A quick recap. [Drone filtered]

[patchworksanity]

Hrm...Things have gotten very interesting lately, wouldn't you agree, citizens?

Naturally, the biggest revelation is that even the almighty Officer Grady answers to a higher power, and he's just as false an existance as any of us, capable of becoming a more standard piece of this puzzle of a town.  The other half of this clue points to one Lucy

Comments

[filtered]

[beheadofworship]

Then, you are saying the Smith family on Ricardo have been drones the entire time?

[He hasn't been here as long as Stein, so he never noticed. But Lucy is obviously suspicious]

... As though they are special.

[filtered]

[patchworksanity]

That is exactly what I am saying. The town replaces its residents and makes more homes as nessisary. However, that house always seems to be devoid of change.

[filtered]

[beheadofworship]

What else do you know about them?

[patchworksanity]

They act like the perfect family. The father, John goes out in the morning, presumably after breakfast, comes back in the evening. At exactly the same time every day. The wife, Jane, I don't see much of, though I see her on Sundays when the family goes to church.

Billy and Lucy are both in some of my classes at school, Lucy's a straight A student, even when presented with quantium mechanics. Billy's grades aren't as good, but still constistant regardless of the material given to him. He's a bit more of a troublemaker by "normal" standards, but...Mayfield's hardly normal, as I stated.

They all seem horribly generic and grey.

[beheadofworship]

Yet Lucy was the one who spoke up when Grady was stopped, and if I recall right, she also said something at Christmas just after all of that fake future nonsense...

[patchworksanity]

[Stein had been droned for that event, so he has no memory of that.]

Oh? What did she say then?

[beheadofworship]

Let's see, she said... "Merry Christmas," and then something like, "Let's reflect on our great future in Mayfield, and the stupid past that we'll never see again."

She said to think about what we'd learned, and to make sure we get on Santa's nice list.

[Then again, he wonders why Stein doesn't know that? ...Did something happen? And he didn't remember hearing from him in the future]

... Come to think of it, Stein, do you remember what happened at Christmas?

[patchworksanity]

All my memory can recall is having a nice, family christmas with my wife and daughters.

I assume I was droned during that time.

[beheadofworship]

Ahhh...

... Well, you see, they made us all believe that we'd been in this place for ten years. And before that, we thought we were much younger - it was like being new here all over again.

That's what she was referring to, with the "future" and "past" stuff.

[patchworksanity]

Hrm...and what did you learn from the experience?

[beheadofworship]

... [he takes a breath]

I believe now more than ever that I must stay strong in my current faith.