Hadriel Inbox

[theweakhavepurpose]

INBOX This is... this is Deputy Pratt of the Hope County sheriff's department... art credit code credit

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[nonscriptum]

Nah, they sold frozen yogurt.

[He quips, because the only thing worse than garbage-flavored ice cream is frozen yogurt. Nate nods toward the expanse that stretches past the ruins, where the permafrost hardens the earth and the vegetation looks sad, at best.]

There's a few bunkers out there, some big robots that don't work anymore, some existential dread. Take your pick.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Wow, as appealing as more existential dread is, I'm gonna have to go with the robots.

I've seen enough bunkers to last a fucking lifetime. Though if you're having trouble opening them I might be able to help. At least if they're anything like the ones back home.

[nonscriptum]

Doomsday preppers?

[Nate asks with an understanding look. Louisiana doesn't have the wilderness of Montana, but it has just as many weirdos whose trucks are packed to the gills with guns, who have invested in the certainty that uncertainty will dismantle everything. They're ready for something, all right.

He hefts his rifle, starting their walk away from the library.]

Figured we'd just take a stroll and see what we see.

[theweakhavepurpose]

We're infested with them.

[ He's pretty sure Montana has more private bunkers than anywhere else in the country. Filled to the brim with MREs and guns because apparently everyone was going to shoot their neighbors at the barest hint of things going wrong in the world.]

Sounds good to me. Anything that isn't the inside of my house or the exact view from the range. I think I could navigate that area blindfolded now.

Having been in a bunker, I don't know how anyone could survive years in there without going batshit insane from boredom.

[nonscriptum]

[The part that always confused Nate about preppers is how logistically impractical isolationism is. Historically, great catastrophes tend to prove that the opposite is more effective, that people band together to work toward a common good.

But hey, what does he know? He hates MREs.]

I don't blame you. Spent a couple hours in an underground Nazi facility once and that was long enough for me.

[He may have also disliked the experience because of the slippery naked people climbing out of the walls at him in the dark, but that's an unnecessary detail.]

[theweakhavepurpose]

Nazi facility? That's not just underground and boring, that's creepy and unsettling too.

[ He shudders thinking about it. Not that Jacob's brainwashing slaughterhouse is that much better, but it's a much much smaller scale. ]

Also having to eat stuff that needs to be reconstituted with water for the rest of your life doesn't sound like much of a life at all.