I’ve been trying this whole day to write this down, but couldn’t figure out how to put it down. I never imagined anything like this was going on right here where I was living.

Of course Sky wasn’t happy about having to share her room with someone. She glared at me from her bed the entire time I was moving into her room, and ignored my attempts to break the ice. But she didn’t interfere with my job, so I ignored her. It was late when I finished work, so I got ready for bed. Sky hadn’t moved once.

Once I got under the covers, Sky began to move. I had no idea what she was doing, and at the time passed it off as her usual weirdness. She gathered several pillows that had been on the floor and built a fort out of them on her bed. Then she curled up inside the fort, with a flashlight beaming out the opening she’d made. I waited to see if she would do anything else, but that was it, so I went to sleep.

Several hours later, I suddenly woke up. The clock said 3:33 AM on it. Sky’s flashlight was still on, but she had fallen asleep. When I looked at her relaxed and sound asleep, instead of violent and crazy, it finally hit me how young she is. She’s not even old enough to drive. She should be going to a high school, not spending her entire day with murderers and the people who support them.

While looking at Sky, I realized that some of the shadows being cast by her flashlight were moving. When I looked at what was casting them I saw

Okay. I’m going to come absolutely clean here. I haven’t seen the Boss in a long time. A REALLY long time. Not since I became a proxy. So when I saw him standing in our room, let’s just say it was a bit of a surprise. A completely terrifying surprise.

I felt like a deer trapped in the headlights. I didn’t move at all, hoping he wouldn’t see me. But I wasn’t the one he was interested in. He walked to Sky’s bed, and the tentacles from his back threw aside her pillow fort. Sky woke up and started to scream, but he wrapped a tentacle around her mouth before she could. More tentacles pinned her to the bed.

He didn’t do anything except stare at her, but I could see how terrified she was. Sky kept struggling to break free, but was held too tightly. A part of me felt like I should have helped her, but I was too scared to move. I couldn’t even scream, because I was worried what he would do if he heard me.

For the rest of the night, the Boss held Sky down and watched her. I couldn’t sleep with him in the room, so I tried to stay hidden in my bed, making as little noise as possible.

Morning came, and the first few hints of sunlight came through the window. I blinked, and the Boss had disappeared. The moment she was free, Sky began screaming. I used to think that she screamed in the mornings because she had nightmares or something. I never imagined this.

Lazarenko and Dumas burst through the door when they heard the screaming, with guns drawn. Lepidus was right behind them, and he explained that there was nothing to worry about; Sky started every morning with screaming. I just nodded along without saying anything. At the time, I was still too shocked to say anything.

I still haven’t told any of the others what happened last night. Maybe it was only a one night thing, after all. The Boss is a busy faceless monster. He’s got things to do. He can’t spend every night in some girl’s room being a creepy stalker.

Someone please tell me he can’t do that, because I really want to get a peaceful sleep tonight.

Merry Christmas

My very first proxy Christmas. Somehow I’d imagined it would be more like quirky television comedy, with a black humor filled gift exchange and a special miracle teaching all of us about the magic of the season.

That image was built on the mistaken belief that we get off Christmas. We don’t. We still got a present: the wonderful gift of a security detail.

Ahriman arrived in the morning, followed by two men in black suits. One was a huge bald man who fit his suit like a monster truck at a luxury car show. The other was a slim young man with black hair and a goatee. Unlike his partner, he fit the look perfectly, looking like a rising career star on the fast track to an executive office.

Ahriman started to talk about Lord Truth decreeing something, but the bald man spoke over him, saying “Mr. Truth wants the girl called Sky to be kept under our observation until the police investigation ends.” The two introduced themselves; the bald one’s name is Lazarenko, and the one with the goatee is Dumas.

Before they could do any observation, we had to get Sky out of her room. Did you know that Truth’s men have keys to all our rooms? Because I just learned that today. Lazarenko unlocked the door and pushed past the barricade of furniture. When he entered the room, Sky pounced at him. It’s a good thing he’s a big enough man to hold her back, because she looked ready to claw his eyes out. I’ve never seen Sky so angry before, even on the days when she tried throwing the couch out the window. She was screaming words I didn’t even realize she knew at Lazarenko and Dumas.

Lazarenko held her until she became too tired to fight. Lepidus went to talk to her and calm her down. While he did that, I looked out the window. A limousine was parked outside, and I think I could see the silhouette of Truth sitting in the back seat. He never came out of the car.

Whatever Lepidus said to Sky must have worked, because she was much calmer when I came back. Lazarenko was now dictating what our new living conditions would be. We only have three rooms, so with seven people, things would be getting crowded. In the past, we’d let Sky and me have our own rooms, but that wasn’t going to be possible. Which means now I get to room with her. Joy. The Jackson brothers get one room, Sky and me get another, Lepidus and Lazarenko get the third, and Dumas volunteered to take the couch so he can keep an eye on the front door.

I’ve since spent most of the day moving what few things I have into Sky’s room, and setting everything up to accommodate our newcomers. I hope you all had a better Christmas than me.

We found out today what happened to Sky. The news came from Ahriman, who was surprisingly somber about it all. I guess it’s hard to be a pretentious asshole when everything is getting this serious.

Last night, the police found the body of a young boy outside the city. He had been cut open, and his organs were found scattered around him. Typical modus operandi of the Boss. I would have ignored it, but according to Ahriman’s contacts within the police department, the boy has been seen together with a girl matching Sky’s descriptions several times throughout the past three months. And the date of death matches up with the day she came back covered in blood. It’s not too hard to figure out where that blood came from now.

Even with our money going to try and convince them to stay quiet on the matter, Ahriman doesn’t want to risk the police finding Sky. Which means we’ve been given the glamorous task of keeping an eye on her at all times. Which would be easier to do if she hadn’t barricaded herself inside her room and was refusing to let any of us in ever since the incident. But Ahriman’s not taking any such excuses. We’ve got to figure something out.

And We're Back

And then Diana never made a post again because her life had become wonderful and nothing bad ever happened to her or her friends ever again the end.

That’s how it almost ended. It’s been three months since my last post. Three months of the closest thing to peace we can get. We didn’t even have that many problems with runners. I don’t know what it is, but there seems to be a lot less of them lately. Maybe the Boss had decided to relax a little as well. I haven’t been posting because there’s been no reason to post.

But now I do have something to post, and I wish I didn’t. I’d briefly said in my last post that Sky had started going out some days, and was acting so much calmer than she usually does. I liked the new Sky. She still didn’t talk to anyone, but she didn’t break anything, either.

Then yesterday, she walked through the front door completely covered in blood.

I’ve seen a lot of blood before. Lepidus working as a proxy doctor makes it hard to avoid. But that always happens in situations I expect. I see one of our trackers carried inside the apartment, choking to death on the blood from his slashed throat, and that’s normal. Sky was in a different category. She wasn’t a proxy who was out there killing people, she was a really weird, occasionally violent young girl who we babysat because she came with the apartment. So I didn’t know what to do when she walked in and I saw that the floral patterned dress she left in had been stained completely red.

Lepidus asked if she was okay, but she didn’t respond. All Sky did was stand in the doorway, blankly looking inside the apartment. Lepidus approached her, I think to check if she was injured. The second he got close, she suddenly screamed at him to stay away, then she bolted to her room and locked the door.

None of us have been able to get her out since then. She won’t respond to anything we say, but if you listen closely, you can hear her saying “I’m sorry,” over and over again.

Well, at least this period of calm lasted a lot longer than I expected. It looks like we’re going back to the crazy.

Time Flies

Time sure flies, doesn’t it. Especially when routine is the norm.

I haven’t felt any compulsion to blog since my last post. And I’m thankful for that. Life’s a lot easier when you aren’t trying to memorize everything so you can record it later.

But for what all my readers are really interested in: I have not acted on your advice, and my relation with Lepidus remains unchanged. Because taking orders from one faceless stranger is enough for me, thank you very much.

Apart from my romantic failings, everything’s gotten a lot better these days. We’re no longer struggling just to stay alive, and Ahriman can’t bully us with threats of tattling our failures to the higher ups. Because I’ve met the higher ups, and he’s a way nicer boss than Ahriman.

Even Sky seems to have caught onto the mood. Lately she’s started going out every day, instead of hanging around the apartment. I don’t know what she does when she’s outside, and I don’t’ think I want to know, but she always seems happy when she comes back. It’s been weeks since she had a violent outburst, which is a new record. Between us not having to pay for her breaking things, the increased funding, and the money that the Jacksons seem to magic out of whatever side jobs they have, we might even be able to buy a new television for the place.

Think about that. A big, flat screen TV. Everyone could gather around and watch one of those plays Lepidus constantly keeps on his Netflix Instant Queue, but in comfort, instead of trying to huddle around a tiny box like we usually do. We’d have some popcorn that we could pass along, taking bites in between quoting lines that we’ve heard so many times. Not having to worry about the people who died because of us that day, or the people who will die the next. Just a happy moment where we pretend we’re normal.

It’s a nice dream. I think I’ll hold onto it for a while.

"Hey Lepidus, thanks for trying to talk Ahriman down when he came to take me away. That really meant a lot to me."

"Don't worry about it. If they killed you, I'd be stuck here all alone with these crazy people!"

"Haha, yeah...."

"Besides, you're the best friend I've got here. I can't stand by and let Ahriman just push you around like that."

"Yeah, of course. Because that's what friends do, right?"

Yeah. Because he and I are great friends. Totally awesome friends. Nothing but wonderful, awesome, just friends.

Damn it.

I don’t believe it.

It actually worked out.

Just this morning, a truck stopped by our apartment. The first thing the men inside dropped off was a document containing a list of changes to the way finances were being run. Most of it deals with modifying how much gets distributed to each section, though there is a new feature: a board has been established to put the crazier requests for funding under review. I get a proxy asking for a few million dollars so he can pull a Morningstar and build his own tank, I just send it to the new office and they decide whether or not the proxy deserves that cash. I like it that way. It means I don’t have to be the one who deals with the problem.

But more importantly, the truck had food. Lots of food. It wasn’t anything fancy: canned stuff, TV dinners, etc. But it’s a hell of a lot better than having to ration things.

To celebrate, I called everyone to the kitchen and we had a little feast. Lepidus and I cooked the meal, and the Jackson brothers set up the table. It was the closest we’ve come to having a regular breakfast together as regular roommates. We didn’t quite manage regular; after getting everyone sat down and the food handed out, Sky asked where all this new food had come from. The instant I mentioned Truth’s name, she grabbed her plate and threw it out the window (But that’s okay because we now have money to pay for a new one!) Then she grabbed a cup ramen out of the pantry, and ate that instead. But at least that’s been the only outburst today.

All in all, things for once look a little bit less horrible.

Truth

A long time passed before I heard from Ahriman again. The delay only made my fear worse. I wasn’t helped by the fact that Sky had decided to go into her Saying Creepy Rhymes phase again, and she always was looking at me with a smile whenever she said them.

When he did finally show up at our door, it was almost a relief. Almost. The smug smile on his face hinted at the dozens of horrible tortures he imagined I would be put through.

Lepidus tried to play the peacemaker again, telling Ahriman that none of this was necessary, I had learned my lesson, I was too valuable to the organization for them to get rid of me…. Ahriman would hear none of it. He told the Jackson brothers to take Lepidus away “so that he wouldn’t try anything heroic.” Given the way he glared at Ahriman as he was dragged away, I honestly think he might have had he been given the chance.

I expect Ahriman wanted to spend more time gloating at me, but Sky entered the room, and he was quick to leave with me. I think he’s still a bit frightened of her because of the knife incident.

The car ride, however, gave him plenty of time to gloat. We were heading to a different part of the city, to the more upper crust, fashionable areas. Eventually he shut up long enough for me to get in a word, and I asked where we were going.

“To see our Oracle.”

Wait, Oracle? “You mean an Oracle? The people who the Boss actually talks to? Like the guy on Messenger’s blog?”

“Justice’s blog. Do not disrespect the new name he has taken. And yes, someone like that. Not the same person, of course. You will be answering to our region’s Oracle.”

Oh fucking fuckity fuck fuck. That was the point I realized how completely in over my head I’d gotten. All I’d done was point out a discrepancy between how much money we got and how much we spent on our livelihoods! Couldn’t they just dock my pay or something? They didn’t have to take me to the closest link any of us had to the Boss!

I kept quiet for the rest of the ride. I didn’t want to get into any more trouble than I was already in.

We parked in front of a skyscraper further in town. Ahriman tossed the keys to a valet standing in front of the building, and we walked inside.

The skyscraper looked like it was being used by some business company. One with some very old fashioned ideas about employee dress code: business suits everywhere. More than once I nearly jumped when I saw someone who looked like the Boss.

Ahriman took me to an elevator and hit the button for the top floor. When the door opened… I gasped. I’d never seen such luxury before. The room looked like its designer had been told to make the most decorated and gaudily rich place he could think of. The floor tiles looked like ivory or marble, as did the walls, with gold gilt patterns acting as highlights. Also on the walls were several paintings, all of which looked like they were worth more money than I’d ever see in my entire life. Most prominent amongst them was a painting which took up most of the wall opposite the elevator. It depicted an immense tree, with branches reaching above the clouds and roots stretching into the depths of the earth. The golden plate at the bottom labeled the painting as “Yggdrasil.” In front of the painting was a solid black wooden desk, at which sat an old man in a suit.

He looked like someone who would have appeared on the cover of Fortune 500. Given the surroundings, he might really have been on the cover before. Silver-grey hair, pale blue eyes, and wrinkles on his face that hinted at a lifetime of hard work.

I only got a quick glimpse at him before two muscular men (who were also wearing suits. I’m sensing a pattern.) stepped out from the side and began patting Ahriman and I down. It was a quick, professional search; only a brief few moments later, the man who’d been searching me finished and returned to his position flanking the elevator door. Ahriman’s search took slightly longer; the guard found three knives concealed on him before finishing.

Ahriman was snarling at the guard the entire search. When it was over, he stepped forward and spoke to the man behind the desk. “My lord Truth, is this really necessary? Surely you know that I would never dream of harming-”

“Your loyalty to Father has never been in question, Ahriman.” The man coldly cut Ahriman off. “But that alone does not grant you special privilege. We are all equal under He That Is.”

I’ve never seen Ahriman at such a loss for words before. He looked… well, he looked exactly like I imagine I look whenever I say something wrong in front of Ahriman. His eyes darted around as he looked for inspiration on how to pull himself out of the hole his mouth had gotten him into, until they locked on me. He grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me forward.

“You are in the presence of the Oracle, Truth.” He said to me. Truth? That was a much cornier name than I had expected. In any other circumstances, I might have laughed at it. “He shall pass judgment upon you.”

Truth looked me straight in the eyes, and said to me, “Ahriman tells me that you have made several statements criticizing our current distribution of resources. Do you deny this accusation?”

Well. This was it. I was going to be sacrificed to the Boss and my body would be found hanging from a tree next week. I decided I should at least go out trying to make a stand. “No, sir. I don’t deny it.” And then I explained our financial situation.

It took a while, but Truth didn’t interrupt once. Ahriman tried to, but Truth raised a hand to silence him. When I finished, Truth turned his stare to Ahriman and said, “Is what she says true? Are you supporting our brothers and sisters on starvation rations?”

“Of course not, my lord! They are being adequately supplied for their purposes!”

“Really? Then you will have no complaint with me reviewing your latest financial records?”

For the second time in my life, I saw Ahriman speechless.

“You did bring the financial records, didn’t you?”

Ahriman just managed to stutter out a “No my lord.”

“Well stop standing here then. Go and get them.”

He fled out of that room, back into the elevator. I was in shock. What the hell had just happened?

I wasn’t given much chance to recover from my shock either. With Ahriman out of the room, Truth looked back at me. This time, he smiled, and when he did it looked like his entire persona changed, from a cold CEO to a kindly grandfather. “You must excuse Ahriman. He means well, but his eagerness is often misplaced. It is something I see often. Far too many of our brothers and sisters look at Father and only see a monster. They fail to understand the beauty and purpose behind the killing, and thus focus only on the killing.”

With my brain still at a loss for what was going on, I stupidly said the first thing that popped into my head. “To be honest sir, I thought the killing was what we were all about.”

Thankfully, his response to that was laughter. “And then you go and illustrate my point perfectly. So many think of Father as nothing more than a monster, it makes sense that even members of our community would begin to view him similarly.”

I wanted to ask, “Isn’t he?” but felt that might be pushing my luck a bit too far. So instead I asked, “Does the Boss really talk to you?”

“’Talk’ may not be the best description. He communicates with me, but it is not through language. I understand what He intends for me to do, but beyond that I doubt I have the vocabulary needed to completely explain how He does it.” That wasn’t much of an answer, but the fact that he was even answering questions was a surprise. “Though now that you’ve asked me such a personal question, may I ask you one?”

I didn’t feel I had much of a choice, so I nodded.

“Diana. It’s not your birth name; I checked. The Roman goddess of the hunt. An interesting choice for someone in your position. For a tracker, it would make sense, but a financial bureaucrat?”

Guess you guys are going to be getting an explanation for that name as well. “It wasn’t my first choice, sir. Sky started calling me it one day, and it stuck.”

There was a flicker of… something on Truth’s face. The emotion passed too quickly for me to identify it. “Ah yes, Sky. You’re housed with her, aren’t you?”

Before I could answer, the elevator door opened and Ahriman stepped out. He was trying to appear calm, but it was clear from the sweat and the state of his clothes that he’d been running. “I just had the reports faxed here, sir.” He said as he handed Truth several papers.

Truth’s face switch back to the CEO one, and he quickly looked through the papers with an experienced eye. At one point, he paused and said, “I see we spent quite a large amount of money acquiring fragmentation grenades through black market channels in the US military. For what purpose, Ahriman?”

“Combating groups of runners, or driving them out of fortified positions, my lord.”

“I see. Diana, in your experience, how often do our comrades find themselves needing to do either of those things?”

He was asking me questions now? Ahriman glared at me with a “Answer that and you will suffer” look, but given how much higher Truth is on the pecking order, I assumed it to be an empty threat. “Almost never, sir.”

“Then what were these grenades used for in actuality?”

“I believe some proxies tried playing baseball with them, sir. Except they didn’t work very good as balls, so they took them to a junkyard and used them all blowing up whatever they could find.”

“Would you call that a proper use of our financial resources, Ahriman?”

“No my lord.”

“No indeed. I sympathize with your intent, Ahriman. But you are failing to match your intent with the reality. I’ll need to have some of my own men look over the numbers. They’ll give you the guidelines for how I want our funds to be proportioned from now on.”

“But my lord-”

“Your weapons will be returned to you as you leave.” There was a note of finality in that statement that rejected any chance of reply. Dejectedly, Ahriman walked out, with me following. Before the elevator door closed, Truth spoke to me again, once more with that kindly smile. “I thank you for what you did today, Diana. Through us, Father is building a new world. And each of us has a part to play in its creation. Even your work, mundane as it may seem, is vital to the foundation.” Then the doors closed, and the elevator started going down. And it probably was just because the way he said it was like a parent congratulating a child, but for the first time I actually felt a tiny bit of pride in the stupid work I’m always doing.

That’s how my “judgment” went. Now to sit here with my fingers crossed, praying this doesn’t backfire horribly. It’d be nice for it all to work out, but I’ve grown used to expecting the worse these days.

I fucked up

I don’t know how I did it, but I somehow managed to get enough money out of this town to meet the quota Ahriman wanted. It’s no wonder they’re having a hard time paying; with all the cash we’re wringing out of them, I don’t know how the town manages to maintain anything resembling a sustainable economy.

About all that money we’re getting out of the town. It’s a much larger amount than I had imagined. Too much, actually. I pulled up several other financial records after I got back to the apartment, and after adding everything up, there’s no reason most of us should be living on starvation rations. Our regional branch brings in enough income that all we’d need to do is cut back on some of the dumber expenses (we do not need to buy entire crates worth of bullets every month when most of the people working for us are incapable of shooting a large red target only a few feet away from them, must less a moving person,) and we could put all our local proxies on an upper middle class lifestyle.

After putting so much energy into just making sure we’d all get enough to survive, learning that did not make me happy. And because of that, I was dumb enough to raise the point to Ahriman when he next stopped by.

He flew into a rage. How dare I presume to know what we should do with our money. Our job is to perform Father’s will, not laze around in comfort. We should feel honored that Father has been generous enough to take the material comforts of our old lives away, so that we may live these more perfect lives of duty. I’d have found the rant laughable if I wasn’t terrified that he was going to kill me.

I honestly think he really may have, if Lepidus hadn’t intervened. He managed to talk Ahriman down from killing me where I stood. Except as he was leaving, Ahriman said, “Don’t think you’re just going to get away with your blasphemy this time, girl! I will be informing my superiors of your repeated insolence, and they will deliver your righteous punishment!”

Ohfuck. I knew Ahriman had people over him, but… I’ve never had to deal with them. I’d always hoped I never would need to. If someone like Ahriman is the sort who rise up in the ranks, I don’t want to imagine what those even closer to the top are like. I almost think it may have been safer to let Ahriman kill me. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with the dread I’m feeling for whatever punishment is in store for me.

I wish nothing ever happened around here

It turns out, Ahriman reads my blog.

He showed up at our apartment the other day and said to me, “So I hear that you’ve become bored doing Father’s will?”

Oh shit he looked unhappy. And when Ahriman’s unhappy, he makes sure to share that emotion with everyone around him.

“Get in the car. I have a job for you.” Ahriman’s socializing skills are unparalleled. I didn’t have a choice though, since he is the boss. We got into his car, and he drove us to… wherever it was he needed me to go.

As we went down the roads, I quickly figured out where we were going. There’s a cult town in a rural, isolated region outside the city. I usually stay away from the place; it’s too Fifties for me. All smiles and perfect suburban lawns on the outside, and all human sacrifice and despair underneath.

We parked in the town square, right next to the mayor’s house. My attention kept being drawn to the large gallows in the center of the square. They weren’t in use right now, but they had an ominous presence contrasted with the outwardly cheerful town.

Ahriman opened the mayor’s door without knocking and entered. There were several servants inside, but they averted their eyes from us as we approached. One accidentally bumped into me, and then flew into a panic as he apologized and ran off. Ahriman didn’t pay any attention to them, and walked us straight to the mayor’s office.

When the mayor’s secretary saw us approaching, she began to speak. But as soon as she recognized Ahriman, she looked down and was silent. Ahriman pushed through the mayor’s door, into his office.

He was sitting behind his desk, a smile etched onto his face while his eyes darted around the room, looking for an escape. “Lord Arhiman!” The mayor said. “You honor us with your visi-”

“Your town’s tribute was only half of what you gave us last month.” Arhiman interrupted.

The mayor was having a hard time keeping that smile on. “Yes, well, you see, things haven’t been going as well as they could here, the local economy’s fallen on a bad patch, we can’t-”

“He That Is does not tolerate failure.”

The smile was completely gone. “We’ll have everything you need! We just need a little more time to gather everything! I’ll fix this situation!”

“No. You won’t.” Ahriman pulled a pistol out of his pocket, and… and he shot the mayor. His body slumped over, and there was blood and brains and bone all over the back of his chair…. I heard a woman screaming behind us. The secretary had seen the murder. Ahriman pointed the gun at her and said, “Be quiet, woman,” but she kept screaming. So… he shot her too.

Then he pointed the gun at me, and I almost screamed, but kept it under control. “You have a knack for scrounging up money. I want you to go through all of this town’s records and find anything else we can squeeze them for. You will give me a full report by the end of the week.” He pressed the pistol up against my forehead. It still felt warm from the shots it had fired. “Unless, of course, you think that such a task would be too boring for you?”

Took me a few tries, but I pulled out a “No sir. I’ll get right on that,” eventually.

“Very good. I’ll send up someone to clean up the mess while you work. Praise be to Father.” And then he left me there with two dead bodies.

… I think I’d like to go back to the boring routine now.

Nothing ever happens around here

Yeah I know I just jinxed myself by saying that. But it’s true. I know I started this blog to talk about my life, but not much happens in it. People come in. People die. I fill out paperwork. The only break from the routine last week was when someone left out a knife and Sky nearly killed Ahriman. The look on his face when she jumped out from behind the door…. That moment completely makes up for all the trouble we have to go through with having her around. The victory was only soured by him deciding to take his anger out on the rest of us and double our workload. Asshole.

That’s it, really. I’m still here, no one I know’s died, so all in all the past few days have been pretty successful. Now if only there could be something to get me away from all this work, and it would all be great….

Another One Bites the Dust

There are days when I wish we could afford funeral expenses.

Another one of ours died yesterday. Called himself “Slasher,” so I expect he was one of the psychopaths amongst us, but even so…. Stuff like this is never pleasant.

According to what I’ve heard, he was interrupted by the police in the middle of a job. Had he been smart, he’d have given himself up. We could get him out easily after that. Instead, he tried fighting them. And in most cases, the lone guy with the knife isn’t going to do much against the multiple policemen carrying guns.

This is the reason I try to minimize the number of people I get attached to here. We die too easily. Even so, I hate having to fill out these papers. I always end up imagining what they were like. Before they became proxies, I mean. I create whole narratives in my head, where they’re all healthy, happy regular people who never heard of the Boss. It only makes me more depressed, but I can’t help it.

Lepidus has it even worse. He actually knows all these people. The poor guy’s too friendly for his own good. Every time we get a new recruit, he goes out of his way to get to know them, no matter how insane they are. “Just because we’re part of an evil murderous cult doesn’t mean we can’t be nice to each other!” is always what he says. Which means whenever we get news like this, he’s losing another friend. I’ve tried talking to him, but he always becomes distant at these times. I tell him that if he needs anything, I’ll be there for him, but he never takes me up on it. Wish he would… I hate seeing him like this….