Sink or Swim, Better Dive Right In

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Nikki yelled something about her and Henry being good friends. Then Bert asked to speak to him. Then Angie asked who it was and Mike wanted to know about baseball- gah!

"One at a time, you guys," she asserted in an entirely unassertive voice, before turning her attention back to Henry on the line. "Yeah, so. Nikki, Mike, Bert, and I, we built a little hut. To stay out of the sun, you know. Uh..."

Camilla's eyes rested on Nikki for a moment, and somehow she felt that Nikki's statements weren't entirely true, but she could hardly remember all of Declyn's friends/partners so what would she know about and entire school's social network when she could barely track of one person's?

"You know those guys? And Angie's showed up too, if you know her."

Camilla took the walkie-talkie away from her head and held it in front of her, motioning for the others to come closer to hear.

“Hey there. You guys built a hut? Neat.”
There was a pause.

“Mike - Mike Brown, right? I saw some of your team yesterday. Jonah and Max. They’re sticking together, seemed like."

Another one. She supposed Henry liked his pauses, sometimes.

"I know the announcements sounded bad but, mostly I’ve seen people working together. I’m glad it’s the same on that end too.”

Mike Brown, she supposed that seemed right. It wasn't like she knew any other Mikes. She nodded, and spoke, at the group mostly.

"I was with Max's group yesterday, actually."

With some deliberation, she shut her mouth. This new group didn't need to know about the... the plan, to track down players and- they were supposed to just capture and de-arm them first, no? But of course they'd have to start killing them but how could she even think of that when she just saw-

Camilla took a breath in. That was yesterday. She shouldn't be so panicked about it now. Why didn't she get over it already?

[MethodicalSlacker]

"Wait," Bert said, getting closer to Camilla, "you were with Max? And he has a group?!"

This was news to Bert. The last thing she expected the alt-right kid in the class to do was form a team of people to assist him in...whatever. Sure, he might try, but it was bound to end in disaster. And she couldn't see the team comprised of anyone other than like, Demitri, or Faith, or the conservacucks at large. For Camilla to be a part of the group—well, Bert didn't exactly know her political affiliation and that didn't really matter at this point anyway. Really, what Bert expected from Max was for him to go solo and wind up killing a lot of people, and then himself, in some ideologically motivated or racist kind of attack. That was what he was about, right? The thought of him getting a team together... and he was trying to bring in the baseball people.

What were they up to?

"Are they trying to escape too?" Bert asked, point blank. Her focus was pointed at Camilla, but really she wanted to be asking Henry that. She still didn't fully believe that Camilla wasn't taken hostage or captive or something. Poor gal. What Max must have put her through, Bert didn't want to imagine.

...

Wait.

Bert just said something dumb, didn't she?

"Fuck, not too, I mean, generally, I mean, everyone wants out, ahaha, y'know, you don't, fuck, have to answer that."

[Melusine]

The little hut was obviously overcrowded. Angie, while welcomed, didn't want to contribute to the population problem. However, she wanted to sit down somewhere and rest. Just have a quiet moment where nobody was threatening each other, where the heat didn't feel like it was choking her; as if she was still back home.

Quietly, she tugged on one of Mike's rubber wristband. Angelina didn't want to seem suspicious, but she didn't want to be around any longer. However, she had to talk to Mike. There were more pressing matter than her antisocial tendency, and Mike was one of them. She was only hungry. Angie didn't eat breakfast because it felt like it would come back up.

"Hey Mike," she looked toward Bert, "can we talk somewhere private?"

She looked toward the hut and the rest of the crew. "We'll be back," she smiled, "I'll try to bring back some food. So stay there, okay?"

Angie turned her head back to Mike. She bit her lips and let go of his hand. Angelina immediately raised it to her mouth, biting her thumb. "It's about Ramsey."

[Somersault]

Mike narrowed his eyes at Bert. Just a smidgen.

"Okurr," he muttered under his breath, 'cause fuck him if anyone was gonna hear him say that out loud, but he didn't really know how else to bring out all his thoughts into real things, 'cause Ma'd always taught him to never disrespect a lady, even when she was dissing a...well, whatever Max was. Friend of a friend? Sorta friend who he always felt real skeeved out by? Or, well, teammate. Did his part, did it well, even if folks like Jonah and Abel were always more chill 'round him, which like, why, but whatever. Still a baseball dude, just not a real good vibes one.

Still didn't mean he was ever gonna have voted for him, though.

Still, a little bit of color rose to his face, splotches of red on tan. When Angie'd grabbed his wrist, which hey now, kinda sudden, totally didn't cause him to let out an eep which was unmanly and all, Mike honestly felt a bit relieved. Even if that was only 'cause her grabbing him stopped more than just one little word to stumble right off of his tongue.

"Mmm, sure, sure." He nodded along with her remarks, although it wasn't super hard to tell this wasn't just gonna be about food, because ya know, folks didn't just grab your wrist to discuss hunting for dinner or whatever. Wasn't proper manners. Did his level best to stop any shit from slipping out, keep it all good, on the DL, 'cause that was he was best at.

Wasn't so good at being down on that low, though, when Angie went along and gave another piece of the pie. Eyebrows lifted up again, 'cause like, how could they not, but he tried not to look too happy-surprised. Or like, scared-surprised. Didn't know what kind it was gonna be. He pursed his lips for a moment, thinking. Was stupid, dangerous, risky, but...

If he was gonna go die anyways, might as well find out, right?

"Yep, we'll be off now," Mike called out, best Boy-Scout for all of fourteen days smile on his face, before stepping off into the woods, Angie right behind.

"Don't go getting all trigger-happy now, though! Like, play nice, people."

((Mike Brown and Angie Lopez, continued elsewhere))

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Camilla felt herself shrivel on the inside just a bit when Bert spoke. She knew she didn't mean anything bad about her specifically, she would hope at least, and Max, in hindsight, was one of the sketchier figures in their class.

"No, Max didn't plan on escape. He..."

Just thinking about it again made her more nervous.

"...wanted to form a player hunter group... but that's neither here nor there."

Angie then suddenly announced her and Mike's departure on some business, but they promised to be back. She had to keep herself from side-eyeing Bert when they said that, though technically Bert made no promises.

"Oh, see you later Mike," she said as the boy left, then turned her attention to Henry. "Unless Max got up to something after I, well. Left."

"Player hunter?! What the hell?" The alarmed response came the moment she stopped talking. It was like Bert-five-seconds-ago all over again.

"He made it sound so- Christ, I'm- I met him right after I woke up, and then Lucas came in, and he wanted to find his girlfriend. Max..." Listening to everybody's reaction gave her all but confirmed her stupidity in ever following that guy. Not that she wouldn't have realized it on her own, but it probably would have been far too late if... that incident, if it hadn't snapped her out of it.

"He wanted to make sure everybody could meet who they wanted to. Or at least that's what he said. He also said he'd just disarm them at first but somehow? I felt like that wouldn't be the case." What an awful way to remember the death of a friend, isn't it? As the time she realized following a literal would-be murderer would be a bad thing. Even if it was to be motivated by revenge- that's what it was, player hunting, if more impersonal- there was no revenge for Beryl. It was nothing more than a gunshot that hit the wrong person.

Imagine if it hit the right one? Though Camilla would be biased on who that would be.

"That's... No, I don't think it would stop there. People are scared, and a lot of them are armed. Going after people because of what that terrorist tells us each morning is just playing into it all. Just in a different way.
"

It felt like listening to a less judgmental version of her mother. "I know." Yet, the extra guilt it inspired, intentional or not, more than made up for it. "I know I shouldn't have gone along with it- I should have run the first chance I got, just- I didn't know what else I was supposed to do... Lucas had the shotgun, Max had the man-catcher, and I- well... didn't."

It was a terrible excuse and she knew it. She had every opportunity to run, and she ran at the worst time she could have done so. At least Beryl had other people around her, she didn't die alone, and Camilla's actions didn't change anything.

"I know, I understand. Frankly, I don't really know too well what I'm supposed to do here either. I have a few ideas but none of them are exactly good. " Her heart sank, a bit. Perhaps she had somewhat unfairly placed the burden on Henry to figure something out, something miraculous. Of course that wasn't going to be the case. On the other end of the line, he sighed.

"We have to try, though. I think they want us to feel boxed in, so we make choices we would've otherwise never considered. Just gotta remember who we are. They can take away everything else but they can only take that if we let them."

"I- Right."

Just had to remember who she was.

Who was she?

Was she ever the judge of that?

Auntie would be disappointed in her, being so easily swept around like this. It was possible she even disappointed the people watching them that way- wait, the collars, if they're recording and sending it to-

"Do you think they can record the- what's going on by the walkie talkies?"

"I would be surprised if they weren't. I couldn't tell you if the collars are recording but I'm sure the cameras are." Didn't someone here have something to say about that?

"We did wonder if the collars were recording, yeah. Uh... that's probably something Nikki was gonna mention?"

[MethodicalSlacker]

Wait, where was everybody going?

Mike and Angie were leaving. Maybe they were going away to make out? The island was a good a time as any for that. Maybe if she could get Camilla alone, the two of them could do something like that. What Bert missed out on at the party. Or at prom. She was still salty, a little, that she didn't get a date at prom. It wasn't the time for thinking about that, but to be honest the whole Henry thing made her eyes glaze over. Max was doing a player hunting thing. Made a bit more sense, in a fucking dumb way. Dude was all about big moral gestures that still benefited him in a roundabout way. He had a group together? Either they were gullible idiots or they were other politically minded people. People who still gave a shit about all that.

Wait a second. Camilla just said something strange.

"Did you say man-catcher?" Bert asked, "isn't that, like, that plant with the jaws or whatever? Like the fly thingy?"

And that was really all Bert could think of to contribute to this. The two of them had their thing going, they were hashing out something of a plan. Bert just didn't know what to do. And she didn't even have any food to chew on. Her stomach rumbled. She'd need something to eat soon. She sat on the ground and twiddled her thumbs waiting for Camilla to finish up on the pho—walkie talkie.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

"You're talking about a venus flytrap," Camilla corrected, turning away from the walkie talkie, only slightly annoyed and hoping that her own venus flytrap was being taken care of. "The thing Max had was more like a garbage picker-upper. So uh, Nikki-"

"Alright. I need you and whoever else is there to listen to me for a second. Just stop whatever it is you're doing and pull them over."

Camilla froze for a moment.

"Right... we're not doing much anyway."

She stepped closer to the hut where Nikki was, and beckoned Bert to come over as well, and in a hoarser voice than normal she told them. "Guys? It's important, listen up." Once Bert was there, Camilla pressed the talk-button-thing again, and quietly asked.*

"What is it?"

“Alright. You all listening? I have to believe they’re confident enough in what they’re doing not to just kill us for talking about it. They’ve invested too much into this to let it all go to waste."

Camilla's eyes widened just a bit. There was nothing to be surprised about, and it wasn't like she was trying to keep it a secret (from Henry anyway) that the group had escape on the mind, but it might have been the fact that he was willing to say it so loudly.

"I do a lot of tinkering with old radios, electronics, that kind of thing. I know enough to know the big problem here. You don’t need that much explosive on a collar to kill someone. I’m confident most of their design is the tracking and signal components, all of which are going to fail-safe if something disables them or blocks the signal."

On the other side of the line he took a sharp breath in.

“Fail-safe for the terrorists means we die. They already caught us and put us here, losing one or two to a collar malfunction isn’t really hindering them on a large scale." A collar malfunction, intentional or not. "The collars themselves have to operate on a relatively low band radio frequency to keep things simple and reduce chance of latency issues and interference from weather and anything else. They don’t want us all dying if a thunderstorm hits or if they have some kind of malfunction on their end.” She figured Henry was the kind of guy who got really into all this stuff- from his voice, despite the obvious disturbance.

"A collar malfunction... or someone trying to get them off?" she asked. She knew the answer, but it seemed like this was where Henry was going.

"Absolutely. Though they have to get them on and off somehow. There’s likely a specific signal keyed to the collars that does it. The only way, and I’m sure it’s the only way, that they could possibly be disarmed is if someone managed to figure out what that signal is, and broadcast it to the collars themselves. Probably part of the reason none of us were awake to have them put on, so that we didn’t see how it was done. If I had to guess they’ve got a boat just over the horizon that’s the primary broadcast point, and some transmitters scattered across all of the zones. Probably not more advanced than that. The more complex they get technically, the more likely it is someone’s going to figure them out and discover the island."

Camilla wasn't sure how Henry would have figured all that out, but she wasn't as smart as he was anyway. Besides, it kinda made sense, what he said, even if it required her to ruminate on it more to really understand- oh who was she kidding she'd never understand this stuff and Henry started speaking again.

"That’s why I’m not sure if the collars are recording us," Oh. "It’s more information to transmit for such a small device, and the cameras do that job well enough already. This social experiment of theirs goes for what, two weeks? They need them to keep functioning until then, and that means keeping it simple. The ground based transmitters are probably in inconspicuous, elevated locations. I wouldn’t bother trying to find them. Chances are if you do, they’ll just detonate your collar."

That's... that didn't shed any sort of hopeful light on their situation. She wasn't sure what to feel, and whatever she was currently feeling about it, the words she could have used to describe it escaped her. Except maybe despair, but that didn't- it didn't seem right.

Finally, she answered. "...Now what?"

"Well... Don't bet on finding a way to take them off on our own. I don’t want anyone to die trying. Hide if you can, fight off anyone who's taken their side, and buy yourselves time."

"Right... like you said before."

"Until we know more, our best chance is the government storming wherever they’re transmitting from and shutting it down. Even then I couldn't tell you what's gonna happen. They might still kill us all if they think they’ve lost, or they’ll let us live so there are more voices to talk about what they did. I don't know. I think I know how their tech works; but I don't know how they work."

She doubted anyone could figure out why- but maybe they weren't so alien. Maybe they were simply sadists, but this was an awful lot of effort for a bunch of sadists just to get their kick, isn't it?

"They- Right. Got to believe they'll make it, or that we'll make or just..." she sighed, and looked up. The sky seemed as bright as ever, but the air felt even more humid- and in the distance, clouds seemed to be raring to go. "I'll do my best. I think- I think there's gonna be rain soon. Seems like it. Should probably go back in the shelter. And uh... talk to you later, then?"

"Yeah, I'll get back to you same time tomorrow. If you have to keep quiet, turn it off and then get back to me after the coast is clear. I'll do the same. I'm gonna try and find somewhere safe to hole up for the night, the yacht is looking... untenable, at this point. Stay safe, Camila."

She nodded, even though the intended recipient couldn't see. "You too. Oh... by the way. Thanks for well, being there. Talk to you tomorrow then." Then there was silence.

For some reason, this all reminded her of the end of that party. She'd been thinking about it more than she should, Bert was a living reminder, it felt like. She said 'I love you' to someone and they didn't say it back and sure it wasn't romantic but didn't it mean something? Maybe it didn't, not to Julien at least. And now she'd said thank you, sincerely- oh, but people sounding sincere were a dime a dozen here weren't they? A thank you meant nothing and I love you probably lost all meaning amidst the sex and lies and- and everything that ever meant something got abandoned except she would be arrogant to believe she meant more than anyone else did but-

Camilla took a deep breath. "Hey Bert? We should go inside," she said, before she crawled back into the hut. Bert followed soon after.

[Camilla Bell continued in When you hurt me, you hurt yourself, Liberty "Bert" Wren continued in Kids Run Through The City]

((All godmodding approved by MS etc etc))

[SOTF_Help]

Everybody got out, and drifted away in pairs, and eventually Nikki was alone again. She supposed she didn't mind. It was easier to breathe when she was alone.

After a while, she left too.

((Nikki Nelson-Kelly Continued In Cabin Fever))