The Sky Is Falling, So Pull Up A Chair

[MK Kilmarnock]

Cheridene felt her heart leap when Garren dropped the bags to the ground. Instinctively, she wanted to grab it and run for it. Garren couldn't stop her, not while he was precariously and awkwardly climbing down the way he was, and even with the extra weight she was sure she could outrun him. Lucas probably wasn't in any better shape, which left Catherine. Cheridene liked Catherine the most out of the people here, insomuch as she was not Garren or Lucas, and therefore hurdled that bar that was set an inch off the ground. She could probably convince Catherine to come with her and share the extra supplies.

Unfortunately, while he'd dumped his bag onto the ground, Garren had revealed something else by picking up his odd looking weapon. It looked to be like a pickaxe, but with only one hook instead of the two a pickaxe would have. Obviously a tool, but a tool that would hurt if you swung it at somebody. A hell of a lot more lethal, Cheridene thought, than a vape pen. And because that weapon was up there with Garren, that meant there was no weapon in that bag. It was sure to have something helpful, but not what would be the most helpful right now, and that was a reasonable way to defend herself.

Cheri ground her teeth a little and settled the urge in her legs to run by pacing back and forth a little.

"We can't all leave, unless you know how to get these doohickeys off," Cheri said in Lucas's general direction, touching the smooth side of the collar with two fingers as if she had to remind herself it was there.

[Slam]

Urge to snark, rising.

Of course he’d encountered a bunch of naysayers. They went to George Hunter High, didn’t they? Garren trying to look all cool while pointlessly opening up a clear view of his crotch (because he really needed to imagine another dick like Demetri’s), one of the girls looking like her time was so damn precious right now and the other making the most obvious observation that was ever observed. A real winning bunch.

But, like Grandpa had taught him, snarking wouldn’t make him friends. And while it wasn’t friends he needed, he needed the closest approximation of that if they were going to do what he wanted and get out of this intact and he could finally be rid of these people.

“You’re right,” Lucas replied to Captain Obvious, trying his hardest to resist adding an ‘you don’t say?’ “so that’s the first thing we need to take care of if we’re going to get out of here alive. Listen, I don’t have all the pieces put together yet, but I know we need to find the best physics students at school and get them working with us. After that, we either find something we can use as a boat, or something-“ he caught himself. He wasn’t sure how high his odds of getting his head blown off for planning to get off the island were, but better not chance it.

“Well, beyond that we just need to get as many people on our side. You know, instead of trying to kill each other. So, you guys in, or do you want to die?”

[CondorTalon]

...That was it? That was his grand plan? We'll get the collars off... uh, somehow, and then we can escape?

Catherine's confidence in this boy was rapidly dropping, which was a feat, since it wasn't high in the first place. There was no way that that was the extent to which he thought out the plan. They needed something more concrete we'll round up all of the best physics students and get them to do something to the collars. Because a bunch of kids who mastered high school physics could outsmart the tech behind these things on their necks that had facilitated the completion of two previous versions.

But what turned Catherine away from Lucas even more was that last line, and the condescending way he delivered it. Sure, he was right, and they wouldn't really be well off killing each other, but... like, duh? But they weren't the ones he needed to say that to. Or at least she wasn't.

She wasn't going to kill anyone.

But the real kicker was that last sentence. It was obvious that Lucas thought that his plan was the only plan that would result in a peaceful resolution. And of course, it was that overconfidence that his plan would be completely safe. Catherine had to try really hard to hide her discomfort. She wasn't about to let her mask break here.

But... she felt like she had to say something here.

"Why did you just offer the same choice twice?" she finally asked, her voice trying to remain as neutral as possible.

[Pippi]

Just a couple more drops until he was back to Earth.

Garren could just about see, out of the corner of his eye, two potential options with which to move down with. There was a hole in one of the planks to his right-hand side, and a tree branch that had snaked around the house to his left. Both of them looked like a good choice, but as soon as he placed the sole of his Converse onto the branch, he felt it soften and start to give, heart leaping into his mouth as her shot back to his previous ledge.

Guess that made the decision for him, then.

He stretched his leg out, trying to get purchase on the hole below him, muscles screaming out at him as he wished, not for the first time, that he’d tried harder at gym class. Maybe he could have made something else of himself, a sprinter or whatever, and then he could have broken his leg in training and not had to have gone on the trip.

That’d have been fucking nice, in hindsight.

His foot finally found it’s bearings in the hole, giving him a secure foothold, and he let his other leg drop, holding onto the ledge he’d previously been standing on. It was cake after that; he just had to fall the last couple feet down. Even he couldn’t mess it up, and, hey presto, he stuck the landing without stumbling or landing on his face. Pause for applause.

He was grounded again. Unlike Brady, who had to be completely fucking deluded to think anyone would go along with his plan.

Garren couldn’t help but smirk as he walked towards the group, slipping the pickaroon out of his jeans and resting it against his shoulder. Sounded like Catherine had the same mindset as he did. Sure, Lucas said he was still working on the plan, but don’t go up to the starving man promising salvation only to hand him crumbs.

At least they wouldn’t die via the terrorists blowing their collar. They’d all see how much of a fucking trainwreck this escape attempt was, and let the four of them kill themselves, like Catherine suggested.

“So, like… do you think all the physics nerds took their voltmeters and shit with them on the trip? Or got to keep ‘em?” Garren raised his eyebrow, bending down to scoop up his duffel bag and slip it onto his shoulder, maintaining eye contact with Lucas the entire time. “And come on, these fucking terorrists have been kidnapping busloads of kids for years, my dude. We’re gonna have to have something waay better than just a hope, to deal with these things.”

He stood up, tapping his collar as he did so.

“Listen, I get it. You wanna escape, I wanna escape, everyone out here wants to get off this island before everything fucking kicks off. But you said you were still getting the pieces together, and…”

Garren shrugged.

“I ain’t even seeing one piece.”

[MK Kilmarnock]

When Garren walked forward, Cheridene walked backward - perhaps not an equal distance, but still far back enough that Garren, with his wild pick-shaped thing, couldn't hit her if he decided to swing that thing around. And maybe it was just the beginning of some death-game induced paranoia, but his stance seemed to be ideal for the beginning of a swing.

The backpacing, she realized, might come off as strange to the others. It could be interpreted as a sign of weakness and in the worst possible case, Garren might act on it. Cheri told herself that was far-fetched; there were three of them and one of him. Weapon or no weapon, if one of them decided to make themselves the aggressor first, the other three could probably rush them soon enough to stuff them before they could do any real damage. Or, at least, the POSSIBILITY of that happening was enough of a deterrent that nobody would go crazy.

Maybe all the worrying was for nothing. After all, Garren's attention was on Lucas. Up until Garren reached the ground, that's where the vast majority of Cheridene's was, too. So in tuning in to Lucas's baffling plan, or rather the complete and total absence of anything resembling a plan (or a complete one), her cautious backstepping was probably overlooked entirely.

"I mean I'm sorry but he's right," Cheridene added when Garren gave his assessment. "You don't really have even step one to like, get us outta here."

[Slam]

Lucas held on so damn tightly to that not-snarking route he knew he had to take, as tempting as the other one was. He inhaled deeply, not doing the best job of not signalling his irritation via body language, but he didn’t say anything so that was ok. He spoke in a controlled, measured tone, because that’s what he was. Way more than anyone else here, that was for sure. Way more polite, too.

“Like I said, I’m still putting things together. There’s no reason to start getting critical. Not unless you have any better ideas. Because if you do, I’d love to hear it.” He looked them each in the eye, challenging them to reveal their own personal escape routes that trumped his efforts to keep people heading to safety. “ Otherwise, we’re still better off sticking together than splitting up. At least that way we know we’re all committed to escaping rather than playing.”

The term ‘playing’ had slipped out, which made him pause. Five minutes on the island, and he was already dropping the lingo that he’d read people use as a folksy colloquialism for mass murder. Let’s play by bashing someone’s brains in then eating their corpse for attention. Disgusting. A chill ran down his spine. He buried the feeling, for now.

“So what’s it going to be? Are we going to team up and have each other’s backs? Or would you rather Garren started swinging his climbing axe around now and we got it over with?"

[CondorTalon]

There it was again. That 'you're either with me or against me' ultimatum that he was so sure were the only ways forward. Catherine had just about had enough here. There was that third option that he'd failed to list, because there was always a third option. And Catherine was about to take that third option right now.

"Neither," is all she said, before she turned right around and walked away.

She wasn't sure if any of them would try to follow her.

She'd rather they didn't.

((Catherine Zier continued in ][.))

[Pippi]

Things kinda happened around Garren, but his mind had wandered as they did so. Not too far, not too far at all, but enough for a lot of the words to get lost in the static, and for his movements to become listless. Kinda like a… like a… ugh. Like an NPC you’d wandered too far away from. Didn’t have to perform all his animations anymore, just had to be there and ponder all his NPC thoughts.

Yeah, his heart really wasn’t in that one; he’d never been a fan of any of the shitty NPC memes anyways. But guess what? Wasn’t the only thing his heart wasn’t set on.

He’d noticed Cheridene’s reaction, out of the corner of his eye as he’d walked towards them all. The movement away from him, the purposeful act of putting space between them both. Maybe it was just the weird, spike-axe-thing he was holding that was giving her concern; getting yourself too close to any kind of weapon was just asking for a bad time. But, like… would she have had the same reaction if it’d been someone like Ace or like Amelia holding this thing? Someone with a way better reputation than he did?

That wasn’t the only thing, of course. He fixed his gaze on Lucas, raising his eyebrow as he did so.

“Don’t really appreciate being painted as the axe wielding pyschopath here, buddy,” Garren muttered, rotating his weapon against his shoulder, the metal spike gently brushing through his hair as he did so. “Not how I’d go about trying to get friends and allies and shit.”

It was kind of a weird reaction, he knew, given he’d spent way, way too long considering swinging his axe-thing at anyone he ran into, earlier. But now that he’d realised that he didn’t actually want that anymore, having other people tell him, directly or not, that they thought he had the capacity to do so… Yeah, that didn’t sit right with him. He didn’t want that label attached to him.

Garren looked in the direction Catherine had walked off in. She had the right idea. Brady was, obviously, a dumbass, and the worst kind of dumbass to boot, the sort of dumbass who was absolutely convinced he was the smartest dude in the… uh, dilapidated island town. Garren was this close to following her. He took a deep, heavy breath, and stayed put. One more try. Give it one more go, because God knows, he wanted this escape plan to work pretty damn badly.

“You get a second chance, Brady,” he said, keeping his gaze fixed on Lucas. “Gimme your best pitch as to why I should stick with you, else I’m fucking off and doing it myself.”

[MK Kilmarnock]

"Doing WHAT yourself?"

Cheridene silently chastised herself for even opening her mouth. But, fuck it. If she pisses Garren off, she could probably hightail it out of there before his basement-dwelling ass could get too close. If he had a gun, then she would have her doubts. There was no outrunning a bullet. But a Canon-loving neckbeard with a pickaxe? Yeah, sure, she'd put money on that. Hell, maybe the boys would start fighting, that would be the best case scenario and she could even wind up with a weapon out of the deal.

But that was getting ahead of herself, and that also required her to keep her mouth shut to see the best results. Already mission failed, then. But she needed to know what Garren meant.

"Like, fucking off and trying to escape yourself? Or trying to play yourself?" she asked, crossing an arm over her dufflebag.

[Slam]

Lucas watched girl #1 walk off with a scowl on his face. Fine, she could go rot in hell for all he cared. More living for him.

He turned back to Demetri and Girl #2, no longer bothering to try to ineffectually hide his irritation as the conversation devolved. Of all the people, Garren Mortimer was challenging him to prove himself? Garren Mortimer, Meninist moron loser? Who did this asshole think he was?

“Look, it doesn’t matter!” he shouted over the nonsense of conversation, throwing his arms forward in emphasis as his cool skipped away from him. “The simple fact is we’re in the middle of SOTF, and unless we work together, we’re all going to wind up dead! Now you can either team up with me and we can have a shot at getting out of this thing alive, or you can wait for the next guy who’s not murdering you to come along. Just hope you survive until then!“

He gave them both a look that did not invite friendship, or affability. It was the closest thing Lucas had in his past life to an expression suggesting someone travel in the opposite direction, because they were doing a wonderful job of pissing him off. In the period of short-lived diplomacy and attempt to maintain a pleasant expression, it had turned into something weird, ugly and red that may have just made him look constipated.

“Otherwise if you want to die you can just walk off with THAT BITCH-“ the yell was to make sure she heard “and I’ll go find someone a little more reasonable and a little less of a loser!” He had wound up focusing only on Garren, of course, he realised as he remembered there was a third member of this little spectacle. He turned to her.

“Not that you’re a loser, I mean. But, yeah, come with me if you want to live.”

[Pippi]

Garren didn’t think his eyebrow could raise any higher, but he was pretty sure it had just managed that feat. He looked from Lucas, to Cheridene, then back to Lucas, before he snorted, rolling his eyes, fixing the other boy with a smirk.

“Nah, I’m good.”

He turned the smirk towards Cheri, lightly shaking his head.

Then, suddenly, he swung the pickaroon down off his shoulder, embedding the spike into the ground between them, trying his best to hide the exertion it took to do so, the strain in the so-called muscles in his arms. His smirk grew slightly strained as he stared at her, slowly rotating his head to look between her and Lucas again, a bitter twist to the edge of his mouth.

“Bet you’d like that, though, huh?” He muttered, slowly. “If I was gonna go off and play and shit, yeah? Pretty easy to hate a killer if they’re already the scum of the earth.”

Garren pulled the pickaroon back up again, grunting as he dug up the earth, clods of soil and a shower of dirt dropping back down again as he swung his weapon onto his shoulder.

“But, nah, sorry to disappoint or whatever, but I’m not planning on getting any blood on my hands. Escape sounds pretty damn good, and whether that’s by myself or with as many people I can find…”

He shrugged, starting to walk away from the duo.

“Eh, we’ll see when we get there, yeah?”

Garren grinned as he walked off. He was tempted to start walking backwards, talking whilst still facing them, but he knew that as soon as he tried that he’d just eat shit and tumble onto his bony ass. So, instead, he stopped, a good distance away, addressing each of the two in turn.

“Brady, your plan sucks, and I’d rather get punched in the gut by Bret fuckin’ Carter than follow you. Get the stick outta your ass and maybe you’ll stay alive. Cheri?”

He smirked, finally turning away and beginning to properly make his departure.

“Good luck.”

He strode off, and it wasn’t until he’d reached the treeline that he realised his hand was trembling.

Aw, fuck, dude, he was totally shaking, wasn’t he? Like Demetri when a girl walked within ten feet of him. That had sounded badass, right? And he hadn’t even stumbled over his words or spilled spaghetti everywhere. Hell yeah. Hell fucking yeah.

Eat shit, Brady.

((Garren Mortimer, continued in They call me useless, they call me weak, they call me a flipper and snorkel geek ))

[MK Kilmarnock]

Oh.

Oh, okay.

Why in the hell did Garren decide to face her when he did that? What good was supposed to come from him intimidating her, besides the fact that he thought that his mere presence intimidated any woman? Because if there was something that no girl at George Hunter had ever said about Garren "I'm a Meninist" Mortimer, it was 'Oh man, I'm so intimidated around him.' Intimidated by the fact he smelled like cheese mixed with belly button lint, maybe. And the worst part? That actually HAD intimidated her, because even somebody like Garren swinging that thing around could puncture a lung or crack open a skull. Cheri hated him for the pointless gesture, and she hated herself for flinching at it when the weapon struck the ground. Now if only an oil spring had punched up out of the ground or something, but God was not smiling upon them this day for even the smallest of sick jokes.

Well wait, speaking of jokes, here's one: Given an option between sticking with Lucas Brady or following Garren Mortimer after the most insincere-sounding 'good luck' outside of the movies, who do you follow? Because those choices were already scraping the bottom of the barrel, and these were literally the first people Cheridene had the pleasure of speaking with. It was sad to think that the next people she ran into might not even be so friendly. Say what you would, at least nobody had attacked one another. She thought she could hear the pop of gunfire somewhere off in the distance, but it wasn't nearby enough to concern her. All it told her was that, yes, somebody was out to kill somebody.

Good luck, huh? Yeah. She was going to need it. And the first step to finding that proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was to get the hell out of here.

"Sorry buddy," Cheri said as she looked to Lucas, the only person left. "Sucks to suck, yo."

And then she left too.

((Cheridene Williams, continued at the Bay))

[Slam]

Lucas could only stand there, arms spread wide with the most dumb-founded look on his face. What the actual fuck had just happened?

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He was going to lead them and himself to safety, everyone joining forces and telling Danya where to stick it. With careful planning, coordination and patience, things would be ok. Yeah, they were a pretty fucking stupid trio to run into, but he was trying to get them out of here alive. Why fight that?

Why had he been dressed down by Garren fucking Mortimer, of all the losers to be dressed down by? He’d rather go with one of the Carters? Why?!

He shot his foot through the rubble, scattering more tiny stones across the ground to no reward whatsoever. He was stuck in the life or death situation that was SOTF. He was one of the few people on the school who actually had a knowledge of what happened in these things, because he didn’t just get wasted off his ass or high on drugs all day long. He was making it clear he didn’t want to murder people.

But still he had managed to drive three different people away in five minutes, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Not even a genuine well wish.

"MOTHER FUCKERS!" he yelled, once again to no benefit.

Finally, with nothing in hand, he gathered up his things and sulked off. He kept pointing fingers all the while. What was wrong with his classmates? Why did this shit always happen to him?

And how was he going to get out alive like this?

((Lucas Brady, continued in The Whine of the Vagrant Character))