ᵐᵒᵈᵉˡ ⁰¹ ⁽ᵗᵉˣᵗ⁾

[littlebisque]

[Two weeks. Two weeks she's been here, every day more stressful than the last. Natalie depends on logic, it's her only anchor in a twisted-up, confusing world - but there's not enough of it here. Powers that shouldn't exist, technology that shouldn't exist, machines that the government put inside her. A job that's loud and chaotic, where she's sent arbitrarily from one random item to the next, fast, fast, fast, never letting her stop, and the machine blares angrily at her if she's even two seconds late. She can't stand it, but she's terrified of what might happen if she tries to quit.

And that's not even to mention the bizarre images and voices vibrating in her head - (that last one's the network, of course, but it's hard to tell how much of it is real, if any, and it deeply unsettles her). She's been trying to ignore it, but it's easy to activate, and there's no end to it.

She's had enough.]

I can't do this

Please let me go home

["Post." And the thought slips away into the ether.

She doesn't expect a reply, not really.]

Comments

private, video

[hostage]

Yeah. I can see.

[And he sounds a bit like she's taken his breath away with that drawing. He's never been nearly as skilled an artist, not even when it was his whole world.]

Is that... Did you do that from memory? Or did they let you just sit there and draw?

private, video + text

[littlebisque]

Memory. I can look around a room once and remember where everything is.

private

[hostage]

Is that a superpower or a talent?

[He seems amazed either way.]

private

[littlebisque]

It's all me.

[She flips to the next page. This one's a street in Heropa, packed with storefronts.]

private

[hostage]

That's incredible. That's more impressive than a power, you know? I bet you could sell these for like a million bucks.