The Ninth Announcement

[Crash*]

"Sir..."

Dorian's voice broke the silence that had plagued the terrorist headquarters for the past several hours. They'd just managed to get the majority of the cameras up and running with the exception of various spots throughout the jungle a few hours earlier, and ever since nobody had said a word. Nobody really expected any praise from Danya - it had been one of their own associates fault in the first place, after all - but the silence was mostly unexplained. Perhaps they were all just exhausted from laboriously tiring away at the systems for days straight, or perhaps nobody wanted to be the first to talk for fear of receiving some sort of punishment. Either way, until this very moment, it had been silent.

"What?" Came Danya's collected voice from the back of the room.

"I think you should see this..." he replied meekly, staring straight through his screen. Danya strode over to him, annoyed, and stared over Dorian's shoulder. Almost immediately his expression dissolved into one of complete bewilderment.

"What?" He asked dumbfoundedly, staring at the screen.

"More dead, sir. In the same area as the last ones," Dorian offered.

"I can see that," he cut in sharply. He scanned the screen intently for a few moments, going over the data before shaking his head and turning his attention back to Dorian. "What the hell is out there?"

"I-I don't know, sir..." Dorian admitted, but Danya wasn't satisfied.

"Do you at least know who was affected?" Danya retorted impatiently, staring daggers.

"Y-yes, s-sir..." He croaked out, pulling up another window on the screen with a list of the recently mysteriously deceased. Danya spied the list over his shoulder, and his bewilderment was stifled for a minute by one of the names on the list. He smirked, relishing in the good news he'd received in the midst of all the chaos, before turning around and addressing one of the other terrorists.

"Any news from Garnett or Squad 1 yet?" Danya asked the nameless goon, curious.

"Squad 1's about to land, but nobody's heard anything from Garnett yet, sir," the terrorist replied, turning back to his computer. After Garnett had left the facility he'd been seen heading towards the island, but shortly afterwards his radio frequency had gone dead. Danya had sent a squad of terrorists onto the island to investigate the site of the mysterious deaths, silently wondering if whatever was responsible for the deaths of all those students had gotten to Garnett, too. Now it seemed that one small group of militants might not be enough.

"I need one of you to head out with squad 2," Danya ordered seemingly out of nowhere, casting his eyes around the room. Reluctant terrorists shyfully receded back into their chairs, Dorian included, with the exception of one that remained absolutely still.

"...I'll go," came the tenor of Lucas Grossi after a few seconds of silence. He stood up in his chair, turning to face Danya. "I've been staring at this screen for days. I could use a break."

"...Fine," he confirmed, having observed that Grossi's work had been slipping up over the past few days. He hadn't had much sleep, but since this was as close to a break as he was going to get it wasn't surprising that he'd jump all over the opportunity. Shortly afterwards Grossi slipped out of the room, leaving Danya overseeing the remainder of his incompetent team.

~

Lucas Grossi's suspicions were what had led him to volunteer to check out the island. Truth be told he was quite sick of Danya and some of the others, and not only would the venture offer him a break from his work, it gave him a chance to clear his head of the constant stress he'd been exposed to over the past few days.

He opened his locker up casually, gathering the standard issue kevlar vest and his weapon and suiting up. As he was prepared to close it and head out, however, he noticed a yellow sticky note resting on the edge of the top shelf. Knowing that it hadn't been there before (and figuring someone had just slipped it through the hole in the top of the locker) Grossi snatched it up, holding his weapon down at his side in his left hand and reading the sticky note out of his right.

Lucas' face froze for a moment, and a few seconds later he sprinted out of the locker room.

---

"Good morning, children!"

Danya had perfected his faux-cheerful voice to such a degree by now that he was convinced he could pass a polygraph and fool it, too. He paused a moment for effect before continuing his both dreaded and anticipated speech. "You all managed to rid yourselves of a lot of your former classmates yesterday. You never cease to impress me, guys!" While his first sentence sounded like something spoken by the game co-ordinator, the latter sounded more like he was addressing the students as one of his common companions - something he was sure would irritate them.

"Well, without further ado..." He began, clearing his throat and looking down at the list of students. He placed his finger on the first name to mark his position on the list, then continued. "Joining the dead today are Viki Valentine, Daniel Carvalho, Carson Baye, Daniel Clifford, Liam Black, Michael Anders, Nicholas Nutbrown, Hannah Rose, James Trejo, Margaret Tweedy..." Trailing off, Danya paused to take a breath and comment to himself. "Tweedy? Well, looks like Sylvester won this time!" He interjected, laughing for a few moments before sighing and continuing. "Shane Rafferty, Sato Koizumi, Jessa Vanallen, Hayden O'Guinn, James Ellet, Will Sigurb...sig....son, Stephanie Evans, and everyone's favourite femme fatale, Melina Frost!"

"And that's not all!" He continued, after pausing for about fifteen seconds while he gathered the list up of students Dorian had discovered strewn about the jungle. Pinpointing their names on the list, a smile formed over his face as he noticed the same name as before. Nevertheless, he moved up to the top of the list and began listing off the names.

"Also joining the recently deceased are Darnell Butler, Keith Jackson, Brad Kavanagh, Matt Wittany, Bill Ritch, John Sheppard, Kallie Majors, Terrie Brightwell, Alice Jones...oh, isn't this exciting?" He paused suddenly, a wide grin that nobody else could see forming across his features before he could continue. "Ahem, Julie Mikan, Dominica Shapiro, Kyrie Joseph, Denise Dupuis, Marnie Yaguchi, Rio Koizumi, and last but definitely not least, our very own red-headed rat, the no longer so resilient Adam Dodd! I'm proud of you, children."

After the long-awaited conclusion to the deceased, Danya paused a moment to bask in the glory of Adam having finally been taken care of. The windbag had it coming to him, of course, but the sincere jubilation of the moment was unlike what he'd been expecting. Still, careful not to seem too out of place, he lowered his head and spoke into the P.A System once again, continuing the notification.

"All of the old danger zones are cleared, and have been replaced with the Chapel, the Barracks, the Storehouse, the Lagoon, the Quarry, and the Graveyard. Also, these danger zones will not be cleared tomorrow, so I hope you were paying attention!" Smirking inwardly, Danya chuckled.

"Oh, and Miss Machina, you're quite popular around here nowadays! Come to the Field of Flowers to pick up your second prize! Congratulations!"

"Have a nice day, children!"

The P.A went silent.

---

Mkay guys, keep in mind that as Danya said, the old dangerzones have been cleared but these six (aside from the temporary one for the best kill prize claiming) are all permanent. You have three RL days starting now to remove your characters from these zones, regardless of their handler's status, otherwise they will be killed off.

Also, CycoKiller has been awarded the BDA prize this month, a roll nullification card as usual. Thanks to everyone who voted, it was a close race!

And now for the doomed. Same rules apply as always - three days to declare whether or not you want to save somebody, and you have until the 15th to have every death done. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Anna Kateridge
Dawn Beckworth
Mark Tavarian
Velvet Retsiloh
Bobby Jacks
Johnathan Lancer
Warren Pace
Amanda Redder
Kimmy Redmond
Danni Champney Morgan Ackland

Get to work, guys!