Conversation Piece {Open}

Scarlett was growing bored. She understood that at 4 a.m. no one should be up, but the service would have been nice. Seriously, if they wanted business shouldn’t there be someone manning the desk, even at 4 a.m. Scarlett defiantly thought so, but then she was a night owl and hated the mornings. Uh, mornings, they were like a cancer. Causing people to be grumpy for no reason, she defiantly hated mornings, no question about it.

After 25 minutes of sheer boredom, she rose from the weird looking chairs and decided to exit the nasty lemon-yellow colored room. She found the only other door, and fiddled with the handle. Hmm, it wasn’t locked, so she pushed on the handle and opened the door into a hallway.

Ominous, that was the first word come to mind, grey was the other. Scarlett wondered if she should roam the hallway and find someone, but Kari’s respectable personality was starting to push its way through.

After some inner turmoil, and conscience wrestling, she entered the gloomy hallway. There were doors here and there, but not a sound of another person or thing. It was so quiet, that it casted a doomed air about the place.

Suddenly, Scarlett turned the corner and ran into someone. “My apologizes, I didn’t hear you coming,” she promptly responded, then she wondered why she hadn’t heard him walking. He was certainly tall, so shouldn’t he make a sound? His quietness bothered her for some reason.

Kitu couldn't sleep. He rarly could these days. After the things he'd seen, the things he'd done, he wondered if he'd ever sleep again. So there he sat, backwards in his chair, thinking thoughts he'd rather not think. Why have I done what I've done? What will I do next? Where am I to go when the Americans release me? Will the Americans release me? These, among others, were valid questions, and, as of now, simply could not be answered. He would have to wait, indefinitly. Normally, he wouldn't mind the wait, perhaps he would have even enjoyed the safety and the stillness of those moments, but not now. Not when his friends could be dying, or even already have perished in the horror of the Bejing ruins.

Kitu's head jerked towards the door as he heard the subtle, yet audible sound of footsteps in the hallway. He allowed himselve to sigh. It was probably just Warden Alkatraz, making his rounds. He checked the clock on the wall. 4:35 A.M. The warden was usually so precise that you could set your watch, making his rounds every three hours. The only problem was, he made his last round at 3:00. He flet his heart begin to race, nobody was supposed to be up at this hour, and nobody went in the halls after curfue, period.

He searched his room for anything he could use as a weapon, incase this mysterious entity turned out to be hostile. He knew the Chinese were capable of pulling off this kind of assassinition, he'd personally seen it done, and, this time around, nobody was around to save his sorry hide. Kitu stopped. Maybe he was over thinking it. This is a mental institution after all. You couldn't expect every sorry soul in the goddamn building to obey orders. Yeah, that must be it. Just another frikin' mental case trying to get themselves shot by a guard. He exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He lied back in his bed, closed his eyes, and tried to force relaxation. Then another set of footsteps joined the first, perhaps not side by side, but still there, still clomping along in unison. This time Kitu couldn't risk it. Two sets were too much to be random. He knelt down and pulled a shiv, made out of part of a cafiteria tray, and placed his hand on the doorknob. There was a crash, Kitu opened the door, and lunged at his supposed attackers.

Alcatraz was about to berate the girl who ran into him in the hallway when someone burst out of a door nearby. Predatory eyes adapted to the dark widened as he tried to comprehend what was going on. Alcatraz snarled and drew his short-sword to block the attack, placing himself between the patient and the girl. He then growled a low, threatening noise at the assailant as he tried to recognize them in the almost non-existent lighting. His eyes narrowed a bit, the way of attacking and the body shaped was unmistakable.

"Kitu," He started, tone low and threatening, "how did you get a weapon? You know they are provided to you in the Gym if you want to fight."

At this moment, he seemed to care less about why the door was unlocked. He would punish the guards later. Or maybe the technicians for making faulty doors.

"I'm sorry, miss." He said to the girl behind him. He was angry at her, at first. However, when he heard her voice, he knew she was not one of the current patients and was probably the new patient they'd be expecting. He'd have to go find Vampyronassa and have her deal with the girl, it was her job, anyway.

"Welcome to Greyhound Hospital. Any questions before Kitu tries to attack me again?"

His voice had a sardonic tint on the edge, as if he were mocking Kitu.

If the quietness of the first man bothered her, then the attack by the second came as a surprise. Shaking away the confusion, Scarlett stepped back to comprehend what was going on. The darkness of the hallway was starting to close in on her, and her heart began to race.

To try and calm herself down she lit a smoke, and exhaled. The tall man looked ready to kill the patient, and after some really rude words, he finally talked to her.

"I'm sorry, miss. Welcome to Greyhound Hospital. Any questions before Kitu tries to attack me again?"

She really didn’t appreciate the snarky attitude radiating from the man and grew irritated at his lack of respect. “Well, the first is were the hell is your secretary?” She glances at Kitu, “the second is why are you jumping people in the middle of the night,” looks at both of them “and I guess the third would be where’s the alcohol?”

Most would have thought that her questions were random, but she was trying to figure out the two men in front of her. The first was well, grumpy liked he woke up to early and the second looked ready to kill anything that so much as twitched. Then for some reason they were both having this intense stare down.

She was tweaked about waiting in the lobby for half an hour, and had no fear sharing that. She was also intrigued by the guy who had just jumped them. And well, the alcohol was because she seriously needed a drink, and it’s never to early to start in.

Then she took smoked some more and asked"Well, any response gentleman?"

OOC: Wheeeeeee.

BIC:
“Alcohol is prohibited, and smoking is only acceptable if you’ve reached level five progress and earned the privilege. And, Alcatraz, I’m glad to see you awake at this hour. It seems that these two don’t know how things are run around here. I caught Sir Honest attempting to abscond with his original pistol—it was quite impressive, actually. I underestimated him.”

A man with the face of a gaunt ghost and hair the color of a raven’s feathers drowned in ink and slicked back against its bald head, his eyes piercing emeralds wedged molded into a great slab of pasty marble, cheekbones so sharp enough they seemed table to slice the air or even the people standing in front of him. He was relatively tall and a bit lanky, especially with the way his fitted doctor’s coat clung to his body unlike most wispy, loose, generic types. Everything living about the guy wreaked insomniac and, although very misleading, he appeared to be sleep-walking or at least so sleep-deprived that he looked dead. But it was those eyes––those serpentine, wide, wild, preening, but so... melancholic, calming, like smooth mint tea... Eyes.

This was the Dean of Medicine at Greyhound Hospital for Psychiatry and Specialized Practices, Dr. James Terrance Sidoh––the methodically monotonous master of medicine, unreadable, unemotional, unimpressive, and undertaker to psychiatry’s most profound diseases of the unconventional human mind.

He stared at Kitu and Scarlett, a look of complete boredom but––strangely enough––an amused fancy donning his minute emotions.

“My name is Dr. Sidoh. I like to work and I love being right. My favorite color is grey, because it is bland, but your skeptic thoughts, I understand. I can read your mind, I keep everything I find even if it’s a bind. I can clone myself so profusely that you’ll find my trust woven loosely. I remember everything in absolute for my brain is quite acute. I’m glad you’re here, I hope you stay, because in your mind I like to play. As Alcatraz has said, welcome to Greyhound, but instead, I rather you be fed to the Syl eye by eye, limb by limb, so I can tell you all bye-bye.”

He smiled, obviously proud of his rhymed and timed impromptu introduction. Dr. Sidoh even gave a little giggle and attempted to suppress a snort, but duly failed. He coughed abruptly, involuntarily touched his fingers to his face and muttered,

“I’m totally a doctor.”

Kitu immediately stepped back, assuming a defensive position with the shiv as he tried re-assessing the situation. One armed man, who hated him. One unpredictable woman, possibly going through withdrawal, and probably another mental case, claiming to be a mind-reading doctor. Furthermore, he'd been found out by the local authority. He had a weapon, an that meant they'd up security. That would, in turn, make escape even more difficult. He needed more information, he needed it now. Perhaps their reactions would tell them what he needed to know.

“Alcohol's in China, miss.” He said as slyly as possible, trying not to reveal anything emotionally. Emotions were dangerous. Kitu knew all to well that adding them into a combat situation gets people killed. They get good people killed. “We get there, to China, and I'll give you the late General Jwisini's personal wine cellar, and pay for whatever you're dying to go OD yourself on.”

Kitu turned to Alcatraz, not speaking, but Kitu's dark gaze said it all. While he didn't hate Alcatraz personally, he knew the type. Put his type into a position of power and they never let go. They drive lower ranks into the dirt, gaining power in doing so, and ultimately end up destroying the very system that gave them their power in the first place. This was the type of person that destroyed Kitu's dearest China. People like that had to pay.

Finally, he turned to Sidoh, perhaps the most confusing and/or eccentric person he'd ever seen, but Kitu remained unphased and unimpressed. In fact, Kitu chuckled, less because he found anything funny, but more to get on this “doctor's” nerves. “You're nothing but a ghost story, a tale to make little children listen to their damn mothers.” Kitu laughed again, yet the makeshift knife in his right hand didn't move a millimeter. “A mind reader? Surly you can do better then that, my good doctor.” He added, using every bit of his little knowledge of sarcasm.

The situation was not just not going well, but it was deteriorating at an unacceptable level. He couldn't allow any of these people to raise an alarm, but he was fairly sure that the drunken woman would support him. He'd found junkies made good allies, at least in the short term. What he'd first assumed to be an attempt merely to survive now turned itself into a deadly opportunity, and a choice. Escape now, no witnesses, no mercy, no looking back, or submit to some hostile entity and pray for mercy.

Kitu had never been one for prayer...

Too many people. Too early in the morning. 'Where the hell are the guards? Or even Vampyronassa?' The telepathic hiss into Sidoh's mind was incredibly hostile, Alcatraz's tension was building very quickly, so much that at first he didn't notice Sidoh's... off behavior. He let out a hissing sigh, aggravated, but he was trying to keep his calm. Kitu had a weapon, there was a bratty unauthorized smoker behind him and even the Gym Teacher was here. Next, he sighed inwardly, Alyoshenka would come tearing down the hallway in his normal form. That would compelte the utter foolishness of this moment.

He recognized Kitu's vague enmity toward him. He, personally, had no strife with the patient but obviously Kitu's background prevented him from connecting well with Alcatraz. He raised an eyebrow at the insolent words Kitu spoke to the doctor. He touched his telekinesis again to Sidoh, wordless but not without meaning, wondering how the other man would react.

The telekinesis was a protection, of course. Alcatraz was suspicious if Sidoh was... feeling himself. He didn't seem right tonight. If he received no response, he'd have to turn on his co-worker.

Too much emotion for Sidoh.

His mind nipped at his suppressed form. The natural fangs and claws called out to Alcatraz, but adopting them now would not help anything. Alcatraz always felt this way when he became too overworked, the fur itched under his skin, begging for release. Yet the inhibitors on his upper arms, hidden under folds of cloth, prevented that release, and he would not waste the time he spent waiting to be in the freest form again.

If he'd still had his tail in this form, the deadly spiked cord of muscle would be lashing. He didn't like the new patient, luckily it was not his job to deal with the patients, just suppress the uprisings. "King." He nodded to his other co-worker. Strange man, King was. Cruel, unnecessarily so. It was good he was not the Warden, or else, he felt, there may be grand issues with the treatment of the patients. He didn't understand violence as an outlet. It made no sense to someone who lived in a world where fighting was only for survival and rank, not for enjoyment.

The smoke from the girl's cigarette still stung his nose, sensitive even outside of a beast's form.

"I'm going to ask you nicely to please put out your cigarette."

He was at the end of his rope.

[[

[[ I'm hypothetically finishing my reply. I'm also hypothetically studying for Pettinger's Human A&P test. I'm also hypothetically deleting Duncan's accounts if he doesn't get his creeper face in gear. ]]

Author's note: My apologizes for making you wait so long. I also apologize for the lack of quality on his post. My blood sugar's at 360. I'll do better next time! I may even go back and edit this one for sentence fluency and all that good jazz. Thanks for being Patient!

More people to watch, more expressions to read, and more weapons to keep track of. Kitu sat there and watched the whole damn situation fall to pieces in front of his eyes, and not a thing he could do about it. The Warden was about to kill Scarlett, that psycho Morgan and his creepy snake were eying the warden, and sidoh, well, he must have lost his mind. So here he stood, in a hallway full of rogue elements, and all of them on a particularly short fuse. Kitu inched closer to the light switch on the wall. He couldn't get out on his own, not with all the “administration” standing right in front of him. He had to send a message to scarlett, something only she could see. Almost to the switch, he blinked. Then again, but held it longer. And again, and again. He continued, praying she understood Morse code. If she didn't, or even if she didn't notice it, then escape would become very difficult. Like it or not, he needed her, and she needed him, at least for the moment.

When the was done, it read “run opposite my direction on mark meet at gym in 7” Now the only problem was she might not have noticed it, and even if she did, would he trust it? Why would she? But then again, what would she have to lose? Actually, she stood to lose a lot, her alcohol, her cigarettes, perhaps risking punishment in the gym, or even a chance of execution.

No. he couldn't afford to think like that. Either they'll make it out, or they won't. Nothing else matters except the current objective, escape the American captors. He placed his hand firmly on the switch, not activating the lights, but merely to feel the electrons pass through the circuits. He felt them travel through his finger tips, how fast they went, where they were going, what secrets they stored, then he changed them. He started looping camera feeds, then he killed lights and locked certain doors. With a mere touch he unlocked doors that stood in his way, defeated security systems, and put anything that stood in his way into lockdown. And none one was the wiser.

As a final security measure, something to keep his current company busy. He rigged the switch to explode, not so much of an IED, but more of a Falsh-bang, but with more Shrapnel. Kitu estimated that he and Scarlett could round their respective corners in about two seconds, so he set it to detonate in four point three five seconds, just to be safe. He pocketed the shiv, released his hand from the panel, and kicked the back of the Wardens head.

Hard.

“Mark!” He turned and ran, not waiting to see if Scar did the same. Kitu rounded the corner, there was a loud explosion, and Kitu kept running. He wouldn't stop until he got to China.