"I would like to see the attractions in the World of Tomorrow," Ami announced.
"Good choice. This way," Ranma said directing her through a door that let back into the visitors area of the former amusement park. "Next to the Pretty Heart Castle itself and the Main Street, The World of Tomorrow area is the part that is the closest to completion and where there is the most to see right now."
"The whole park seems like one big construction project," Ami observed looking around as Ranma led her down a winding path she would never have found on her own.
"Some parts are already completely finished like the target range," Ranma told her. "But there is really not much to see there anyway, just a largish empty field surrounded by an earthen embankment. It's on the far side of the forest far away from anything else for safety reasons. They also took over some other stuff in that area like the hedge maze completely as they were in the amusement park. I guess you could call that finished too."
Ami, who was still trying to regain her bearing while listening to Ranma's explanation, was looking around to figure out where they were when she discovered what looked like the backdrop for a western movie in the distance.
"Is that part of the Western World over there," she asked pointing.
"Yeah," Ranma confirmed. "But be careful if you go there. That part of the park isn't really safe yet. They have had some problems working out the bugs when they tried to upgrade the old stuff and now the piano in the saloon is stuck playing 'Do not forsake me' from High Noon and everything is malfunctioning. Look out for the animatronic that looks like Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven, they say it should be perfectly safe now, but I don't trust them."
And with that warning Ranma had let them to what a banner over the gate proclaimed to be "The World of Tomorrow" while inviting them to "Experience the future!". Ami was impressed. Ranma led her to a conveyor belt that began under the entrance.
"Watch your step," Ranma told her when it came alive beneath them.
"They really must be just about finished here," She said looking around as it carried them along. "There hardly is any construction going on here."
"I don't think they had to work much on the structure themselves. They just changed the insides a bit," Ranma explained. "To your left by the way is our media room for showing videos and stuff to the students. They took that pretty much as it was."
Ami looked and saw the entrance to a domed structure with signs advertising the 360° Ultra Large Image Cinemascopic Experience with stupefying THC Surround Smoke and shaking seats. It was a bit more advanced than the rattling reel projector that her teachers had had to use to show the occasional educational film when she had gone to Azabu Juuban High.
As the belt slowly carried them along the media room eventually fell behind and a game arcade came into view on the other side. Ami peeked through its windows as it scrolled past. They seemed to have a large selection of classic video games. From Mrs. Pac-Man to Space Invaders they were all there including such rare gems as the Starfighter Video Game which had been a huge hit when it came out but had been recalled for some mysterious reason.
"They even have the original Sailor-V game," She exclaimed as she saw spying the familiar console inside. "That brings back memories."
"Played it a lot?" Ranma asked.
"Me? Not so much but some of my friends spend a lot of time and money on that machine. One of them really identified with the heroine in the game a lot," Ami told him. "Is this going to be used for training too?"
She hoped not. Minako had always complained how unrealistic the arcade game had been.
"No, they are all old and stuff — leftovers from the park era. They have newer and better machines for that over in the simulations center," Ranma said pointing to a square nondescript building on the other side." They shipped in a commercial flight simulator the other day. But I have no idea what they think it would be useful for. I mean teaching them how to ride a broom I can understand, but have you ever heard of a magical girl piloting a plane or an helicopter? I guess when they are older some girls might actually take them up on the offer; getting trained to operate all sorts of vehicles and getting special licenses, but really I think they are mostly wasting their time with all that. I have heard that they are even considering building a simulator for piloting giant robots. Probably seen far to many bad anime if you ask me. Magical girls don't pilot giant robots they do magic and stuff."
Ami privately thought that there had been a few times in her live when she would not have said no to having a giant fighting mecha for back up. On the other hand the amount of havoc that Minako might have wrought if she had had access to a giant robot did not bear thinking about. And she really did not even want to speculate how Usagi's or Haruka's style of operating an ordinary motorized vehicle might scale up to something larger. It was probably for the best that none of the Moon Kingdom's advanced technological artefacts had survived.
"We have to change tracks here," Ranma announced after a moment indicating for her to step over to a neighboring conveyor belt.
The new belt after running parallel to the old one for a while eventually changed course towards the large geodesic dome at the center of this utopic place. The sides of the way were now decorated with glass showcases containing an assortment of martial machinery for decoration. There seemed to be some sort of powered-armor-suit/exoskeleton/shell-trooper through the ages going on here.
It started out with a group of retro-futuristic steampunk designs that looked like clumsy walking tin cans more than anything else. They were painted in bright girly colors and did not look very intimidating. As they moved forward the armor-suits became more modern looking getting slimmer, smaller and more humanoid, while appearing to become faster and more dexterous. The paint schemes stayed mostly flashy and flamboyant though instead of using more reasonable camouflage patterns or at least something like gunmetal grey.
At the far end of this evolutionary progression as the most futuristic designs stood a quartette of especially violently colored battle-suits. Their breast plates and the high-heeled boots left no doubt that they were supposed to be worn by females which would at least explain the pink/red color scheme of the smallest one.
As she was transported closer and closer to the entrance Ami mused that perhaps all the armors were supposed to have been worn by females. Which made her wonder who had come up with such a strange thing in the first place.
"Those suits on the sides they were part of the original park decorations weren't they?" she finally asked shortly before they reached the entrance.
"Those?" Ranma wondered looking back. "No idea. They were here when I first came to this place. If there is anything more to them than just decorations that nobody has bothered taking down then nobody has told me about it."
Ami would have liked to take another look at them but the belt had already conveyed them into the inside of the geodesic dome. A short time later they finally reached their destination and Ranma motioned for her to step of.
"Here we have something very interesting," Ranma declared as he opened the door with a flourish.
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(Posted Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:46)
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