She sighs, relieved, when the tangerine doesn't seem to immediately cause Lily to pass out or act weird.

"...We should get those blinds open, on that window," she says, gesturing behind her. "See if the area with all the beets has changed, too."

"Risky," she says. "But - yeah. Keep me in the corner of your eye?"

"Roger."

She stands with her back to the window - against the wall beside the desk, so she can see Lily's expression without looking at the window too much.

And she rolls up the blind.

Sunlight spills into the room. The world outside looks real - the light's bright, and the sun's on the horizon behind the buildings, and from the birds she's guessing it's dawn. She can't see much - they'd walked up a few steps to get in here, and the windowsill is high up, but... It looks normal. Everything does. A busy hum of life.

Nothing fascinating. Nothing like before.

"Looks fine," she says.

She turns and peers out, gaze jumping around far more intently than the other girl's had. "There's people out there," she says, suddenly, and -

There's a noise from a door - one across from the wall with the calendar, an interior door they'd registered but not thought too much of -

She tenses and turns.

Lily does the same.

The door slams open, revealing a heavyset white woman holding a box. Her clothes are old fashioned, and she looks like the woman in the picture Lily saw.

She's also very surprised to see them, but she doesn't let that stop her long, launching into rapid, accented French - asking what they're doing here - where are your clothes you're practically naked, close the window girl - is that blood? What happened?

...Lily rolls down the blind and doesn't say anything. 

She responds almost immediately in just as rapid French. Her accent's textbook perfect the first few words - then shifts quickly to fall into sync with the woman's accent, at least a bit.

Her friend got hurt, and the clothes got bloody, and she made a bandage from her clothes, but she wasn't very good at it so a lot got wasted - her friend needs water and sugar and medicine, pretty urgently, the wound looked bad -

The woman's pushy, conversationally, barely leaving any gaps for other people to talk in - but the girl can hedge her way in successfully. She gets out a first aid kit, and shoos the girl out toward the back room with an admonishment to get clothes and instructions on where the sink is, and get a wash basin while you're in there, and some cloths, the coarse ones.

She'll just - go do that, then?

Yes, yes, go.

She keeps ranting, about safety now - over a hundred days with no accidents, a personal best, and then the factory is closed, and she's having to deal with scrapes instead of setting up, and she told them to make sure the staging area was safe, did those idiots leave a hook or something lying around - she gets out her supplies and commandeers Lily's arm, carefully removing the fabric. The blood's dried on it, and she's leary of opening the slowly forming scabs - but it's kind of inevitable. They weren't very stable scabs yet.

She feels very abandoned. 

Her French is crisp, awkward. A thing of formal school rooms and rare brief conversations if someone doesn't speak any English, not anything really chatty. Still - they need information. 

"Something strange happened to me and my friend," she interjects into a brief pause in the ramble. "Something strange is going to happen here, today."

Does she technically know that? No. Is it pretty obvious? Yes.

"Nothing strange will happen today, no matter what stories people have been sharing. It's all sound scientific principle - we'll be turning on one little lightbulb. You'd think more people would be glad of getting a day's pay just to look at a little thing to help with the experiment..."

"Oh. How's the lightbulb work, then?"

...When in doubt, play along.

"It's very complicated, but - well, the version with a lot less math is that we influence things just by viewing them. There's no such thing as a neutral observer, and some things are influenced a bit differently by observation from other things. I've found one that makes electricity like for light bulbs, and I'm confirming it still works at this size. It's very safe - fifty people will make only a little energy."

She looks at the edges of Lily's wounds and frowns. "These need to be cleaned, they look hours old - you should've gotten medical care sooner - where's that friend of yours?"

"Here," she says, voice soft, from behind the woman. "I have water and cloth."

(She's been watching them the last minute or so. Listening.)

"Give that here," she commands, then starts cleaning Lily's wounds with a professional touch. The antiseptic she's using - seems to be distilled alcohol - stings horribly. She keeps rambling about the experiment while she works - she'd normally just use a galvanometer, to get proper data, but, well, the girls know her husband - he's quite the showman, and he wanted something nice and impressive and symbolic. A lightbulb, to represent the new age. All very nice poetic things, though she thinks it can get a bit silly (she says, very fondly) - the man even went and got some gel from the theater, a kind they use for props, to put over the lightbulb so it won't just be a normal 'dull white light.' And, well, a physicist he may not be, but he's a very good salesman, and if he thinks this will help get her attention for her experiment and then more funding...

And then to suggesting the girl see a doctor, this wound looks nasty...

(She's been very quiet since returning. She gave the woman the washbasin and cloth, gave the other girl a cup of water and another piece of fruit, and - she's put a long coat over herself. Her legs are still bare, but something about it... It helps her fade into the background a bit. She's watching, still.)

Lily's been quiet too.

Things are starting to connect. To resonate.

"That light," she cuts in with, voice firm. "The cover for it. It's green, isn't it? A bright green, like limes."

She pauses in putting her medical kit back together and turns slowly to evaluate Lily, like she's seeing her for the first time. And then, voice soft, slow: "How in the hell did you know a thing like that?"

Lily sets her jaw, expression firm.

"You don't work here at all, do you."

It's not a question.