Survival Of The Fittest

"Oh, I get it!" Bert said, smiling in recognition, "That's pretty smart, yeah! I wasn't thinking of it like that."

See, that plan made a lot more sense. The follow-up what-if of the worst case scenario what happens if somebody booby traps your place while you're out and about and you come back to the shelter to take refuge and get eaten up by a bomb or something was too obscure to even mention, and things would get combative if she did that. She had a filter, unlike a few people she knew. It was maybe misaligned in a couple places, but she knew how to steer the conversation away from dumb, stupid stuff that led to fighting.

"Yeah, I can take that extra bag from you. I can even help with construction if you need anything that requires drilling."

Bert held the drill up a little higher and give the power trigger switch things a couple presses. Brzzt Brzzt. Real quick turns. See? Thing works, and can put holes in things. Yeah!

"I mean, I doubt you have any use for it, but hey, could be useful, like, putting some sticks in places to make things more secure, an interlocking support beam layout, I mean, gosh, y'know I was going to go to college for architecture before this whole thing so you'd think I'd know some things about good construction but right now I can't remember ever thinking about how to make bug-out bases or whatever you'd call this that isn't shelter because I guess shelter's a bit of a boring name, to be honest."

Camilla seemed to be chilling out, just a lil’ bit, and so Mike left her with a nod and not much else, because he’d given her what she wanted to hear, right? Did his duty, the 9 to 5 thing, and he could promptly punch out and like, move on to other things.

Like how Bert and Nikki were getting along, and making actual plans about their magic treehouse shelter whatever. Well, including him, he was guessin’ but it wasn’t as if he had any sorta experience building shit, so he just nodded and smiled as Bert went on about bug bases or beams or whatever. Sounded smart, sounded, well, constructive, and he was here for it! Not for actually knowing how to do it, but maybe there was one thing he could contribute to. Just maybe.

“Ya know, I’m a simple man,” Mike said with an open smile and a raised hand, “But I think Home Base’d be a good a name as any. “Specially if we’re gonna be tryna make a number of these.”

And yeah, honestly, hundred-percent truth, he thought he plan was good. Small bases, ‘round and ‘round, running through then to keep safe, keep smart. And he believed, yeah, ‘cause he saw the glint in Bert’s eyes as she went on about the architecture whatevers. Same thing he saw when Abel started mapping out strats, plays to get that man on home.

Mike just wished he had something to get that fired up about, too.

“I’ll be honest here, dunno much about building or whatever,” he continued, gesturing to his biceps. Eh, something was building up there, even if weights weren’t really his thang. Still not the people of the right persuasion for him to be showin’ these off to, but he was down to lend a helping hand. “But I guess I got these to help out with, carry shit and all.”

Well, not really guessed, ‘cause none of the girls ‘round him looked real built for manual labor.

He fished out his old TT cap from his bag, and snapped it on. Cool head, cool hands, right? ‘Least, it kept the nagging feeling that he shoulda been trying to find the rest of the crew for a little bit longer.

Ah, so the Nikki girl was gonna make a bunch of shelters all over the island? Seemed like a pretty alright plan. Make them a little bigger and you got yourself a little house for a little group.

Maybe it was still too little?

Camilla had to stop her face from becoming a frown because everybody liked this idea, but the best case scenario was for them to get rescued- well, maybe that could happen. The thought was what prevented the frown from forming on her face. Yet... if they didn't, then what? Then the best thing you can do is "win", with scare quotes because you really didn't win anything except the corpses of your friends and possibly your sanity.

...She didn't want to win. But the alternative was dying, wasn't it? But she knew that yesterday-

She took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly. Then she turned to Mike, he seemed a bit startled earlier. She didn't quite process it in her worry.

"Hey uh, sorry for being weird like... like that," she began, not quite knowing how to end- though she did have to justify herself, didn't she? "I was really worried about Drew, he's my friend from the gardening club-"

Why did she have to mention that? Nobody cared about clubs anymore. "Uh... not that the gardening club is really relevant, haha. Just... wanted to know if he was okay."

She smiled, just a little bit. "Thanks, you know?"

She wanted to slap herself for rambling, oversharing, all those things. Though she imagined in a place like this, somebody would shoot her for those things soon enough.

(Boring building montage timeskip approved by all)

It was pretty good they had Mike around to help with a lot of the carrying part.

Because even with frequent breaks -- it's not like anyone was getting paid or anything -- Nikki especially wasn't much for lugging around and setting up branches. Bert helped supervise the basics on shape, Camilla and Nikki pitched in, but in the end it was two hours later, the sun was starting to get high in the sky, and Nikki guessed that was the best they could do.

The Bug-Out/Home Base (no TM yet since it didn't officially have a name) was really more a series of branches leaning against the overhang than anything else. But it was up against a hefty tree, it provided some shade, it fit a few people if they all crammed together. And most importantly, its walls looked solid enough.

Yes. Definitely most importantly ohmygod it was gonna be time soon. But it was OK. It was OK. It fit all her rules beautifully. And she just had to trust in #3 more than all.

So as they looked at it and Nikki sipped on some water she spoke and her voice was casual and free.

"Wow. Thanks guys. Really! Uh... Bert, Camilla I'll just see about moving my stuff into one bag and you can have the extra. Uh... uh...."

And Nikki dropped her voice and tried to sound serious and didn't know if she was.

"Let's get inside for a minute."

Pause.

"Please."

She ducked inside with her bags.

Building the shelter turned out to be a lot of fun! Bert helped out with suggestions for ways that the shelter could, y'know, generally look, but it felt like Nikki had a strangely specific vision for the ways that she wanted to have this shelter come out. Why that was, she had no idea, but it made things a lot easier to guide and shape in a way that didn't result in Bert leading, which wasn't something that she signed up for. Sure, it wouldn't withstand a full-tilt charge from one of the Carter Boys, but it was hidden and well concealed and could be even more so if they like, put some leaves on it. Some nice green shit, yeah.

Nikki summed it up nicely when she started sipping her drink and talking about giving over the bag. Bert smiled and listened, wiping a bit of sweat from her brow. Nikki reassured, it sounded, Bert with the bag-promise, which in all honesty Bert had kinda sorta forgotten about and just was reminded of at this moment, but it was very important to come away from this with the bag because she was only here for it in the first place, right?

But then things took a turn, and Nikki's whole demeanor changed, and she invited them inside. Uh, okay! What was the goal with that? Just a test to see how easy it was to fit people in the thing? Bert had been looking at the structural stability from inside as they built, and it seemed pretty sturdy, but here Nikki was ducking inside.

Whatever, it was all good. Bert walked into the shelter right after Nikki. It was easy for someone Bert's size to come inside and find a spot to get cozy, much easier than someone like Nikki or Mike or Camilla. Sometimes being small had its perks!

"So," Bert whispered, "what's up?"

Hooookay. If there was one thing Mike had to admit, after putting 150% of his back into building this lil’ shelter, it was that if he ever managed to get back to the real world and off this fucking place (a real impossibility), construction work was definitely not a field he was real interested in pursuing.

Like, no offense to the girls and all, but throughout those hours, it definitely felt like he’d been doing the bulk of the work. Wasn’t, surprising, nah, he’d even reckoned that’d be the case, but still. It sucked. Wasn’t a big fan of weights at home, wasn’t a fan of carrying branches all around here. Some things stayed the same, just like that.

Still, he had to admit, it looked really fucking dope, and a flush of pride came over once they were able to see the finished product. Or, it was just a flush coming in ‘cause of the heat and the sweat and all. Either way, he was in a real good mood as he followed everyone else inside.

There was somethin’ just a bit off bout how Nikki was acting, but Mike put it down to being here in this hellhole and all.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed, nodding along with Bert. “You got somethin’ good rollin’ round that head of yours?”

Good group, here, full of good people. He just hoped that the good thing lasted.

Camilla was no stranger to a little bit of dirty work. She meant that literally. What was a day in the garden (every day in a season that was not winter, back home) without a bit of dirt on your hands and sweat on your brow, after all? Really, the only real difference here was that the garden was a lot of branches and it was a lot hotter outside, so there was a lot of sweat on the brow.

It had all come together quite nicely though, she had to admit. It was nothing special, but it would do. Then Nikki asked them to come inside.

...this had a few alarms ringing, but if Nikki really wanted to kill them, she probably would have tried earlier.

She crawled in- it was rather cramped for a person of her size, but she made do, pulling her knees up to her chest. Luckily, everyone else seemed to fit just fine, even with her around. The others asked Nikki, in a friendly sort of manner, what she was up to. Camilla felt no need to add to the general sentiment, and as such simply nodded in agreement.

"Ummmmm, ummmm...."

She stammered a bit. Now that everyone was inside, it was pretty cramped. But they could only build these things so big, right? And it wouldn't be fair to Mike or anyone to demand he build them something huge or anything.

Ohgod anxious faces and she was cross-legged on the floor casually pawing through her personal stuff.

"Let's just rest a few and uh I wanted to see if we could all fit and it's safe. Um, Bert I'll see about my bag for you uh uh uh"

Oh no.

Oh no don't start this Nikki breathe breathe she was OK.

Just took a second.

Her fumbling hands grabbed her spare T-shirt and leggings. Oh god she'd need that back it was her only one and it'd look ridiculous but it was just for while they were here.

"Sorry just a sec!"

Bert was the closest. Nikki passed her the shirt and pointed to her own neck and the scarf round the collar there. Motioned with her fingers around her neck and almost laughed because her own collar was probably like twice Bert's size and then leaned in and summoned all of the few vocal exercise skills she'd learned to be 10th-billed in school productions to bring her voice down as low as she possibly could.

She whispered into Bert's ear.

"Uh.... I think-- so when we've got a shelter like this, the, um, the cameras. They can't see us. And uh-um, I've covered up my collar so that as long as we're really quiet they can't hear us.

"So if we could find... someone who knew how, or a way to get them off or a plan or something, we could do it in a place like this. And uh, that's all I got for now, can you tell Camilla and I'll tell Mike, once we all get our necks covered up we should be able to talk as long as it's quiet and you can take the shirt off when we come out OK?"

She leaned back and was suddenly light-headed like her skull had been filled with air pockets. Breathed again and found her jacket before tossing it to Mike and motioning him to do the same.

Things were normal and then they weren't. When Nikki started getting out extra clothes, Bert got pretty confused about what exactly she made the shelter for. It afforded a certain level of privacy, sure, but did it reasonably afford that much privacy? Like, wow, was now the time and place? Bert wasn't going to judge, and on a certain level she was sort of down for it, but it quickly appeared that that wasn't the reason Nikki gathered them all in the little hut.

She was right about the cameras, but the microphone bit caught her off guard. Bert hadn't even considered that the collars did anything other than track them and hide explosives, the bit about microphones made a lot of sense since she didn't really see them attached to the cameras and the microphone quality built in was probably too terrible to justify a broadcast. Nikki must have wanted to talk about something somewhat serious. Escaping? Fuck, there was nothing Bert wanted more than to escape! Pass the message on? Of course! Dutifully!

Bert turned to Camilla and handed over the leggings, motioning for her to wrap them around her neck before Bert started whispering.

"So okay, so um, the shelter was to hide us from the cameras, and uh, this is weird, the clothes are to muffle the microphones in the collars so they can't hear us take them off. Um, we don't have a way to do that yet. But here's the place to do that. In here. You gotta stay quiet when you got that on. Also you can take the leggings off when you're out of here if you don't wanna look like Nathan or something. I mean silly by that. I'm mean but I'm not evil, christ."

Bert chuckled in a puu-huu-huu way, whisper-breathy, and turned away.

Maybe it was just the fact that there were four people in here, or maybe it was just the thing about how he was like six-foot flat and stuck in a tiny-ass place, but Mike was starting to feel cramped. Like, real, real cramped. Enough so that even though he wanted to take off his cap to let his hair breathe, 'cause it couldn't have been doing well in this heat, he couldn't, for fear of accidentally hitting someone with an arm. Soooo, that was good.

Something good in the same way was Nikki starting to just go and sift right on through her clothes, because wow, did Mike feel uncomfortable in this kinda situation. Like, not 'cause she was a bigger girl, but because she was a girl, and yeah, this whole shelter thing was starting to kinda feel worse and worse.

He'd turned his head to provide Nikki with some kinda modesty when she started speaking. 'Cause of that, he could only see her moving on over to Bert through the side of his eyes, but that sight was still enough for the relief to be real evident in his next sigh. Just had to breathe. Get through one lil' thing every lil' second.

Slowly, he turned his head back, and yeah, phew, it seemed all good, even if Bert now had Nikki's shirt or whatever tied around her neck and was whispering and all to Camilla. So, uh, he guessed that was good, or at least Mike was guessing it was better than what he thought was gonna happen.

The jacket being thrown at him was not what he thought was gonna happen, but he still caught it, sorta, thanks to those reflexes and all or something.

He began tying it 'round his neck, 'round his collar, all like Nikki wanted. Once Mike was done, he nodded at her, eyebrow raised.

Like, what now?

At first Camilla wondered why on Earth any of them would need more clothes in this heat. Really, Camilla was never an exhibitionist, but were she in a less cramped space she'd just about take her shirt off by now- her hoodie was in her bag from last night- and even though it might have been as gaudy, the staring types were the least of her worries at that moment. They said far more about themselves with their actions than she would with hers. Besides, they weren't going to find much to look at anyway.

Of course, she was in a cramped hut where jabbing her elbow in the wrong direction could cause all their hard work to collapse, so that wasn't an option at that point in time. As she saw the scene unfold, she wondered what Nikki could have been whispering to Bert about.

And then she found out. She was handed leggings, and non-verbally instructed to use them as a scarf. Camilla wrapped the leggings round her neck, even tucking one of the leg-bits over and under like a scarf in the winter. Bert whispered about a plan, or rather the fragment of a plan. If they found a way to get their collars off, they would use this to muffle the sound. But they had to stay very, very quiet when doing so. It seemed simple enough.

She paused. She supposed this would be something along the lines of what Henry was planning, no? But they could not be overt about it. Indeed, this whole venture felt risky- like they were pushing the boundaries of what they could get away with without having their collars go off on them.

She leaned towards Mike, motioned for his ear, and whispered, passing on the wisdom. Perhaps her voice was shaking, anticipating a detonation that may or may not happen.

"When we muffle the collars and speak very quiet, they won't hear. Then um. We somehow take off the collars. We're sheltered too, see. From the cameras I mean. Hoping they won't notice."

She drew away, and felt for her bag beside her. Of course she knew it was there, but it felt good to confirm it in an odd way. But there was nothing inherently comforting about the bag, was there? Yet she felt calmer as she unzipped it and took out the walkie-talkie. Maybe Nikki wouldn't understand what she was doing with this, but perhaps- perhaps it was better to let them know what she had. It wasn't often she had something to properly contribute.

With slightly trembling hands, she lay the walkie talkie in front of Nikki wordlessly.

Nikki told Bert and Bert told Camilla and Camilla told Mike and all Nikki was reminded of was feathers flying out of a shredded pillow.

"And that," said Father O'Rourke, "is GOSSIP!"

But this was good gossip. This wasn't glances and giggles and exchanged texts in the girl's change room while she hurriedly got dressed and bugged out so that it wouldn't threaten her, not that she'd taken phys. ed since ninth grade compulsory. This was needed this was helpful and then they'd all gotten the hint it looks like and they were all suited up and ready to go.

Which oh man meant they were probably looking back at her.

But hey, no one had screamed or bolted! Which meant things were actually going really well so far. Staying well in line and Nikki smiled and faltered and reassured when Camilla went through her bag and pulled out... oh holy crap amazing was it a satellite phone or something no it was just a walkie talkie.

So what did that mean? Was it showing off all their assigned weapons and stuff? Was it like hey I've been recording you? No, walkie didn't do that. Or was it... oh. Maybe?

Nikki motioned everyone to lean in a bit more (granted they were already pretty close) and whispered as low as she could so that everyone could hear. She hoped.

"Uh, ok, so if we've all got something over the collars I think we can all talk quiet now. So if anyone wants to say something or... Camilla, do you just have the one walkie or is there someone else out there you can like call to let them know?

"And um, what's everyone else got if it's OK? I don't have anything right now, I just got some rope but um, it's a long story I'll tell you later but it got stuck up a post yesterday."

Woaaaah, Camilla! Whippin' it out just like that, eh?

Okay, well, it wasn't a big sword or gun or something like that, but it was a valuable tool. Bert wanted to whistle appreciatively, but she had just been told to keep a lid on it, so that she would do. Still—Nikki asked the question on Bert's mind. Was there another walkie talkie? They wouldn't just like, only give her ONE, right? That'd be beyond cruel and unusual, unless they gave someone else the other. Just that faint thing of hope—maybe they could use it for some radio thing. Bert didn't know radio, though she had briefly thought of being a ham operator once.

As for Bert's weapon? Without a sound, she held up the drill, suppressing her urge to press the trigger in and make it go bzzt bzzt again. She hadn't actually done that before a couple hours ago, in the last two days. It was really satisfying, but she could totally run down the power doing that if she just walked around drilling the air. Plus, it'd probably fuck up the whole collar plan. What would happen if they just drilled the collars? Well, the terrorists probably accounted for that. They wouldn't have given it to her otherwise, right?

"I hope someone here has something better," Bert whispered.

((Angie is now here.))

She sighed. Her brother was nowhere to be found. Well, he was somewhere here. Just nowhere she’d been, and nothing on the announcement. She preferred it that way. It just meant he didn’t die nor killed anyone. She was chasing against time, and it was winning the race.

She kept her gun in her hands. The buzzing was still around. It hurt, but it was the only thing that kept her alive here. The shooter earlier was trying to kill Garren and Katelynne. If she hadn’t been there, the girl could have killed them both. She didn’t know how to feel about this. It didn’t feel bad, but it didn’t feel good. She hated the fact she was put in this situation. Angie knew if her new purpose was to make the lives of her classmates just a little longer, giving them a more hope, anything to make their lives better for whatever they had left, she would be okay with it.

She still wanted to find her brother. That was her first priority. The rest did matter, but she had to keep her eyes on the target. The beach was close to this section of the wilderness. It was quiet and her stomach was rumbling. She had seen a goat, a monkey and a couple of birds. Angie wanted to get her hands on them. She hungered for meat, not crackers. Yet, she didn’t pull the trigger. The little animals had done nothing wrong but just existed on this island. There weren’t supposed to be here, she had figured that much. The whole place had this weird vibe of not being in the right place. It was as if someone had copy pasted these random images on a green screen, then randomized the background.

She nodded her head. It was kinda funny. Things that weren’t supposed to be here were now fighting for their survival in this arena. It sounded something from a novel. She let out a small giggle. This situation was godawful terrible, but was it funny if you picked it apart with tweezers. Explosive collars? Random weapons? Classmates killing each other? Weird fauna? Cult-like buildings? That was so fucked up shit, but the dark humour levels were off the chart.

She had been in her thoughts when she came across this tiny shelter. It was small, but big enough for maybe two people. There were so muffled noises coming out of it. There were more people here, and she couldn’t stop her mouth from moving.

“Hey!” Her gun was still in her hands, pointing downward. “Who’s there?”

Wait, Camilla wanted him to get in on the game of Telephone? Sure, sure, Mike was all up for getting in the groove and going along with the whatever the fuck was happening, mainly 'cause he didn't know what else to do at the time, but it seemed as good a bet as any. He leaned in, sipped up knowledge like some cold brew, all warm and tingly.

Special emphasis on tingly, because, well, they certainly had here a plan. He wasn't usually much all for subtlety and whispers, nah man, none of that shit behind people's back, wasn't real polite, but if it could lead to a better way out of this place, he 'sposed he could try to be quiet. Prolly owed them that much, even if they still kinda owed him for the shelter and all.

The walkie talkie laid right out there on the ground like a platter certainly was a sight, although Mike didn't really know what it was a sight for. Really, Mike was just hoping that this wasn't just some kinda fucked up show and tell session. After Camilla laid it all out, Nikki started saying that oh, probably someone else on the line, someone else with more of a mind to actually figure how to get these off, that she got a rope, and Bert revved the drill, and then, yeah. Back to his turn.

Wordlessly, he held up the air horn, hand slack as if it'd just teeter off at a moment's notice. Same bitter grin on his face, ready to lay back down and let them do the thinking again. Was real ready to go back down again, try to feel a bit happier 'bout all this, when another voice, one outside the shelter built by him, began ringing out.

Was it-Couldn't be- Wait.

Could be, could be.

His smile became something just a teensy bit more real.

"Y'all can continue brainstorming," and just like that, he was off to the races, scarf hastily untied, before he made his way out of the shelter, crawling like a baby, if only 'cause there wasn't really a more graceful method of getting out of the place.

Eyes looked up from the ground to the figure and yep, jackpot, golden. "Uh, yo Ange," His hand went up in greeting, hair tousled in the rush. Her, alright, but with a gun, and uh, oh, yikes. Mike's smile got just a lil' more nervous. "I am, and a buncha other peeps, but just give 'em a minute." Or like, a million, but that didn't really seem cool to say to the cameras.