's sure someone, somewhere, would love to hear it. Roland prioritizes the what, if there is any left. "Skip those. Find anything you can that's anything like the rest. Keep going."

[69problems]

Something about this isn't clicking and Signless cannot precisely put his finger on what. He feels as though there's some puzzle piece he's missing to understanding what he's hearing, and it tugs at him. Clearly the Capitol has already perfected bringing back its dead -- he learned that in his very second arena when he left a corpse behind in Candyland and still had a working body in the desert right next door. Why would they need to revive those corpses when they seem to have a perfectly good supply of bodies already? His hands almost stop what they're doing but they cannot afford to lose time.

"Is there any more?"

[revvinguptheharley]

Harleen felt the same as Signless though she did not voice it out loud. Instead she continued turning pages making quick notes of what was on each page to herself seeking out the rest of this tragic scientists story. All the while a voice nagged at her in the back of her head, an all too unsettlingly familiar voice that until recently had been smothered.

Does this have anything to do with the machine that brings us back?

Someone sabotaged not too long ago, but from the sounds of these entrees he's been here longer then that.

Since before District three was turned into a smoking crater maybe?

Clearing her throat and trying to clear her mind she turned to the last written page and began to read once more.

Safe.

[etcircenses]

The final page reads:

I recognized the Avox they sent to us. She'd broken into this facility along with some others. She'd been caught, of course. It was the first I'd seen of someone Capitol born doing something against this place. I now realise there may have been many more where she came from. I will look at the Avoxes and wonder where they came from and how many of them are Victims who were once part of this city I believed responsibile for the decemation of my home. If even the Capitol born are unhappy, then who truly benefits from this system of ours?

I have been here so long. To think the answer was right in front of us. If not for that sickness, we could have gotten this so much sooner. How far can we reach? When will we be able to save our own? We will have to preform tests on others first, I know.

I am afraid. For myself. For what may be next.

I am stalling. I do not want to be the one to have to kill her. She reminds me of my daughter but I don't know if that resemblance is merely my own projection. I am tired of being part of this but I have nothing else.

I will leave a means in. Others should know what is going on here. I do not know what it will accomplish but I wish to believe it will be something. I have to believe this will all be for something.

The following pages of the journal are blank save for one golden flower drawn in the back. The color is faded like it has been touched many times.

Signless manages to open the desk. Inside is a gun. There's blood on the butt of it and one shot fired but a quick look will reveal the shell is there on the floor, ricochetted from where it blew off a desk leg.

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.