CYOA Page 68
Sep. 14th, 2013 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumy12Joel is probably right; best not to get involved with this woman's plight and get distracted from your mission. You do a donation instead of a trade, and you make sure she knows exactly how to get to Jackson. You feel maaaybe just the teensiest twinge of guilt, leaving her there alone, but you don't think you'll lose any sleep over it. It's not like Jo even asked for your help, other than trade. She doesn't seem surprised or disappointed that you're leaving, either.
It seems you've met your quota of (live) people for the day; the only others you encounter are corpses. You find a nice little house to spend the night -- and you convince Joel to sleep in a child's room with you, in the bunk beds. Like you're a kid having a sleepover or something. Ha! He lets you have the top one. Actually, it's not even that he lets you -- he wanted the bottom one anyway, because he seems to think he'd be too heavy for it and you'd end up getting crushed when he breaks it. You've spent many a night in a bunk bed in your life, and you've never known one to break, but he almost makes you paranoid enough to not want to sleep over him, either. The first thing you do when you wake up in the morning (after you remember where you are) is check to see that you're still up high.
You arrive in the city around midday, and you find the hospital perhaps an hour or two after that. You may have been able to do it a little faster than that, but Joel still wants to avoid people for as long as possible. The groups that you've avoided here haven't looked very... hunterish? or whatever, to you. But you appreciate that Joel wants to err on the side of caution.
You're about to head up to the entrance when Joel stops you. You give him a withering look. "Joel, face it -- at some point, we're going to have to talk to people. These are friendlies!"
Joel frowns. "That ain't what I'm concerned about. Let's just watch 'em for a bit first."
"Okay, but I think the guards have already seen us." You're across the street, down a little ways, but you're not exactly hidden.
"I'm sure they have. Just get off your horse an' pretend we stopped to... stretch or somethin'." Joel dismounts, shaking his head... at his own thoughts, it seems.
You hop up on a little stone railing type thing (it's too short to be a wall) that lines the sidewalk and carefully walk the length of it and back, then hop off in front of Joel. "Okay -- what's wrong?"
"I don' know why I didn't think of this possibility before. Those guards are military."
"So what?"
"So, wait an' see what they do when someone goes inside."
You're the only people in the area, though. "No one's going inside. Are we going to wait all day?"
"If we have to."
"Why?"
"What do they do in a QZ when people who left come back inside?"
"Um... they check their papers..."
"...and?"
Oh -- duh! "They scan them."
"Exactly."
That would be a problem, yes. "Maybe they don't do that here?"
"That's what we need to find out."
Jackson managed to obtain a scanner, a few months back. Only one, so it was decided that the main gate that got the most use would keep it, and any new people (like Jo and her friend) would be directed that way to get scanned. Tommy and Maria know about your 'condition,' so they made it a policy to only use it on newcomers, visitors, and people who had encountered infected while they were Out (honor system on that one) -- not without some grumbling from some other Jacksonites who felt it should be blanketly used on everyone. Joel, bless his heart, just couldn't seem to suffer the scanner's presence in such close proximity to you anyway (like you couldn't just lie about encountering infected if you had to? ...or, he could, and you could just keep your stupid mouth shut), and he somehow made sure that the poor device malfunctioned so badly that no one's been able to repair it. You have no idea how he did it. He won't even admit to sabotaging it, but you know he did something.
You're not sure how you feel about that. He's willing to put the whole town at risk, just to protect you? You're only one person. And you didn't even care about the fucking scanner. In fact, you would've been relieved if they'd discovered your secret so you wouldn't have to hide it constantly. You really don't think anyone there would try to kill you, especially after you've been living there for over a year now and obviously aren't going to just turn out of the blue. But, "really don't think" isn't good enough for Joel. And he pointed out that they've been doing just fine all this time without a scanner anyhow.
You untie and retie your shoe. You refill your canteen. You eat a whole apple. Still no one. "So... how long do we wait before they start getting suspicious about us hanging out here?" you ask as you feed the apple core to your horse.
"Not too much longer," Joel replies. "We can turn the corner here an' go in that office buildin' to watch from one of those windows in secret."
But right after he says that, two guys with backpacks approach from the other side of the street. Oh please let them be going inside... please please please... YES!
...OH SHIT. Your face falls as you watch them.
"Shit," Joel mutters as well.
"Why wouldn't Tommy have warned us about that? I thought you said he's been up here?"
"...He has. That's a good question."
"Now what do we do?"
Joel thinks for a moment. "Well... two options. One, I go in an' you stay here. It won't look bad for you to just be watchin' over our--"
"No, I don't want you going in by yourself! What's the other option?"
"We try to find another way in."
"Let's do that, then."
Joel chuckles. "I don' know how easy that will be."
"Well, we were pretty good at it back in the day, don't you think?"
"Yes, but... sneakin' around is more dangerous than goin' in normal. If we get caught, they're gonna assume we're up to no good an' they might jus' shoot us on sight."
"But if we tell them we're from Jackson--"
"On sight," Joel emphasizes. "Even if they do let us speak, why wouldn't we just go in the front door like everyone else? They'll want an explanation."
"So, you'll lie!"
Joel gives you a look. "An' what do you propose I tell 'em that'll ring true?"
"I dunno... but you're good at bullshitting, aren't you?"
"Not that good. Look, it ain't like I'd be in there for long. All we've gotta do is see if Danny's here, or see if he's been here. That's it. What are you worried about?"
...What are you so worried about? You're not sure. You don't like being separated from Joel out here -- what if something happens to him and you're not there? -- but it's not just that... something about this being a hospital makes you uneasy. You never did hear the whole story about what happened in Salt Lake City last year. You know Joel was holding something back, but it was something he's not willing to talk about, and you've accepted that (you have some skeletons in your closet, too, after all... ugh, creepy expression). But... those were Fireflies. These aren't. Different hospital -- different state, even. That has nothing to do with this. Maybe you're just being paranoid.
If you let Joel go inside by himself, turn to page 127.
If you insist on going with him and finding another way inside, turn to page 131.
Carlos
Date: 2020-07-22 01:15 pm (UTC)RE: Carlos
Date: 2020-07-22 01:51 pm (UTC)RE: Carlos
Date: 2020-07-30 02:34 pm (UTC)Re: Carlos
Date: 2020-07-31 12:34 pm (UTC)