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Postman holds onto the wheel as if it’s an anchor, as if him letting go would catapult his own truck backwards. Clearly, it won’t, the truck drives on its own, and only when it’s programmed to, he doesn’t even need to drive it, but he can’t bite back the urge. A string of his code bugs out, momentarily, a reminder of how awfully this’d been weighing on him.
He can’t help but think back on his visit to the Player, the only player, with the undisclosed name, whom he’d decided to stick to calling ‘Player’, which still strikes to him as something personal. They looked nothing short of unsettling, eyes fixed onto him as if gazing through the gates of a cell, not that he’s ever seen an inmate, but this was his closest experience — And not to mention the drawings on their walls. Their… plan. To figure things out through taking his truck with him, to uncover what’s behind the loops, the safety loops he knows exist now, and find someone he still hasn’t the slightest clue on.
And he’s not here to do that. The thought still wounds him, enlarges the metaphorical bullet wound that came with the decision to approach the R.I.S about it. The Player, the only player, the only person he’s here to stay with, the only person he’s here to serve, the only person he exists for. He was programmed for them, he knew this from the get-go. He blinks out the tears already welling in his eyes, he was programmed for them. This was just for keeping them safe, keeping the game safe. Nothing bad will happen to him, the game, or Player. Nothing bad will happen to Player.
The truck stops by singular house on the road as soon as he spots the place lining up with his window. Player is already at the door, eyes split open, at war with the urge to turn on their heel and waltz into bed at the time the game demands them to. They really were anticipating this, he finds his eyes returning to lock onto the wheel, of course they were. They believed him. He hears his door pulled open, Player climbing into their seat drowsily, glancing in his direction in a way that comes off as endearing, that’s a testament to the fact that they still believed him.
“Look, Player, I…” They blink, curious, eyes momentarily darting between the road, the wheel, and him. He instantaneously thinks back to the once he’d told them they’d figure this out together.
“I’m sorry.” He blurts out on impulse, goodness, he needed to get that out. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, but…”, he halts, the silence gets loud, because he hears them. The R.I.S are here. He swallows thickly, tell them something, he urges himself, let them know he didn’t mean this, let them know nothing bad will happen to them, “I can’t risk my own game.” He ends up stating.
He hears the door fling open, his eyes stay glued to the wheel as his ears force him a gauge on Player’s struggle and the things the dispatches say that he’s too scattered to read into. “I’m sorry,” he pushes out again, “I should’ve been better! I — I’m sorry,” nothing bad will happen, he should’ve said, we’ll figure this out together, he should’ve stuck to, maybe not’ve said at all, telling the R.I.S, he should’ve just not done, he should’ve warned them about, “I should’ve been better, I’m…” and he wasn’t. He won’t have the chance to be again. His hand pushes at the wheel, harshly slamming his free one onto the deck, and he begins to yell something incomprehensible, voice dying in his throat before he’s gotten it all out.