Endtown by Aaron Neathery for January 22, 2016

I’m with Lyn on this one. Sure, life is change but there’s no reason to accept that without at least some resistance. Keep old shoes in the back of your closet, keep drawers of old caset tapes you used to listen to in college, hang on to your slide rule because you never know when you may need it to save a post-appocalyptic world.

Okay, the way I’m following this conversation is this – Lyn and Holly were at one time doing reasonably well. Then, for one reason or another, they accrued some big debt. Meanwhile, she got pregnant. Then, to avoid having to live in poverty, they did something to cancel the debt, or to acquire enough money to cancel the debt. However, whatever it was they did makes them feel guilty. Now, we the readers are wondering what Holly and Lyn did to generate the guilt feelings. Am I following this right?

And some change it will be!

They talked about a windfall, sounds like something like an inheritance to me

Life is changing. War, war never changes. The battlefield might change though, by being a featureless desert of dust, and the fighters might be mutated animal people and humans in environmental suits with super laser weapons, but war never changes.

And you know what the “windfall” is? An offer for full-time employment at Apex for $200,000 a year operating the “cleanser machines” at the Pep Cola stadium location.

Pretty much the central theme of Endtown.

Windfall coming from a devil’s bargain from Apex…" We will see that you will tell no one about what happened on the road that night but…we’ll let you live if you’ll play along with us."

This is interesting. Having grown up and as a young adult firmly in the middle class, having fallen into poverty, then my future ex. received a windfall but having misused it, and living in poverty again after the windfall, I can relate.Being poor and in debt, as we were, then being able to get that debt paid, is like a heavy load being lifted.Being poor, but without debt is nothing compared to having a big debt.So for them, it sounds like their debt was really big. A heavy burden of debt. Having done nothing wrong, but perhaps helping someone or some corporation do something wrong can still bring on guilt. Lyn would tend to be hesitant to jump into one of the most expensive neighborhoods but maybe Holly is only wanting to move up to something just a bit better than they are now.About the restaurants, how much difference in price? a $7.00 meal V/S a $20.00 meal, or a $10.00 meal V/S a $40.00 meal?I know I would rather go to a $20.00 place than a $7.00 place, usually. Lyn is not a good looking man but probably has a good heart. He doesn’t seem to be a skinflint, just very cautious.Holly May be wanting to go to a real expensive place, bu since they have gone there before, more than once, it is probably more like a $20.00 place.I know people like to buy their kids new bikes, new shoes and clothes, and the latest toys, instead of used things. if they were that badly in debt, she knows that as it was her kid/s would end up with used bikes and hand-me-downs.

Interesting fact, there really is a Kashmere Acres. It is located in Bend, Oregon. It is some kind of agricultural LLC.

So Holly, before, was a snob…

@Diat60, the 10 years most likely just refers to how much time it would have taken to pay off the debt without the windfall, assuming they lived within their means – and living in “Kashmere Acres” sounds like where they would have had to move to be able to live within their (previous) means. Also must agree with @Wabbit, being poor is no fun socially or financially, but being poor and in serious debt is also an enormous mental burden, much greater than being poor with little or no debt.

I think Gigagrouch is correct. This is taken place after Lyn and Holly stopped and saw that monster. After the copter stopped them, they were given a deal that included enough hush money to cancel out their debt and provide them with a nice nest egg.Lyn feels guilty about the deal. He has probably figured out that the monster that attacked him used to be human. He may feel that their windfall was tainted and wants to have as little to do with it as possible. Holly may just be feeling a little more pragmatic about things.

That seems like a lot of baggage tied to a conversation about where to eat.

“Life is change” Oh my, now where have we heard that before… Nov 8, 2011…. seems like only yesterday… ;-)

Ill-gotten gain, I imagine.Holly is an opportunist it seems.I would rather hear about Wally’s story.

I think I’m beginning to understand Holly’s madness. She and Lyn agreed to forget what they had seen in exchange for a windfall. She may have been bothered by the deal they made, one she may have pushed Lyn to have accepted. She probably told herself, “its for the baby.” That’s something any expectant mother would have done. After she lost the baby, and was aware of what was going on around her, Holly might have felt somewhat responsible for the release of the virus. It would be something she pushed away to the corners of her mind, only coming out when she had time to think.http://www.gocomics.com/endtown/2013/11/25In a way, Holly’s story may not be unlike Wally’s. He saw signs of the things that were to come while stationed in Bordavia but he did nothing. It haunted him for years afterwords.http://www.gocomics.com/endtown/2012/03/27

If Holly pushed Lyn to accept the windfall so that their child would benefit— despite Lyn’s reservations— and then she lost the baby…and Lyn was stuck with the deal with the devil.That might add up to a double helping of guilt…

Devil. Apex. You say “tomata.” I say “tamahto.”.

she had a hand in the apocolypse didn’t she? Like, perhaps her husband manufactured those Edgeworth radiation bombs? The ones that turned the planet into a global dust bowl?

hmmm. I like the sentiment in this thread that APEX has something to do with the “windfall” they’ve come into, but I think that rather than a morally distasteful job or bribe money, at least not in the way most people think.

I think that maybe it’s more of a payoff over a lawsuit. Someone he is related to or is close to was hurt somehow by Apex, so he sues them over it.

Although the legal fees are putting him and his wife in debt, he starts to think that he’s got enough evidence that the judge will rule in his favor.

However things start to change when Holly gets pregnant. Legal proceedings start to drag on longer than they should (likely to try to get him to back down) and he’s worried about what will happen if things don’t go his way now that there’s a baby in the equation.

Suddenly Apex offers him a pay out if he drops the case. Although the amount is not quite as much as he’s suing them for, it certainly enough to pay off their legal expenses and then some.

He takes the money thinking that it’s what’s best for his family. Now he’s feeling guilty because he’s enabled them to quietly cover up what happened to his friend/family and not face any legal or criminal charges that could prevent them from doing it again

FWIW, I guess is that Apex paid them to forget what they saw that night. Apex’s “experimental war-virus” got a little out of hand. Kashmere Acres is probably a low-income housing development where your rent is based on your income – once in, never out…

Could it be that she loses the baby to mutation because of the virus?

So… Kashmere Acres is a fancy name for the ‘poorhouse’?

The way Holly said “windfall” indicates it was a euphemism for something less savory. Blood money of some kind, maybe.

It is Amesworth radiation. Edgeworth is a pipe tobacco.

NightGaunt, as far as bankruptcy goes, (and it doesn’t sound like this universe has such a thing) the credit card companies made it a whole lot more cumbersome to file bankruptcy, they haven’t made it impossible.

I spent all day in a number of chores, but did read the comic early. I got the impression they may have won a lottery, it not the big prize, enough to save them from certain infortune. Sometimes the difference between success and failure is having to get another car when the old one dies.

Got a feeling that their windfall may have something to do with the coming annihilation. Would explain Holly’s schizoid temperament.

Actually Holly looks to be very pregnant . Possibly far too pregnant to just lose the baby. More likely to be born either dead or dying after birth, probably due to the mutation.

Don’t know how well Aaron knows Houston (he’s up on the north side AFAIK, and I’m way down here by Galveston but grew up in the center), but there’s a neighborhood here called Kashmere Gardens which is … a very bad place. It’s really not a place one moves to by choice.

I have been thinking Holly looks more rabbit than mouse. since she lost her mouse-ears early on, her hair looks like a Lop bunny.I used to have one, he did things I never knew rabbits do like saying “BEEP” and “HONK” and of course the flop, and sleeping with his legs stretched out behind him.And if they run they let fly rabbit pellets behind them. Always.

Supposition. Holly and Lyn encountered the mutant cop and escaped. They were then picked up by the helicopter crew, which were either government agents or employees of Apex (conceivably both) and “debriefed”. Lyn was given an offer to remain quiet (at least, to not go to the media) either with a lump sum check, guaranteed monthly payments, or a better-paying job, and he took it. He and Holly probably consummated their relationship following the incident, and we’re now up to date 6-7 months later. Given that Wally said they’re on the Eve of the last Christmas before The End, Holly and Lyn may be out for a holiday dinner at the closest dive Lyn had been able to afford back when the two of them were under towering student debt. The Hillside equivalent to Denny’s.

Seems a number of mysteries have built up in the course of this adventure.1. We are looking into Holly’s past life. But is it being replayed without possibility of change, or can something be changed?2. Holly-in-the-present went in first and has disappeared. Is she one with Holly-in-the-past, or, like Wally and the crew, is she somewhere watching all this?3. How does this relate to Holly’s flashback? Before or after?4. Just who is doing this, and for what reason? Remember, the gang clambered on board a ship stuck in the wasteland (one that bore a suspicious resemblance to a famous sunken ship), and stepped through an illusion into their current situation. Why would someone put them through that?5. They stepped through an illusion into—-what? The past? Some alternate reality? Some other illusion?

“So many questions, so little time”

Sounds like she is getting some therapy about her own current situation.

Remember the time and place: No matter what they choose to do, the world is about to become a very unhappy place, in many ways. My worry is that Holly’s decision to go with Apex will be one of the causes of that unhappiness for so many people.

One last comment for the night (for me).Remember the last time someone Holly knows decided to take a stand on principles? That was when Wally prevented Flask from destroying a Topsider colony, leading to the subsequent deaths and debraining of hundreds (if not thousands) of mutants. If Lyn takes the high road and returns the money to Apex, there will probably be “repercussions,” too…

It’s cool to have followed Endtown this far, and objectively observe how Aaron has incrementally improved his craft along the years.

I bet they are selling the child, after all who would want to raise the child in poverty…get it?