Event № 1 : January 2024

[silentspringmods]

Event № 1 : January 2024
Part I; Chapter 2. Silence tells me secretly everything

universe/setting information, role assignment, and FAQs

I. A Thought Is Haunting Me

January 1st.

CWs: nonconsensual memshare/receiving of memories, flashbacks to combat zone and injury, blood, hearing loss/burst eardrum, panic attacks.

Just in time for New Year's Eve, the town square that held a magnificently decorated 15-foot Christmas tree last week now has a glittering silver ball to rival New York's own waiting atop a flagpole rooted in the same spot. Strings of lanterns illuminate the snowy brick courtyard, lined with stands offering hot cocoa, ciders, and various warm snacks, or perhaps characters are more interested in obtaining a pair or two of silly New Year's glasses that allow them to look through the numerals 1961. Eventually, though, all goes quiet for the exciting countdown.

'Five... four... three... two... one!

The ball drops, and confetti streams down onto the square (and the people standing in it!) as the Sweetwater High School Marching Band picks up a jaunty rendition of the New Year's classic Auld Lang Syne—but characters will likely find themselves distracted by the dark spots that appear in their fields of vision, gradually expanding until everything is eclipsed entirely by soft blackness. They feel less and less of the world around their bodies, numbness starting at their fingertips and toes and creeping up their extremities until they feel touchless, floating, completely absent of sensation. Then something replaces it: fragments, or perhaps all of what follows.

The world flashes black, then returns, hazy and doubled, half obscured by smoke as you lie face down on the hard, rocky earth. One ear shrieks, a whine that grows higher and higher. Hot blood streams down the other earlobe and drips onto your neck, washing off sweat and grime as it trickles toward your collar. Pain slices through what you think must be your eardrum like a jackknife shoved into your skull. You cough, throat burning, ribs protesting the movement. A coppery taste, a warmth, fills your mouth. You check with your tongue and all of your teeth are there; the blood is coming from your broken lip. The hair on top of your head feels hot and wet. You know your cheek is scraped open from the gritty sting taking up most of your face.

The doubled image of a medic gets into your face, his lips silently moving. You try to shake your head, to communicate that you can’t hear him over the shriek of your own tinnitus, but your neck is too stiff. Your brain slams against your skull and your head feels like it’s been hit with a brick. Blood drips off of your brow and into your eye.

The medic squeezes your shoulder and pushes off, scrambling across the debris until he disappears in the gray-brown smoke. There’s a moment of irrational fear: he’s leaving you here to die. You’re hit somewhere and you’re last in triage. You’ve heard about soldiers not feeling the gunshot until much later. When he and his buddy come back with a stretcher, surprise mingles with the dread of being lifted.

You shut your eyes tightly, trying to recalibrate your vision, but it still swims with the pitch and yaw of the rocky earth beneath you. When you open it, he’s trying to look into your eyes, hand on your shoulders, his lips finally moving in a pattern you recognize: Going home. Going home.

Going home.

You close your eyes.

*

You stare at a long tawny finger as you wind it into the red plasticized cord of the phone set, doing nothing when it begins to throb against its tethers, the single physical sensation anchoring you in reality.

“Listen to me. I need you to be calm and handle this. Someone will be there in thirty minutes, Ron. You need to keep it under control until then or we’re going to be in a world of shit you can’t even imagine—Put up roadblocks. Say a convict got loose. I don’t care. Do what you have to. Don’t call me unless it’s resolved or someone’s fucking dying, Ron, do you understand me?”

*

The door opens as the emergency light comes on, flickering. The room fills with the suffocating stench of diesel. A candystriper’s golden-brown hands wrap around your thin wrists, pulling you as she rocks back on the heels of her wet tennis shoes with all of her might. Tears stream down her cheeks, strands of relaxed hair hanging in her eyes. She chokes her words out around sobs of her own, eyes wild with terror, screaming: Miss Ruby, you have to get up! You have to get up, Miss Ruby! But your legs won't move. Your breaths shudder ragged in the air just like the volunteer's.

At 12:01, characters return to consciousness: but there are little changes, twinges that make this a bit realer than a dream. Perhaps their index finger twinges as blood returns to it and the impressions a tight phone cord left on their skin fade, or maybe they find themselves wiping a few droplets of blood from the corner of their jaw. Perhaps their ears ring, gradually giving way to clearer sound—or maybe they awake sitting on the ground with their arms around their bent knees, face wet with tears, overcome with a raw panic unlike anything they’ve ever felt. How very odd.

Notes:
—Characters can experience all of the memories, or players can pick and choose.
—Characters do not have to be in the square to receive the memories.

II. In the Valley of the Dolls We Sleep

January 13-15th.

CWs: violence, entrapment, hypnosis, living mannequins, dismemberment.


'New year, new you!' the cheery saleswoman on the radio and television ads for the local two-story department store proclaims ad-nauseam, becoming more and more of a regular guest in characters' homes as time marches on toward the 15th of the New Year. There are great sales to be had, and would you look at that, characters have a few gift cards to this very store in their respective purses and wallets! Over time, the voice of the young woman in the advertisement almost seems to grow more insistent, even though the same ad plays every time: surely it's just familiarity altering one's perception of her voice, right?

On the morning of the 13th, characters wake up to the sound of every radio and television set in the house turned on and blaring the ad. The saleswoman reminds them that time's running out, and that the sales will only last for another 48 hours before they're gone. If characters can't hear, they only make it as far as the living room before the television screen comes into view, the same message scrolling across the bottom of the screen in large close-captioning... even if they haven't turned it on. This time, something feels different, and characters find themselves compelled as though by a supernatural force to go check out the sales being advertised.

Characters may notice once they're inside of the building that it's only new arrivals here: the townspeople of Sweetwater seem to have already done their shopping! Fortunately, there are still some great items left. It may be when looking at that cashmere sweater or a nice pair of snowshoes that characters catch a tiny flicker of movement out of the corner of their eye: but when they turn in that direction, there's nothing except a faint, nagging sense that something's not right. It happens again as they pass through the store—and then, with no warning, the faceless, eyeless mannequins throughout the store burst into motion at the same time as the sales associates collapse to the floor unconscious, attacking characters with inhuman strength and whatever items they have at their disposal with the intent of bludgeoning them to death.

If characters try to escape from the way they came, they will find that the automatic doors and fire doors are all locked as though from the outside. The windows cannot be opened or broken, nor can the glass of the doors—they're trapped here. Really, truly trapped.

To make matters worse, the mannequins, unlike the salesman, seem truly impervious to... everything. Guns can pierce them, but they have no blood to lose or brain to damage. They can be dismembered, but they're strong, and hard to pull apart; even if a mannequin's head is removed, the body will still function. Characters have one advantage, however: the mannequins are not as intelligent as human beings, and seem to mostly lack object permanence. If characters can stay silent and out of sight after finding somewhere to hide, the mannequins will drop their pursuit after about fifteen minutes of trying to get to them.

The mannequins stay alive for 48 hours, and the doors stay locked for the same amount of time. Characters who do not find a way to sleep risk sleep deprivation symptoms similar to the ones detailed in the explanation of modes of torture in Sweetwater, and will be slower, weaker, and less able to fight off or escape from the mannequins. 48 hours is also a very long time to go without water, which can only be obtained from the sinks in the bathrooms... both of which feature nicely dressed mannequins in one corner.

Notes:
— The departments of the store are as follows:

- Women's Clothing
- Men's Clothing
- Children's Clothing
- Furs
- Baby/young child supplies
- Home appliances
- Kitchen
- Decor
- Furniture
- Toys
- Hunting, Fishing, and Outdoors (hunting-style guns, ammunition, snowshoes, fishing rods, flies/fly-tying equipment, dog beds, hunting blinds)
- Tools ( Limited. There aren't any electric saws or more specialized tools like bolt cutters to be found, but simpler "Little Joey picked this out for you, Dad!" wrench/screwdriver sets, branch loppers, lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc. - in general assume that there aren't any power tools player characters can use to bulldoze the mannequins with, but there might be some tools that could help with other things... )
- Fine Jewelry/Watches
- Ladies' Gloves

— Deaf characters and characters who wear earplugs to bed will be awoken by their spouse moving, or will randomly wake up even though they can't hear the ad.
— Players who wish to opt out can say that their character simply slept through it and woke up after the doors to the department store had already locked.
— The mannequin limbs are inert after they've been removed, but the mannequins can still operate without a head.
— Characters may try to investigate at the risk of leaving cover. If a character is able to get close enough to the service desk on the second floor, they may also notice that one of the customer service associates, a teenage girl, lies slumped over the counter as opposed to on the floor with her coworkers, an unlabeled, recently installed button depressed beneath her shoulder—she was leaning forward before she lost consciousness. If her body is moved, the button stays anchored in place. If characters check it again, hours later, they'll notice that it can't be depressed or lifted, but seems a little higher—almost as if it takes a set amount of time to return to resting.

III. Drill it in like J. Paul Getty

Throughout January.

CWs: torture, non-fatal electrical shock, restraints, medical/psychiatric abuse, nonconsensual drug administration, altered states of consciousness, needles/injections, gaslighting, brainwashing, sleep deprivation torture, antipsychotics overdose, smoking.

Should characters discuss the horrors of the month on the network, over the telephone, or in places where townspeople can hear, they’ll face the consequences. They go to bed the night of the offense as usual—and come into consciousness in a dark room, a basement of some sort, bound to a chair with leather restraints buckled onto their wrists, their ankles. A leather strap runs across their chest, holding it to the back of the hard wooden chair they’re bound to. A few feet away, the static electricity of a television box provides some measure of light as noisy waves ripple across the screen.

Upon further examination, there’s one more thing on characters’ left wrists, directly north of the leather straps holding it to the armrest: a set of electrodes and thin wires that run down and across the room.

“You’re awake. Good morning.” None other than the town’s private practice doctor, Norman Pollock, greets them, with the same matter of fact tone he’d use during a standard physical exam. “You seem to have lost sight of what makes Sweetwater so special, so we’re going to watch some videos, get your head on straight. We can’t have this kind of subversive behavior when the country’s already under attack, Sweetheart.”

He presses a button on the television remote—which characters might notice has a second, less refined one taped to its side—and a program comes on: What Communism Will Take From Us.

For the next 36 hours, the hour-long video plays on repeat, showing idyllic scenes right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, detailing the joys of the American way of life, emphasizing all of the ways subversive thoughts and actions undermine it, and how they hold the door open for the Red Menace. This is what’s at stake, what little towns like Sweetwater, Maryland have to use. Norman sits in a chair nearby, smoking cigarettes, reading issues of the New England Journal of Medicine, the remote never leaving his hand. The moment characters’ eyes close for longer than a single blink, the electrodes on their wrist deliver a nasty shock to help them wake up, growing in intensity with every additional offense. His never do for longer than a regular old blink.

By the end of the 36 hours, characters can expect reality to begin to blur at the edges, and may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and their minds wandering in ways they haven’t before. At 36 hours of sleep deprivation, the body cries out for it, desperate to rest. Maybe they erupt into hysterical laughter, or weep uncontrollably, or panic. Norman is unphased by all of it.

If characters try to fight back, or prove too argumentative and unwilling to learn, Norman will produce a glass syringe and draw up a thick fluid from a dark glass bottle, which, if characters have the necessary visual acuity to see, reads haloperidol. He jams the needle into their gluteus and injects; within 10 minutes, characters will feel very, very sedate, almost catatonic in their stupor. Effects vary from person to person, but it is not a pleasant experience: in addition to the deadness it brings on, hearts race and mouths go dry. It gets harder to swallow, or maybe a character’s vision begins to blur. The limbs contract in fits and jerks in the immediate and for the week the drug lasts. The face twitches uncontrollably, muscles ache in their rigid stiffness, and it becomes hard to stay upright throughout the week as the drug interferes with the character’s balance, making them dizzy and confused.

THE TOE TAG
If characters fight Norman, however, they may find that he backs against the nearby metal filing cabinet–knocking loose a piece of paper hanging from a half-open drawer when he does. It’s recognizable as a photocopy of a toe tag, the kind affixed to corpses in a morgue, but characters have seconds before their vision doubles and blurs too much for it to remain readable. Characters who are injected with haloperidol for subversion, either for talking about the murder or a different offense, may comment to the event post under the designated mod comment to take a shot at reading the tag. Remember, though, it’s probably best not to advertise that they saw anything out of the ordinary, or to even mention what happened to them, on a publicly visible communications channel…

They wake up in their own bed shortly after losing consciousness, and spend the next week corpselike.

IV. It's Freezing and I Am Watching You Shovel Snow

January 7th onwards.

It's a cold winter for Maryland, characters will hear their neighbors complain, and within a few days of the New Year they have reason enough to complain too: the snowstorm everyone's been talking about in the neighborhood clubs comes on the 7th of January, dumping a foot and a half of snow. Better grab that snow shovel, or find someone to help you if you can't! A snowstorm like this takes multiple visits outdoors to keep up with, so maybe now would be a good time to practice divvying up responsibilities with characters' new spouses or children—or for bachelors to seek out the help of a neighbor. Characters may also have to deal with a power outage lasting up to 14 hours—better visit a house that has power if they need anything, but at least this is the kind of experience that brings a parent and child or a new couple or even two members of the same community closer. At least in theory.

It’s not all near-death experiences, psychological torture, and power outages, though! Characters who find themselves in need of some R&R will be pleased to know that the local fire department has tested the municipal park’s pond and found the ice is now suitably thick for ice skating. Characters will find lace-up leather ice skates in their size hanging from their tied-together laces in the garage, though this probably isn’t the best way to learn to skate if they haven’t before, given the lack of rail to hold on to–unless they have a friend to help them balance?

navigation

Comments

[littlemissfutility]

He looks mad, but more than that, he looks cold. If her fingers feel like ice through a pair of gloves, how can he even feel his hand? Beth looks up at him for a moment, trying to gauge the danger - and the thing she keeps thinking is, no one dangerous has been anything but nice here. They're all fake. Whoever he is, he's real. That makes them allies, even if only for the moment.

And then the snow falls back over his tiny path. He's gonna be out here until midnight if he does it himself.

"Then don't think of it as help," she says, deciding to treat him the way she'd treat Daryl Dixon, if he were here: like a friend who doesn't always realize how he sounds. "I'm gonna go crazy if I have to go back inside after I finish my driveway. Let me do yours first."

Not strictly true, but maybe it'll work.

[freakymagoo]

He can't feel his hand, or his face, or his toes. What he can feel in the parts of his body attached to his extremities is pretty fucking cold. But he's not complaining and he's not rushing to wrap himself up in layers. It's taken him days to be able to get out of bed by himself, and it feels like no small miracle that he's walking, settled back into his usual grumping about self. He's going to take his small blessings and turn the anger within, at the expense of his own health.

Honestly he has no idea how everyone else lives life like this. With their body threatening to betray them all the time. All these-- limitations. This fatigue. Thanks, Sweetwater. He hates it.

At least Bucky's personality probably bears a little resemblance to Daryl's. He's not familiar but not a completely different beast either. He's visibly uncomfortable with accepting help, but. The fake people in this fake town are so overly helpful that he's a little hesitant to outright reject her and tell her to get off his snowed under lawn. What if Norman comes back and tells him he's been callous, and rude, and not holding up his end of the deal to be a good boy? His body will break if he has to go through another round in the chair after just recovering from the last bout.

He's probably going to bark if she touches his corner of the snow that he'd been working on. But he lets her pick another spot further down the path to start digging.

"Can I." ...paying her feels weird. His face twitches. "Make food. For you."

[littlemissfutility]

He doesn't say yes, but he doesn't say no. And while he should probably go inside and sit down as close to one of the floor vents as possible, he doesn't move from the place he's standing. The best she can do is work at the other end, in hopes of meeting him in the middle.

Or close to the front, probably.

Beth starts moving the snow from the walk to the yard. Every armful's heavier than it feels like it ought to be - a surprise of northern winters - but the effort feels good. Being outside again still feels novel, after too much time trapped in the dark halls of a hospital. If it weren't so cold, she'd probably be out in the fresh air all day, every day.

She looks up at the offer, mid-shovel. "If you wanna. What are you having?"

[freakymagoo]

Not that close to the front. He's perfectly capable of shoveling. He just needs a much bigger shovel than the one he found at his property, use it as a scoop and be patient and methodical about how he's clearing out this walkway. That's on the list of things to get once he's able to go shopping.

"Broccoli mac and cheese bake." Yes, he's twelve. No, he can't finish the entire casserole dish of food the way he used to be able to when his body burned all the fuel up like paper. Yes, there's a whole block of Velveeta in there. Of course it's going to taste good.

[littlemissfutility]

Once they get back into the rhythm of it, she can see his technique - how it does work pretty well. It's cool. Something to keep in mind if she ever loses an arm.

"That sounds really good." Her expression opens up a little, despite herself. They're doing something, they're outside, she has her knife if she needs it, and there'll be a casserole at the end. It doesn't rise to the level of feeling safe, but it's uncomplicated - and that's a start. "I haven't had broccoli in, like, two years."

[freakymagoo]

Bucky scoffs, seemingly unimpressed by the revelation, automatically assuming it is a matter of taste rather than availability or, well. He's never heard of broccoli allergies, but. It probably does exist, and. Sure, he'd rather put something else in the oven for her than risk having to deal with a fatal allergic reaction.

"You can pick them out if you don't like it. I didn't cut them that small." It's not like his fridge came stocked with pre-cut broccoli florets. It's an unnecessarily challenging task to cut them as small as they might look if a similar dish was offered at the local restaurant.

[littlemissfutility]

"No," she says, her gaze dropping back to the half-shoveled walk. "Broccoli's fine."

It's better if people don't ask - if there are walkers here, she hasn't seen them, and nothing about this place screams tell people everything weird about you - but there's so much she never thought she'd see again that it's a little overwhelming. There are oranges and bananas in her kitchen at this very moment, like getting things shipped in is easy. Safer conversations, though, because she does want to talk: "I've never seen snow like this before, either. Have you?"

[freakymagoo]

"Mm." He's about to say that he's never lived in Maryland, so he wouldn't know, but he reconsiders his words just in case she's one of them. Or feeding information to them. Can't trust anyone here - especially neighbours who want to small talk.

"Snows for half the year in Siberia. Sometimes even in June." If this is annoying, she wouldn't want to spend any length of time over there. But Siberia isn't his home anymore, hasn't been in decades now.

"Guess it can be house-burying levels upstate." Which might imply he used to live downstate somewhere, but he doesn't specify, and it makes a whole lot more sense than Siberia. Anyway, it's wall of snow territory up there. And of course, it's normal in various parts of Europe other than Siberia, but he's not lived there for long either, and the time he did spend in Europe, he was running around with a gun and destabilising governments, not exactly shacking up in a cottage shoveling snow.

[littlemissfutility]

Upstate, downstate - the words don't stick in the same way as one he said before them.

"You're from Siberia?" Her voice has dropped a little in volume, but her curiosity remains the same. Everyone around here is a real freak when it comes to Russia - and she gets it, she knows that the Cold War existed, but there's still something bizarre on an instinctive level for her.

Imagine caring about what happens in another country. Imagine knowing what's happening in another country. She remembers what that was like, but it's been long enough that switching back isn't immediate or seamless. But all the same, people here will act like jackasses, so...better be quiet about asking questions.

[freakymagoo]

"No. From Brooklyn. But I--" was kept in a frigid fish tank for decades, tortured and kept on a tight leash and a strict regiment like a dog beaten and bred to fight, but sure Russia's probably a nice country when Hydra isn't in cahoots with Soviet Union.

"...lived there for many years." Yes, he speaks the local language, and yes, he struggles sometimes with what Brooklyn looks and feels like these days compared to the fish tank he's used to. All of New York City is very different after eighty years of captivity.

"Rough place to live." 0/10 would not recommend.

[littlemissfutility]

"Yeah." She tries to think of what she knows about Siberia; all that comes to mind are big empty fields of snow. They sent prisoners there, didn't they? It's not enough to go on for a conversation.

Instead, after another short silence, she asks, "What was it like?"

Her best guess is it sucked, but if he doesn't feel the same way, that'll make her sound like a real jackass.

[freakymagoo]

What was it like? It's a very loaded question. Plenty of people before her have asked. No doubt, people after her will continue to ask. And she's only asking about Siberia, not-- the weight of everything that came with his time there. Not that he even knows how to deal with any of that. Certainly not in a healthy or constructive or healing sort of way. It's impossible to just think about the place without considering what they did to him there, but. To his credit, he doesn't flinch.

"I'm sure it's-- different. If you go there willingly. But it's a kind of place-- people just survive. They don't really live." If that makes sense at all. He's not trying to be poetic, he's just. Trying to differentiate a place like Sweetwater with a place like Siberia. People live here. With their. Topiaries hedges and shit. Siberia is mother nature trying to kill you at all times, where only the strongest and the cruelest survive.

"You wouldn't like it there." Especially if this is already too much snow to deal with.

[littlemissfutility]

"Probably not." His answer is halting enough that she regrets asking; whatever brought and kept him in Russia must have been terrible. Saying as much only threatens to draw more attention to the fact that he seems unhappy remembering it, though, and he's still an unknown quantity - expressing sympathy might make him mad.

(It's not the kind of math she had to do with people, once. These days, it feels required.)

"I get it, though. People just existing because they don't wanna be dead." This seems safer to talk about. Something his experience has in common with hers, whether he's seen the dead shambling around or not. "Or doing...you know, whatever they think they have to, no matter who it hurts."

[freakymagoo]

It's not so bad, being dead. There were plenty of times he wished for it and the people who could grant him that small morsel of mercy just laughed in his face. Well, being dead as far as a forever nothingness or the Ancestral Plane go, anyway. There's a special hell reserved for people like Bucky and he's pretty sure that's probably going to be worse than being here.

"Only the worst survive." The best among them? The ones who share their resources, who try and protect the weak and vulnerable amongst them. The ones who care for others, who are willing to stand up to authority. They all die. That was true in 1945 for Bucky as much as it is true for her today.

He probably shouldn't say such things if he wants her to come over for broccoli mac and cheese. But he's not very good at making small talk. And she did ask about Siberia.

[littlemissfutility]

"Sometimes," she agrees. It occurs to her that Dawn might have lived; she only had the chance to stab her once, and it's hard to know if she got her heart. If everything worked out the way she's pretty sure it did, probably someone else finished her off. But if not -

Well, then this guy's right. But she'd like to think it's not completely true. What's the point of anything, if it'll all go to shit anyway? "I know some people who are pretty good, though. And they're still alive."

[freakymagoo]

"Yeah?" Bucky is cynical enough to think that she doesn't really know the people she thinks is good, or that you can have very skewed views on who's good and bad depending on whose side you're on, but. Well, maybe there is a Steve Rogers for everyone. He wouldn't be able to know for certain.

"I need to check on the oven. Coffee?" Actually he's lost all feeling in his fingers and toes, but he's not man enough to admit to himself that he gets much colder and weaker than he used to get - he can actually get sick now and it's going to knock him off his feet the way Doctor Norman did not so long ago - and definitely not enough of a man to admit as much to her. He's only enough of an idiot to make up an excuse to get back inside.

[littlemissfutility]

Beth nods, and from there falls silent for a few moments. There's still good people in the world, at least until she finds out the worst has happened to them. And even then - she's been trying not to think of it, but even then, there will still be babies and children out there somewhere. There's always someone who's still decent.

The prospect of coffee brightens her spirits, and it shows in her rosy-cheeked face. "Yeah - thanks."

After she's leaned her shovel up against his garage and come inside, stomping snow off her boots, she adds, "I've never lived anywhere like this before. It never gets this cold in Georgia." She's unwinding her scarf as she says it, peeling off hat and mittens, sliding out of her wool coat. You have to wear so much just to feel like you aren't freezing here.

[freakymagoo]

Yeah, it gets a little annoying, having to put all the layers on and take them all off every time you venture in and outdoors. Thankfully this kind of weather won't last for more than two months at the most.

Her coffee is ready by the time she steps into his kitchen, the scent of it cutting through the thick and heavy unmistakeable smell of mac and cheese still going in the oven, and he puts the milk and sugar out. It's a little cooler in his house compared to some of the other places he's been in, but not uncomfortably so. He's also moved a few things around to make it easier to navigate the space with one hand. But apart from the possible vacuum cleaner salesman murder that might or might not have taken place here a while ago, no red flags in the house thus far.

"Might get unbearably hot in summer." He's not sure if she'd prefer that instead though.

[littlemissfutility]

"That's how summer always is." Except in Siberia, probably. It sucks, but being miserably sticky still beats wondering if you're going to lose toes from how cold it is.

(She's not going to lose toes. She's wearing thick socks and winter boots, and she has no idea how cold you have to get before your extremities are actually in danger. But it feels kind of terrible all the same.)

She takes her coffee cup and adds a little milk. (Sugar, it turns out, tastes so sweet it's almost revolting now.) "Think these houses have air conditioning?"

[freakymagoo]

Air conditioning wasn't very common when he was young. They were big, expensive, clunky units that required a lot of maintenance and servicing. By the 1950s, he's pretty sure things have changed. Hopefully they won't have to deal with a murderous air conditioner salesman anytime soon...

"We lived just fine without it," he points out gently. Of course, population density was spread differently back then. And the weather didn't oscillate between the extremes so much.

"Prety sure this is a. Leave the front and back door open kind of town anyway." Bucky's tendency to want three locks for every door aside. It's not paranoia if there's a callous, uncaring doctor torturing people trying to keep this Sweetwater totalitarian regime going.