She accepts with a "Thanks," and sways slightly as she stands.

It's really not pleasant, but she suspects she won't get much better just sitting there.

She looks around, spotting a garage-style gate that's probably much too heavy, an iron gate through which she can see piles of beets - and there's something wrong with the sight.

That much sugar in one place, the factory should be swarming with flies. But it's completely, utterly still.

Next to the iron gate is a smaller door with a simple frosted glass window.

"Have you been in there?" she asks, gesturing in the vague direction of the smaller door.

"No. Honestly? This place freaked me out a little bit, didn't want to go exploring on my own."

"It is exceptionally freaky. I think I might be too low on blood to be freaked out properly, to be honest... With the two of us, though, we can look out for each other."

"Yeah," Ant agrees, smiling shyly. "We can."

Onwards to the door then?

Onwards!

The inside of the door's window is clean, and there's nothing inside that tries to eat them, which is always a bonus.

It looks office-like, and Bina steps shakily inside, glancing around. It's a bit dim, but - there's a calendar on the wall. It says it's July, 1911, and the seventeenth - a Monday, it had been a Wednesday - is circled in green. Someone's written "factory closed for experiment" in the box in French.

One hundred and two years ago, to the day.

"Uh..."

-

Retcon.

"-yeah," Ant agrees with that sentiment. "And my French is kinda crap, but I'm pretty sure that that says something about being closed for an experiment. So. Uh. What?"

"It says that, yeah, I'm not sure what - "

The open door is suddenly shut, and either their eyes adjusted really fast, or the lights just turned on.

Bina startles slightly, and - "There's no breezes here. How..."

The air feels less thin. More like reality. The office isn't at all dusty - it looks like someone just stepped outside briefly, not like it was abandoned. There's a really old fashioned phone on one desk. No computers.

Ant gives a little shiver. "Not spooky at all," ey mutters, a touch sarcastically. "-should we see if the phone works? Try calling someone?"

"Good idea."

How to use the phone isn't very clear - it doesn't have a dial, or any even vaguely familiar interfaces - but they can figure it out eventually.

There's static on the line, and none of the numbers they know work.

Bina leans against the desk, frowning, and starts to look around some more.

- Is that a tangerine on those books?

"Why is there a tangerine on those books?" Ant goes over to poke it, to make sure ey isn't seeing things.

It doesn't explode or try to eat them.

"I'm not sure but it sure looks edible."

Ant grins, and brings it over. "Meal fit for a royal."

"Heh."

A problem quickly occurs: she can't exactly easily peel it one handed.

Well. Ant can take care of that then, ey still has both hands. Ey splits the segments up while ey's at it.

Muffled "thanks!" around a mouthful of tangerine as Bina tries to not eat it too quickly and only kind of succeeds.

There's a sound, then. Bina turns, and spots another door into the room.

Ant looks as well, tense again where ey had been starting to relax somewhat.

The door bangs open to reveal a middle aged white woman holding a box, who's initially rather surprised to see them there.

Her surprise doesn't last long, and she launches into rapid-fire accented French. Bina's having a hard time following her, but she's probably asking about their presence and the blood. Maybe.

She doesn't give Bina or Ant time to respond, instead launching into a tirade that implies she's assuming it was a workplace accident, shooing the two aside so she can set her box down and then get out medical supplies. She tells Bina to get off her bandages - carefully - then goes to fill a washbasin and get Bina a cup of water.

And don't touch the box she was carrying. At all! It's dangerous. Or eat anything else in here.

Bina blinks, and then translates the parts of that rant that needed translating for Ant. (Part of this is figuring out what was even said).

Ant frowns at the woman, but reaches for Bina's arm. "Here, let me," ey offers.

Bina lets em help.

While the woman's in the other room, in English: "So. Uh. That was weird. ...I think we need to get her perspective on what's happening? 'When is this' might be hard information to get without sounding bizarre."

"Ask if her calendar's right? I forget the date all the time."

Bina nods, and when the woman comes back with a glass of water - well, her first reaction is gulping the water down, but then while the woman's wetting a cloth she asks, "Is your calendar right? I keep forgetting the date. And have you seen the people out there on the couch, across the loading area?"

The woman starts gently cleaning Bina's injuries, and says, "Yes, of course it's right. And the word you're looking for is 'podium.' Couch is a thing people sit on. A 'podium' is a wooden thing you stand on in front of crowds. I've seen the podium out there, and the people too. Last time I was there we'd finally hit fifty pairs of eyeballs. Just enough for the experiment."

She furrows her brow at the puffy edges of Bina's wounds. "Do these go right through your arm? How did that happen, and when? These look like they've been left dirty for hours."

"Maybe half an hour ago?" Ant suggests. "An hour at most. And what do you mean 'eyeballs'?"

"Oh, the experiment involves people looking at it. Nothing ominous, no matter what you may have heard. All it'll do is turn on one little light."