ceasetoexist | You Say I Don't Care, I Know I Don't Care (Phone/Action)

[Phone]

....Do you really think they're going to actually send us home or help us in any way? Think about it. If there really was that chance, the guy offering it would've been stopped cold. Your idiots if you honestly think this isn't another friggin' scam again. Because, you know, I am just overwhelmed with excitement to try this again after frickin' Christmas.

Are you people really just that desperate you're going to believe what this schmuck is selling?

[Action]

[You can find Pokey wandering around town today. However, instead of the obnoxious strut he usually carries himself with, he actually looks subdued. Hell, his head is actually down most of the time while he's walking.

And what seems like aimless wandering at first soon seems to form a pattern. He stops at certain locations: houses of people he knows (or houses that used to have people he knew), certain spots in the roads, stores. And just stands there. And stares for a moment. At what, and why, who knows. But he'll stay there for a few moments at each location before eventually moving on.

And he'll do that from the morning until near sunset. When evening finally falls, he can be found sitting on top of his mech on the front lawn of his house, ballet in hand.

Just staring it down.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Pretty good chance he can skate faster than you can run, anyway.]

So you choose not to vote?

Yeah. I'm not voting.

[Yet.]

[Just silently keeping pace for a bit.]

...

If you ever got out, where would you go back to?

[He'll remain silent for a bit. At first, it would seem like he wasn't even planning on answering. But he does finally speak up.]

I dunno. Keep traveling I guess.

[Slugger nods. Eventually he'll venture off into the street and skate around on his own. But he doesn't go too far and returns after getting some of his thoughts in order.]

The ballots are just a way to see who would stay and who wouldn't if given a choice. They can use it to turn everyone against each other, say, if they made results public... My guess.

[By this point, Pokey'll just sit on the curb for a moment, thinking, until Slugger returns.]

Possible. Thing is, they'd apparently did something like that before, awhile before I got here. Them doing it again would be a poor choice. And to be quite fair? The overwhelming response will probably be to go home.

My expectation is that that's what they want, and when enough people vote to go home, they're going to give us a reason for why we can't.

[Has taken a seat on the curb as well, though not too close -- he doesn't want it to seem friendly or something. It's just easy talking to you about these things because you're as cynical as he is and not afraid to show it.]

That and Lucy will punish the ones who want to leave. The postman will punish the rest.

[Pokey just shrugs at that statement. And hell, it's not like he wants any kind of real connection with you either, Slugger. You're just someone to talk to at the moment, and he likes showing off his theories sometimes.]

Yeah, but what else is new?

[Staring out at the street.]

The postman causing trouble is different. Usually they're all too afraid of the girl for that.

I'd like to write that off as Lucy pulling one over on us. The postman may be a stronger...piece in her game then Grady and the Mayor? I mean, they were afraid of him during Christmas when he was playing Santa, after all.

Then again? He might honestly be screwing with her. Which makes me wonder why she's tolerated him for so long. It could've just been grandstanding on her part at first, but she had to have seen something like this was coming. Maybe not this specifically, but something similar.

And she's probably going to stop whatever he's going to do. I'll be amazed if he succeeds.

[The very fact that she hasn't done anything to the postman yet is worth some thought...]

He must be useful somehow that she hasn't killed him.

[And an entirely unrelated afterthought]

I wonder what the drones did to be droned so long.

Most likely. Or that she can't> kill him.

[He just smirks a little.]

Who's to say they did anything and that it isn't something else. Like just staying here long enough may cause droning to naturally occur. Or people give up and allow it to happen to them.

Possibly.

[The second thing, yes, he's thought of it that way, too, especially based on whatever small pieces of evidence he's gathered. But he'd rather think otherwise because getting permanently droned for just being here too long? Fucking unnerving. That pretty much suggests it's inevitable.]

Maybe it's still reversible, even for them...

[Pokey just starts rapping his fingers on the ground, thinking. He's unnerved by the possibility of it being inevitable too, but at the same time? He's had to deal with so much dangerous, weird bullshit before that is isn't too hard to think on for him. Or even really fear it. He's gotten out of stupider, weirder possible dooms, no reason he can't cheat this one.]

Anything's possible, but we can't really know that without knowing more about how the town operates, or if there's an ulterior motive for having us droned then just assuring compliance. There has to be.

You Say I Don't Care, I Know I Don't Care (Phone/Action)

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