Angels and Operators: Gibbering
Installment Seventy-Eight
Previous Installments (In Reverse Order)
You leap at Dom, gibbering like a madman. The suddenness of your move, combined with your inarticulate, banshee wailing, takes him by surprise. He shrinks back, fumbling the sparking stun gun. It bounces onto his rounded belly, zapping him. You step back as Dom convulses, falls, and lands on his back, yelping in pain. The stun gun skitters toward your toes. Taking a closer look at it, you see that the device is homemade. This explains not only how Dom and Pierce got their hands on an illegal weapon, but why it remained active even after it fell from his grip. Its amateurish construction omitted the proper failsafe.
You scoop up the stun gun and give Dom another blast, for good measure. He groans and appears to lapse into semi-consciousness. Then you proceed toward the stairs leading up from the basement. You know that Pierce is at the top of the stairs. In fact, you hear him banging around up there, as if frantically searching for something in a kitchen drawer. Dom's stun gun is in your hand, his cell phone in your pocket.
Now what do you do?
Under the hood
Most of the time, the choice that establishes an early lead wins. When a choice comes from behind to take the prize, “leaping at Dom, gibbering like a madman”did this time (with 42% of the vote), it is usually the case that the somewhat less extreme or risky choice makes a late rally. Is Europe more cautious than America? People who vote at work bolder than those who read LJ in the evening, on their own time? Or are the cautious types more strategic voters, who wait and choose the less risky choice that stands a chance of winning?
At least this week, after blatant hinting from the GM, both of the contenders were relatively bold. The more extreme action, fighting in a way that sacrifices your reattached hand, led for a while and still scored an impressive 38%. The passive choice of praying for angelic intervention came in at a distant third, with 14% of the vote, with 5% wanting to try to squeeze past Dom and run up the stairs, and only one voter choosing to sink to one's knees and beg for mercy.