Application: Ray Kowalski, "Due South"

[shake_bad_guys]

Fraser got the bad guy, no surprise there, and even if he'd had to fall down an abandoned mineshaft to do it, well, he was Fraser, so of course when Ray yelled down after him he yelled back up that he was fine, just fine, Ray

Comments

[una_harlequin]

"They never ask about the guns, for some reason," Una says, strolling into the entrance plaza. She extends her hand in greeting. "Una Persson. You're a bit overdressed, Mr Kowalski."

((*is gleeful*))

[shake_bad_guys]

"Detective. Or, uh," giving her the once-over as he shook her hand, "Ray. If you want. And yeah, I was in the Arctic. Mind telling me what the hell's going on?"

The "guns" remark was next on his list, but what the hell? really needed to be addressed first.

[una_harlequin]

"I must be the first of the welcoming committee to arrive. All right." She smiled apologetically. "Like the other fifty or sixty lost souls in this place, you're in Disneyland. Or specifically, an isolated dimensional pocket of some kind that looks like Disneyland in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Where the weather is always pleasant, the food never runs out, and the way home remains elusive."

[shake_bad_guys]

"...What?"

[una_harlequin]

She shrugged: I know, it's completely mad. "Sorry. There's just no good way to ease someone into the explanation, I'm afraid."

[shake_bad_guys]

Ray stared at her for another long moment, then grimaced, pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes as though in pain. "Okay. Fine - break it down for me, will you? We're in a what?"

((Whoops. How'd I do that?))

[una_harlequin]

"Right." Deep breath. "Whatever this place is, it's not Earth. No California outside the gates, as you'll see." She gestured without looking. "Nonetheless, within the confines of the park walls, it looks like Disneyland and feels like summer. But Time doesn't work properly-if you've got a watch, it'll be as good as useless. And we've yet to find a way out, through either mundane or supernatural means. Hence the theory that this is a sort of self-contained alternate dimension. I'd say alternate Earth, except, as I said-no Earth."

((Blame LJ. Works for everything else. ^_^))

[shake_bad_guys]

He turned his head at her gesture at the gates, and stared unblinkingly at the emptiness as she went on. Looking back, he hunched his shoulders and mused aloud, "I am going to kick Fraser's ass. Soon as he gets here. Okay." He scratched his chin. "So do you know why we're here? Why Disney? And how long have you been here?"

[una_harlequin]

Una decided not to point out right away that there was no guarantee that Fraser (friend? partner?) would ever show up, and went for the direct questions instead. Not that those answers were especially palatable either.

"There are any number of theories. I thought at first that it was some kind of accident, an aberration in the megaflow. But assorted events have made some of us think it increasingly likely that this is all some kind of enormous cosmic joke on the part of something very powerful. Which might also answer the question 'why Disney'." She made a wry face. "I've no real notion of how long I've been here. Not only do clocks not work: any attempt to keep track of days fails, or is mysteriously erased. But I think I've been here for several months. Possibly as long as a year."

[shake_bad_guys]

Ray snorted at "enormous cosmic joke" - that was pretty much his life, most days. But... "A year? You kidding me? Jesus. So nobody's...Mickey's not talking about what's going on? There a lot of people here?"

[una_harlequin]

"Mickey's not terribly helpful for information, and the Cheshire Cat is even worse," Una said. "There's somewhere between ... oh, I'd say forty-five and sixty people here? Perhaps as many as seventy-five, at one point. But the population fluctuates as people come and ... well, I would say 'go', except we don't quite know where or how they're going." She sighed; she hadn't quite intended to get into this unsettling bit of information just yet, but the question had led there, so. "People have a way of vanishing every now and then, with no warning or prior signs. We don't know if they're going home or ... something else."

[shake_bad_guys]

"Just vanishing? And nobody's figured out why? Who the hell's in charge around here?"

[una_harlequin]

"By 'in charge', do you mean who's running the place, or which of us inmates is the de facto head of government? If the former: not so much as an inkling. If the latter: no one, really. The populace is singularly resistant to any kind of organisation or law. There was an attempt some time back to establish a police force, but it was met with a resounding 'dear god no'."

[shake_bad_guys]

"Oh yeah? So, like, everybody gets along all the time, nobody minds having people disappear, maybe being chopped into pieces and buried under a park bench?"

[una_harlequin]

"Wouldnt go so far as to say everyone gets along all the time," Una said dryly, "but they get along better than you might expect. And while it's true that the general attitude toward the disappearances might be described as 'alarmingly blasè', there does appear to be some reason to believe that people aren't getting killed. The powers that be may have a twisted sense of humour, but they don't allow people to die or he killed."

[shake_bad_guys]

"Yeah, well, the town I come from, when people disappear never to be heard from again it is not for happy reasons." He frowned a little. "They don't allow it how? What do you mean by 'powers that be,' thought you said no one's in charge?"