"How very 28 Days Later - only with less zombies."

Who: Brett and Indira
When: Mid-morning
Where: Grocery store

To say Indira hadn't expected the situation she'd found herself in upon waking would be an understatement. She'd been led to believe her arrival in this oversized halfway house would be by car or other motorized transport, not that she'd be drugged and moved in the night. Not to mention, no one from her experiment save Addison was here - or if they were, they weren't answering.

Indira took a few moments upon waking, after answering Addison, to get the house set up satisfactorily - scavenging for strips of rubber to hang from the doorknobs, setting down heavy objects to act as door stops. The wooden dowels for flipping switches and pushing doors open (though they should never be closed, but she liked to be prepared) would need to be picked up. Having done as much as she could, Indira drew on her veil, grabbed and umbrella, and headed down to the market. She'd need supplies, then she could work on figuring out what was going on.

Once there, she immediately set to work. Fresh produce was low on her scale of necessities; she planned on picking some up, but first she wanted a decent stock of canned food, water, flashlights and batteries, and packaged things that could be easily carried if they decided to make a run for it. Reaching for a can of soup, she misjudged the distance and fumbled, sending the can clattering to the ground (nearly missing her toes) and rolling away. With a curse, she turned to look for it.

Brett had hardly slept after he'd thrown the woman who's name he still didn't know out of his house last night. Or less 'thrown' and more 'told to leave'. It wasn't guilt for what he'd said that had kept him awake though, it was what she'd said to him before she went. The fact that that guy had been tortured. It definitely gave him something to think about and he'd left his house at dawn. He'd not had a goal in mind. Possibly to find her, not knowing where to start looking. Possibly just to get out - he felt better outside. If the first had been his goal, he hadn't met it yet, but when he rolled past the grocery store, he headed inside. They'd be needing supplies anyhow, and whilst he'd be shit at actually carrying back in bulk, he could get up an idea of what they could pilfer once he'd visited Lina and talked about the car situation.

He'd anticipated the place would be empty, since everywhere seemed abandoned, but he was rolling down the bakery isle when he heard the distinct clang of a can on the floor. "Hello?" he called, heading in that direction, surprise at not being alone overcoming his usual 'fuck off and die' persona.

Indira was just as surprised to realize she wasn't alone in the grocery store; she wasn't sure if she would have preferred it or if she was glad to hear someone else. The town had a very empty feel, boarded-up houses and businesses abandoned. Thinking of the parts of her face the veil couldn't hide, she wanted to walk the other way, keep quiet and get her supplies. But she needed to know what was going on - or rather, specifics, as she could imagine what was happening in general.

Bending to grasp the can - which took two tries, to her frustration - Indira stepped out into the main aisle of the store, looking for the source of the voice. "Who's there?" she called back.

Brett followed the sound of the woman's voice - why were they always women, anyway? he'd not met a single guy in this damn town - and wheeled round into the main aisle, to see the veiled figure standing a bit away, looking in the opposite direction. "Here," he called, starting towards her.

Indira turned, hand moving automatically to make sure the veil was still in place, a dark plum worn over her black sweater. As covered as she was going to get, she headed forward to meet the man in the wheelchair who'd appeared behind her. She wondered if he'd had it before coming here or if it had happened during his experiment. "What's happened?" she asked as she approached, basket of groceries in hand.

Brett raised an eyebrow. "Fuck - what else has gone on now then?" he asked her, figuring that he'd missed something and more shit had hit the fan. He really had to find whatsername so that they could get out of here.

"The town," Indira clarified with a hint of impatience. "Why is it empty? Why is this damn place abandoned, houses boarded up? Where the hell is this entire volunteer operation we were supposed to have in place?"

Brett snorted a laugh. "Where've you fucking been, darling? You sleep through all of yesterday or something?" he asked, derisively. "Or did you just stay inside and decide that you weren't going to venture out until someone else fixed everything - scared of breaking a nail or something?"

"I was in a hospital, you ass," Indira replied acidly, the majority of her glare hidden by the veil. "I was supposed to be driven here today with another woman. Instead, I woke up in an unfamiliar house in a near-empty town with absolutely no explanation. Now, would you like to answer that question again or are you content with only one foot in your mouth?"

"How very 28 Days Later - only with less zombies," Brett shot back, not bothered at all about being called an ass. He rolled his eyes - looked like he was going to have to play messenger boy. "Everything was fine up until yesterday," he told her, sounding vaguely bored - an affected tone. "Woke up yesterday, no electrics, town was boarded up, everyone was gone. You do the math."

"I don't know," Indira shot back. "Judging by the apparent lack of plans being made by those left, I'd say we might have a number of zombies on our hands. Has anyone yet made a count of who's left? Any plans for survival, or were you all just thinking of sitting on your hands and hoping it got better on its own?" She'd be damned if she trusted anyone to take care of her again. "I knew they weren't done," she muttered to herself, cursing again.

And he was damned if he was telling her about their plans, especially since he didn't know her from Adam and wouldn't recognise her again given that her face was mostly covered anyhow. "Far as I know, no one's done shit. But if you're new in town, you should know that there're interns here as well, assuming you're a participant?" he asked her, summarising that from her final comment.

"Amazing," Indira said, scowling. "What sheep. One would think that a taste of freedom might stir them to actually do something rather than let these bastards have their way all over again." It took a second for his comment about the interns to sink in; she hadn't given much thought to who'd been running the experiment, but she should have supposed the scientists would have helpers. "Who the hell thought that was going to be a good idea?" she said angrily, scars standing out in sharp relief as she paled and then flushed. "If I can think of a group of people I'd be happy never to meet - ever - it would be the sick bastards affiliated with these so-called experiments."

"Well, if the scientists are still running things, possibly they're plants. People on the ground to get things done," he suggested. "Or, a couple of them are claiming to have tried to bring things to an end, then ended up in experiments themselves - so maybe the interns here are just waste product the scientists wanted to get rid of - meat to throw to the wolves to see what we'd do. Possibly though that's just a sobstory to make us complacent. Who knows," Brett suggested.

"I wouldn't believe a word from their mouths," Indira told him. "If everyone's mysteriously disappeared from town, that's practically a guarantee they're still in charge." Which meant they were all screwed. "Who are you?" she asked then. "And what are you - participant or volunteer?" She inferred from his discussion about the interns that he wasn't one of them.

"You know, you never said what you were," Brett observed, backing off a little, though not far, it was just the equivalent of taking a step back. "When I asked you - you never confirmed my assumption one way or another."

"Participant," Indira snapped. "Experiment B. Do you think I would get so upset over the interns if I was anything else?" The edge had faded somewhat from her voice at that, because one never knew what kind of monster was masquerading under the guise of normality - she knew that likely better than anyone. "And you?" she repeated, looking a little wary.

Brett raised an eyebrow. "I just got done telling you how I think there's likely plants in town and you ask me that?" he posed, dryly, with just a hint of sarcasm. "Right. And D. Which one was B - don't know that one." Not that he knew many of them. But he kept more of an eye on the journals than he let on.

"You never know," Indira said darkly. "I don't know D, either. B was..." She trailed off, swallowing before making herself continue. "B was a hell house," she said finally. How the hell else could she really describe it? "I'm not surprised you don't know it. From what I can tell, I'm the only one who's arrived, save one other who got here today as well."

"Well, none of the experiments were a walk in the park, sunshine - no pun intended," he told her, wheeling past her and going to browse along the end of an aisle. He wasn't interested in a sob story or share time about the horrors they'd experienced. He'd had enough of that yesterday.

Indira rolled her eyes. "I didn't say they were," she replied. "Or was that a hint that you'd really like to play 'whose is bigger?' Because I can't say that I'm terribly interested." There were parts of her experiment that she still couldn't talk about, not even to those who'd been through it with her. "I prefer to focus on not dying this time around." Almost as emphasis, she dropped a few bottles of water from the nearest endcap into her basket.

"No, it's a hint that I don't want to play that. I'm not interested in your particular brand of sob story. And 'not dying' is a good plan - you should get on that, twinkle," he recommended, craning round and trying to figure out which was the dried goods aisle.

Indira fought the urge to roll her eyes again, focusing instead on reading labels - it was getting harder, a headache building behind her eyes. "The name is Indira," she said. "Not sunshine, not twinkle, not any other cute little nickname you can think up while trying to be annoying."

"Whatever, darling," Brett told her, trying the next one and hitting the jackpot. He wondered if she'd follow him. So far women seemed to follow him, annoyingly. He was more concerned with checking what kind of portable and easily preparable foods they had here. High calorie stuff that didn't need much cooking.

Indira stood there a moment longer, feeling rather like she wanted to kick something (or more likely, someone. A certain someone wheeling his way down the dry goods aisle.) After a moment, she just shook her head. With a muttered "asshole," she passed the aisle he'd chosen to return to the canned goods section and resume her interrupted shopping.