Welcome to Gaia! ::

In the dark ahead of him, the light of his candle flickering a little into his eyes, Wiseman glanced over his shoulder and grinned at him. "That's all right. Stick with me, kid," he said and turned and walked ahead.

Skeptic or not, stranger or not, confidence was a glimmering light in the dark to someone who was uncertain. His father had learned that promoted to sergeant on the field in 'Nam, a hellhole he never spoke of except to sing the praises of his best friend, PFC Raymond Carter. Mr. Carter had said as much about Danny Gordon, though. When he knew what he was doing, he knew he knew what he was doing. When he didn't, he didn't lie, but he acted like he'd figure it out along the way -- and he did.

A similar three-laws-of-bullshit-robotics applied to teaching. And, in Ray's experience, to crisis situations.

"We appear to be passing either the personal collection of the most accomplished art thief in the world," he observed, checking out The Scream right next to Guernica, "or something considerably more surreal. I'm still thinking we do what I said earlier -- retrace our steps whenever we hit a dead end, but we take it from left to right so we can keep better track. This way if the place is shifting, we'll notice sooner. Keep an eye out for impromptu mapmaking materials, would you, sweetheart? Though it appears we're past the junkyard; ah well, we can always go back. In the service of figuring out whether we're in the afterlife or the Matrix, you mind telling me the last thing you remember before you got here, Cecilio?"

Wiseman glanced at the paintings, reminded that Perry was, in fact, right. Some kind of subconscious teacher programming had ruled out fine art from his list of writing materials, but come to think of it --

"Parking lot. On the way to the store. Bit of a weird place to die, don't you think? No sudden impacts, no oncoming trucks, no seizing pain in your chest -- just there, and then here." Dog, he thought, Lady Peppermint Stripe, with a pang for a pet left without her owner -- then, with a sharper pang, Brillo. Where was Gene? He didn't know what had become of Gene. God, this was entirely the wrong time to be thinking about Gene, as letting himself worry about that was taking his finger out of the dam that held back the flood of all the things he had to worry about, Blanche alone and confused in his apartment -- "You don't hate me and I don't hate you half so much for this to be eternal torment; you'd think they'd put you in with Fred Phelps. You ever think too hard about Destiny City, Perry Cecilio? You ever wonder why there were coma patients before?"

He paused in front of Klimt's The Kiss, wondering if he disliked art nouveau enough to deface it -- then moved on to Whistler's Mother. "Whistler's mom has got it goin' on. Come on, let's get this bad boy down." Without waiting to see if Perry agreed with his choice in bad art, he started prying the painting off the wall.

Despite himself, Wiseman smiled: smile-smiled, even, not one of his teeth-baring grins, like a person did to another person, to a coworker they liked. There was something a little charming about Perry's resistance to his reasoning. There was something a little charming about his prickliness in general right now; Ray Gordon had never seen Perry Westerman anything less than cheery, bluff and oblivious. Currently he was staring at John Liddel like a cat stared at a stranger marching into its territory seconds before it picked itself up readily and left for better parts.

He wasn't really putting him at ease. He was being -- in his estimation -- mysterious, and cocky, and sharp -- and much as it might have invested a few points in his outward competence, it didn't exactly say, trust me. But he wasn't used to being powered and costumed around anyone but enemies.

He didn't really have a lot of non-enemies, come to think of it.

So instead of asking more rhetorical questions, he gave the painting another tug and supported it as it came free along with a little plaster, and said, "I'm from someplace else. I was in Destiny City too."

They set the painting on the ground and leaned it against the wall, a few feet away from the candles and the chair leg. "Once there was a prince who held a powerful weapon, a weapon his enemy wanted to steal -- something he both admired and feared. And it was worth fearing, too, anyone who knew what it could do feared it. But his enemy wanted it, and once he was overcome with a sickness, he wanted it more than anyone had ever wanted anything -- so he went to take it from the prince."

Wiseman took a deep breath. "But the prince hated the idea that his enemy might have it," he said, "or feared it, either way -- and so he used it on him, on both of them, on everyone around them, lest he lose it to him. It wasn't a thing that could be used by half. As far as I know, he used it in Destiny City and he's the one who transported us here."

It was an odd story, to be sure. He knew that hearing himself tell it.

"Were you somewhere downtown at the time?" he quizzed him, to confirm his own story to Perry.

The painting behind him changed. Wiseman spun around before he knew it to look -- but no, he'd definitely seen it change in the corner of his eye, it had definitely been some dusty pointillist number before and it was something much darker now. He recognized it as a famous illustration of Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, by... Thomas Moran? Thomas Moran. It didn't move further, though -- no weeping paintgels creeping up behind him. Steven Moffat be damned.

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came lingered in his vision as he turned back to Perry, a little reluctant to let it leave his line of sight; when he did, he found Perry prying a nail out of the painting. For a moment or two he didn't understand. Then:

"Writing implement?" He glanced at Whistler's Mother, then at Perry, with his head on one side. "I hope your tetanus shots are up to date," he quipped, but in his head was, clever, I wasn't thinking about that.

Leaving Perry to mapmaking duty, he looked down the hallway and scooped up his items again. It didn't seem that mapmaking and candle-holding were activities that could be done concurrently unless you had three arms. Perry Westerman did not, so he untied his belt, removed the tapers from their holders and knotted them together with the belt. A lantern would be a godsend right now. He hefted the double-candle and the chair leg again and looked over his shoulder to see how his erstwhile companion was doing.

"I hate to break it to you, Teach," he said, "but it looks like we've got one point in favor of the shifting hypothesis. Painting behind me just jumped about 40 years and a couple artistic movements backward. You want to get a move on?"