A series of tragic accidents seem to have slowly struck various residents of Selah, but one day the violence the residents had long feared exploded like a powderkeg.
VP Baltar, a local farmer, had been one of Tesla's biggest advocates since the Gigafactory was announced. His hardy but tasty apples had been the pride of the local farmer's market, and he had recently taken out a sizable loan to bring the first Tesla to Selah. He knew his business depended on a stable climate and was eager to disavow as many fossil fuels as he could, and even wrote a letter to Elon petitioning for a new Tesla Cybertractor. Recently, he'd even started handing out free Tesla branded T-Shirts with all of his fruit.
Dawn rose on the farmer's market to find VP Baltar's Model 3 still in the lot. When he failed to show, a closer look revealed hints of blood on the dash. A team of onlookers worked together to pry open the frunk, and found his body diced to bite-sized bits. One of the shirts was found next to the body. Tesla had been marked out in blood and replaced with "Traitor"...but to who?
Meanwhile, the sheriff's department had taken its first hit. Deputy Malakittens had been out on patrol the same night, with the same strict instructions as always not to interfere with the Lamborghini Mafia. The same orders she always secretly hated.
Her SUV was found abandoned on the side of the road, with no damage to be found. It appeared she had gone on a hike, and willingly or not was anyone's guess. Further searching turned up her body laying just off the side of the road in a ditch, the clear black marks of tire tracks stretching along her back, connected to the road on each side by a trail through the grass.
The bodies kept piling up from there. Old Man Lukewarm had always been a bit off his rocker, one of the few survivors of the old 2011 riots, too crazy for even the Lamborghini Mafia to touch. The walls of his cabin were lined with guns, knives, and saws broken up only by the occasional pot or pans, and he always complained that the food never tasted good and that the house was haunted. Said it was probably the Lamborghini Mafia's fault, even though none of them had been to his house in years, not since he had thrown an old World War 2 grenade through his window at a parked and preying Lambo, causing the godfather to toss up his hands and say "Forget it, let time take care of that old coot."
He refused to listen to anyone saying that he undercooked the food, telling him that he needed to turn the stove up. He stubbornly insisted that the stove was best set...lukewarm.
...
I'm not sorry.
...
It made it all the more surprising to find his house burned down, with Lukewarm still on the bed, surrounded by cinders of blanket. The stove had been left on the highest setting. All traces were gone of the apple that had fallen onto the dial from the shelf...And what happened to that old jalopy of his?
The last body to be found was Dwlee99's, one of Selah's newest residents who had just moved cross country to help expand the electrical lines. They had just settled into the new apartment, had made it cozy. They had just told one of the councilmen that Selah was starting to feel like home. With the living situation sorted, their attention turned to exploring the town and surveying the existing lines. That night, they had found a downed old pole and line tucked away on an old backroad, and apparently they had been scoping it out.
No one knew how the wire, disconnected from any discernible power source, went live, but everyone knew what the result was. The town had another apartment to clear.
