taxonomites | [accidental visual | location: twelfth floor] trust our deepest secrets to the artificial lake

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[accidental visual | location: twelfth floor] trust our deepest secrets to the artificial lake

The sun's scrambled high into the sky like a sure-footed kid climbing a tree—it's the itch under his collar and the sweat on his palms. He raises the hoe and swings it down into dry earth, sending up a puff of dust. There's always one weed left. Sun's baleful glare on his back, he drives the blade in again. He hears himself grunt (it sounds more like a squeal, like he's gonna cry) as if from far away.

He must close his eyes because the next thing he knows his hands are empty—slick with sweat and streaked with dirt but empty. He wipes them on his pants and looks up.

His eyes go wide. His arms prickle with goosebumps; he hugs himself against the sudden cold. He takes a step back, then another—it's a white room with a bed and the covers are rumpled. Maybe he should see if they're warm but he takes another step back and stumbles over a bottle. A gasp snags on something before it can escape his throat. He freezes, goes rigid. Listens with all his might.

The tablet switches on to show a dark-haired boy in clothes—a grimy shirt, suspenders, brown pants—that are worn but not ratty stooping to carefully right a whisky bottle.

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Rorschach blinks once, then twice, then openly stares, forgetting to switch the transmission in his surprise at seeing the child. It seems out of place, the grime and grit as much of a reason in the stark room as the age, and lips twitch into a tense frown, brow furrowing to match his puzzlement. There have been no other children that he has seen so far, so it's understandably unexpected. It doesn't sit well with him, the boy left on his own, nor does the timid demeanor he has adopted in the clearly new environment. It hearkens to things he would prefer not to think about, has in fact put quite a bit of effort into not thinking about.

But even so. He dislikes it. Something should be done to rectify it, someone should be held accountable.

But he finds he doesn't have the words. He's never been much for conversation, and when he tries to put voice to thoughts they fail before they even get to his mouth. He doesn't know where to start. So instead he only watches, though with much less of his usual hostility.

Dick sits wedged in one of the room's far corners, knees drawn almost to his chest. He has the tablet in his hands--every so often his head snaps up his eyes dart to the door.

He's tired. His shoulders are stiff and his shoes pinch his feet. He found cigarettes and a wristwatch he didn't dare touch next to the bed. He stood at the window feeling by turns dizzy and scared and powerful.

He stares back. It's not a show of boldness--he's used to observing, to his gaze having no more force than a breath of wind.

Hundreds of thoughts flicker through his mind as he scrambles for forgotten protocol for these kinds of situations, each one seized on but abandoned quickly until he finds one that's the least objectionable, voice hollow and hoarse when he finally forces the words out. He's long out of practice in actually helping people.

"You have a name?" It's the first thing to come to mind; assuring the boy that he's safe, which would be the first on the checklist, would be something of a lie considering the things he's seen since his arrival. And Rorschach has never seen the use in a lie, no matter how small or well-intentioned.

He nods. “Dick.” His voice is soft, almost insubstantial. He rarely talks without feeling like a trespasser, like his forays into speech should be kept quick and stealthy.

“I'm new,” he says, echoing Mr. Long without understanding what he's new to.

"Hurm." It's more an acceptance of information than a passing of judgment. He hasn't seen anyone suddenly show up that didn't start off in the Arrival room, but then again he hasn't been keeping a particularly close eye on them of late either. It's possible he missed him. Rorschach makes a note to monitor them better in the future; it's always better to know what you may be dealing with ahead of time rather than be surprised later. Lax attention is only one step above sloth and the first on the downward slide into iniquity. Lack of substantial obvious criminal activity is no excuse.

"Assumed as much. Haven't seen you before." There's another pause as he tries to recall what else he's supposed to do in this type of situation, or more specifically what Daniel would do since he was usually better at this type of thing. Children are by and large a complete mystery to Rorschach, and despite his attempts to remain blank his discomfort is beginning to seep through. "Has this place been explained yet?"

Dick considers, drawing his mouth into a pensive half-smile. "They said I wasn't dead." He wants very badly to believe it, the desire to be alive an almost physical sensation, a tug on some invisible cord in his chest.

He regards the man with grave intensity. He's more comfortable with this face, these gruff, terse sentences, than he'd been with the women. They were beautiful. They probably wore perfume and dainty gloves. What could they want with him?

The sudden expulsion of air and the dry, cracked, almost wheezing sound that accompanies it might be a cough, but might just as easily be a laugh; it's difficult to tell for sure when his expression doesn't appear to change significantly. But there's a dark kind of humor in the boy's words, a twisted appreciation for small favors. The punchline for some tasteless joke whispered in back alleys out of earshot of the more respectable.

The Comedian probably would have appreciated it.

"No reason to think otherwise. Still breathing; as good proof as any." But there's something wrong with this picture, and he can't let it go.

"Captors are getting ridiculous; shouldn't be taking kids." It's a muttered sentiment, clearly not intended to be overheard, but still reasonably audible.

Whatever the noise is, Dick waits for it to subside. Trying to understand what adults find funny or why is like trying to follow the path of a ricocheting bullet. There's no sense in it: they laugh at things that should hurt and crack jokes meant to wound.

(He knows pa's temper's on the rise when he starts to laugh.)

He acknowledges the man's reasoning with a nod and pretends not to have heard the rest, even though he has so many questions they have to jostle for space in his head. Again his gaze snaps to the door.

"Where am I?" he asks eventually.

"They call it Taxon," he supplies brusquely, though he doesn't expect any kind of recognition. "Claim it's a city, but it isn't."

The periodic shift in gaze doesn't go unnoticed, and after a moment he adds "You don't have to stay there. Allowed to leave the room."

A look of unguarded surprise blooms on his face--although Dick's more preoccupied with who the door might admit into the room than whether it will permit him to exit, the man's correctly guessed at the trend of his thoughts. He stares thoughtfully at the door, his world suddenly vast.

Tablet in hand, he picks his way across the room, careful to watch where he steps. He pushes the door open, peeks over the threshold without setting foot outside. Then he looks back down at the man, half braced for a reprimand.

The only reply is a raised eyebrow, a kind of nonverbal "well, go on then, what are you waiting for?" Leave or stay, it doesn't matter to the silent man in the shabby clothes, and if he can relate to the boy's uncertainty when given more opportunities he isn't about to show it. Or admit as much.

He reads the challenge in the man's expression and doesn't shrink back from it--instead he blinks, once, and kind of resolve settles over him.

Dick steps into the hall and listens, patient and attentive. Willing to wait for the place to reveal itself. He hears nothing familiar, nothing human: a low drone, the rush of air and beneath that a quiet whine.

He glances left and right. Identical doors line the corridor. He wishes he had something (remembers his fingers closing around a piece of chalk, the ghostly inverse shadow it left on his palm) to mark his. After a moment he aims a solid kick at the corner of the door and, satisfied with the resultant scuff mark, picks a direction.

The hall widens into a high-ceilinged room ringed with machines black and glossy as beetles. A tang of sweat in the air. Realization breaks over him in an awful wave.

"Are they for torture?" Dick whispers, eyes locked on the machines, the word "captors" looming large in his thoughts.

He has other things to be doing. Leads to investigate now that everyone is in the same building, penned like cattle before slaughter. Floor plans to take note of and familiarize himself with, lines to connect now that he has the opportunity. Better, more efficient uses of his time than watching a boy take stock of his new situation when he isn't even certain of where he came from in the first place.

But then, perhaps that's why he doesn't turn the gadget off, because he doesn't know how he ended up here and because he's the first child Rorschach has seen so far and there are more questions associated with that and no clear answers. It's certainly not because of any similarities.

He decides not to examine it too closely.

The view isn't great from the angle of the tablet, but Rorschach picks out the shapes after a few moments, and if he were the type he might have laughed at the misinterpretation.

Nevertheless, there's a slight twist to his lips that might be a sign of amusement on anyone else. "Only self-inflicted. Generally seen as beneficial. For self-improvement."

Frowning, Dick takes two halting steps forward, like someone prodded into movement by the point of a gun. He stops in front of the machine, gazing steadily at the metal bars and the rubbery tongue stretched between them. He can't find the connection between the apparatus and self-improvement--a slippery concept to begin with. Who else would improve him?

He leans forward and touches the tip of one finger--quickly, as if expecting it to burn--to the metal.

"Am I supposed to..." he asks, or starts to ask, the question fizzling out. He remembers to bring the tablet to his face this time.

"You don't need to. Not for kids." He had never seen the appeal himself, but then again he had no need for the room; he got plenty enough exercise during patrol, or had before, anyway, spending hours at the machines seemed unnecessary. Too regimented anyway. It was unnatural.

"Never seen one before?"

He shakes his head. “No.” He should keep moving, and a part of him—the part that senses the weight of someone's gaze on him, that pricks up the hair on the back of his neck—is urging him onto the next room, but he looks questioningly at the man. “What's it called?”

"A treadmill," he responds, without inflection, without any connection to the word itself other than that needed to actually relate it. "You walk on it while it stays in place. The belt rolls as you walk; you keep pace." A ridiculous piece of equipment as far as he's concerned; if you want to walk, then walk, there's no need to resort to a machine to regulate it for you.

He falls silent for a few long moments, glancing around the room the best he can and then looking around the greenhouse. It's empty, silent, and there seems to be no real cause for him to remain where he is. Glancing back at the boy, he speaks again, suddenly and without preamble.

"You shouldn't be wandering on your own. Can accompany if there's no-one."

The idea makes him uncomfortable, of course, since he never knows what he's supposed to do around kids, but the idea that the boy is on his own in the large building with all the things and people lurking in it sits even less easily with him. He's willing to exchange one comfort for another, and he could use the change of scenery anyway.

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[accidental visual | location: twelfth floor] trust our deepest secrets to the artificial lake

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