As friendly as Leela had been, Rita was glad to be escorted away from her, for fear that some of that crazy might have been contagious. Abducted by aliens. Yeah, right
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"Maybe I'm too hostile for it, then," Leela joked. That was what happened when you took a woman's boots away. It pointed to a diabolical intelligence running this place. That, or someone with terrible fashion sense.
A battle was an interesting concept. Level the playing field by taking away everyone's stuff and making them all human. But something bothered her about it, and after a moment, she realized what. "The technology is wrong. If they're pulling people from all sorts of different times, they have to be able to control when they yoink us from. Or maybe they can't, and that's why we're all from different times and places." Or maybe they could, and just liked to mess with people.
That wasn't any weirder than Leela's leading theory, so she decided it was safe to share it. "Maybe we're in some sort of exhibit, or a human-sized rat maze. Maybe they just want to study us." If that were the case, it was a good thing they'd picked her. Fry would've planted himself on one of those couches and stared at any screen with moving objects on it until the batteries gave out. Zoidberg would probably still be in the cafeteria. Leela was confident she would represent her time with something like intelligence and dignity.
Elaine raised an interested eyebrow at that idea. It wasn't a situation she hoped to be in, but it was a distinct possibility along with a few of the others. From what little she had seen of the hallways thus far, she could certainly see where a maze might enter the picture. With so many doors and identical, sterile-looking halls, it would be much harder for the "patients" to find their way around or get into anything potentially dangerous (read: useful). That still left her wondering what this big hub in the middle with the sunny area and the connected rooms was for, but that could be rationalized as simply a resting point in the center of the maze.
"Maybe. I can see that," she agreed with a nod, filing the possibility away near the front of her mental card catalogue, along with the battle theory. "Whatever the truth is, I don't think the technology level's got much to do with it, though. They could easily be hiding the real technology somewhere else, or not even be using technology at all. This sort of thing could conceivably be done with voodoo as well." Maybe the time-traveling patients part was a stretch, but it was possible; Elaine knew a few voodoo recipes and spells, but was far from knowing the full depth and breadth of the art. Where was the Voodoo Lady when one needed her? Perhaps she would appear whenever Elaine got around to finding Guybrush. The woman always did seem to be around whenever Guybrush needed her, it seemed.
Leela didn't think Elaine meant the kind of voodoo Hermes meant when he talked about his zombie grandma. She was pretty sure zombies, like ghosts and pine trees, were mostly extinct, anyway. Now she wondered what sort of voodoo someone could do so well. There wasn't much that science hadn't explained in her time, but enough downright bizarre things had happened to her before this that she liked to think she had an open mind. It was refreshing that Elaine seemed to have one, too. But she did come from before the Stupid Ages.
"Good point. They wouldn't leave any of that sitting around where we could find it. I've only time-traveled by accident, but I guess it could be some kind of magic. That girl I was talking to before said she came from a place where it worked." Still, something like this probably had a more reasonable explanation. Leela snapped her fingers as an idea occurred to her.
"What if someone made a bunch of parallel universes, and the people here are just using them? I wouldn't count on a mad scientist to keep track of their universes."
'A place where it worked'? Elaine thought curiously. That implied that Leela was more familiar with a world where it didn't. Granted, Elaine wasn't too big on the whole magic and supernatural field herself, but even she could see that it worked, at least. If they were both from Earth, she couldn't easily imagine something as ancient and handy as voodoo dying out, even in the thirty-first century.
Then there was the fact that Leela had mentioned worlds at all. Someone claimed to be from an entirely different world altogether? That was yet another interesting piece to this puzzle, made only more interesting by the suggestion about parallel universes. "I expect we won't know for certain until we find the person responsible for all this and pin them down for a good, healthy session of retribution." Preferably with some satisfyingly blunt and heavy enough objects to help them out. Elaine was very much in the mood to see more people getting on the wrong side of cannonballs after seeing LeChuck go down under one. "I know I'm not exactly familiar with the characteristics of parallel universes, after all. Are you?"
"I've poked my head into a few," Leela said. "This one doesn't really feel parallel to me." If it were some kind of Past-o-Verse, she probably would have run into an alternate Leela in a hoop skirt by now, and she didn't think they worked that way, anyway. The differences seemed to always be obvious at a glance, and as for the time, it had always been, well, parallel to her own universe's. Then there was the question of where the other people had come from. Elaine seemed to be from the past of Leela's own universe, but maybe that was a bit of Universe A elitism creeping in because she liked her. Leela didn't know enough about Mason to say what sort of universe his was (other than a rude one), but Rita and her belief in magic didn't quite add up, even assuming she'd been abducted from an unexplored planet.
She approved of the way Elaine's mind worked as far as coping with the complex challenges and implications of their being here, and gave her a smile. "If you mean beat them up 'til they let us go, I'm so on board for that. I'll pin, and you can retribute, and then we can swap."
A battle was an interesting concept. Level the playing field by taking away everyone's stuff and making them all human. But something bothered her about it, and after a moment, she realized what. "The technology is wrong. If they're pulling people from all sorts of different times, they have to be able to control when they yoink us from. Or maybe they can't, and that's why we're all from different times and places." Or maybe they could, and just liked to mess with people.
That wasn't any weirder than Leela's leading theory, so she decided it was safe to share it. "Maybe we're in some sort of exhibit, or a human-sized rat maze. Maybe they just want to study us." If that were the case, it was a good thing they'd picked her. Fry would've planted himself on one of those couches and stared at any screen with moving objects on it until the batteries gave out. Zoidberg would probably still be in the cafeteria. Leela was confident she would represent her time with something like intelligence and dignity.
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"Maybe. I can see that," she agreed with a nod, filing the possibility away near the front of her mental card catalogue, along with the battle theory. "Whatever the truth is, I don't think the technology level's got much to do with it, though. They could easily be hiding the real technology somewhere else, or not even be using technology at all. This sort of thing could conceivably be done with voodoo as well." Maybe the time-traveling patients part was a stretch, but it was possible; Elaine knew a few voodoo recipes and spells, but was far from knowing the full depth and breadth of the art. Where was the Voodoo Lady when one needed her? Perhaps she would appear whenever Elaine got around to finding Guybrush. The woman always did seem to be around whenever Guybrush needed her, it seemed.
Reply
"Good point. They wouldn't leave any of that sitting around where we could find it. I've only time-traveled by accident, but I guess it could be some kind of magic. That girl I was talking to before said she came from a place where it worked." Still, something like this probably had a more reasonable explanation. Leela snapped her fingers as an idea occurred to her.
"What if someone made a bunch of parallel universes, and the people here are just using them? I wouldn't count on a mad scientist to keep track of their universes."
Reply
Then there was the fact that Leela had mentioned worlds at all. Someone claimed to be from an entirely different world altogether? That was yet another interesting piece to this puzzle, made only more interesting by the suggestion about parallel universes. "I expect we won't know for certain until we find the person responsible for all this and pin them down for a good, healthy session of retribution." Preferably with some satisfyingly blunt and heavy enough objects to help them out. Elaine was very much in the mood to see more people getting on the wrong side of cannonballs after seeing LeChuck go down under one. "I know I'm not exactly familiar with the characteristics of parallel universes, after all. Are you?"
Reply
She approved of the way Elaine's mind worked as far as coping with the complex challenges and implications of their being here, and gave her a smile. "If you mean beat them up 'til they let us go, I'm so on board for that. I'll pin, and you can retribute, and then we can swap."
Reply
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