“Too bad Pennsylvania is a boy.” South said, out of the blue as they walked.

North looked at her with a bit of surprise, the comment out of the blue for even her. The words themselves even more cryptic. Still, he couldn’t resist and had to ask. “And why is that?”

“I could have nicknamed her Penny.” South replied curtly.

North simply groaned in response, shaking his head. “I will never get your obsession with these nicknames.” He replied, giving her a sceptical look.

“No, no, no!” South insisted. “Look, calling people these state names is weird to me okay? It feels like they’re trying to… dehumanise us or something. Turn us into objects instead of people. I think that’s the idea behind it anyway. So the nicknames are kind of my way or keeping people… people?” She sounded confused, even to herself. “But a lot of them are hard because the names I’m coming up with are girl’s names… I’ve got Kali for California; so far Pennsylvania is Penny for lack of a better name.” She continued to lost off names, stopping as someone called out to them.

North chuckled to himself. “And what about that guy?”

“Carolina? Well… if he were a [i]girl[/i] I could have called him Carol… Lina sounds shit… um… give me a minute on this one.” As the man caught up to them the girl continued to mumble to herself as North spoke back to the man.

“I don’t know where you heard that from…” North responded, the idea that him and South were favourites putting him on edge. If that was what people were already saying then it meant they may have targets on their backs. The look, fleeting as it was, in this guy’s eyes was already starting to prove his fears. He seemed friendly enough, but the way he was looking at everyone else put him on edge, like he was sizing them up or something. Then again there were obviously some taking this a lot more serious than he and South. It also indicated that maybe he was purposely trying to mislead them to get information.

“…can’t call him North, because North’s North, we could call him North if we called North Dakota, but Dakota is a girl’s name too and then people may start associating me with Carolina…”

As South continued to talk to herself, North chuckled again for a moment, shaking his head as he continued to talk to Carolina. “And we’re not twins, though it’s a common misconception. We were actually born four years apart. As for ending up in this mess… who knows? We were picked just like everyone else, out of the blue for no reason. I guess they liked my sister’s big brain here…”

“…Car… Arol… Roli… Oli…Lina…Ina…”

“…Which she is using for a very noble cause right now.” He chuckled again, trying to relax. He hoped he was just being paranoid, that his protective nature was just getting the best of him and he was seeing things where there wasn’t any. “And we’re kind of a package deal… maybe they liked the way we worked together…” He had other theories, but he wasn’t about to go proclaiming to the world that South was afraid to kill people.

As they moved to sit down South finally seemed to emerge from her little think tank, though the annoyed groan indicated that it was a less than successful venture. “I don’t know!” She declared loudly. “It would be so much easier if you were a girl. Then you could just be Carol. But no. So now all I’ve got is Carl or Ollie.” She didn’t seem happy with these outcomes and sat down, letting her head drop to the table.