(OOC: Open for all guards, mutants with cleaning duty and other camp personnel.)

Then Men's and Women's camp were separated by double fences. Located in the space between camps, behind the Main Office/Infirmary and in front of the Mess Hall, was the Guards Barracks. Due to the nature of the camp residents, the Guard Barracks had a bit more security than the rest of the buildings, save the Main Office and Infirmary.

Compared to the Mutant Barracks, the Guards' quarters wallowed in luxury. Set up more like a motel than barracks, each guard was granted a private room, complete with twin bed, closet and chest, a TV, and a desk. Each room required an electronic keycard to unlock it, as did the main gate of the barracks. It was not completely his or hers, as the guards changed shifts every week, but it was much more private than the mutants.

On opposite sides of the Barracks were gender separate locker rooms, with private lockers for those who wished, as well as bathrooms and showers.

The most secure part of the Barracks was the Armory, only accessible by not just a keycard, but a valid fingerprint as well. The government fully expected riots and hostilities within the mutant ranks; in their opinions mutants lived for violence and knew nothing else. Therefore the Armory held enough riot gear to arm a small army. Everything from stun guns, tranq snipers and tear gas grenades to the more intense gear could be found. While nothing of overt deadliness was stocked, due to liability for unnecessary death and other such bureauocratic, red-tape nonsense, they conveniently ignored the questionable backgrounds and mental instability of some of the guards. Add in the Stalker bots that roamed the camp locale, and the govermentals assumed that the camps were 'well supervised'.

Any mutants who drew cleaning duty had to be escorted by a guard, preferably two, all during cleaning. Considering most of the guards would rather be harrassing the inmates, often escort duty fell as a version of punishment to the least liked of the guards, thus making it doubly difficult for the mutants.

Ruby Lupin walked into the first guard barrack, eyes looking around in wide wonder. She watched as the guard who had escorted her there walked away, leaving her to begin cleaning, however they where not far away from her so just in case she did anything wrong they could be there to 'correct it.'

Ruby then began sweeping the floor of the first Barrak, getting every nook and crany of the room. She then swept everything into a neat pile in the corner of the room.

'Wow' Ruby thought as she swept the floor some more. 'This is going to be easier than I thought'

A familiar voice came from the hall getting louder. James was elbowing another guard in the ribs laughing as he told the rest of his joke, long hilarious story, what ever it was. “So I told her, ‘Hey those are my fish sticks.’ You get it? Fish sticks!” A harsh laugh was followed and an ooh as he elbowed the other guard in the ribs again. The other guard never made any other sort of sound.

“Oh I’ll catch up with you Jack.” James said. “I’ve got to get something out of my room.” A second later his lean form appeared in his door frame. His eye brow raised and a grin curved it’s way across his face. The door swung shut just behind his heals. “Hi tails,” He nodded in Ruby’s direction. “You missed a spot over there. Chop chop!”

Ruby yipped in a startled tone, her body begining to tremble instantly. She looked at the male before her body still shaking. The fox girl's mentality changed at that moment, now she knew she was in for a bumpy ride.

The youngest Lupin sister scuttled over to the corner she missed and began sweeping, ears flat to her head and tail drooping between her legs.

"Yes sir." Ruby replied meekly, allowing her tail to curl slightly around her.

Jame’s turned to a large mirror that stood to the right of his bed at a vanity desk. Most of it was covered in paper work and information he had gathered on different mutants. Call it a bit of bed time reading. Here he glanced up watching Ruby’s reflection next to his. “So how’s your sister?” he asked.

Mean while rifling through a drawer looking for something. A purple shadow was on his cheek where the wolf girl had struck him. Good thing he carried a concealer. Cover girl, it worked for men too!

Finding a small case of make up at the back of the drawer and proceeded to freshen the makeup on his cheek to cover the bruise. Looking like he was well practiced. Particularly blending the edges of the color and matching his own skin.

Ruby kept sweeping nervously, terrified the man was going to hurt her. The fox girl's ears flattened to her head as she began to dust the furniture in he room. The little one was scared to say the least, scared of things that would come.

"My sister is fine." The fox girl replied meekly, ears drooping

James flashed a smile, that turned to a grimace as he ran his hand over the bruise. “It’s sooo good to know whe is doing just fine.” His eyes flicked from the reflection of his cheek in the mirror to Ruby then back. “I should have pushed the button on my remote a little harder. Maybe it would have gotten stuck.” He seemed to grin at that part.

Ruby froze next to the lamp she was dusting, tail drooping between her legs. She attempted to clear her face of any emotion, not wanting the sadistic man to take any pleasure from the fear she was feeling She just wished her shift in the guard barracks would be over soon so she could leave to go to the customs house.

"I'm sure with the two by four technology that those collars are built with it would be impossible." Ruby replied, "Even if it did get stuck there is most likely a failsafe that will turn off the collar if it senses the mutant is dying. Due to the fact you human friends of Humanity need us for manual labour."

James now turned from the mirror. A wide grin on his face. “Do you really think the government would spend that much money for your safety?” Ok. Not something he really knew about but it didn’t mean she knew that.

He leaned back against his vanity desk and watched Ruby again. “Don’t forget the dust on the vents and back of the TV.”

((ooc: This post revolves around two songs from the RENT soundtrack: “Will I?” and “No Day But Today”. It incidentally starts off with the tail end of “Pepper” by the Butthole Surfers, as well.))

It was winter. The shortest day of the year was coming up quickly, though the way the sky darkened earlier and earlier left a feeling in the air like the sun didn’t mean to return, this time around. Rupert wasn’t depressed. He was just depressing.

“Mr. Kelley,” one of the guards said, as he put a new packet into the coffee maker, “you’re depressing. You know what you need? To go out and press a few buttons.” He tapped his own remote by way of demonstration, no doubt shocking some poor unsuspecting freak out there minding his or her own business. Rupert glanced up from the table, his own coffee cup, and a stack of paperwork. He pulled on a white wire, popping a headphone out of his ear.

“You say something?”

The guard waved it off. “Never mind.” As the coffee maker began its happy trickle into the empty pot, Rupert pushed his headphone back in.

—and softly spoken lies
You never know just how you look
Through other people's eyes

There were the usual: new camp resident forms to look over, medical supplies to order, and another request by Senator Dumonde demanding to know if his daughter had been mistakenly interned. The answer, just like last week, was no. There was a window right next to the table, across from his seat. The camps looked cold and dead. His ipod picked up its next song.


Will I lose my dignity

It had been seven weeks since the camps began. Seventy thousand, five hundred sixty minutes. It felt exactly that long.

Will someone care

Rupert had spent most of the time inside, doing paperwork. It wasn’t his job to be out there making sure that their own private Hell came equipped with a personal touch. He was a supervisor: it was his job to make sure that the guards did that. And, apparently, to order potatoes. And condensed chicken broth. And the finest in mutation-suppressing drugs, straight from top-of-the-line researcher firms to your friendly neighborhood detainee’s mouth. He wondered how many of them had even noticed they were being drugged, past the collars.

Will I wake tomorrow

He would be in the break room, but that was over next to the infirmary. Gwendolyn’s turf. There was something about the looks that woman shot his way that made him feel like he should be tucking his tail between his legs. So he’d set up his own private corner of the camp, weeks ago, in the common room of the guard’s barracks. Technically he had an office, but it looked out on the discipline circle. Enough said. It was generally quite quiet in the guards’ barracks, besides the stray freak wandering in with their accompanying guard to clean or change sheets. The fox girl had been through a few times. Occasionally, people even tried to talk to him. It was astounding how easily he could pass off a pair of earbuds as an excuse to ignore the world.

From this nightmare?

He’d seen Raina. He wasn’t sure if she had seen him. He... wasn’t making an effort to be visible.


Will I lose my dignity
Will someone care

He stretched his arms over his head, and cracked his knuckles. It was gray outside. Gray and dead. Insufferably plain; bored tedium in shades of white darkening to black. Raina’s hair was black now. It was the strangest thing.

Will I wake tomorrow
From this nightmare?

He shook out his wrist, and picked up his pen again. He was looking at the small, neat stack of death certificates. Three today.


Will I lose my dignity

Jennifer Christianson. 1987 – 2007. Light creator.

Will someone care

James Olander. 1954 – 2007. Green thumb.

Will I wake tomorrow

Christopher Douglas. 1971 – 2007. Thread manipulator.

From this nightmare?

He read each of them completely. The handwriting was always a tell as to who had written it: thin, hurried lines was one of the normal nurses; a bold, lazy black scrawl was the head doctor; a tight, angry blue pen was Gwendolyn. He had one of each today.


Will I lose my dignity

He signed each of them in turn, acknowledging that Jennifer Christianson, James Olander, and Christopher Douglas had lived.

Will someone care

Acknowledging that Jennifer Christianson, James Olander, and Christopher Douglas had died, here, under his watch.

Will I wake tomorrow

While the resistance was sitting on its over-powered ass.

From this nightmare?

Rupert’s pen punched through the death certificate of Christopher Douglas. He set it on the table, crossed his arms behind his head, and closed his eyes.

Will I lose my dignity
Will someone care
Will I wake tomorrow
From this nightmare?

He was ready to go. The Stalkers were the main problem, but they could be distracted elsewhere when the main breakout began: there really weren’t that many of the bots. An attack nearby, or even on the camps themselves, would draw most of those overpriced tin cans off of the main operation. If he had a date, he could send in Cube to discreetly sabotage the drug supply in advance so that it was wearing out of the muties’ systems by the time their collars came off. Deactivated, at least: Rupert really had the guards to thank for that one. A few deaths by over-shocking later, and all of the supervisors had been issued a master control switch. They could turn off the input from any guard’s remote if things looked like they might get fatal. It had only worked to inspire creativity in the guard’s torture methods of choice, in Rupert’s opinion, but it made things damn convenient. The guards themselves weren’t an issue. Most of them were just human. When things got started...


Will I lose my dignity

...It was going to be a massacre.

Will someone care

Rupert felt cold. Damned heating system in this place—it just didn’t get through to a man’s bones. There really wasn’t any getting rid of this feeling of breaking frost.

Will I wake tomorrow

This feeling that no matter what he did, no matter who he tried to save, he was screwing over someone.

From this nightmare?


The song ended in a chorused harmony of voices, leaving him in silence. Rupert opened his eyes, stacked the death certificates neatly, and pulled over Senator Dumonde’s latest misplaced plea for information. As he moved the paper, another shifted out of the stack. Rupert caught it before it went over the edge of the table to the floor. He looked at it as the next song caught.

The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn

There is no future
There is no past
I live this moment as my last

Without a blink of his eyes, Rupert set the stray paper back, tucking it under others. It wasn’t time for that yet, and it was only a rough draft, in any case. But it was decided. He looked out the window again. It was dark out: he couldn’t actually see anything but his own reflection, staring back at him. He looked... depressing. Grim. Like a man who was taking his job more seriously than anyone had expected. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see through the window—he knew what was going on, out there in the darkness.

There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss
No other road
No other way
No day but today

Today, and tomorrow, and the day after, and all the days until the resistance contacted him again. He was ready, but he couldn’t pull this off alone.

The paper he’d tucked away was out of sight, but he knew what it said. It was stumbling and awkward, but it made him feel light, somehow. Strange. Nearly eight years of his life, twenty-one years of dreams leading up to that, and a future he’d been taking for granted: one little piece of paper would end all of that. He didn’t know how he was going to break his resignation from the force to Captain Cynthia Myers. He didn’t even know how to put his reasons into words. And he had no clue where he was going to go from here. It was just... time for him to get a new page.

The final draft would wait. There were a few matters that needed taking care of, first, and he wasn’t sure the resistance would approve of all of them. Rupert had realized something, though: there were right things to do, in this world. And clearly, someone had to do them.

(*Sneaks my two characters into the thread for a short few posts.* If I need to delete this pm me. I’ll delete it.)

“Right in here ladies.” A low, male voice practically Sang. “Your stop, puss in boots.” James had clearly been loving his work the last seven weeks. His physic was still in prime condition, no one but the hair balls, Sara and Ruby, knew about his make up kit, and thanks to that shiny little red remote button his self esteem was sky high. He waved the remote towards the other side of the room giving a quick glimpse at how well worn the controls on his remote had become.

Sara stepped inside the door, a canvas bag hung over her shoulder and a basket rested against her hip. One for clean towels and linens, one for dirty. She walked around the table, giving a short peak at the hall behind her. James had the other female mutant by the shoulder. His excuse was that she couldn’t see but Sara knew very well that Shya didn’t need his thumb digging into her upper arm, in order to walk. She knew Shya could get around most of the camp very. Only asking for guidance when she noticed things were changed. James needed only to tell her to go collect the three bodies, she could go without him. Instead he had taken in upon himself to drag and yank Shya back and forth along her path.

Sara didn’t know how Shya could still pull a smile across her face. She’d expected the blind girl to be one of the first to fall. Instead she had become one of the strongest individuals Sara had known. Shya had taken on the task of burying the dead rather then letting the camps bury her. Sara had watched her break down, and cry, but the girl always found faith. Holding it so close and keeping belief in the idea that she would be home again.

James gave Sara a little finger wave, like he was cute brunet across the street, saluted Rupert and let the door slam shut. Leaving Sara to finish her work in this room and move on to the laundry pool.

She glanced up at Rupert, eyes verifying who her nose had recognized, then dropped her gaze. She hadn’t really talked to him. Hell she’d avoided most of the human’s here if she could. But she seen him threw the window and while she was gathering laundry. She’d also seen his face way back at registration seven weeks ago. Since then Sara’s look had changed. Her shoulders and arms looked boney. Cheek bones hollowed along with her amber eyes. The first day had taken a lot out of her. Causing her to heal every few minutes. Pair that with her cuff kicking in when ever her healing ability triggered, and her body just hadn’t recovered the weight.

Before coming to the camps, she only had one scar. A number, burned into her back, and covered by her grey dress. Now she had two. The cuff had burned into her wrist, making the hair fall out in a ring and displaying a fresh scar around her skin. For the first few nights the scar disappeared and the hair grew back. Now it didn’t.

The basket was set on the floor with a thunk. Kneeling next to it and pulling out the coffee stained towels. Those were dumped into the sack. Then she removed the clean ones and started folding them.

((ooc: Not a problem, Were. )

Rupert kept track of the three newcomers in the window’s reflection, not bothering to glance up from his paperwork. He very pointedly ignored James’ salute. Though the guard wasn’t one of the worst in this place, he certainly was one of the ones who took the most pleasure in what he did. The other day, as they punched in, Rupert could have sworn the man was humming. Humming. There was something wrong with a man who hummed over the chance to spend a few more hours making someone’s life miserable. Blissfully, the man was only jut passing though. He thoughtfully dragged the camp’s resident blind girl out of the building with him. It was the strangest thing, who died in here, and who didn’t. Rupert had pegged that girl as a goner weeks ago. Instead, she spent her days burying others. Morbid, but every bit as metaphorical as it was literal.

That left him alone with the lioness. There were only two people in the camps that Rupert didn’t feel bad about in the least. Isabel the bow-wearing cop-killer, and Nika, the cat girl who had gone out of her feline way to kill cops at the registration building. Sara here was close to being on that list. Not for any logical reason: just a whole combination of gut-reaction ones. She was blatantly a mutant; there was no denying that. To see something with her looks walking upright always made Rupert feel unsettled, on a level he couldn’t define: it was just wrong. Mutants really weren’t human. Sara here was proof of that, and a constant reminder that he was, at his very instinctual core, still a bigot.

It was the reason she was on his top list of those to help. If he could get her out of here alive... It wouldn’t matter how revolted he felt every time he looked at her. He would be proving something to himself.

Plus, she was a cat. He hated cats: the four-legged kind, that is. Now that was something about himself that he didn’t plan on working on. If cats didn’t want him to hate them, then they should just top being so damn smug about themselves.

Rupert stood, stretched out his back, and went to pour himself a new cup of coffee. While he was over there... he glanced down at the mutie, letting his eyes reflect all that disgust he felt for her. “Well you’re just a bag of bones, aren’t you? Why don’t you go to Gwendolyn, and get a doctor’s note for extra rations, or something. She just loves taking any excuse to coddle you freaks.” The girl really could use a few extra meals in her. Not that most of the muties didn’t.

(OOC: Splitting off so we don't interrupt, but keep the setting straight. Please feel free to ignore us. Posting for Amp and Grunt here)

“Well you’re just a bag of bones, aren’t you?

Sara paused for a second. Eye’s squeezing shut, not sure what to make of the fact she was being addressed. Her fingers fumbled with the towel while she found the corners, then stopped herself from poking a claw threw the fabric. Her first shirt she’d washed had a set of holes in the shoulder. She’d tried to watch things since but there had been a few accidents.

Why don’t you go to Gwendolyn, and get a doctor’s note for extra rations, or something. She just loves taking any excuse to coddle you freaks.”

Did he really have to ask? First off the, Sara saw the note as being another way of singling herself out. The name he’d just given her, ‘Freak’, should have answered his own question. Her throat tightened, making her swallow. Her extra thinness was in part, based on her own mutation. Yes she was hungry, but she’d rather go hungry then walk around with more then what others were given.

Secondly, this thought came back to the ending of the last. She didn’t want more then the others here. She wasn’t the only one looking skinnier. Even if it was from her abilities, she didn’t want to have special treatment. Not more, Less she could handle.

Third, her pride. She shouldn’t need extra.

She lifted her chin letting her eyes look right into Rupert’s. “I would never use the note.” She said with a steady voice. Simple, short, answer she could have made so much longer.

“I haven’t made any trips to Gwendolyn,” Mostly thanks to her healing ability. A blessing and a curse, here. “and I don’t plan to,.. Sir.”

Rupert listened to the lioness say her piece. Then he took a sip of his new coffee cup. His new, exceedingly hot coffee. Well, that was fresh and scalding. He kept his face straight as he swallowed, but didn’t rush to take another drink. ...Ouch. With a distinct effort, he recollected his sense of zealotous distain and replied to the foolish girl:

“Excellent. Saves me having to order extra food, if you can live on just eating that pride of yours.” He absentmindedly sipped at his coffee again, to punctuate his cool statement.

...Oh crap that burned.