Day 1 Part 4: Back to the Date

Atlas Hotel Shooting Range

Alan listened to Laurel as they ate hot dogs Sky had delivered earlier.

"...really, the important thing to understand is that swords, hand guns, and a lot of the weapons people see in public are backup weapons. They were never about serious combat; they were what you could carry in public. Nine times out of ten, a sword vs a spear gets the sword fighter skewered, and the spear user is fine. Rifles and pistols have the same dynamic. Cops don't carry pistols to fight; they carry them to intimidate." Laurel had yet to allow Alan to touch a gun, but they were in the third hour of her unplanned explanation of guns.

"Eh, they say all cops are bastards." Alan nodded.

Laurel blinked. "When did they start saying that?"

Alan paused. "It might be generational, or regional? There were some big scandals when I was a kid. Cops were being super racist on camera. People died. We found out about a lot of bullshit, like making up medical conditions to explain why people died in custody."

"Well, it's not a big surprise, I guess." Laurel shrugged. "I want to be clear, the intimidation isn't a bad reason for cops to have guns. Intimidation can stop people from being idiots, sometimes."

"I have a question." Alan gestured at the weapons in the shooting gallery. Laurel's loving explanations had convinced him that it was powerful and illegal enough that the military would prefer to arrest them using artillery. "Why do these 'Producers' let us have weapons? Wouldn't that be dangerous?"

"To them or to us?" Laurel looked over the pile. "Long story short, they're necromancers."

"Um, what?" Alan looked at the pile. "Why would throwing skeleton armies at us solve the problem?"

"Oh, not like that." Laurel sighed. "You can kill them. People have killed Producers. Contestants have managed mass suicides. The problem is, they don't stay dead."

"Okay, but wouldn't there be more to it?" Alan frowned. "Like, killing their souls or something? There have to be weapons like that."

"What's a soul?" Laurel laughed. "Ariadne talked my ear off about the subject, once. Um, let me think..." Laurel got quiet, and Alan gave her time. "Her metaphor was fossils. You can get a ghost when someone dies by making a construct that keeps working when the body can't work. You get ghosts and afterlives that way. Remove that spark, no fossilization, and you still have a person who works the same. You cast a spell or use a machine that knows what a person was like when they died, and you get the same person. Sure, you can call it a copy, but it'll act the same unless there is a difference. Some people think the copy part matters, but that kind of difference doesn't stop you from dying and showing up for work the next morning. The Producers, or Audience, have lost wars before. Big wars, important wars. They've been wiped out, but someone brought them back, and they started over. "

"That's terrifying." Alan shuddered.

"I've heard that if you hang yourself right, it's kind of a fun way to die, a bit sexy. Guns are more reliable. Contestant suicide isn't a popular milestone, but it happens. I love weapons, but they're just toys in this world." Laurel touched a long rifle sadly. "It's why people buy guns back home, if they're realistic. You don't win wars with small arms fire. Artillery is what matters back there, if they're pussies and don't use nukes."

"Pussies?" Alan smiled. "I'm pretty sure vaginas are tough as shit. It's not like I can push a baby through my dick."

"Eh, let's say I was talking about cats." Laurel smiled. "It's not like this is different from our world. You can't take your guns to Camp Prospero or a prison, or use them to stay out of one. Guns are great in a crisis. The same is true for money, canned food, passports, small boats, and cocaine. None of it's enough, in any world."

"What is enough?" Alan asked.

Laurel paused for a long moment. "Marry Ariadne, Alan. That's what might be enough. She's totally not going to finish the season as a host, but her family matters. Humans evolved to gang up on lions. Our brains give us options, but if we want safety, we need friends. Pick the right friends."

"Aren't we already engaged?" Alan asked, hoping he could cheer Laurel up.

"That's a big question." Laurel shook her head slowly. "I don't think that's as sure as she told us it is."

"Um..." Alan looked at his mother. She was worried. "You were telling me why the M-16 sucks, earlier?"

"Oh, yes!" Laurel brightened. "There was this big scandal during Vietnam. Rifles were fucked with because there was a power struggle and a ton of soldiers died, not that we would've won without it..."

Author's Note: The Director's war might not have been confined to certain dimensions, so much as historical in this branch. There might be more complicated variations of that binary to consider.