Leira, after years and years of habit, wasn’t about to start trusting everyone willy-nilly. In fact, he liked @Gia’s attitude, despite not totally believing it; he would’ve thrown everyone out of the disposal hatch if he could profit from it somehow.
He wasn’t a fool. He knew those mimics could not be bargained with, they were ‘optimizers’, like him, even though he did not know that concept. Right now, he wanted nothing but to survive at all costs, which presented an impossible dilemma: he could only survive if the astronauts survived, but to do that he would have to cooperate even at the expense of self-sacrifice. To him, cooperating was a losing ga-
—Not a losing game! A losers game, stupid narrator!
—What?—said someone else.
—(cough) (cough) NOthInG!
-alright, a “losers game”, happy? As I was saying, he didn’t trust the fact that @fiddlehead had never seen an actual game of Whack-a-Mole. Back in some of the sketchier alleys of Palikir Prime, they were a common sight, among with other money-grubbing machines; he grew up learning how to hack them.
—That guy is probably some rich boy from a gated district—he mumbled to himself—though that doesn’t make him too suspicious.
Of the other alleged astronauts, @Haze_with_a_Z started with a clear attempt to control the conversation; that is conmen 101, and he took note of it. @Sports_for_Life went with the flow of the tide, and didn’t even try to make a convincing explanation. @李建澔2 was erratic, but this seemed to be normal behavior. The rest weren’t giving much out.
—That Lt. @yebellz with his fancy language. He sure could pull up that kind of hustle—he kept mumbling.—He could go either way, so I’ll roll with it. For now.
—And @KAOSkonfused and @RubyMineshaft , what’s their deal? I’ll try to figure it out tomorrow, if I even survive!
So far, @Sports_for_Life was still his top pick.