Day 56: The Bookworm (Late Afternoon)

[herr-inspektor.livejournal.com]

"Hold on a second. I want to check something."

Lunge paused in front of the book store, frowning a little. He'd looked in the little shop a couple of times, just to get a better sense of Doyleton as a whole, but had yet to explore inside properly- understanding Doyleton hadn't especially been high on his list of priorities, but after their conversation last night he found himself curious about a few details here and there. It didn't seem that L had any plans for the rest of the day, so there wouldn't be any harm in stopping in to chase up his hunches.

'Artificial'. What did that mean, precisely? Precision, that was what they needed now, hard evidence instead of aimless, endless stabbing and theorising. It was also exactly what they were lacking. What constituted evidence in a place where everything experienced around you seemed to fall to the whims of one man and his computer?

Ah. Not quite one man. Aguilar apparently had at least one man under him to do the less notable jobs, like working the intercom back at the Institute. At any rate, it was likely that their reality was just so easily moulded as it had been before. It would be interesting to see how far that applied to Doyleton, if they peeled back the corners and took a good, hard look at what lay beneath the obvious. Details, details; the people seemed genuine enough at a glance, but what about after an interview? And the books? He hadn't yet found a town that didn't pride itself on the single non-fiction novel written about it, its heritage. But did this town even have a heritage? Or was it purely the invention of two men, Landel and the man it was potentially named for?

A gust of wind ripped past his cheeks, chilling the Inspector to the core even through his heavy coat. He hadn't felt especially bad leaving Edgar at the Twin Pines- he'd lived through his own session, after all, and they weren't ever fatal- but even so he couldn't help but think that the cold would hardly be what the man needed.

Pushing the door open, he held it aside for L to head in before him. Silently, he wondered if they were thinking the same thing- they were generally on the same page for the most part, but occasionally it felt as though he were somehow working lightyears ahead of him, consuming and digesting information at an unthinkable rate. Most of the time, though, it was clear that the man was just as in the dark as he was.

[TEAM LARS VS HARRISON FORD THE FIRST, GET]

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[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

It was starting to get dark as Indy turned back down Main Street, fed and re-medicated but no less eager to get out of the cold for that. He picked his next destination the same way he'd picked the one at noon: someone he needed to talk to headed into a shop and he followed suit. This time it was Lunge and Ryuuzaki, joined at the hip as usual. Indy jogged ahead to reach the door just behind them, breathing out white puffs on the way.

He nodded at the older woman and the girl behind the counter (the latter looked like she might remember him; Indy wondered if she'd thought of anything else about the town worth knowing) and shut the door firmly behind him as he moved to meet the two men. "Afternoon," he greeted them. "Nothing like a book on a day like this."

[dreadofthegrave]

[from here]

Just what did you do in a town like this, anyway? So far, Battler's day seemed to be divided between eating and aimless wandering, which was fine to a point, but as much as he could enjoy the simplicity and short mental vacation, he was starting to get restless. It wasn't like he was unfriendly or didn't like meeting new people—just the opposite, in fact—but when it was only that and no semblance of familiarity to be found anywhere, it could start to get kind of rough.

On the other hand, this place looked pretty promising. Where he might normally delve directly into the books, in this case, his first impulse was actually to take a look at the newspapers, but what he found wasn't exactly all that useful. Nothing but mundane events, and no indication of where or even when they were. What kind of a newspaper didn't have the date on it, anyway....? Looking in other sections held similar results. That was .... weird, and honestly kind of creepy, especially considering it was more than likely intentional.

.... It was almost like this place wasn't even real. An illusion of a town to give a false sense of security in a world cut off from reality. It was no different than Rokkenjima, surrounded by storms and with no way to communicate to the outside world. .... Well, maybe he was jumping to conclusions, but that was certainly what it felt like. After all ... from here, where did you really go? Was there anything at all? If anybody had any real answers about this place, they wouldn't be stuck in this mess at all.

At any rate, it seemed he was wasting his time. He supposed he could ask a local, but ... Any attempts at approaching anyone from this town were uncomfortable at best. He couldn't say he was treated badly, exactly, but they all seemed weary .... and a bit scared. Why was that....? There was that cover story, that they were mentally ill, but was that really all it was? However they may have felt about his "condition," he was totally harmless, and it wasn't like he'd done anything wrong...

He shrugged to himself bitterly, pulling a random book from the shelves and settling in at one of the benches to read. He felt like he could kind of use something like this.

[FOR THE COUSIN.]

[boyking]

[from here]

Fortunately, it didn't take long to deliver Peter to the diner and the time of day meant that it wasn't too crowded in there. Not that the town seemed to have enough people to make a serious crowd at any point, but...

In any case, he managed to grab Peter a makeshift icepack. His ankle didn't look too bad, so Sam figured he'd be recovered within a couple of days or so. Probably less, given this place's sped up healing. He still had no theories on how they were pulling that one off, but on the list of things to solve, that one was pretty low.

Twenty minutes and a bit of limping on Peter's part later, Sam found himself at...the bookstore. Again, in fact, since he'd been here just earlier to pick up a box of paperclips, but he doubted the owners minded him dropping in again. With the size of the town, he had a feeling they were used to seeing the same faces several times a day and while the locals hadn't been waiting with open arms and flowers, they'd all been nice enough folks.

Plus, it was good he had the chance to come back here, actually. He hadn't considered it when he'd been still looking for something more useful to buy, but now that evening was closing in and he hadn't come up with much to do with his money, his mind fell back on what it knew best: research. And that meant books. The town wasn't an academic library, but considering he didn't even have access to Google right now, the bookstore was a definite step up.

He glanced at Peter. "Looking for anything in particular?"