DEPLOYMENT 1: Reassignment to Mayfield

[walking_nuke]

[PHONE(unfiltered, to all)] [ACTION(for housemates)]

[It's Monday morning again in Mayfield, and 847 Goldberg Street has a new acting father. Balin Wilbur isn't a heavy sleeper by any stretch of the word-so not long after Mayfield whisks him away, he subconsciously realizes something very wrong has happened.]

[Balin's eyes pop open. He's not in a

Comments

Action! ...late to the party. My apologies.

[commentboxtroll]

[And once Balin stops freaking out and decides to take a look around the house, maybe after his other little chats, maybe not, he'll find that one teenager from the weird family photos around the house occupying the living room. Just chillin'.

He's lounging in the chair, heels set up on the edge of the coffee table, idly paging through a worn mystery novel with an incredibly bored expression.]

No problem at all! :D

[walking_nuke]

[Balin blows a sigh through his mouth as he runs one hand through his hair. He's gotten a good look around the house by now, so he's definitely seen those pictures (and looks rather weirded out by all of them)]

[He glances over to the coffee table, noticing the kid. Hmm ... He doesn't look like he's one of the drones. It's probably not drone-like behavior to prop one's feet on a coffee table ...]

Er-hey. I guess ... you're one of the kids of the house?

[This is so freaking awkward.]

[commentboxtroll]

Done running around already? [He looks up from the book and shrugs.] Yeah. I am. The name's Caesar.

You didn't spook the horse in the garage, did you?

[walking_nuke]

... You got a horse in'a garage?

[That makes him go "wat" on so many levels.]

[commentboxtroll]

Yeah. There is. The garage is more or less a stable for it.

[Just roll with it, man. The horse is so one of the more normal aspects of this town.]

[walking_nuke]

[Balin goes to say something, but visibly thinks better of it. From his brief glimpse outside, Mayfield's suburbs didn't offer back yards, or lawns big enough to keep a horse outside.]

... Oh-kay. Whose idea was it to do that, anyway? They don't like cars?

[commentboxtroll]

Virginia's. That's her horse. If you've seen the freaky pictures, she's the woman in them.

[He closes the book and sets it aside.]

Neither of us even knows how to use one of those things, so I guess you could say we don't like them...

[walking_nuke]

[He rubs the back of his neck. Balin never got his driver's license before Earth fell, but he'd never admit that. Just wait until the truth gas hits him!]

Yeah, I saw'a pictures. So they picked her to play'a role of "the missus" in this house, huh ...

[He shakes his head briefly before looking over at Casear more directly.]

I'm guessin' neither of you ain't from any recent time or place.

[commentboxtroll]

Basically. She's all right if you don't get on her bad side.

[The other comment, however, gains an odd look from Caesar. Recent...?]

That depends. There's only one person here further ahead on my timeline than I am and that's by a few months. As for place, I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and say we aren't from the same world.

[walking_nuke]

[Thankfully, talking with Riza and Holland earlier has given him a chance to accept the idea of alternate realities or universes. Not that he's any more comfortable with the idea of a sentient, talking country.]

Yeah, probably, if America never rang a bell before you got here.

And even for me, this town's like seventy years behind when I'm from.

[commentboxtroll]

Really? [This is a new. Someone who actually knows about this nation. Caesar sits up a bit straighter from how he was slouching in the chair before.] Any chance you actually know anything about the country's history?

[Because there are things here that make no sense to him, okay.]

[walking_nuke]

Well, yeah. I ain't no historian, but I remember most of'a highlights we memorized in school.

[He looks around.]

Tell ya one thing, though, this town is a damn awful parody.

[commentboxtroll]

Okay. There is one thing I seriously need to know...

What the hell is a communist? [No. Really. He means it. The town keeps wanting to know if he's one of those and that's even before the technically in the future event.] Though... what makes you call it a parody? Is it all wrong?

[walking_nuke]

Yeah. The Fifties weren't all sunshine and rainbows, but the shit this town pulls is pretty twisted.

[Balin chuckles bitterly at Caesar's inquiry and mutters.]

Of course. Can't have'a Fifties without a Red Scare.

... Look, this's gonna be complicated, but what ya gotta understand is that we're talkin' about somethin' that shaped my world's politics for a good thirty years. Like, to'a point that we coulda wiped ourselves off'a face of'a Earth.

[He sighs.]

So where do ya want me to start?

[commentboxtroll]

Oh great. This is going to be a history lesson...

[He can't seem to escape those, no matter where he ends up.]

Could you start with a general definition? Even if I might not get the context of it right away... but something does tell me this is going to be about a war.

[walking_nuke]

Yeah, it's like that.

Ahright, so the basic thing. A communist's a guy who supports Communism, yeah? And Communism is ... well. It's both a political an' economic system. Far as I can remember the basic stuff is that Communism has no real government and everybody owns the land an' industry.

It first got started like fifty years from this town's time, like'a middle of'a 1800's, by a guy named Karl Marx. It was kind of like his "fuck you" to the state of'a world at the time, 'cause back then, there wasn't a whole lot of protection for workers, and a lotta industries were abusive as fuck.

He wanted to see workers across'a world revolt an' form a worker's paradise, basically.

His idea, though, it mutated quick when it got into'a hands of other guys. I mean, it was already somethin' that was at odds with most nations 'cause it called for tearin' down the existing government, but'a shit really hit the fan when Russia turned into'a Soviet Union back in World War One.