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[bit_impossible]

[sitting up in the slowly turning ferris wheel, a huge bag of candy floss at his feet, the Doctor is just chilling and contemplating while the nightly fireworks show has begun. he keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something terrible to happen

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[wind_of_reason]

[Yes, me again. But I always have stuff to talk about! ^.^o]

[Fuu is berating herself all the way down to the clinic area. How could it have taken her all week to realize that the ferris wheel would offer a most specatular view of the fireworks? Clearly, she is losing her mind. Granted, she is not much of a fan of the other carnival rides so she'd not given it much thought, but still...]

[So her eyes on the fireworks as they start, she barely registers who she sits beside as her turn comes to take a seat. Until she does a double-take.]

Oh! Doctor. Fancy meeting you here!

[bit_impossible]

[he blinks and is rather surprised it took her this long to realise someone was there, but he smiles once she finally does]

It's a small town after all! Bound to run into each other again.

[the ferris wheel sets off]

[wind_of_reason]

[Fuu blushes. Indeed! And she's clearly lost her mind to have taken so long to acknowledge sitting beside a good acquaintance.]

Yes, we are bound to. [As the words come out her mouth, she realizes that it's true in more ways than one.]

[Putting seriousness aside for the moment, she gestures to the fireworks.]

Another splendid display! [She pauses to admire it.] Back home we might have gotten two nights, but here it's been going all week. Truly spectacular, yet I can't help but think of how expensive it must be. Not that money seems to matter much here.

[Even after buying the equipment for Kyuudo and the kimono for the party she still had no idea how much credit was left to her.]

[bit_impossible]

It's supposedly their septicentennial! Naturally, that calls for an awful lot of fireworks, but build up an entire stock throughout the year and you'll be set, despite how expensive it would be.

[wind_of_reason]

[A dry laugh]
'Supposedly'.

I guess there is no reason to believe this festival is for the reason they say, is there? For all we know, they could have been built this town the day before we came.

[bit_impossible]

Oh, now that's where I disagree. Someone went through an awful lot of trouble to set this up--and nothing terrible has happened during it. Not once. It's almost disappointing, in a way...

As for how long this town has been here for, I can tell you that all the flora and fauna around here are genuine. Can't knock over the trees, so they weren't recently planted. [of course, there is the terraforming option, but he can always tell. there's a bit of a tang in the air, and he didn't taste that his first day.]

[wind_of_reason]

[Disappointing? The Doctor seemed to have a deep love of adventure and danger! All the same, his discourse makes her smile.]

All right, so it's been here certainly more than one day!

[She leans back in the seat a bit and looks off into the night sky.]

Ahh, but that 'history' is so full of holes... it's almost like we have to be equally as suspicious of what's not there as what is there. Which is to say, everything! It's hard to find good, helpful clues like this.

[bit_impossible]

[disappointing because of the lack of danger and running around opportunities. makes him antsy.]

History is always full of holes, Fuu! Always leaves out the other side, leaves in the "winning" side's biases regarding a situation--conveniently leaves out details about a situation or four.

But trying to fill in the holes for this place might prove a little difficult. It mentioned a historical building, yet I haven't seen anything of the kind, not even that sign, have you? The residents aren't exactly forthcoming with details either.

[wind_of_reason]

[oh, yes, because if there is danger missing, clearly something must be wrong! XD]

[Fuu nods consideringly to that. It's very true - all through history the winning side did tend to spin, or conveniently forget, things. She'd read that there were whole epic, ancient battles not recorded in Egypt because they'd lost.]

I guess we'd need the other side of the story for this - like the 'urban metropolises' that the original families fled from. But seeing as Luministi purposefully cut themselves off, I don't think we'll be hearing from them.

But no, not a trace. Not of even where it could have been. Disappearing buildings seem to be a specialty here though. I could have sworn that there was no building where the greenhouse now is when we first got here. Yet they said that it was re-opening!

As for the residents... [hopeless NPCs, the lot of them.] Who knows. Do they truly not know? Are they being forced or bullied into forgetting, or not saying anything?

[bit_impossible]

Ohhh, noticed that too, did you? There had been a nice grassy field there, but well, I don't really mind the gardens taking its place. You know what was interesting though? When that weather glitch had been going on, I'd been caught in a bit of a dodgy thunderstorm and in that empty field--since it was still empty at the time--I caught the outline of a building for a split second when lightning crashed overhead. That building later turned out to have the exact shape as the greenhouse that's standing in the botanical gardens now.

As for the residents, I've tried speaking with them on several occasions and I've never felt there was any malice or fear behind their words. I believe they genuinely don't know what's going on. Unless they're incredibly skilled liars, but a town filled with liars like that is quite extraordinary.

[wind_of_reason]

[Fuu is quite surprised by that!]

Only seen in lightning, yet there was an empty field there until the re-opening?

I was at the library when we started getting those weather bubbles. The first time I went out, the town seemed to have become a desert. Completely transformed, eroded by dunes of sand and lifeless. Then I went inside and out again, and got lightning. When the lightning flashed, the stature of the Neptune sundial... moved. And not just a little bit.

[Shakes her head] It's crazy. Completely incomprehensible. Is this all illusion too? Maybe we really aren't riding a ferris wheel, and none of these buildings are as they seem. Yet... all of my senses tell me that this is as true as anything.

[Sighs] If they truly don't know what's going on, then they're as mixed up in this as we are. Maybe even worse because this is their reality, and we might have to break it to find the truth.

...What could possibly be the big picture out of all this?

[bit_impossible]

[he'd heard about the statue moving and might've gone to see it for himself during that event] Now, I'm not entirely sure everything is an illusion. The botanical gardens and the greenhouse very well could have been hidden with some sort of cloaking technology and what I saw was the result of a glitch in the device used to cloak it.

But I think the bigger picture here is someone or some group of people has us at their mercy, and they think that they can simply get away with spoiling us with all this extravagant wealth. We've just got to figure out why we're so interesting to them in the first place.

[wind_of_reason]

Cloaking? Man, this place is more like 'Star Trek' every day.

[A shiver runs up her back at the reminder of being at the observer's mercy.]

No, they can't get away with this. But... what could they possibly be after? Everyone here is interesting in their own way - able to do magic, amazing knowledge of science, whatever. Could they be after our talents? Maybe they want to know about our experiences from our diverse worlds? After all, we're a pretty eclectic bunch - only a few of us have previous connections with others.
Besides, the town's pretty eclectic itself. Must be a trend.

[bit_impossible]

It could simply be a study. Or a simulation. Or an elaborate trap of some kind that has yet to be sprung. Anything, really. Even the options are eclectic. [he smiles at her though, hoping that'll reassure her a bit]

[wind_of_reason]

A little from column 'A', a bit from column 'B', and maybe all of column 'C'!

[Fuu smiles back, but she's not feeling particularly reassured. Order and a reason would make her feel so much better.]

Like you say, it could be anything, really. Stuff I can't even imagine... [She's just a child. There's a nearly infinite amount of things she'd never imagined. Museum collections on an asteroid by Vega and a magic that can talk life into things, for just starters.]

Any way you cut it, for whatever reason that seems good to them, they have us trapped and under observation. I really had no desire to know how a lab rat feels! I have new-found sympathy for them. Good thing I want to be in computers and not medicine, ne?

[Oh, but the thought of being observed makes her nervous. She sighs again, leaning back in the car slowly as to not swing it.]

Ah, but speaking of computers. [Lowers her voice] I don't suppose you've been tempted to hack into the CAT?

[bit_impossible]

[he just keeps on smiling while Fuu talks, listening to her theories.]

Actually, that's the first thing I tried. Hacking into my CAT, I mean. Couldn't get it to open no matter what I tried--and I'm very, very skilled with hacking into things. The only things I can't get into a deadlocked sealed--and the CAT is just that. What I wouldn't give to have a peek inside...