Author's Notes: Firstly, a respone to two of my reviews.

1) Yeah, I understand what you mean. But the correct word is 'dystopic.'

2) Flash animating? Oh, man, I would trade whatever magical writing ability people seem to think I have a million times for Flash 6 alone.

Secondly, I've had a bit of trouble in the past. If you guys could tell me if you ever find any spelling errors or anything in this or any future chapters and you alert me of this, that'd be great. I sometimes have a bunch of spelling errors in my Homestar stories because if I have the spellcheck on, it picks up, like, every second word I say, like "Homestar's," "Strong Bad's/Sad's/Mad's," "The Cheat's," "Marzipan's," "Homsar's," "Pom Pom's," the "King of Town's", et cetera.

Thirdly. Right...I forgot about this. Let's do it in alphabetical order!

(checks Homestar Runner Wiki Category:People)

STANDARD DISCLAIMER:

I'm not Chad, Craig, Don, Donnie, someone from the FAF, Harriet, someone from Harmless Junk Inc., Jackie, Jesse, either of the Johns, Jonathan, Josh, Mark, Marty, either of the Matts, someone from Mellow Mushroom, Mike, Missy, Nick, either of the Pauls, Randy, either of the Ryans, Storm, or indeed anyone at all to do with Homestar Runner. I do, however, know Joey Day to an extent. That guy needs a new photographer.

Free Country, USA was snowy in the winter, especially around Decemberween (the agents were still trying to figure out why they called Christmas 'Decemberween'). Free Country, USA had traps for catching crabs, the ones that lived down by the wharfs in the ocean. Free Country, USA was located in southern Massachusetts near the shores. By now in our story, all of its citizens had been ushered out by the government people. Or at least most of the citizens had. It can be said, at least, that every citizen had vacated the town some way, leaving it deserted, and eerily empty, nothing left but footprints in the grass of the field. No, not footprints—tire tracks, from the government's vans.

Free Country the cold; Free Country the remote; Free Country the almost totally unheard of.

The few people who made it almost unheard of (residents aside) were a small group of serious-looking government agents. They hovered around the Free Countrymen (if that's the right word) like helicopters, listening to their discussions; waiting for one of them to mention something they remember something from their childhood, maybe something about Free Country's past, maybe even its creation. Waiting for one of them to mention someone they remember telling them what to do. An authority figure. A ruler. Someone who might have been part of the rest of the country.

They were always skulking around the hotel. In the bars, in the restaurants, in the gift shop, in the pool rooms, fitness rooms, near the ice and drink machines, in the bathrooms, through the hallways, in the lobby, outside around the front doors and parking lot. Even though there were only five or six of them, it was hard to think that there weren't more, because they all looked the same, and because they were ubiquitous. They were always there, even before you got there. Maybe even before you decided to go there. It seemed kind of likely that if you were trying to decide whether to go to the pool or the bar, there was an agent running back and forth from both rooms, starting to turn around every time the thought of going to one of the rooms overrode your thought to go to the other room.

They were so omnipresent that even in the times when they were alone, it would feel like that strange man across the room would suddenly have their face stretch out like slime and morph into an agent in an eerily familiar way.

The hotel's bar was called the Red Flamingo. There was a red neon sign made to look like a flamingo near the door into the bar.

The bar, the actual counter, was smooth and made out of a nice reflective silver metal. Behind the bar were trays of glasses; boxes of straws; napkin dispensers; various green and red bottles on display behind the bar, presumably imported or something; a large bag of nachos; a small basket of pretzel packets; a stack of some coffee boxes. There was a vase of flowers to brighten up the place. The curtains were drawn, but there was a sort of lit-up square of white plastic behind the curtains, to make it seem like it was light out, no matter what time of day. A poster next to the bar on the wall had one word on it, Kenglevich, and its border was various drawings of fruit, and this was all that was on the poster. One was left with a distinct feeling of confusion.

Strong Bad and The Cheat sat on the red imitation vinyl stools. The Cheat spent most of his time exploring the fun of quickly swiveling around on a swivel barstool. Strong Bad spent most of his time calling to the bartender, trying to get his attention. When he finally got it, the bartender turned to face the two of them and said, "Gaaah! What is that thing?"

Strong Bad turned to The Cheat. "Oh, that's just my cat," lied Strong Bad. "He's dressed up as Sashi, from the popular japanimé franchise Anuyisha. There's a convention in town."

"That's a costume?" remarked the bartender. "That's a cat, in a costume? Man, it looks like an actual animal."

"Well, those are the breaks," said Strong Bad. "Any chance of me getting a drink in this drinking...place?"

"Sure, if you're old enough. You got identification?"

"What?"

"ID."

"Hm?"

"Driver's license? Stuff like that?"

"Oh, right. I have my license here..."

Strong Bad fiddled around in his pockets, then produced a license that was not that of a driver, but was licensed all the same.

It looked like this:

VERY OFFICIAL

IDENTIFICATION CARD

STRONG V. BAD

Wrestling bloke

FREE COUNTRY USA

"I don't look snap's dad!"
-Strong Bad

CLASS: B

"What is this?" said the bartender.

"It's my license."

"What kind of license?"

"Um...one to practice licensious behavior?"

"I can't accept this, this isn't anything, uh, real."

"Well, I always show it at the border, and they—wait. No. I've never been to any borders."

"How old are you, kid?"

"22."

"Prove it."

Just then, an agent was walking by the neon sign of the red bird. He was wearing the standard agent uniform—black suit, white shirt, black tie, white...eyes. He noticed Strong Bad exchanging some kind of ID card with the Red Flamingo's bartender.

"Identification!" thought the agent. "That's got to be from some kind of government!"

The agent strode up to the bar and said in a very official voice, "Is there a problem here?"

"No, sir, just this guy's trying to give me a fake ID," said the bartender.

"Fake ID?" said the agent. "I'll have to confiscate this."

"Hey!" shouted Strong Bad as the agent snatched his license.

"What the heck is this?" said the agent. "Very Official? This isn't even anything!"

"What is you talking about?" said Strong Bad. "That's my license!"

"Where'd you get it?" asked the agent. "Who from? Anyone of the people we brought to the hotel?"

"No, I found it on the ground," muttered Strong Bad over-sarcastically. He turned back to the bartender and said in a defeated tone, "Just give me a dang old non-alcoholic Dr Dew."

The bartender slid over a bottle of green soda to Strong Bad, presumably Dr Dew.

"That'll be three dollars," said the bartender.

"Um...I'm a little light," said Strong Bad. "Can ya let me slide?"

"No free rides, pal," said the bartender.

"I'll just pay for it later."

"I said, no free rides," repeated the bartender with narrowed eyes. Strong Bad now noticed how big this guy was.

Then he said, "Barkeeps of your physical build can usually get away with intimidating customers who don't want to pay, but it's kinda hard to take serious the tender of a bar called the Red Flamingo."

"You're just making things worse," said the bartender.

Strong Bad swiveled around to the agent.

"Hey, suit-case," said Strong Bad. "Can ya lend a pal three big ones? I mean...four?"

"You know I can't do that, civilian. You can, however, lend me as many dollars as you want, to get a jump on tax season."

"Tacks season?" said Strong Bad. "What's that?"

"You have a lot to learn about life in the United States," said the agent.

"Um...hey," said Strong Bad suddenly in a persuasive voice. "If you lend me five bucks, I'll tell you where I went to school."

"Authority figures! Government funding!" said the agent excitedly. "Sure, sure, here's six dollars!"

The agent quickly stuffed some bills into Strong Bad's outstretched glove. Strong Bad (deciding not to correct the agent on his accidental additional buck) tossed the money onto the bar and, with a large swig-like motion, downed his bottle of Dr Dew. He then added, "Keep the extra three bucks, just take it off my tab next time I'm here. I'll have real ID by then. Come on, The Cheat, let's cheese this beverage dispensitarium."

He reached out and grabbed hold of The Cheat's still-spinning stool. The stool stopped spinning, The Cheat went flying into a window a few feet away. He bounced off the carpeted ground and walked over to Strong Bad, who had recently hopped off his own stool.

As the two guys began to walk out, the agent walked with them, saying, "Hey, you have to tell me where you went to school!"

"Well, the deal was, I'd tell you where I went to school if you gave me five bucks. You gave me six. So, no deal. But thanks for the extra money, by the way. Hope it doesn't interfere with those tacks of yours."

The Cheat kicked the agent in the shin. Strong Bad and The Cheat walked down the hall and disappeared down a corner, and the agent was in too much pain to follow them.

"...and that's why come that guy who said Shakespeare was awesome was wrong."

"Pete! What're you doing here?"

"Oh...Eddie...I heard you were sick."

"Yeah, and I got better! So what're doing on my show?"

"Er..."

"Is that my tie you're wearing?"

"Um...looks like we're out of time here...this is Eddie, signing off."

"What? You're Pete! I'm Eddie! Wait—you were pretending to be me again, weren't you?"

"Gotta go!"

"Hey, come back here!"

The sound of a nervous documentary host running away from another documentary host and then crashing into the camera that had been filming them was immediately followed by the loud, terrible sound of static. This sound was followed by a kind of jingle that plays during Technical difficulties graphics. This jingle was followed by the sound of a TV being turned off.

Marzipan, Coach Z, Bubs and the King of Town were in the lobby.

The lobby was a long room. On one half was the front desk, the rarely-used mailbox, and a luggage trolley. One the left side of the room was a door leading away into the first floor hallways. On the right side was the front door in front of the parking lot. There was a big red armchair resting against the wall across from the desk.

The wall wasn't full, though—it stretched from the floor to the ceiling, but not from wall to wall. There were two large gaps on either sides of the wall. These gaps led into the second half of the room.

The second half was kind of an eating area. There were some tables and chairs, and on one side, against the wall, was this buffet, where you could get peanut butter, jam, blueberry jam, milk, orange juice, plastic forks, plastic knives, napkins, paper plates, and three types of cereal. No bread, though.

On the other side of the room was a window overlooking the sidewalk around the front door, as well as a spectacularly unspectacular parking lot. There was a TV embedded in the side of the thin wall that was facing the eating area.

As I said, sitting in the chairs around the TV were Marzy, Bubsy Kingy, and...uh...Coachy. Marzipan had the remote, and she had just switched off the TV off.

"You switched off the TV," said Coach Z in a low voice, almost a whisper. "Can you do that?"

"Well, the guy with the nametag behind the desk said you could when I asked the guy with the nametag behind the desk," said Bubs.

"But, there is a sign right there saying you can't, yo," said the King, accidentally pronouncing yo as yaw. To the best of someone who has no arms' ability, the King pointed to a sign next to the TV.

No touching the remote!
-the Ones in Charge

"Why do they always leave it unclear if you can change use the remote?" asked Marzipan.

"I'll go and orsk him," said Coach Z, beginning to stand up.

"Seriously, man, two years ago," explained Bubs.

"Yeah, I guess yer right," admitted Coach Z. He walked over past the TV wall and up to the front desk.

"Hey," said Coach Z, "um, uh...Cory," he said, after checking the guy with the nametag's eponymous nametag.

"Yes, hello?" said Cory.

"Er...um..." said Coach Z. "I was just...uh..."

But this was the problem. Coach Z had no idea what to say, or how to say it. He knew the answer to his question would be either yes or no. And since it was such a trivial question, like if you can use a remote on the TV, the answer must be simple to figure out. Coach Z got that feeling as strange embarrassment one always gets when one is going to ask a question that is actually very hard, but to the one being asked who knows the answer, seems very simple.

Cory glared back at Coach Z. The nametag guy's expression was a smile, and he seemed friendly and ready to help. But Cory was paid to look like this. You had no idea what he was thinking in his mind. You could never tell how condescending and un-approving this guy was. What would he think if Coach Z asked about the remote? What's he thinking now that Coach Z isn't asking about the remote? The minimum-wage undergrad glared back at him with cold, uncaring, terrifying eyes—disgusted eyes. What could possibly lurk in the impenetrable fortress of the inner workings of this psychological torturer called Cory?

The pressure was too much.

Coach Z screamed like a little girl.

He turned around and ran away so uncontrollably fast, he ran into the wall across from the front desk, crashed through the paper-thin plaster, broke through an uncomfortable cluster of plastic and wires, and finally crashed through a plate of glass. His head was stuck in the TV facing the others.

"Hey, check it out!" said Bubs. "Coach is on the TV!"

"Coach?" said the King. "I love that guy from the computer-type movie!"

"Coach Z, what are you doing?" asked Marzipan, annoyed. "I thought you were going to ask the guy if we could use the remote."

"Yeah, you just kinda screamed like a frog on Tuesday," said Bubs, "and broke through that glowy box."

"Like a who on what?" said the King with a frown.

"Oh, geese...I guess I didn't ask him about the remote," said Coach Z. "Well, I guess we don't have to worry about it anymore."

"Why not?" said the King.

"The TV's destroyed, King," said Marzipan.

"Oh, right," said the King quickly.

An agent came running up and said, "I heard a crash. Everything okay here?"

The four of them looked at each other.

"No, of course it's not okay," said Marzipan snappily. "Our town doesn't exist, we were all forced to stay at this stupid hotel, except for my boyfriend who you still haven't found, all our stuff is back in our homes, we can't do anything without one of you guys supervising, the Strongs' house has burned down, the King doesn't know how he got into power, we don't know if we can use the remote, and...and Coach Z here has just destroyed this TV!"

The agent paused for a second.

"Okay, well, as long as everything's okay here," he said in the type of voice people use when they say 'nothing to see here.' He slowly turned around, walked over to the desk, and paid the $900 for the TV. Then he went out the door to the left and disappeared into the labyrinth of the hotel.

"Wow...wow, Marzipan," said Coach Z. "You torld him good!"

"Yeah, you showed him who's the man!" said Bubs. Marzipan glanced at him sharply. "Er...lady."

Marzipan stopped frowning. The King of Town noticed she still looked uneasy.

"Y'okay there, Marzy?" asked the King.

"Did you not hear a single word I just said?"

"I'm not listening! La-lala-lala-lala-la..."

"Did you not hear a single word I just said...sire."

"That's more like it! Ahem...oh, right, all that stuff. Sorry."

"Hey, ya know Marzipan," said Coach Z, "with Homestar gone and all, well...I was just kinda wonderin' if you'd ever consider getting a new—"

"Coach Z, come on," said Marzipan sharply. "In front of Bubs and the King? Can we at least pretend that more than three of us are adults here?"

"Sor—"

"Sorry!" shouted the King, before Coach Z could. The King grinned and said, "Ha! Beat you to it again!"

"Will I never say it first?" said Coach Z with a frown.

An agent, probably the same one, came running in and said, "Uh, you in the purple. We think we've found that guy you say didn't make it to the hotel."

"He never left for the hotel."

"Oh, right. So...you said his skin was chalk-white, he was wearing a crimson shirt with a star on it and a blue and white propeller cap, and he had no arms, ears and nose?"

"Yes."

"Well, we—wait, you with the crown, you're not him, are you?"

"I already told you! This is a cardboard crown I won in a fast food—wait, what was your question again?"

"Never mind. Okay, we found a guy with no arms."

"Really? Where is he? Who is he? Is he Homestar?"

"Well, he's in a circus, currently set up in Akron, Ohio. He's a knife juggler."

"Oh...and he has no arms?"

"Nope. No arms."

"Have you ever stopped to think whether that may be coincidental?"

"The thought never crossed my mind, no. Why, could it be?"

"You guys are so useless," muttered Marzipan. She stood up and pushed past him, walking around the corner and down the hall.

"I agree, I'm right behind ya. Wait for me, or I won't find ya," said Coach Z. "Hey, I can rhyme!"

"She got you, federal boy," said Bubs, and him and the King left as well.

The agent looked around at the empty tables and chairs. He glanced back at the TV (still destroyed), and then he saw the remote control lying on the table closest to him. He turned around and walked over to the front desk.

"Hey, are you allowed to use that remote, or, is it just for workers or something?" he asked.

"No, you can use it," said the guy behind the desk, Cory. "You'd be surprised how many people ask that."

"I'm sure I would," murmured the agent, and he walked out into the hallways. A few seconds later, Cory got a room service call, asking for a bucket of ice. He hung up the phone, stepped around the desk, and went off out the door on the left and towards the elevators at the end of the hall.

The lobby was now very quiet.

"Is it vayze or vahze?" asked Strong Bad, examining a flowers-filled vase on the table next to his bed.

"I JUST CALL IT A PLANT CUP!" bawled Strong Mad.

"These roommate pair-ups should not be alphabetical."

"AT LEAST THEY'RE NOT DOING IT BY CLOTHING COLOUR!"

"Yeah, you're right. Then I'd be stuck with old Kingo Starr. I mean—Townn. Now that gives me tha jibb-ah-lees!"

The two of them were not alone in wishing it was optional who your roommate was, but some of the Free Countrians were actually enjoying it. Like Bubs.

"Hey, The Cheat!" said Bubs to his roommate. "I betcha ten bucks you won't give me twenty dollars."

"Mih me-zeh!" said The Cheat, which meant You're on! in The Cheat.

The Cheat rummaged around in a wallet with a nametag saying Regaldo on it.

"Meh seh-meh zeh-meh?" asked The Cheat, which meant Two tens okay? in The Cheat.

"Alwaystime, Grilled Cheat Sandwich!" said Bubs happily.

The Cheat gave Bubs two tens, or twenty, thereby winning the bet.

"Yeh-teh!" said The Cheat, which meant I did it in more languages than one.

Bubs, without protest, gave The Cheat one of the tens. He held up his remaining bill and said, "Thanks for the ten bucks, The Cheat!"

He then ran out of the room and disappeared down the hall.

"Meh-reh!" said The Cheat, happy to have won the bet. "Meh she meh-reh—reh...meh."

In The Cheat, this meant All right! That loser had no idea what was com—hang on...crap.

Meanwhile, back in the lobby, Coach Z was shouting, "Hey, can somebody get me outta this TV? I'm stuck!"