HOLD IT!

[wright_attorney]

There was no reason to visit Vera Misham once her verdict had been declared. No, he didn’t know what she must be feeling, but he could guess. Any half-decent ex-attorney would save a little girl the embarrassment of admitting she’d had an unwitting hand in ruining his life. She was a good kid, after all. And all’s well that ends well, right?

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[dodgy_decarabas]

The Marquis de Carabas, who had been hanging around the ferris wheel in the hopes of some light entertainment, found it in the form of a man walking straight into one of the metal support struts.

Really, he couldn't help himself. He laughed, and ventured closer; the man reminded him somewhat of Richard Mayhew. He even had the homeless look down pat.

'You should be careful, good sir. Wayward ferris wheels are known for their wanton cruelty to passing foreheads,' he said, in a lilting, amused tone. It was quite clear he was making fun of him.

[wright_attorney]

At that particular moment, Phoenix could have been what one might deem 'dazed' or 'disoriented'. Therefore, he didn't quite realize he was no longer standing in the middle of Los Angeles.

"And this one certainly is wayward," he commented with another wince as he fondled his poor skull. Perhaps the humor was lost on him.

[dodgy_decarabas]

The Marquis found himself wondering if this otherwise nice-seeming young man was on drugs. Then again, he had just caught himself a sizable whack on the noggin, so he supposed it was necessary to allow for the eventuality that he had a concussion or perhaps even brain damage.

'Lost, are you?' he asked pleasantly, lounging against a nearby tree.

[wright_attorney]

That tree didn't look like it belonged in the middle of the street any more than did the Ferris wheel. Neither did the man with the English accent, come to think of it. And with an eventual glance around, Phoenix could see why.

"I guess I am. What happened?" he asked, casual as could be. "Where am I?"

[dodgy_decarabas]

Ah, finally. That hadn't taken long. Perhaps he was wrong about the concussion, though the casualness with which the man asked where he was betrayed a certain worrying apathy. Drugs it was, then.

'You are currently standing in front of a Ferris wheel on the Island of Tabula Rasa. Welcome, my friend,' de Carabas answered jovially. Perhaps too jovially.

[wright_attorney]

(Okay, then. One question down. Somewhere around nine hundred to go.)

Not that the answer really told him anything. Phoenix was an ace at trimming fatty information from the facts. "I guess that tells me the where," he reasoned patiently. (Sort of.) "But why am I here? How?"

The heat was already becoming a bit of a nuisance, and so he tugged down the zipper of his sweatshirt.

[dodgy_decarabas]

'I'm afraid, dear boy, that those are two questions I cannot answer,' the Marquis replied idly, examining his finger-nails. 'I've asked them before myself and have come up similarly short.' A vague scowl crossed his face then. De Carabas hated to admit ignorance of anything, least of all something so important as the location and purpose of his being somewhere.

[wright_attorney]

This wasn't the sort of man who wore his heart on his sleeve. Phoenix could tell that much right away. But when he sensed no reaction at all from the Magatama in his pocket, he really had no choice but to assume the stranger was telling the truth.

"Then you arrived this way too, I take it."

[dodgy_decarabas]

'Your powers of deduction are truly mind-boggling, my friend,' de Carabas deadpanned.

'We are all prisoners here, I'm sad to say, and none of us have any earthly clue how it came about. On the upside, the food is rather good - if you enjoy mangoes.'

[wright_attorney]

"I try," replied Phoenix, smiling brightly. Sometimes he was incorrigible.

However, his expression did sober up considerably at the word 'prisoners', and he rubbed his chin. "Is that right? And how many is 'all'?"

[dodgy_decarabas]

Drugs, the Marquis reflected, were a terrible thing.

'About three hundred and fifty all told,' he guessed. Now that they were moving into the realm of things he knew, he seemed in considerably better spirits - not that his spirits had been down in the first place, of course. De Carabas was almost preternaturally cheerful.

'And none of them can tell you any more than I have, I'm afraid.'

[wright_attorney]

"Three hundred people? Picked willy nilly, without rhyme or reason, from their homes? Wow. You'd think the world at large would notice," he mused, staring off into the distance, in the general direction of the jungle. "That's no little sum."

[dodgy_decarabas]

'There's a theory going around that while people are indeed plucked from home, a version of them remains there to carry on with their lives,' said the Marquis. 'Quite clever, really. If unlikely.' If there was another him out there, he didn't want to know about it.