Angels and Operators: Gone To Pixels
Installment Forty-Five
Previous Installments (In Reverse Order)
“What are you doing here?” you ask Morales.
He draws back in surprise and alarm. “What am I doing here? Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Morales! It’s me-Steve Ziffer. From the clinic! Don’t tell me you don’t recogn-hey! You know me!” You’d clamp your hand on his shoulder, but of course you’ve only got one, and it’s busy holding the other one, the one you severed.
He backs up against the shelving, dislodging a cascade of Oxycontin bottles. “I don’t know no Morales. I don’t know no Ziffer. Hey-what the hell happened to your hand?”
Morales’ hand seems to break up into a swirl of changing pixels. For a moment he looks like somebody else-a pudgy, fair-skinned, balding man bearing no resemblance to Morales. Then he changes again-putting you face to face with the flashing green, insectoid features of an Operator!
What do you do?
Under the hood
A seemingly easy race for the top choice, “Ask him what he’s doing there,” turned close in the stretch. It still won with 26% of the vote, but grabbing the pills and fleeing nipped at its heels, with 24%. Nearly tying for third place, both with 17% of the vote, were pretending he’s an angel agent (31 votes) and knocking him out and taking the pills (30 votes.) The last place finisher, telling him you know he’s working for the angels, was close behind, with 16%.