Some Days are Better then Others - Phone/Action

[ceasetoexist]

[Action Locked to 502 Ricardo Street]

[Hey new not!family members, enjoy having the day start with some incomprehensible screaming coming from one of the kid's rooms before it finally stops, the kid stomping out of his room and slamming the door closed as he makes his way down to the kitchen to get some breakfast.

Which he'll still cause a mess doing, despite the fact that he's just getting some cereal. He doesn't really care about cleanliness, at the moment, and he manages to spill quite a bit of cereal and milk on the counter due to his irritation before finally taking a seat at the table to eat.

Pokey for his part looks about as friendly as a rabid pitbull at the moment. Enjoy meeting your new not!son/brother, everyone.]

[Phone]

Oh man, there is just nothing that makes you feel better then getting friggin' droned. No really, wonderful! Especially since I didn't do anything this time other then...well, okay, I can think of some things, heh.

Anyway, did I actually manage to miss anything important while I was gone? Except, you know, you people deciding to have a dance for some reason, which is just a great reaction to everything we learned. Well, I guess it's kind of funny in a stupid way, but whatever. Dances are just stupid in general.

And, oh boy, we got crap back from the Post Office after everything that went wrong last month!

[And there's the sound of him opening his letter, voice going even more cheerfully mocking.]

Gee, I wonder if it'll actually give me something worthwhile this time, since it didn't last-

[A pause.]

Heh. Hehehehehehe.

You know something? Life can be pretty cool sometimes.

[Action]

[Hey, look out at your yard, or the street across from your house. See something? It'll look like something's shimmering for a minute. It's vague, and featureless, though after a few seconds it starts to gain more and more features. Until finally, it comes into view as a rather large spider mech appears there.

And then the cockpit'll open, Pokey gleefully, climbering out of it and on top of the mech.]

Ahahahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It was about friggin' time I-WHOA!

[And that'd be Pokey managing to slip off the top of the mech and face-planting into the ground.]

Comments

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

[Still grinning, he seems to be sizing up you and your machine.]

Think you're as fast as me?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Think it? Naw.

I know it.

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

Wanna race?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Sure. Where we racing too?

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

My address, front yard. On the count of three...

[He'll wait for you to return to the mech's cockpit, then he'll raise three fingers.]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[And he'll do it. Pokey has half a mind to just press the button and start teleporting before the countdown really gets under way.

Aw hell, he has more than half a mind. He's doing it anyway.]

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

[He's still on two when he realizes what you did there and he isn't very surprised. Curious to see how the mech looks when it vanishes, Slugger stands by watching.

When you arrive at the chosen location, he will not be there to meet you for another few seconds... Relish your victory?]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[Oh, you bet he will.

Pokey will just be clambering back on to his mech after teleporting, laughing yet again. That's right you suck compared to Josephine, Slugger.]

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

[Slugger arrives soon after with a notebook in hand---he made a quick stop by his room to pick it up---and manifests perched atop the elbow of one of Josephine's claws.]

Cheater.

[Not that he seriously cares. It isn't like he wouldn't have done the same if he were you.]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Best way to win.

[He lets his smirk fall a bit, not so much out of irritation as much to get into business. As much as he'd like to taunt you about his belief on how well you could actually write, this might be business you got there.

He just tips his head up a bit, still looking.]

What's in the notebook?

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

From the meeting...

[He tosses you the booklet frisbee-style. Inside is his account of the most recent Legion meeting, including the incident with the Major. Aside from the occasional stray Japanese character, his handwriting is legible.]

KND also held one.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[Hey, he actually manages to catch it and flips through it. He'll read it in more depth later.]

Heard about the KND one from Dawn. Doesn't look like we got much done at the newest Legion meeting, though.

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

[It's true. There was not much to document this time due to lack of attendees. The most interesting thing he got out of it was what Solaris had said about Barbie and the bears, which you'll probably find easily enough.]

No. But I found out who 'Mr. Pierre' is... Billy Smith.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[He pauses at that. Pokey doesn't disbelieve it, but...]

How'd you find that out? It makes sense, since the note I found implied he was pretty unliked so it makes sense he would've been one of the traitors to head back to Mayfield. Someone else told you, or did you find out personally somehow?

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

Lucy told me.

[...He'll allow you a moment to let that sink in.]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[You can see the rise coming for a moment, his face falling slack-jawed at that. What? What did you just say to him?

Of course, letting you see him surprised like that isn't acceptable. So he tries to put a poker face back on as quickly as possible.]

Huh. When'd she tell you? Was it before they did the whole "April Fool's" bullcrap? Cause I heard she was talking to people the day before.

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

It was. She said Mr. Pierre is her brother.

[His shoulders rise in a shrug, looking every bit as nonchalant as you seem to be trying.]

But she could've been lying.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

She could be. They could've been lying about everything they said, especially after the April Fool's bit.

Which means some of its true and some isn't.

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

Right.

[There's no telling in Mayfield where the lies end and the truth begins, but there is one thing of which he's fairly certain. Slugger's voice is often low by nature but it becomes particularly quiet with what he says next...]

I think she knows everything. About each of us.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[Pokey reaches to scratch the top of his shoulder, the only real indication of discomfort he'll give that. Quite honestly though? He's used to people knowing things about him they shouldn't by this point.]

...I'm not surprised. If she honestly is the one who brought us here, it makes sense. The more she knows, the easier it'd be to bring us here.

[He pauses, hesitantly, before adding.]

Or replicate us.

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

[A long, silent stare.]

...Replicate?

[Keeping talking.]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[Pokey just shifts himself a bit more to get himself comfortable before he decides to go on.]

I've been thinking. I'm no longer sure we're in a simulated environment, or at least not fully a computer simulated one like I thought it might've been before. But I think we may not be who we think we are. Or, more accurately, that we're copies of who we think we are.

How they know about us and did what they did, I don't know. What I do know is that it makes more sense, at least to me, that we're copies of who we think we are then that we actually are them. What if part of the reason we get things back occasionally isn't just because the town gives them back, but because we are, essentially, "babies" when we first appear here. Yeah, we have all our memories from where we'd been before, but there's no way to fully know those memories are "ours". Rather, they're constructs of the memories of other people. But we need time to still habituate to the personalities before we get things back, because maybe we wouldn't fully get it without that experience. It'd be like a baby playing with a toy car, it doesn't really know how to play with it, it just messes around. We've seen people get droned randomly, then permanently, and then sometimes coming back after permanently, right? What if the drone state is the regular state?

What if we're some kind of weird induced alteration to that state. Who knows why they're doing that, but there has to be some truth into it. I think. Because some things don't make sense if we're, the originals.

[He pauses.]

And one other thing. I met someone here who knew me, but isn't from my world.

He said in his world I'm from a video game.

I dunno. I just don't know if I'm the original me. Though honestly, I don't really care.

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

[You have his full attention throughout the proposition of your theory, but when you get to the last part, Slugger pointedly looks away. There is a reason for this though he isn't going to tell you. It's bad enough that Lucy already knows.

Instead, he'll focus on the Mayfield theory. While it does sound plausible, he isn't so sure.]

...I don't know. The town needs a power source to survive. Fuel. That's us.

[He recalls how earlier that day Susan had essentially placed herself and a classroom full of students in two separate locations at the same time.]

Maybe we aren't replicas, but duplicates...? It's possible to be in two places at once.

...

I think there really is a generator. Somewhere.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

[Oh yeah, Pokey notices that but he doesn't say anything. He'll just let you hold on to that for now, even though he'd love to shame you. He'll just let you stew in it yourself for the moment, even if he'd love to know because hey it's not like your his friend or anything.]

Either is possible, and could work essentially the same way.

...I believe it. Fully. I know you can do something like what they claimed to do with the generator we saw.

[strike-you-out.livejournal.com]

[Slugger seems a little lost in his thoughts for a moment until he realizes what you've just said and looks up.]

...You mean a town powered by souls?