futurology | text, @TARANTO, day after the saloon fire

text, @TARANTO, day after the saloon fire

hey guys guess what: blankets!!! me and TF to the fucking rescue, we rustled up like 40 of these bad boys
super cozy, some nice patterns. one of them has a robot wolf on it
it was also all entirely legal

they're ALMOST free, all you gotta do is tell me a story then come get one (i'm by those spiky ass fat plants that bleed if you knock them over)

also since i have 40 and there's more than 40 of us, i guess also pick someone to get cozy with

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I would never let them die! [He'd sound affronted if he wasn't so goddamn joyous. Okay, so there was that time when he did try to murder them but CONTEXT.] Anyway, they didn't both jump at the same time, THANK GOODNESS, or one of them might've died. They took turns and I caught them every time.

So, then they decide they want to try catching me. I was apprehensive. I really didn't think it was a good idea but they wanted me to and I didn't want them to think I didn't trust them! So I did it. And they caught me.

Sort of.

The next day they were both covered in bruises and I felt really bad. But it was fun!

oh my god really is that it
"some friends jumped on me then i jumped on them and they got bruised"
listen i can't recommend you get into the entertainment writing business

It might not be a good story but it's a good memory.

I really miss my friends...

yeah you're not the only one, doesn't mean you have to be so bad at this
haven't you ever heard anyone tell a story you can barf back up now?

Nobody really told many stories where I came from. We spent most of our time blowing things up, killing wastelanders or outrunning radioactive windstorms.

[He's smiling as always but his cheer fades a bit with embarrassment.]

I'm sorry for wasting your time, Ramir. I guess I just wanted someone to talk to...

yeah well you got someone
and wait what the fuck all of those sound like perfectly top notch stories, gimme one of those

But most of those end with people dying! [He pauses to think then, tapping a fingertip to the lower edge of his screen.] Well, maybe there's one that doesn't...

I should probably start by mentioning the setting — that's how most stories are supposed to start, right? Imagine if you will a big, big city packed with skyscrapers and shielded beneath a giant dome of artificially generated atmosphere. That city is called New Chicago! It's where most of the humans live and it's where I was built. Surrounding the city on all sides are hundreds of miles of dried up wasteland caused by the global devastation of nuclear war.

You'd think people wouldn't live out there, but you'd be wrong! You can find all sorts of dangerous weirdos out there living underground: terrorist druglords, bands of cannibals, brainwashed religious cults that perform ritual human sacrifice. I guess when people are desperate and have nothing left to live for, they get REAL crazy and mean. Some of them are set on destroying the city so somebody's got to be there to keep them out. That's where my friends and I come in! Our job was to protect New Chicago from people who wanted to get in and blow it up.

It was me, Maddox, J. Kwon and Jael on a team. I was the only robot. Our team was called the Lightning Walkers, named after a mythical beast made of lightning that's said to stalk the wastelands. Each of my friends drove their own super-fast car loaded with weapons. Because if you want to survive in the wasteland, you've got to be fast. And if you break down or get stuck out there, you can be DOA in just a matter of hours or minutes!

[Up until now, he's told the story with an unaffected sense of cheer, but now his voice softens, his smile fades and his gaze drifts downward.]

One time my friend Jael got stuck in a sink hole and before we could get to her, she was captured by wastelander terrorists. By the time we got there, they were gone. They took her, they took her car. The only thing left behind was tire tracks. And blood.

[What he'd felt then still affects him now and 'sick' is the only way to describe it. Sick with worry, anger, failure and hurt. Even his screen takes on a dim greenish hue.]

It's the worst feeling in the world not knowing if someone you love is dead or alive.

[ see now this is more like it, way better. a+. ]

yeah
it is
so did you get her back?

Yes, but first I had to find her. Wastelander convoys are always on the move and they have a way of disappearing into their vast underground tunnel systems. But I was able to get a location on her by tapping directly into her cranial microchip — I should probably mention here that all city residents must be chipped and many are chipped at birth. It's how the City keeps track of who's who.

Anyway, the coordinates led to a subterranean compound that served as their headquarters and prison camp. Now it was just a matter of breaking in. The only way to do that was to give myself up to them and let them take me for scrap or for reprogramming. A few of them were suspicious, of course, but they didn't really see me as a threat. My weapons are pretty well concealed, after all. Things were going great until it came to the part where they were going to dismantle me, then I had to start shooting and all hell broke loose!

It turns out a lucky distraction was all she really needed. I don't know how she did it but she fought her way out of that prison camp full of armed guards, while shackled! I'll just say this — Jael is one tough human, I mean mindbogglingly tough. She does things I wouldn't even do. She was beaten up pretty bad when we found each other and we were being shot at from everywhere but that didn't stop us. I don't think there was anything in the world that could've stopped us then and it felt incredible! We found her car and shot our way out of there.

...Now that I think of it, I guess a ton of people died in this story. Whoops!

haha nice, you got a winner of a friend there
but see that was way better! i don't ask for much do i, just a story that's actually interesting

plus no one you give a shit about died so it's all good

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text, @TARANTO, day after the saloon fire

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