[center] » Nurse Buck «

Now you don't know me:
Lightning above and a fire below me.
You cannot catch me, cannot hold me,
You cannot stop, much less control me![/center]

Though he might catch hell for it later, hitting Greg really put an upswing on the Roman’s mood. It felt good to unleash a little of his frustration on an unsuspecting victim… even if it wasn’t in the manner to which he was accustomed.

Cadie’s blindness was a little worrisome. Even in her limited state the Mutant’s telekinesis was nothing to be trifled with. If Dante could set her off, keeping them apart would make life easier for everyone involved. Especially Dante. Cadie’s last …interest, so to speak… had lost both his eyes when he’d looked at another female patient a certain way in the waif’s presence. The female’s hands had been severely mangled as well.

Buck was also worried about Aniella. He’d meant what he said to her: if she didn’t have the inner strength and will to survive Osmond’s, it would kill her. And probably sooner than later. A newborn monster’s self-hatred could drive it to the grave: a phenomenon Buck had witnessed many times in fledgling vampires long before he’d ever come to this place. They just couldn’t work up the nerve to do what they needed to do in order to survive, or they went mad with the horror of it afterwards. All the Head Nurse could do was speak honestly to the Ragdoll, and hope she was able to pay him heed.

These thoughts and many more spun through Buck’s ancient head as he meandered slowly from Cadie’s table towards the wall where Clara, Sara and Farrah were standing watch. Unlike Jean’s trio, Buck’s three nurses heeled like a team of highly trained Border Collies.

[b]“Anything I should know?”[/b] came the smooth, businesslike tone from his thin lips.

[b]“All quiet on the Western Front,”[/b] Farrah said mildly. [b]“Aleksandrina bit Clara, and Hanneli tried to catch me up in her dreams, which felt icky, but nothing we can’t handle.”[/b]

[b]“Good work as usual, ladies,”[/b] he said with a small nod. He’d never needed to strike his girls… but he never forgot that they were Morgan’s creatures, and no matter how well they performed he’d never really [i]trust[/i] them.

He took his place beside the trio of women, casually leaning against the wall, taking a sideways glance at Aniella to see what she might have consumed from her multiple-choice meal. Everyone else seemed to be behaving, talking or eating quietly, so he folded his arms to wait until his patient for the day was ready to proceed with her tour.

[center]-----[/center]

As patients finished their breakfasts, the nurses came off the walls one by one to escort them on the next parts of their Institute tour. They’d be shown the large two-story Library stuffed with books from many dimensions, pages filled with fact and fiction that could warp or wilt lesser minds. Equally impressive was the gymnasium complex; complete with basketball court, swimming pool, weight room, several normal and oddly-sized treadmills and exercise bikes and even a small sauna. There was the Recreation Room: table tennis and hockey, foosball, a pair of card tables, an overstuffed grey couch and two equally comfy looking armchairs… all of it bolted to the floor, of course.

In the Music Room new patients would find a raised dais against the far wall where a gleaming black grand piano sat waiting. Several grey armchairs -smaller versions of the plush ones in the Rec Room- were placed in a semi-circle on the left side of the room. Behind them, a large stereo programmed with hundreds of thousands of songs (digitized, of course) from every dimension imaginable was pressed against the wall. The right side was an open space edged by shelves holding drums and closed instrument cases. Folding chairs and sheet music stands were closed and stacked neatly in the corner.

Last but not least on the tour was the Great Room. At the moment it was totally empty and the walls were completely bare. The only feature of the room was on the wall opposite the door. Two floor-length windows with arced tops flanked a massive stone fireplace. The stone was rough, and in shades of grey and black. On either side of the dark maw, black wrought-iron candelabras were bolted into the rock and mortar. Candles …and curtains, for that matter… were absent.

There was much more to the Institute than the first and second floors of the patient care areas, but the tour included everywhere the patients could freely move during daylight hours. The Medication room would only be seen by the patients who’d need to go there, and the Treatment Rooms on Basement Level 1 were on the schedule for tomorrow.