3 A Certain Type of Question

Blue Moon

I didn't like that name. I didn't just didn't like it. I loathed it, despised it,I wish I could set it on fire.

No wait.

I couldn't really do that, considering it'll just spread into the air like a crowd of sheep running away..

Before I met Agent Delaney of the Criminal Investigative Bureau, before I had played a part in the war against Blue Moon, I was just another name to my household. In my case, it was the Risas household. I was the only child of Sado and Gía Risas.

I graduated from BCOAT with a degree in Sociology. Decou wasn't fully ignorant about unemployment. Everyone was required to have a job, either after high school or college, even if they weren't making much. I worked as an Intern at Saturn-Voyde, filing reports of everything going on within the company, after 2 years, I was accepted as a full time employee, still doing the same thing but all of my reports would go to security.

They were this far Western based company that was essentially vital for our everyday lives. Not that we didn't have the necessities we needed after the Tsunami hit us, but that was available at the time when the Tsunami eventually ended wasn't enough.

The things they made would make some average Decouns jump out of their stance. Maybe terrified considering many of them grew up in different generations.

Today was another day of working. The only difference was what day today was: Tuesday. After I had gotten dressed, I looked at my silver and shiny watch.

Still 2 hours left, I thought. I decided to take my binoculars and head up to my house's roof. My place was two stories tall, and I was living in Belmont Beach. On the far right of the beach was the Gracio rainforest.

"HELLO!" I shouted to the direction of the rainforest where it's green leaves and massive trees were visible even from the far end of Ranasalta. "Good morning!"

"Aw shit." I heard my next door neighbor Lucio speak under his breath. From the roof I could see the man in that dirty undershirt of his. Lucio was a vigorous and energetic looking man whose build wasn't the most ripped, but he was far from weak.

From what I've heard, if the stories are true, is that he once ripped a chicken's head off with his bare hands because one of his knives were too rusty. "Here we go again. Elotro!", he shouted.

"Yes?" I replied with a question.

"Bird watching again?" As he asked that, a tracking drone went passing by me.

The drone stopped at the sight of me. I simply gave a small smile. "Bird watching." I pointed to my binoculars. Birds have been a glorious wonder to the nation ever since the Original Settlers arrived.

One of the more unique birds to the nation was the Maroonia Firetail, a maroon colored bird whose tail consisted of red, orange and yellow all mashed up together. The said tail was actually the thin feathers that have meddled together into one, showing off a flame of a body part at its rear end.

But as I picked up my binoculars and saw through the glass scope, there were only the usual Blackbirds.

I sat on my lawn chair, just enjoying the view of the crystal clear water just doing its thing and being a wonderful sight for all of us staying here in Belmont. I heard a large series of fumes, almost like rockets. Turning my head to the left I saw the DataPod on its dual rockets, with a large screen in between.

Good morning, it said in big white rectangular letters akin to an old videoset. We are kindly asking for your time to fill a small survey from the Ministry of Society.

I guess Kayr wants to know how everyone's doing. I thought as I said. "I have time." My usual bird watching wasn't gonna be conducting today anyway.

The screen turned black on the DataPod. This particular DataPod was the higher end version, with a sleek and sturdy rectangular frame which just so happens to be as clean as teeth in a toothpaste commercial. I could see the first set of sentences being formed in front of me from start to finish.

[On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your current state of mind?]

Soon came a bar that started at 1 in red and ended its line at 10 in blue, at the edge of the DataPod's screen. I dragged my finger across the screen, up to the number 8, which was coated in blue.

The sentence came onto the screen:

[Are you a contributing member of our Decouan society?]

On the screen there was a Yes and a No, with a box below each of the words. Yes, I thought as I pressed the Yes button. Indeed I do contribute to society. I've done some volunteer work, taking certain people to the hospital whenever they were unable to get there themselves.

I stopped around 2 years ago.

I had a good reason I stopped doing what I was doing, because of what happened on a certain particular day.

Shaking my head to get back into answering the survey, I waited for the next sentence to appear.

My eyes widened in surprise, I certainly didn't expect to be asked this question:

[If given the opportunity, do you think citizens should be involved in courses of action the law takes?]

Like the question before, there was a Yes and No. I chose the former, and out came out a microphone from underneath the DataPod's bottom frame. The microphone adjusted its length and height to match my level of my height, making it near my mouth.

[You have answered yes, please explain why]

I sighed deeply. It's not that I didn't know what answer I had to give, it was much more of how long the answer was going to be.

This may take a while.