Day 49: Late Afternoon - Crossroader's Bar and Casino

[unheroed]

From what Harvey could tell, he'd gotten through that little encounter with Lana without raising any suspicions. Or if he'd caused her to raise a mental eyebrow, it probably hadn't been in any serious way. She truthfully wasn't so bad to spend time with, but the fact that she was a female attorney who knew her way around and didn't scare easy meant

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[iwhipthefool]

[Sorry for the wait. D| Sick and work.]

Not much indeed. Franziska never changed so much as a twitch of her expression as she heard of Indy's day. She appreciated his thoroughness and also his deference to her question even if his answer provided nothing satisfactory. Once he finished, however, she crossed her ankles under her chair, opting not to cross her legs for fear the ugly jeans would show. "I see." She paused and then added, "How unfortunate."

A possibly poor attempt at not sounding like she was disappointed in the results, but it was an attempt nonetheless. Franziska still wasn't used to dealing with people outside of her professional sphere and try as she might to learn, she was finding this subject even more complex than trying an international smuggling ring.

Indiana was saved from her awkward social fumbling by Harvey Dent, who seemed to have had a much more productive day - even if it still lead to nothing. The pet store, electronics store, grocery store, Tasty Burger, bar and bookstore all yielded nothing strange to note other than the grafitti and occasional broken window or unhinged door. Closing her eyes, Franziska tipped her chin down as she processed this information along with the things she'd observed throughout the day. The townspeople being uncooperative and tired, the town being returned mostly to normal, buildings that should have been burnt to the ground being completely fine... She knew it all led to something, but no matter how hard she tried, the logic escaped her, meaning she was missing one vital link somewhere. The town was obviously tied to the Institute somehow, these people part of the strangeness that permeated everything here, but how?

Finally opening her eyes, Franziska refused to give in to the darkening mood that was slowly starting to overcome the group. "The fact that there was nothing noteworthy is noteworthy in itself, don't you think? It would seem this town is under the same-" She refused to say magic. "-phenomena that affects the Institute. But the question is: if it can repair itself, restock as it has, then why leave the windows and doors broken? And why the addition of the graffiti?"

[its_the_mileage]

Unfortunate was right, but at least she was tactful about it.

Dent answered (in less detail than before, Indy noticed) and Franziska responed by voicing her wonderings aloud. "Good questions," Indy said. He didn't have any better answers than she did, but he was in the mood to break habit and engage in a little near-baseless speculation--not much chance of their approaching explanations any other way. "It could be that there was a limit to the amount of damage that could be repaired, so the graffiti was added as an explanation for the things that didn't get fixed. Either of you notice anything damaged today that wasn't broken at the end of the night last week?"

He hadn't, and he wasn't holding his breath that they would have either. But the answer might suggest whether the damage was residual--the most reasonable-sounding explanation--or re-added after the night's chaos had been cleaned up. Indy couldn't figure out what the angle of the latter would be. It might make sense for Landel to discourage the townspeople from trusting the prisoners, but why use this method right after last week's events?

"What did you do today?" he asked Franziska, wondering if she'd turned up anything they could use.

[unheroed]

It was true that Franziska was bringing up questions that might actually shed some light on Landel's ultimate goal, but with their lack of information, it didn't seem like they were going to be able to make any solid conjectures about it. Harvey frowned as he considered Jones' response, lifting his head when the man directed another question at them.

"Nothing stood out, but I didn't make any concerted effort to check," he said bluntly. He wasn't going to act ashamed about it. It wasn't his job to figure all of this out, after all. "I find it pretty hard to believe that there's a limit to it, though. Why now? Does it have something to do with the fact that it's the town and not the institute, maybe?" All huge leaps, and he didn't like guessing when there was no solid proof. It seemed that they had all been reduced to taking shots in the dark, though.

"There has to be some reason that Landel decided not to make everything perfect. Either he had no control over it, or he wanted the townspeople to be unwilling to help us," he continued as he rubbed a hand over the good side of his face. Did that mean that the people here had some information that might be helpful? He found that hard to believe, especially if they didn't remember anything about what they'd turned into the week before.

[iwhipthefool]

Indiana added to her speculations and Franziska felt her lips twitch into something resembling a slight smirk. This was what she missed - this feeling of being around intelligent people, those who exchanged ideas without sounding like complete fools. Even if their questions and hypotheses came from thin air, it was this sort of stab in the dark mentality that usually lead to finding breakthroughs in cases. In her case, she would then back up her hypothesis with evidence, but first she needed an idea of which direction to search in. "Nothing broken that seemed unbroken last week," she noted, crossing her arms and gripping one damp sleeve of her trenchcoat with her left hand. "But the buildings that were the most severely damaged the previous week seemed to have no more or less damage than any other building. It appears the effects were spread out to resemble plausible damage that we, or someone else, could have caused."

And as Dent continued to focus on, the reason was why? If it was to ensure the townspeople wouldn't tell them anything, why? It seemed odd that they'd put grafitti up of all things when the patients themselves were so against the smiley faces. Franziska knew better than most that the ordinary citizen was as intelligent as an unbaked brick, but even they had limits to their blinders. "I spent the day interviewing the townspeople and inspecting the damage, visiting the crime scenes and looking for clues. The people are incredibly tight-lipped and appear to blame us, although they seem resigned to the idea we are allowed to come back. However, I have noticed they are much less inclined to do us favors than before. Tired and many complained of headaches before leaving and refusing further questioning."

In other words, she hadn't learned much more than anyone else. Rolling one shoulder, she popped a stress knot and then opened her eyes, observing the men in front of her and the boys behind who were returning to their conversation. "Perhaps it is this effect he wanted, or perhaps he is not responsible for the damage and thus was unable to fix it. I would need to check the areas more closely again, and the rain makes such a thing very difficult."