Fictionarium 10 Episode 3. Hometown Threats are Us?
"People are being trained to fear and hate those who would have been their best defenders... the distrust is spread on-purpose."
Episode 3.
all images from Pixabay
Mel couldn't help it-- she was laughing at Arlo as he climbed out of the big sack, poking at his own lip with his finger. But he had something to show her.
Exiting the duffel bag, Arlo pointed straight at Chuck's hand, and then towards Mel's front porch. "That… is what I used to detect, and disable... THAT."
Chuck looked at the electronic gismo in his hand (which he had confiscated from Arlo a few minutes earlier) and then looked at the porch, as Arlo explained.
"That SB organ-- Karen White-- left a mini camera on your porch, Mel. They always do… it's like... the law! And if they can't remember where they hid it, they use one of those to find it." Arlo pointed back at Chuck's hand, and Chuck glanced down at it again before handing the device back to Arlo.
Arlo turned it on with a click, and using the gismo, they found the tiny camera on the porch. Mel plucked it out from her potted plant and looked at it closely, and then looked over at Chuck and Kyle.
"Chuck, Kyle… I'd like you to meet my friend, Arlo."
Arlo's eye injury wasn't as bad as it looked; Mel had pulled a leaf of plantain from the lawn, and had instructed Arlo to chew it up and then hold it onto his eye. Chuck had offered a thin strip of duct tape to hold it in place, leaving Arlo with a chewed-up wad of green mush duct-taped over his eye.
As it turned out, Arlo's black eye happened when he was grabbed in the woods by Kyle (Kyle was Chuck's old friend, and had the comical look of a hero's sidekick standing next to big Chuck) Arlo had squirmed to get away, and had run his head into Kyle's elbow with a loud yelp. The bloody lip, it turned out, was from when Mel had kicked the bag-- testing it for life-- while Arlo was tied up in it, and, thinking it was perhaps a bag of melons, she had kicked him in the face by accident.
As it turned out, Arlo's melon-car was behind Mel's house-- he had, he thought, wisely hidden it back there so that nobody would see it. Nobody had.
They thoroughly looked over Mel's house for a good few minutes, checking every room, and Mel could tell that nobody had been into the hidden room, and that her heavy secret was still in there. It seemed like nobody had been in the house since she left.
At Mel's kitchen table, Chuck and Kyle had plenty of questions for Arlo about his Science Board job, and Arlo answered them all, since he was beginning to think of himself as a retired SB agent anyway.
"I'm just school-trained… I suck at actually doing the job of an 'SB Observer', I'm no good in the field."
Arlo again pointed at Chuck's immense hand, which was again holding the electronic camera detector, and laughed. "Today was the first time I've ever used that… I've got a dozen 'SB Issue' cameras and and all the tech to use them, still in the box! It's because I can learn everything I need for my reports from the news-- I just watch it… between the lines. I'm good at that!"
Arlo could tell that his little audience was captivated, and he was enjoying watching them nod with their renewed understanding of the inner workings of a genuine Fictionarium-- their home. He pulled the duct tape and plantain mush patch from over his eye, and blinked around the room.
It was about time for some genuine Fictionarium news, and Arlo asked Mel if her TV worked. It did, but was unplugged, and Arlo plugged it in expertly, wondering what fears would be seeded into society's mind this fine evening. He was going to miss his old job, but now a new job was at hand, and the news-lady's voice was already sowing those dire seeds into the air-- things were definitely steaming up in Hill Valley. Arlo turned it up.
"Another Hill Valley Police Officer is under scrutiny for the alleged beating and shooting of a Hill Valley man.
Fifty-five year-old Mark Jones, who works as a contractor in Hill Valley, claims that the police wrongfully entered his home before he was shot Police say that Jones was arrested for misconduct and possession of firearms, and that those charges have since been dropped. The incident is under investigation, and the Police Officer in question has been suspended."
"Do you wonder why you need a license on your car? One Hill Valley man wondered that, with a deadly weapon. Find out more when we return with this ongoing report on our own 'Hometown Threat: Terror in the Neighborhood!', after this."
During the commercial break, Arlo described the spell that was being concocted on the magical screen.
"They can't have a community with it's own well-armed security force. They have to create the perception that the police are always viewed as a 'THEM'-- to then basically separate them... from 'us'... it creates an 'Us vs. Them mentality. People are being trained to fear and hate those who would have been their best defenders... the distrust is spread on-purpose. The Science Board works hard to keep that division active... in case they ever want to reincorporate a town. Meanwhile, the fines that are generated are a revenue source for the town, so the cops start believing that the rift is beneficial to their job.
Police are also mentally isolated... indoctrinated, and separated from society in their own minds. The SB can't leave that alone for a second, or the cops will reunite with their communities. The spell can wear off and they go back to being human, and then they can't be used anymore. It's all perception, and perception can guide what people decide to ultimately care about."
Kyle chuckled. "Tell that to the guy with the bullet hole in his leg! It's just your perception dude, get up!"
Arlo also chuckled. "Mark Jones is a cop… nobody got hurt. He's an actor-- he shows up on the news a lot, usually as a witness... now he's in the fake blood biz. He's done the drama, now he's doing action… all faked, every bit, for your consumption. But, yeah… Mark Jones? He's one of theirs... he is THEM!"
The news lady was back, and reminded her audience of the imminent 'Hometown Threat' again with an elegant intro. Arlo offered some colorful commentary while she delivered it, 'translating' her message, and mocking her voice.
"The idea of an external threat wasn't scaring people anymore, so this 'Hometown Threat' was invented... We'll need a bad guy or two, somebody to justify the amplified police force, and it's new military gear... to protect you from these bad people."
Sure enough-- Arlo had nailed it. The news-lady now soberly asked her trusting Hill Valley TV audience-- with grave concern in her voice-- if they had seen this man, and in the left-hand corner of a screen popped up a nice picture of Arlo, frowning grimly at an ATM-machine camera.
Big Chuck laughed a quick boom, and nudged Arlo, kinda hard.
"Damn, Arlo! You ARE good at this!"
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Thanks for reading this episode of Fictionarium
previous episode link is HERE