Survival Of The Fittest

He just looked at the hand puppet. Right.

Victor just followed Fitz, gun still at what an experienced soldier would call low ready, aimed towards the ground and ruminated on the question. Unfortunately for him, the answer was

"No. Nothing like that." Victor looked around. "I've just been trying to sleep at night, but even then, I haven't heard anything that loud." He could have sworn he heard something. Victor just shook his head.

"They might have tried during the day, but I don't think I heard anything. Probably use the announcements to cover it up or some shit like that."

“Really… nah, that doesn’t work, then,” Fitz grumbled. “Should have expected that. If it was during the announcements, it'd have to be fast. Nah, that's probably out. Makes this whole thing kinda… pointless.”

He picked up the witch mask, holding it up to examine it with a slight frown, before he started treading his way to the next stick.

“Well… nevermind. Thanks. Anyway… not to be an asshole or anything, I know I told you to follow me and all. But better not stick around for too long. You know, because someone’ll come after me for killing Mildred. Like she did because I killed Tully. You know how it is, cycle of revenge.”

He propped the mask on the next stick along, then started the long trek back.

“Bet no-one really knows how to aim, either.”

Trust but verify, Evie knew that one. Reagan, wasn't it? Something about Gorbachev and detente with Russia. Her Cold War savvy wasn't quite as good as her World Wars, but she was pretty sure that was the context.

Moreover, she'd been so preoccupied with the approach, she'd failed to do a little verification of her own. Claire had already identified the two boys, and she'd let the information go right over her head. Had she paused to actually think, she could've pointed out much earlier that she actually knew both of them. Okay, maybe knew was doing a bit of heavy lifting there, but she was familiar. Acquainted. Fitz, ironically enough, through her erstwhile friend-in-common Alex Avanesian, and Victor through the Body Improvement Club she'd dabbled with - she was active enough to keep fit without it, but it hadn't hurt to cooperate with them. In any case, she knew them both to be decent people in her experience.

Then again, she'd "known" Alex to be alright, too. And Fitz already had two kills to his name. And a gun.

Still. It was an in. Maybe he'd been attacked for his gun, had to defend himself? He wasn't shooting Victor, despite the two of them being in the same place for quite some time, so she could say for sure he wasn't just opening fire at anyone crossing his path. To continue with the Reagan-y context, perhaps detente was an option here too. Leave the past in the past and look to a fruitful future.

And if there was one thing Evie was good at, it was pretending to be completely okay with things she didn't care for. It was how she kept such friendly terms with just about everyone she knew.

"Yeah. I think you're right. God, I was so focused on... whatever, I know these two,"

She suppressed the powerful urge to qualify that statement. But speaking without confidence wouldn't do her any good here, she didn't need Claire to know that she "more or less" knew them, that they were "sort of acquaintances" at best. She just needed to know that Evie was reasonably confident. Claire definitely didn't need to know that she knew the double-killer through a common friendship with the boy that'd tried to impale Evie on a spear on the very first day. Because at the end of the day, that's the "herself" that Evie was going to live as before she died here. A liar, and the kind of coward who was afraid of the man with the gun not in the sense that she'd fear to be near him, but instead fear not to be near him while he pointed it at someone else.

What a depressing thought.

But Evie wanted to live.

"Keep uh, alert," even here, she wasn't going to say "stay frosty", "I'm gonna approach, but they don't need to know you're here, right? Out.

Nor "over and out", that was Hollywood nonsense. Out superceded over, you didn't need both.

Unhelpfully, by the time she was within decent earshot, Evie was hearing Fitz advising Victor not to stick around. But he was also giving a pretty reasonable account of why he'd killed at least one of the two people he had. If she just chose to assume Tully was justified too, then she could much more easily live with herself while she prepared to cower behind him and his rifle. Or, if he wasn't so amenable to that, maybe she'd have to add betrayer to the list alongside coward and liar. Hopefully not.

"Thank fuck," Evie began, trudging into view.

"I heard shoot, and... I mean, It's just you, not like, I dunno," Pause. Evie hadn't prepared an easy villain. Wait, there was a ready-made one right there. "Kitty or someone."

A seed of dread at having put herself out in the open in front of two boys with guns began to take root in the pit of Evie's stomach, but she was good enough at pretending not to let it show just yet.

"I uh, not to eavesdrop or anything, but maybe strength in numbers is a better call?"

Claire's demeanor shifted, her glacial stare broken by Evie's words like the bow of an icebreaker ship, melted and morphed into an expression of surprise. An eyebrow raised at the sudden development—it wasn't exactly the right moment for a revelation—then sunk again like stones in a lake. She had enough faith in Evie to let her ally take control of the situation.

"Okay," she said, the wonder in her voice unconcealed. "You too. I'll watch your six. If everything goes FUBAR, book it, and I'll try to play catch-up." The military jargon was silly, but it helped steel her resolve. It made her feel more competent and confident—like she had some clue about their goals or some stratagem to ensure a hard-fought justice and victory.

"Out."

Those were her final words before she clicked off the walkie-talkie and slid it into her pocket. Then, she approached—one step, two steps, three steps, on and on—striding towards her destination until she was close enough to end up in earshot. Evie had already closed the distance, the faster of the two, so Claire took point on the outskirts of audible range.

Then, Claire watched, and she waited. The resolution would come sooner or later; it always followed rising action, for better or worse. Things would end. Everything did. It was not a question of 'if' but 'how,' and as far as she could tell, there were two possibilities left to consider. All that remained was whether the end would come with a bang or a whimper.

Victor looked at the girl that has just appeared. Evie Victor just nodded, albeit after his eyebrows rose for a moment. Evie was cool. She was a swimmer, and she had been in Body Improvement, so she was likely to be able, and if she knew her place, willing to pull her weight. She hadn't been on the announcements, so that was something.

"Yeah. No problem with that. We can all benefit."

The last team he had didn't work out. Well, to be fair, one of them didn't, the other two were unknowns at this point. So it was time to form and lead a new one. He'd normally have time to make sure that they were good, but current circumstances required that he make sure on the fly.

Evie appears, making Fitz start slightly and his grip tighten on the gun. It lifts just an inch, then lowers again.

“It’s just me. Sure. Not like I’ve killed twice or anything,” Fitz muttered, reaching up to rub a hand over his face.

Evie gave her pitch. Victor agreed. Fitz sighed through his fingers.

“Why doesn’t anyone listen...” he muttered under his breath, before he lowered his hand and raised his voice to a normal volume. “Look. I had numbers. Then the wrong person walked in, and those numbers were dead in twelve hours. I don’t expect any other numbers to go better.” He gestured at both Victor and Evie. “You two want to follow? It’s your own funeral. Don’t expect protection if someone attacks. You split off now? I won’t take that personal.”

He stomped back over to his mask and picked it up. Shooting practice was over now.

“I have to pick up my things.” He started the walk back to where Mister Fluffernutter was guarding his supplies. Over his shoulder he called out, “If you have any other numbers, Evie, they have two minutes to come out! Or I’m assuming this is an ambush!”

His footsteps soon took him out of temporary earshot.

((Russell ‘Fitz’ Fitzroy continued in The Quietest Day So Far.))

“I…”

Before Evie could gainsay any of that, Fitz had already strode off to collect his things, leaving her alone-ish with Victor. But the response was, in its own weird way, promising. He seemed broadly peaceable, and guilty. Not a dangerous murderer then, just a victim of their common circumstances.

She’d always justified herself that way, that doing harm was only excusable if you didn’t have any better choices. Back home that meant not doing very much harm at all, but in the present situation, it grew more and more appealing to bend that back the other way. At home she could choose to not even harm animals and still survive, thrive even. Here… here, harm was necessary to survive. Maybe she could explain that to Fitz, talk him around.

After all, it hadn’t been a straight no.

So Evie tried to surreptitiously put her walkie-talkie away in her pocket - no need to tip her hand on that just yet, if nobody had spotted it, should’ve done it earlier frankly - and called out to her partner in crime the old fashioned way, with two hands cupped around her mouth.

“Claire! It’s safe, they aren’t killing me yet!”

A little humour to take the edge off.

Before long, she was following after Fitz, internally psyching herself up for the task of charming him onto her side.

“I think he’ll come around…”

To Claire, Victor, both, didn’t really matter.

[Evie McKown goes with the three, Two by Two.]

Claire watched and listened as Evie talked for the both of them. The words of the resident killer didn't inspire confidence, but soon enough, Evie called her over. She gritted her teeth and, with some reluctance, stepped forward, revealed that it wasn't one person on watch, but two—and hoped to a God that she'd never believed that shots wouldn't come.

To her surprise, silence reigned, not gunfire. She smiled falsely, nodded, and followed along, eyes focused on the guns in the other's hands, eager to make sure they didn't end up pointed at her. Paranoia was dangerous. But, right now, an abundance of caution seemed more than appropriate for the situation. Her eyes darted back to her shoes for a moment.

"Best not to let my eyes linger," she thought. "I don't want them to get the wrong idea."

She shook the thoughts out of her head and began to move—right, left, one step at a time towards an unknown destination, the open field her sole path towards the future. Her pace was slow, just enough to keep up with the others. The last thing she wanted was to get left behind in the cold, especially as she saw the sky grow dark in the distance.

S091: CLAIRE HAIG — CONTINUED IN "Miles to Go"

So there was a fourth person. That was good. Somewhat. Who that fourth person was, was still up in the air, but four people were better than three.

Then Fitz left. Some bullshit about having had a team and lost it. Which would be fine if Victor hadn't been in the same situation with a worse weapon. So now he had to convince Fitz to stick with him, Evie, and Claire. Beating him up ... that was something for Thing. But even so, he'd rather have three people around him, whether it was to act as firepower or meat shields. At least Evie agreed.

((Victor Grail continued in The Sun... ))