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[hacker]

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[hacker]

Let me guess: your ear?

[scission]

I'd hope I'd be a little more subtle, if that was the conclusion I was aiming for. No, I've only a passing knowledge of the council. My arrival in the city went quite the opposite from yours.

[Which isn't to say he isn't veering towards getting his feet wet, now.]

[hacker]

What, you mean you didn't wake up to one giant party?
How long's it been?

[scission]

Roughly two years, now. Several months before the truce celebrations. I worked in the farms for about a year before I returned to the ZDG.

[hacker]

How's a farmer get into defense?

[scission]

How does a werewolf get into farming? We were all presented with being unplugged as opportunity for a new life.

[hacker]

This text represents the sheepdog joke I am choosing not to make.

[scission]

I truly appreciate your restraint.

[hacker]

You're welcome.
Ok but be honest was it like a full moon thing and how much hair are we talking.

[scission]

Yes and no, and not much. It's a little more complicated than the myths. Perhaps I'll show you sometime.

[hacker]

Yeah last I checked that required going back in and uh
no thanks.

[scission]

The training simulations are quite safe.

[hacker]

From agents maybe.

[scission]

And all other threats. No one can die in the sims, agents or otherwise.

[hacker]

There's more to danger than death.

[scission]

[There's a pause as he stops, steps back enough to pick up on the signs here.]

I deal with rehabilitation and training of new unplugs. I've no interest in pushing you into something you're inclined against, but if you tell me what it is you're afraid of, I could perhaps be of some help.

[hacker]

Not every superpower is body hair and full moons.
I leveled part of San Juan. People died. Maybe to everyone here they were just naked babies in pods but to me they were people.

[scission]

I very much doubt that everyone here will consider them just naked babies in pods. Nor are you the only one with deaths on your conscience, superpower related or not.

[hacker]

Wow.
"Other people have feelings too."
All that professional training for rehab and helping people adjust and that's what you've got. I feel much better thanks.

[scission]

Well, I am rather limited by the medium. And a lack of involvement in your extraction.

Why did you take the red pill?

[hacker]

I found what I spent my whole life looking for, and I didn't like what I found. Hoping that there was some possibility that none of it was real was
A relief.

[scission]

And has it remained a relief? Being unplugged?

[hacker]

In some ways.
Not in others.

[scission]

A sentiment I think we all share.

[hacker]

Not everyone's dad dragged them down into an alien city to give them earthquake powers.