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[hostage]

SCI » 008 » 024

_“ Hey, it's me. Wait for the thing. _”

Comments

[jurisimpudent]

[Oh good.]

Everything.

[hostage]

Well where do you want me to start?

[jurisimpudent]

...How you arrived there.

[hostage]

I fell onto an abandoned baseball field and puked. And then some kid told me a magical machine called the Core brought me there, 'cause it does that sometimes, and there was no way I could leave the island so get used to it.

[jurisimpudent]

All right. And...was this machine indeed responsible?

[hostage]

I dunno. I never saw it.

[jurisimpudent]

Did anyone?

[hostage]

Probably. It was locked up tight though, high security shit. None of us could go near it.

[jurisimpudent]

[There's the sound of a pen scratching on paper.]

So who had control of this Core?

[hostage]

The government, I think.

[All the fucks Jesse gave about the Core, really.]

[jurisimpudent]

So they were responsible for your kidnapping?

[hostage]

Nah, they didn't like us being there. It was an accident. The damn thing was broken.

[jurisimpudent]

Broken. All right.

So how did they react to "not liking" you being there?

[hostage]

Okay, you know those crazy Minutemen guys that drive by the border with like guns and shit, waiting to chase illegals back into Mexico?

It was like that except they had nowhere to chase us to, so they just messed our shit up all the time. And lots of places wouldn't hire us or like even let us in the store, which was the douchiest thing ever.

[jurisimpudent]

Far from uncommon, though. That's similar to the treatment of a great many immigrant groups throughout history, particularly those who could not be transported back to their home countries...And you were, of course, to blame for any number of social ills?

[hostage]

Oh yeah. Pretty much anything they could blame on us, they did.

[jurisimpudent]

Any illnesses, I suppose. An upswell in crime. Even poor general hygiene.

[hostage]

Yep.

[jurisimpudent]

Hmph. Detestable. How long were you there?

[hostage]

About three months.

[jurisimpudent]

Did you suffer any attacks, et cetera?

[hostage]

Me? Nah, I moved outta the Newcomer ghetto real fast, got myself a couple fake I.D.s and blended in easy. Most people could swear I was a native.

[jurisimpudent]

And I suppose your...unusual ability assisted in that?

[hostage]

Actually, that was the tough part. Everybody had a superpower except real new Newcomers, so locals would start off a conversation like, "So what's your power?" And I didn't wanna go telling 'em what it really was, so I had to bullshit stuff, like, "Oh, yeah, my superpower's getting a girl off in thirty seconds."

[jurisimpudent]

[A slight frown - ]

Off of what?