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Tweak says, "Take Justin with you."

Dr. Spencer Reid (awkwardgenius) wrote in vas_captio_rpg,
@ 2010-07-11 11:51:00

Can You Handle The Truth?
Who: Dr. Spencer Reid and Sarah Jane Smith [also open to the Doctor or Luke should they want to jump in!].
What: Reid lays some truths on Sarah Jane... and is kind of happy just to have company again!
When: Day 2, very late afternoon.
Where: Sarah Jane, Luke and the Doctor's house.
Rating: PG-13 for descriptions of torture.
Status: Incomplete.

Clad in his vest and shirt with the map in the kit that was now slung around his shoulder in the same fashion his tan leather go-bag used to be, Reid located the small residential area near the Post Office and set off on foot through the town. His nerves were on edge and his hyperactive senses were tingling, more than terrified at being alone in Vas Captio, alone and exposed out in the open. He had no idea how people were selected for these cruel, torturous tests that the Management enjoyed inflicting upon them, but he hoped it wasn't by picking on those wandering out by themselves. Selfishly, he would much rather be forced to observe. He had been on the receiving end of torture before, and knew from personal experience that it was not a scenario he wanted repeated again. Ever.

Had he not been terrified, he may have marvelled at the old architecture of the town. It was so aged, like it had been here since the fifties or so. Ghost towns were commonplace in America, but to see one this well-kept was interesting. Though, his senses were distracted with keeping an eye out, and so he barely noticed too much whilst walking across the town, eventually walking into the residential area and scanning the cookie cutter houses.

Sarah Jane had said she would be standing outside to ensure he found the correct house. Strolling the block, he eventually found one home that had an older woman stood outside, a woman whose face he recognized as he got closer as Sarah Jane's from the bunker beforehand. Swallowing, and trying to remind himself why he was here (he wanted the company as well as to explain somewhere more private than the journals, which could no doubt be read by Management), Reid approached and flashed an awkward half-smile, lifting his hand in a wave.

"Sarah Jane?" he called out as he got closer.

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awkwardgenius
2010-07-12 09:22 pm UTC (link)

Reid's hands slid awkwardly into the pockets of his beige slacks, which only managed to make him look thinner and possibly more ill. He wasn't too sure about how to approach this, either. He had only witnessed one experiment, but those he had net had talked about many others, each more terrifying and horrible and cruel than the last. He would say they were all lucky to be alive, but the Management seemed to plan it that way. One couldn't study a dead specimen.

"We-well, um." He lifted his hand and combed it through his long, outgrown bangs, curling them behind one year. "What do you know... about this place? And the Management? Do you remember anything at all?"

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got2haveasmith
2010-07-13 03:05 am UTC (link)

Fair enough place to start, Sarah Jane decided. Figure out what she did know, and work from there. Dr. Reid seemed a bit hesitant to start the conversation as well, so it was a good jumping-off point.

"I remember names, faces, associations," she said. "I recognized the name of the town on the box," she uncrossed her arms and pulled her little survival kit from her jacket pocket, "and I knew it was bad. I don't know how I knew, but there was a feeling of dread associated with the name. And I remembered the journals, once I pulled mine out and saw it, and how to use them. People I met before, handwriting I've seen before, that's familiar in the sense that it's recognizable. And each face or handwriting sample has an associated feeling with it. Including the Management. I recognized their style of wording more than the handwriting - the short cryptic sentences. Aside from that?" She shrugged. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Sometimes flashes when people mention things that happened, but nothing more than a fleeting image or feeling. Nothing detailed. And I'm used to detail, Dr. Reid. I'm a journalist."

She pushed off from the wall and paced to the other end of the room and back. It really was frustrating. "You've implied you remember the details, doctor, and that we'd experienced something here together. I'd like to know what happened." Well, like might not be the proper word. Need might be better. She had a feeling she wouldn't like what she heard, but had the need to hear it all the same.

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awkwardgenius
2010-07-13 06:06 am UTC (link)

Spencer nodded as Sarah Jane paced back and forth, luckily unempathic enough that her pacing didn't seem to set him on edge... well, anymore than he already was, anyway. His hands writhed a little in front of his stomach, fingers twisting and locking, rubbing in between each other in turn in nervous, fidgetting habit. He couldn't imagine how horrible it would be to find yourself here, recognize names and faces and sights, but not remember why it filled you with such dread. Or maybe he was just searching for a reason to not feel completely guilty about what he was doing here, telling her about the horrors he had learned about Vas Captio both first- and second-hand.

"A journalist?" he asked, voice peaking a lot higher than it should've done in anxious enthusiasm. He was most likely just distracting himself, and her, his nervous disposition getting the better of him. "That- that's really cool, I've, uh, I've worked with a lot of journalists, both crooked and honest... not to say that you're, you know, the former of the two, I'm sure you, well, you seem to be very... honest."

He stopped himself and cleared his throat, scratching the back of his head again. "I, um, I have an eidetic memory, I can... pretty much remember everything I see. It's not always a gift." He looked up at her again, avoiding her eyes for the most part. "I worked with the, uh, the Behavioural Analysis Unit of the FBI, we would profile serial killers and use our findings to catch them... but uh, we did a lot of crime scene investigation, and it was always..."

Babbling again. Reid relinked his fingers together, looking down at the floor rather than at Sarah Jane.

"I, uh... I was here just a few days. Maybe a week... tops? Not, not much longer. I was here for... about a day... before I woke up in a, um, it was some sort of bunker. There were screens lining one wall, and they came on one by one. There were, ah, other people locked in the bunker with me, and uh, you... were one of them."

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got2haveasmith
2010-07-13 02:36 pm UTC (link)

Sarah Jane nodded at his question, and couldn't help but chuckle as he went on about the journalists he'd known. "I'd like to consider myself the latter," she said. "Although I will admit to having to create cover stories for papers when the truth would have been too difficult to be believed." How many excuses had Mr. Smith created over the last few years? And how many had she herself written, after carefully writing up the true account of something, like the dinosaurs in London, when she was told the Official Secrets Act wouldn't let her real story be published? At least her skills had gone to use. There was a file somewhere in the UNIT archives with her name on, full of reports of the various things she'd witnessed over the years. And all her investigative skills had helped to save the planet several times, which was more important than a by-line any day.

She listened to Dr. Reid's description of his job and nodded in sympathy. She'd had acquaintance with people like him over the years, and it wasn't an easy job. Useful, especially when she needed something looked at, or some sort of pattern analyzed, but not easy.

Bunker. Screens lining a wall. Locked in a bunker with other people. Sarah Jane's eyes narrowed and she frowned, trying to remember. The images wouldn't come, at least, not yet. She was certain that listening to him would help her memory. "Go on," she said when he paused in his recounting.

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awkwardgenius
2010-07-13 03:20 pm UTC (link)

Reid nodded, sliding both hands into his pockets anxiously. He nodded as she told him to go on, frowning a little. "I don't really know... I mean, we uh, we just sort of woke up there... Obviously we were placed there by the Management to observe the others who weren't in the bunker, who... they were being tortured in different ways, uh... some-someone was being cut into, someone else was being drowned..." He was being vague, he remembered every detail only too well.

"It's called sadistic voyerism, it's the act of deliberately causing distress onto another person, typically weaker or in a less able situation than yourself, to enjoy watching and observing it yourself. The Management, they uh... they put us in these cruel situations either to please and amuse themselves, or because they honestly believe they are at the brink of an experiment of some description.

"There was a book - a DSM-IV - in the bunker with us, as well as food. We were starving but we couldn't eat. Most people couldn't even watch... but the Management expected us to psychologically evaluate those being tortured and write our findings on a whiteboard."

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got2haveasmith
2010-07-13 08:58 pm UTC (link)

As Dr. Reid spoke, Sarah Jane's eyes widened, but other than that, she managed not to show the horror she was feeling twisting in her stomach. She folded her arms, forcing herself to pay attention as he explained the circumstances and his hypothesis on why it had happened.

Well, she had a bloody good reason for that awful feeling she had associated with not only the place, but the Management, and with Dr. Reid, by extension. She'd been forced, as he had, to watch people she knew, people she considered friends, being tortured in front of her. And, although he'd said most didn't watch, Sarah Jane knew she had been one of the exceptions. She'd never been able to turn away from her friends, and if all she could do was bear witness to their suffering, then that was what she would have done.

"If I were to ask about certain people," Sarah Jane said slowly, "would you remember them enough to tell me what happened to them?" She wasn't sure she wanted to know, but if Rose and Jack did remember, she wanted to at least be on as equal a footing with them as she could.

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awkwardgenius
2010-07-13 09:30 pm UTC (link)

Reid bit his lip, rocking back and forth the tiniest bit on his heels. "I... it's feasable, though I didn't hear many of their names..."

Awkward situations like this, tense and depressing, always made him feel weird because, well, he felt nothing. Unless he had experienced it himself, he usually managed to dissociate himself from the situation due to a severe lack of empathy, which was probably what made him such a great agent with the BAU - when you didn't get emotionally invested easily, you were more objective, more logical.

Sometimes his unempathic nature held him so far from the situation at hand, his emotions so socially confused, that he almost felt like smiling during stressful times like this. Not often, but on occasion. Although he had been horrified at what happened, he was still able to dissociate and look at it logically.

"Who were you asking about...? Your son, Luke? He wasn't here before, as far as I can remember..."

[ ooc: I may need some help remembering unless the logs are still up! I'll go back and check! ]

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got2haveasmith
2010-07-16 10:42 pm UTC (link)

If he didn't hear many names, he might not know. Best to keep it to people from home, then, people she knew well enough to worry about. She shook her head. "No, not Luke. He wasn't here before, thank goodness." She glanced toward the closed door of the room. "Management didn't used to have children here, I don't think." Although, she could see children's faces, if she concentrated. Little blonde girl, little brown-haired boys, little girl with oddly colored hair and pigtails. That made no sense to her.

"The Doctor, for one," she said. "There were two people here using that name - one with close-cropped hair and larger ears - usually wore a leather jacket, and another, skinny man, pinstripes and trainers with brown hair that never looks combed." She hoped she wouldn't have to go into explaining the Doctor just yet. It could get complicated. "Jack Harkness - dark hair, square jaw, military coat. Ianto Jones, shorter hair, always wore a suit. And Rose Tyler, blonde woman, about my height, large brown eyes."

As for the others she'd met - Shannon, Sam and Dean, Remy, L, Walter - that could wait. Shannon wasn't even here, so far as she could tell, nor was Walter. And she'd ask about the rest later, depending on what Dr. Reid was able to tell her about her friends from home.

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awkwardgenius
2010-07-17 08:21 am UTC (link)

Reid frowned, lifting a finger to his lips and pursing them against the knuckle as he thought back, straining his eidetic memory. The recollections didn't hurt so much when he was looking at them from an analytical point of view. He racked his brain for names, names and descriptions.

"There was someone they referred to as the Doctor... and Jack. The, the doctor in the pinstripe suit, with the shaggy haircut... They were together, with another man. He was wearing a suit, short hair, but I... I don't recall his name." He frowned, pinching the lines of his forehead together beneath his bangs.

"There was, uh... there was a machine, I've never seen one before, but it had a large blade on it... the screen cut out before anything too, uh, violent was shown." He swallowed a bit, not even realizing that his recollection might be upsetting Sarah Jane, and continued.

"Rose, I... I don't remember a rose. There were several blonde girls, one was with two wolves, they were chained in a room with her... another one had a pregnancy test, the torture was purely psychological in that one, as opposed to physically frightening or painful like the majority... there was a third, she was... she was guarding a man, who was then, uh... touched... by a woman." His brain hurt, and he stopped for a moment, allowing his strained mind to relax.

"I was, uh, distracted, but I saw the majority of it... not many people wanted to watch. The fact that the unsub- uh, that the Management wanted us to... to watch each other, to profile them, with the DSM-IV, tells us a lot about them. I don't think they were willing to share their experiment with us, to allow us to help, I think they were taunting us."

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got2haveasmith
2010-07-19 08:05 pm UTC (link)

Jack and the Doctor, and a man that could have been Ianto, in a room with a machine with a large blade. "What were they doing?" Sarah Jane asked, flashes of...something...going through her mind at that description. Whatever had happened, she'd seen it. She had to have, if it felt so familiar. Her voice was hollow as she spoke, though, knowing she wouldn't like the answer to her question.

When he started on the litany of blondes, Sarah Jane listened carefully, her mind racing to figure out which might be Rose, if any. "Did any of the girls speak? Rose has an English accent."

Of course the Management had been taunting them. Why else lock them in a cage to watch people be tortured on monitors, and be unable to help? The book and the white board and notes were just icing on their cruel cake. She shut her eyes, trying to force her brain to remember. It was something she should ask Jack about, when she had the chance. If he remembered, he at least would be direct about it. She wasn't sure she wanted to try and make Rose recount any of those sorts of details. But the scene of Jack and the Doctor and that room...something was very familiar about it, and she couldn't quite place it. Hopefully, Dr. Reid would be able to help her fill in the gaps.

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awkwardgenius
2010-07-25 05:30 am UTC (link)

Reid's teeth grazed his chapped, torn lip, biting down on it a little, and he shifted his stance awkwardly. His hands twisted and writhed together as he stared down at them to avoid her eyes.

"I, uh... they were... there-there was that blade, and uh, they, they didn't exactly show us everything, they-they cut the feed before anything happened, but uh..." Reid cleared his throat.

"The, uh, the blade? It was almost as if they were going to... cut into his head." He looked up warily, as if testing her reaction.

[ ooc; Sorry for the late response!!! ]

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got2haveasmith
2010-07-27 05:30 pm UTC (link)

She watched Dr. Reid carefully as she waited for his response, noting how uncomfortable he was with the discussion. Well, he'd offered. And Sarah Jane's innate curiosity, even when faced with something morbid, perhaps especially in this case, was going to press until it was satisfied.

"Who was going to cut into whose head?" she asked slowly, voice far more level and deliberate than it had a right to be, given the chill running down her spine. But she'd never shied away from the unpleasant.

[OOC: It's all good!]

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