TRIAL 01

[thecomputer]

Attention, Citizens! You have ten minutes to proceed to the Loyalty Chamber. Anyone who is late to the Loyalty Chamber, or who brings any weapons into the Loyalty Chamber, will be immediately executed.

[Once you arrive, you will find a large chamber, with twenty podiums spaced around the room in a circle. On the ceiling, a massive screen showing the digital eye of The Computer, turning to look at whoever is talking.]

You have one hour to come to a consensus about who to eliminate. Ties will be broken randomly.

[The floor of the chamber begins to split apart, eventually only leaving the twenty podiums as safe places to stand, above a seemingly bottomless abyss. Each podium lights up with a touch screen showing twenty user IDs (Seryu-R-CIT-1 is grayed out), plus the word “ABSTAIN”. The trial begins now!]

[[Vote Here.]]

Comments

[ossifragant]

Interesting question.

[But he's not going to be giving an answer.]

[standbyrival]

Hmph. Interesting lack of argument. Whatever, if you're neutral on it, be quiet, abstain, and let the rest of us handle it.

[ossifragant]

You seem quite insistent on this matter.

Are you that eager to get blood on your hands?

[standbyrival]

[he gives him a very. very. slow blink]

I am twelve years old. I'm at a severe physical disadvantage compared to most of you. I have a career back home I want to get back to. I want to live. I don't want to have people threatening to gouge out my eyes and pluck out my finger nails.

I'm eager to put a stop to this stupid exercise. If it means voting one of you to your deaths, so be it. Unless some of you are secretly pokemon trainers, you are not from my world, and I have nothing to be guilty about.

Now do you have some actual reasoning to throw my way, or do you just like looking smug?

[ossifragant]

[If you think being twelve is going to stop him.]

Say we kill her and she's a Citizen, then that means we will number eighteen to six. Get it wrong again, sixteen to six.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

[standbyrival]

Obviously.

Let's say the opposite happens--she is a Communist, and we let her live. What then? Your argument pretty much applies to every single one of us right now.

Look. As long as someone keeps her away from me, I don't care if she lives. But if we're voting blindly, people are going to vote for whoever they think is a personal threat at the moment. Do you see where I'm going with this? I don't know if you're friends with her or something, but if you want to redirect some attention, you need a better argument.

[ossifragant]

I find you continuing to push this issue to be rather fascinating.

[standbyrival]

[he pinches the bridge of his nose. It's like looking at a tiny grumpy old man]

Fascinating, really? You clearly don't get out much. Let me be blunt with you.

Give. Me. A. Reason. To vote for someone more likely. I don't WANT to mow down our own numbers. And if you want to convince everyone else? Give them a reason, too.

[ossifragant]

[And with the computer's announcement, Greed shrugs.]

The way I see it, she'll piss off the wrong person eventually anyway. Is there some reason you want her dead, kid?

[standbyrival]

She's pissed off like, half of us. Apparently there aren't enough "wrong" persons.

Did you not hear the bit about threatening to gouge out my eyes and rip off my nails? [he raises his arm, with a makeshift bandage covering it]

And she freaking bit me!

[ossifragant]

[And that? Makes him laugh.]

Revenge, then.

[He almost, almost sounds approving.]

Well, I don't think there's anything in the rules that says this has to be unanimous. I expect it won't be.

[standbyrival]

[HUFFS...]

Whatever, I just don't want her near me.

But yeah, probably not. What a pointless experiment.

[ossifragant]

I doubt you're the only one who wants her far away from you.

If no one comes out as a bigger target, I'm sure she'll be near the top of the list.

[cantarellacookie]

[Anthy, who has been listening to this, adds:] She played with and "broke" me already. It wasn't pleasant.

[standbyrival]

. . .

[he still hasn't actually committed everyone to memory. WHO EVEN IS THIS. . .but then it clicks that she was one of the first people to get offed and brought back]

So that's what happened. Keeping someone like that around is just asking for trouble, but whatever, I'll do what's going to keep me alive.

[cantarellacookie]

That's what happened.