DAY 6

The break of the new day finds the crew members scattered. Clef and Maxine have made it to the radio tower; Cedric and Howard have woken up in an abandoned house and are making their way there to join them; and having been attacked, Diana has been separated from Karis and is somewhere in the town.

With their opponents growing more and more clever, the time to escape is now. They may be dead before they get another chance.

If one were to enter one of the Sensoriums today, they may walk in on a surprising sight. They will come across a wide room, with a ring-like device at the end, a stain-glass window behind it, depicting a night's sky. To those who know it, this device is a Stargate.

The room is the embarkation room of the lost City of the Ancients; Atlantis. It's staircases leading up to the control room, and to a balcony looking out over the oceans. It's on this balcony that one may see a figure leaning on a railing, staring out to sea, the simulated breeze blowing in his hair.

This figure is Dr. Carson Beckett, and the man seems a bit down as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Dare you disturb the peaceful tranquility of this scene?

Central Park was a great rectangular mass of green growth haphazardly dumped next to the Kohaku River. Much like the ship on which it was situated, it gave Clef the odd sense of something having been lost in translation - that his surroundings were so far removed from their original context that his appreciation of them could only be coincidental.

For instance, the zoo consisted of a landscaped courtyard surrounded on all sides by man-made structures. Though secluded and luxuriant with growth, the empty buildings and walkways maintained little evidence of their original purpose while being only tangentially suitable as a place for three people to sit and talk. Yet, the Conservancy served their purposes well for a number of reasons.

"Stacy?"

Silence.

"We should be able to talk freely here," Clef said, mostly for Presea's benefit, as he leaned his staff up against a wall. "In theory."

Punchy sends a quick message off onto the comms, requesting that Maxine meet him soon underneath the Whomping Willow. He sends a mention that she can bring the monkey, too, and then sits back down under the tree in wait, wearing his nicest clothes (and by that, he means run through a washing machine recently).

There's a nice picnic basket set on a blanket in front of a tree for her, and a few glow sticks Punchy's stuck into a candleholder to light the night. More impressive than that, though, is that he got white Christmas lights all up in the Whomping Willow's branches, spread out in a giant heart.

Oh yeah. He's got showmanship. Some people would fight a dragon for their girl, but Punchy? Punchy fights a tree.