Jan 24, 2010 17:16
It had all been going so well
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"Yes: what he saw of the church." So it seemed that Lunge hadn't told Dr. Jones about the other salient point at all: that he had hiked out to the ruins with Daniel Laurier, and that as far as Daniel Laurier had been able to tell, the ruins were nonexistent.
L swallowed his mash of strawberry and pineapple before continuing.
"We made the trip the night before last, and what we did not find was probably more interesting than anything Mr. Lunge saw." He tapped the tip of his fork against the next piece of fruit five times in quick succession, but did not pick anything up with it. "That is, at the time, I was one of those people who was not himself. I couldn't see a thing." His level gaze fixed on Indy's face, watching for a reaction to this revelation.
"I will not say that it was as if the town had never been there, but if anything had been built on the site in the past, it would have taken an archaeological excavation to prove it. All I could see was more of the same terrain that surrounds the immediate area. When I sat in what should have been the church, I sat on the ground."
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That was a twist he hadn't heard about. It was bad enough that Landel's brainwashing process could evidently play with people's memories, even load them up with information about technologies and cultures they claimed never to have experienced. But to change the way you saw things.... Indy'd heard often enough the axiom that looks could be deceiving, and he'd seen plenty of proof of it in his day, but he was still instinctively inclined to trust the evidence of his own senses. That they could be tampered with that easily was a disturbing thought.
He hadn't heard any other accounts that would support that, though. But it would be easy enough to ask whether it'd happened to anyone else on the bulletin board later; for now, what Indy needed was more information from Ryuuzaki.
"Was it that you just couldn't see your surroundings the way Lunge did, or that you couldn't..." Indy struggled for the right word. "...interact with them the same way? That church is full of pews, skeletons scattered around. How did you avoid running into them--or the wall, for that matter?"
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"Nothing. There was nothing there at all. If I ran into anything, I wasn't aware of it, in the most complete sense possible. Rather, I should say that Daniel Laurier was unaware of it."
He leaned forward in his seat a little. "I do not know what this indicates, Dr. Jones. For obvious reasons, our group was composed only of Mr. Lunge and me.
"That means that, if we attempt to consider the incident as an experiment, the methodology is flawed: with such a small sampling of observers, we have no certain control group. We do not know what someone else who suffered the same shift in identity might have seen. We know that you and Mr. Lunge have seen the same things at different times; however, there is no way of knowing, without at least another trip, what I might see on a night when I am feeling... better."
After lifting the cup of juice from his tray, he allowed his weight to settle back in his chair. "Even if it turned out that I was able to see the ruins on a second trip, my initial experience raises a number of questions."
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It sounded like Ryuuzaki was implying that the site's appearance--or even existence--itself might be somehow subjective, that it might manifest itself differently to different people. Ridiculous, of course. Indy didn't have a lot of patience for that line of thought. If Ryuuzaki's account of what he had seen was accurate, the aberration was surely internal, not external. They should be trying to figure out what had happened in that town and why it might be important, not arguing over whether the town existed in the first place.
This seemed like as good a time as any to bring up last night. "The three of us aren't the only observers, either. My roommate at the time was in the church with me, and I was at the site again last night with someone else. And I don't know that we're the only ones."
This admittedly wasn't much of a defense, since Pierson wasn't around to verify his story, and Indy didn't particularly want to mention the ruins on the board at the risk of getting a bunch of gung-ho amateurs involved or giving the staff any more information than they already knew. Still, he felt compelled to offer up something in opposition to the turn for the absurd he had a feeling the conversation was about to take.
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"Following on that, apart from anything that an examination of the town itself might be able to tell us, I can't help but wonder why it is there at all. We discussed the possibility of the bodies being the result of a purge of patients from the Institute, but ultimately, that seems unlikely."
The intense element in his expression receded a little more, as he considered the situation. "It's a shame that I was the only person who went out there while convinced of a false identity. We do not all seem to have experienced the delusion in the same way. For example, Keman told me that he simply disbelieved what he saw, and tried to rationalize it, until he was attacked. But my companion and I did not encounter any serious threats that night; we have no basis for comparison. It might be possible to find one, but not without tipping our hand, particularly given the way the staff is censoring the bulletin board. It doesn't seem worth the trouble when a second trip to the site stands a better chance of being productive."
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"At a guess I'd say it was probably a result of what happened to you, but that's easy enough to test," he said. He didn't comment on all that musing about the brainwashing symptoms; in truth, Indy didn't find it all that interesting. Having a list of possible effects might have some uses, but as far as he was concerned, it was enough to know that brainwashing effectively put you out of commission. The patients weren't likely to come up with a way to snap someone out of it on their own, so their best bet was to keep studying the Institute in hope of eventually getting at the people who (hopefully) already had one.
What Indy did care about was the ruins, so he tried to swing the conversation back around that way. "What makes you think a purge is unlikely? If I recall, it was your theory in the first place." He had his own ideas on the subject, but he was also going to make damn sure that information flowed in both directions here.
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L found himself unwilling to share his strongest suspicion with Dr. Jones. The town is irrelevant, a red herring, something there to draw out curious types and make them waste their time. The trek out to it takes most of any night on which it is attempted; patients who made it never seem to see much before dawn. Yet it is irresistible to all kinds of people: archaeologists and other investigators, for example. He sighed, a sigh which might have sounded as if it was a response to the question about the purge.
"It was my theory, or the beginnings of one, but if such a purge happened, it wouldn't have been very long ago. The skeletons are clean, and there are a number of them, yes? That kind of cleaning is done primarily by dermestid beetles, and it is unlikely to occur in a few short weeks when so many bodies are involved."
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