"There's got to be more. What about, like, mid level bureaucrats, how do none of 'em backstab? It's got to be stressful, being a dictator."

"Maybe they all drink the Kool-Aid? Or, more likely, enough of them do that you can't safely bet on any one of them not, so it becomes extremely hard to form a resistance."

"Hm... But other tyrants don't operate as stably as North Korea, you know? There's also people who drank the Kool-Aid in the middle east. What's the secret sauce?"

"I mean, there's probably cultural forces at work and given what I've read about, like, fascism, it looks like this kind of government works or falls to work for mostly idiosyncratic reasons and by reaching local optima."

"You'll have to tell me what you read about fascism later. For now," dramatic sigh, "Class."

"Class," he agrees with an equally dramatic sigh.

And class proceeds.

Cally... Might be more tired and slow than usual today, during gym class. But it's not obvious.

Could be just his imagination.

Could also not.

Looking at it from that perspective, probably not just imagination. But people can be tired for all sorts of reasons.

Yeah, they can. Hmm.

People can anxiously look into their backpack and then look relieved several times a day for a variety of reasons...?

"Lose something?" he asks the next time he's conveniently close enough to her when she's looking.

"...No, it's still there. Present for my sis."

"Oh, is it her birthday?"

"Nah. I just saw it and said, hey, Angie'd love this." She takes a bracelet with some kind of felt leaf decorations around it out of her bag to show him.

"Oooh that's pretty! Where'd you buy it?"

"The internet." Shrug.

Snort. "Anywhere more specific than that?"

"It was basically 'ebay for art-type-things'?"

"Fair enough."

"I'll try to remember to look it up again and write it down if you really want to know."

"Nah, it's alright, I can probably find it if I ever feel like it. What's your next class?"

"I got math. How about you?"

"English," he says, making a face.

"Wherefore art thoust meaningful insight in such prose as this? ...Uh, yeah, goodluckbye."