[†] → Telephone: ALL

[excommunicated]

[It's been a while since Allen used the phone, in fact this may be the first time he's gotten around to making a call himself, but it seems an apt enough time and an apt enough reason. He clears his throat briefly and then speaks in his soft, somewhat tentative English accent.]Professor Watney has offered to go with me to the local police station

Comments

[kandescence]

Daisya's gone.

[A pause, and then reluctantly because he just knows this is going to become a conversation, and he'd much rather it didn't.]

He went after Lenalee.

[excommunicated]

[He opens his mouth to reply with something childish and fairly immature, but he stops himself as a couple of realisations sweep through him; mocking Kanda does not respect the severity of the situation, for a start.]

Mm... That's worth knowing. [A half-beat passes.] ... Thank you for telling me, I'll let Link know too. [Of course, Allen is currently unaware that Link is also one of the missing.]

When did he go to look for her?

[kandescence]

Yesterday. He followed a lead from the night I found her gone.

[excommunicated]

A lead?

[kandescence]

[Huffing a little at having to explain it to you, Allen.]

That rat kid thinks she went into the forest. I don't know. It's just what he says. Daisya went to see if it would turn up anything.

[excommunicated]

Rat kid? [Allen was starting to feel like repeating Kanda's words in the form of questions was not helping much.] I don't know what reason she'd have to go that way, but if Daisya is already checking it then I guess he'll report back what he's found out soon. [Or what he hasn't found, as a voice at the back of Allen's head notes.]

There are way too many people who have disappeared now for it to just be Lenalee though. Something in particular must have happened.

[kandescence]

[Pauuuuuuse. Does he have to talk to you? Really? Isn't there someone else he could deal with?

Tch. Fine. He even manages to sound half way civil.]

Some of the names you said, they were only here a day or two. Maybe they just chose not to stay.

[excommunicated]

[That was odd... Kanda being civil after the last physical clash they'd had. But the effort was being made, and Allen is willing to acknowledge that and respond in turn.]

You might be right, but it just doesn't make sense. Why leave when everything is provided so easily for us here, like food and shelter? It's not great that we're stuck here, but why make it more difficult for themselves by leaving?

[A pause, then he adds--] Rhetorically speaking, I mean. It just doesn't make sense.

[kandescence]

[It's a thin veneer of civility, but for now he maintains it nonetheless, keeping up an offhanded air. It's all guesses of course, and so he sounds about as committal as the evidence would suggest.]

That Raidou person seemed to think this world was the same as his own. He said something about traveling back to Japan. Maybe he did it.

Kazuma was the one who came with him. [He thinks. He was one of the first to meet them anyway.] Maybe they left together too.

[excommunicated]

Mm... I spoke with Raidou briefly. If he believed this world was the same as his own that's definitely a possibility, but that doesn't explain the rest. Professor Yana, supposedly, wasn't even from this planet, Captain Becker was from almost a hundred years in the future, and Lenalee...

[There's a pause, a thoughtful tap-tap-tap on the outer case of the phone.] ...It just seems so strange. Especially if what the people from the university say is true in that they have at least some experience with this stuff. That was the reason you came here, wasn't it?