ArchivedLogs:Brussel Sprouts

Brussel Sprouts
Dramatis Personae Trib, Imani
In Absentia	2013-05-13 Eat your vegetables. (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location Thunderdome
It's a basement, somewhere, that much is clear from the slightly musty-cool feel, the lack of windows, the stark-bare cement decor. What purpose this place originally served is hard to discern; something industrial, judging by the heavy reinforced eyelet hooks still set into the ceiling, now devoid of any loads to bear. Of late the place has been repurposed, though. Around two parallel edges of the room, sturdy cells have been constructed, heavy reinforced metal segmenting off large cage-like cells. The enclosures are largely identical: two sets of bunk beds with pillows, thin sheets, identical grey wool blankets. A pair of large covered bedpans, a bucket usually filled with fresh-ish water. The center of the room is divided in two. One half is large and open, a spacious expanse of cement floor and emptiness. The other half holds long trestle-tables, long benches, both riveted into the cement floor. The ceiling -- of the room, of the cages -- hold very noticeable dark security-camera bubbles. There is one door leading out of here, heavy steel that is securely chained and barred from the outside. It's the evening meal -- or rather, the third meal since the captive mutants were rousted out of their cells today. Which means, probably, that it's evening. Still, the mutants shuffle forward when the food appears, falling into line silently, some aided along by short zzaps of their collars when they move too slowly. The meal tonight appears to be...chicken. It's not well-cooked, and it's more than a little mangled, but it's on the trays being handed out, along with boiled potatoes and brussel sprouts. Brussel sprouts. Is there no end to the torture these madmen will resort to? Trib does not move quickly towards the line, but then he never moves quickly, here in the gladiator cells. He moves with the confident, slinking pace of a jungle cat. Dressed in tattered jeans and a dingy white tank top, the big man reaches up to rub a finger under the metal-and-plastic muzzle that covers the lower portion of his face, falling into line behind a nervous-looking new arrival. Who seems uncertain what to do, despite the guard holding out the tray and the small zzaps he receives for his reluctance. "Fuckin' /take/ the goddamned thing," Trib growls. "I'm fuckin' hungry." That seems to spur the smaller mutant into action, and he takes the tray and moves with alacrity to a table as far from Trib as is possible. The big man watches him go with a very dog-like huff, and turns to take his tray before he's moving in the opposite direction, claiming a spot at a table near the 'sparring area'. Once settled, he begins tearing at his chicken, slowly and methodically reducing it to shreds. Imani just takes the tray. She hasn't said much in the week she's been here. She's done what she's told and has stayed largely silent. She hasn't tried to spar, preferring, when she's out of her cage and given a moment, to either do calisthenics or sluice off the results of said calisthenics. She ends up near Trib though, and says probably her first words here. And they are, as she plucks up a brussels sprout, "Oooh uh-uh." She lets it fall with a grimace, shoving them to one side of her plate as if separating out bits of toxic waste. Which. In fact. She is. Then she stabs dissolutely at one of the potatoes, glowering at the thing as if /it/ were responsible for the disgusting little green spheres on the tray. Personally. Responsible. Trib doesn't look up immediately when he's joined by the woman. Instead, he focuses on shoving food through the bars in his mask, bits of chicken clutched in his half-hand; the other alternating between potatoes and sprouts. It's probably not a good idea to watch him eat the sprouts. They are, unfortunately, slightly larger than the space between bars, and /squishy/. After a couple of minutes, he looks up, shoving fingers into his mask to suck them clean. Loudly, and almost lewdly as he looks the woman over carefully. Then he nods at the tray, and the excommunicated sprouts. "You gonna eat those?" "Naw. They're yours, man," Imani says. She adds them to his tray with her fork, carefully keeping her eyes off of the mess of sprout and mask that's happening over there. She simply stabs them one by one and then twists them off, letting them fall. She looks relieved to get them off her plate. There might have been some brussels slime left behind that might well have contaminated every other thing that's there. She waits carefully, tensing to see if she's going to get herself shocked for passing the food, for all that she's witnessed all sorts of other food exchanges going on around here. When nothing comes, she slowly untenses her body and gets back to the business of filling it up. Trib's eyebrows twitch as the woman not only gives him her food, she serves it /up/. His eyes track the sprout progress even as his fingers are pushing some of that sprout mess from the bars and on into his mouth. His grunt might be a thank you, or it could be a suppressed belch. When she pauses, he snorts, and looks up at the camera bubbles. "They ain't gonna give you a jolt for that, babe. They could give a shit if a freak wants to starve themself." She follows his gaze up to the camera bubbles, then nods. "Guess they're just concerned with everyone getting into one place then." Referring, of course, to the jolts people are getting when they don't get to the food fast enough. She has been far more interested in watching for the signs of how things work, for good or for ill, than in gathering up firsthand experience, after all. She doesn't spend too long looking up at the bubble though, just in case some bored guard takes it as a sign of defiance. "How long you been stuck here?" Trib rolls his shoulder, and picks up some chicken to shove into his mask. "They just don't want to be down here with us any longer than they have to be," he says. "And some of the sick bas -- ngh --" his neck muscles clench under the sudden, unexpected zzap of the collar. "Just like to be pricks," he finishes in a dark sort of voice. There's more eating, then, as Trib seemingly ignores the question. More sprouts meet their squishy doom before the big man shifts his chin ever so slightly to peer over the rim of his mask at the woman. "Maybe five, six weeks," he says. "You been in the ring, yet?" She watches him just take the shock, observing that for a moment. Something crosses over her face, a brief flicker -- both impressed with his fortitude and a trifle more wary of him as a result. Then, Imani had simply eaten in silence while he did, waiting patiently until he answered her question, not pressing if he decides he doesn't want to. When he does, she shakes her head. "No," she replies. "Not yet." Trib huffs something at the woman's response, and his head shakes slowly from side to side once. "You will." Despite the dark prophecy of his words, his tone is bored-sounding. More chicken meets its end, and then more potatoes. It's a careful rotation of the three foods, broken once or twice by the need to lick his fingers clean. He watches the woman eat her food, and his golden gaze is unreadable. "You ever fought before?" "Sure. But with a weapon, not in a freaking pit," Imani says, snorting, almost contemptuous of her own prowess. "And not much of that. Was a marine, but my job was to fix transports." She neatly finishes off those potatoes and moves on to the chicken. "Never thought I'd miss Afghanistan." "More of a cage than a pit," Trib notes lazily, sucking at his fingers. "And you don't get no weapons, 'cept the ones you're born with." His eyes narrow at the revelation of her previous status, and there's a small hardening around the big man's eyes. "Yeah, well, this ain't nothin' like anything you're used to," he says, as if the woman had just arrived. "I don't even think those terrorist fucks could come up with shit like this." His entire torso locks this time, and the shock is more of a ZZAP. His fingers twitch, and there's an audible noise as his teeth grind together. When it ends, he takes a deep breath, and flexes his fingers slowly, as if working the blood back into them. The woman just get a pop of his eyebrows. See? "Yeah, it's--" Imani thinks better of what she was going to say, watching Trib sit through his second round of punishment. "unique," she finishes slowly, picking a more neutral word. Then she asks, "Why do you do that? You know they're going to respond, and how they're going to respond. Obviously you can take it, but why would you provoke it?" Trib snorts a sound that could be a laugh. "It passes the time," he says, rolling his eyes to stare at the woman in almost a silent challenge. "Keeps 'em on their toes." She observes that stare, and for a moment she can't help it. This ghost of a smile flickers about her lips. Just for a moment. She appears to be giving her response to that unspoken challenge very careful thought. Finally the lines on her face settle into a faint smirk. And she says lightly, "I don't think I'm going to smash that particular beer can on my head today." "Yeah. Don't want to mess up that pretty neck of yours," Trib says, and the crinkle of his eyes says that there might be a hard grin behind that mask. "'fore they want it messed up." He's almost finished with his food, using a finger to push around his tray and collect grease and bits of meat and potato. "You been here, what? A week? Two?" "A week," Imani says, sobering again, the smirk and smile flickering off into the distance. For a moment her eyes flicker up to that globe, narrowing. Her jaw sets. And then she settles back down, studying him again, waiting for the reason behind that question, what he's got to say about it. Trib has no follow-up, apparently, as he suddenly pushes to his feet, and picks up his tray. "Come see me later for sparring," he says, and it's clear it's not a request. Then he's moving off, tossing his tray in the bin before heading towards the washing-up area, stripping off his tank as he goes. She stares after him, blinking in surprise. A week was long enough to figure that out. "Huh," she says, looking a bit dumbfounded at that one. But she in fact will go see him for sparring. But...obviously...not while he's cleaning up.