Nightshift 46: General Store (Ruins)

[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

[from here]

Most of the inside of the building was visible through the broken windows, but Indy hadn't realized how demolished the place was. He pushed glass shards and debris aside with the sole of his shoe as he entered, clearing himself a place to stand. It looked like they were the first ones to enter this store in a long time.

Like last time, he was struck by the bills coming out of the upended register. "This is strange too," he commented as he began trying to pick his way over. "I still think a lot of this looks like man-made damage, but they didn't take anything." Mid-step, Indy's foot hit a tin can--still full, judging by the weight of it. It rolled a few inches and stopped when it ran up against a battered chair.

Comments

[dualistic]

Unlike Jones, Harvey really didn't have the proper footwear for treading among shards of glass and whatever else happened to be strewn across the ground. Brow furrowing, the man took very careful steps through the once-store, glancing around for anything that looked like it might be of use. The trouble was that there was so much debris that it was hard to find anything else.

Watching as the other man made a path through the carnage, Harvey was careful to follow in Jones' footsteps. A piece of glass almost cut through the slippers he was wearing a few times, but he managed to avoid taking any actual damage. "So what," he responded as he also realized where they were heading (was there really still money in the register?), "whoever it was who did this just wanted to destroy this place for the hell of it?" Sounded like the behavior of someone who was out of their mind, but Harvey kept that thought to himself.

[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

"That's one of the things I'd like to find out. Could be vandals, smashing things up after all the townspeople were out of the picture." Indy's tone probably made it clear that he didn't put too much stock in that theory. Admittedly it was just another hunch, but the damage still felt too systematic, too...angry. His money was still on the "vandals" being connected with whoever had killed all those people in the church. But if that had been a fairly recent purge, why would Landel and his goons smash up the town? If only he had a reliable way to date the damage.

Indy had to find awkward, splayed-legged footing to get close to the register, what with the pieces of smashed counters covering the floor around it. Carefully, he picked up a bill between two gloved fingers and aimed the light at it. It showed some signs of weather damage--the paper was wrinkled, missing a corner, and wavy on one side where it had apparently been wet at some point--but nothing consistent with the more than eighty years of exposure it should have suffered, since it was dated 1922.

Even if that half-wall hadn't come down until recently, surely moisture would still have seeped into the building. What the hell was going on here?

"Well, would you look at that," he said, extending the bill to Dent. "It looks authentic, except for the damage level I'd expect. Why would someone plant old money?"

Maybe they wouldn't, Indy tried to avoid thinking. He and Pierson had just had time travel on the brain the night they'd been here. The thought of some kind of time...thing here was absurd.

[dualistic]

Vandals? Harvey had to scoff to himself while Jones was looking away. He could find no reason why a bunch of hooligans would come all the way out here (wherever the hell they were) just to bust up a town. There had to be more to this whole story, some reason that this place had been destroyed -- and all the people in it murdered.

Why were all the corpses in the church, anyway? Harvey didn't see any bones scattered around here, which meant they had all congregated in the chapel. Which meant -- what, had they hoped God would help them in their time of turmoil?

Ridiculous.

As Jones waded his way over to the register, Harvey decided to stay where he was. It wasn't worth risking his feet when the other man already had it covered, although he did have to lean forward slightly to be able to reach the bill when Jones handed it over.

At the word "old," Harvey lifted his flashlight and illuminated the date: 1922. He immediately thought of his coin, but resisted the urge to grab it out of his pants pocket. Still, it was eerie that it was the exact same year, and he stared down at the dollar for a few seconds before handing it back to Jones.

"Trying to skew people's sense of time, maybe? If they make the town look like it's from the 1920's down to the money, that could screw with people," he suggested. It sounded like way more trouble than it was worth, but if Landel was behind all this, too -- well, he'd clearly proved that he was a dedicated man, if nothing else.

[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

"I wouldn't put it past them," Indy snorted sourly. He thumbed through the other bills nearest the register--all from the 1920s, all in approximately the same condition.

He sighed and turned back to Dent. "You know, I keep coming back to the same thought. Either they don't want us to make any progress at getting out of here, in which case--this town, the working computers, the easy access to supplies, all of it's just designed to toy with us, or maybe just give us so many potential leads and goals that there's not much chance of our choosing the right ones. Or else moving forward is part of the game and there's something we're supposed to be figuring out here." He frowned down at the register. "Maybe both, at different times. But I don't get the feeling a lot of things are left up to chance."

This time, at least, he'd take some evidence with him. Indy picked up a few more bills and folded them carefully together into his jacket pocket. Then he surveyed the store again, as conscious as ever of the clock ticking. What else in here might be likely to yield concrete information: dates, names, records, anything. "You don't see anything that looks like ledgers or account books, do you?" he asked as he started picking his way along the broken counters.

[dualistic]

The pessimistic theories Jones was throwing out were hardly unfounded. If Harvey wanted to be realistic about things, this whole situation they were in stank to high heaven. The only reason Landel would let them out of their rooms each and every night was if he knew that they wouldn't be able to get anywhere. That was part of the reason why he didn't bother exploring so much as he focused on his own personal motives, but... They had to get out of here eventually, and chances were that wouldn't happen unless the proper effort was put into it.

Still, it was hard to determine what was just part of Landel's plans and what was them breaking out of the mold. Were they meant to find all of this and distract themselves pondering over it, or was there a point to it?

"There's really no way to know," he said bitterly. He wasn't happy about it, but he didn't want to think about their powerlessness any more than they had to. "We'll figure it out once we get out of here." Or if the place eventually caved in on itself -- or, wonder of wonders, the government did something about it.

When Jones asked him to look for other items of interest, Harvey used his flashlight to search around -- but didn't actually take any steps. It just wasn't worth it if he didn't actually see anything popping out at him. "Not that I can tell," he muttered.

[its-the-mileage.livejournal.com]

Not that Indy could tell either. Damn; that might have been helpful. The church hadn't contained any records that he'd seen either, aside from that Bible.

Someone had really done a number on these counters, not to mention the display cans; he had to do a lot of legwork to clear himself a path. There were more cans rolling around under the wreckage here, too. Indy picked one of them up, checking it for holes or leaks as he did, but it was intact--and familiar. He let out a surprised "huh" of recognition as he brushed the dust off the soup can label. He and Jack used to eat that brand in college.

"Thought they stopped making this," he said to himself, though it was probably loud enough for Dent to hear. A second later things clicked: college. The early 1920s. And this can actually looked old.

Under normal circumstances, that would have been fair evidence for the age of the site; not a lot of people would have the means or the inclination to plant an old soup can in a place like this. But not a lot of people had time machines either, and Landel apparently did.

"Weird town, weird nuthouse. Let's assume there's a connection, just for the sake of argument," Indy mused aloud, still holding the can. Probably wasn't still good, was it? It hadn't been bad soup back in the day. "And assume that whatever happened here happened around the 1920s. What's that, probably Landel's grandfather's time? What would the connection be?"

He didn't really expect Dent to come up with any brilliant insights on that one, any more than Indy himself was likely to. They didn't have enough information yet--about the town's attackers, about Landel, about anything. Maybe he was coming at this wrong; maybe they needed to figure out more about the institute from the inside before they could begin to make sense of this place. Still assuming--big assumption--that there was any sense to make. Soup cans notwithstanding, it could still be a fake.

[dualistic]

With Jones being the one who was doing most of the searching, Harvey was content with staying where he was. The store wasn't too big, so he doubted there was much that they were missing because it was hidden away in the corners or something. Maybe he was being lazy, but he didn't really think Jones could call him on it when his footwear was so inadequate. This wasn't exactly the same as not jumping to Franziska's aid the other night.

It looked like the other man had found something, and Harvey angled his flashlight to see what it was. Which turned out to be... a can. Yeah, that wasn't going to be much help with them cracking this puzzle, was it?

Still, he could see that the can was old and worn, which fit with the theme of the money. At least Landel seemed to like to keep things consistent. Unless this really had been a town from the 1920's, as unlikely as that seemed. It looked like Jones was going with that assumption for now, and Harvey figured he might as well play along.

"Well, maybe this started with his grandfather, for all we know," Harvey said with a shrug. That probably wasn't it, but he was just making a point that they were clueless. "Or it was someone else, and Landel just inherited the position somehow." Because he won the sadism award? Harvey didn't really care why.