Survival Of The Fittest

Garret was down, Joey's fist found and clenched around Kiki's handle. The zipper bit his wrist as he withdrew from the bag. The sharp edge of the blade faced him, but at least his weapon was out and in the open. He stepped back with his left foot and leaned towards Iselle, both feet pointed towards her, knife at his side. Somehow, Garret was still calm and courteous as he spoke to his assailant. It was strange to Joey, who after the accusations, explanations, and false confessions, realized every word being spoken could be a lie. Garret's brief anger before the apology, was he hiding something? Was he some kind of sociopath. He might have picked the yoyo up off one of his victims to look harmless.

"HEY!"

Neither of these kids could be trusted just yet. And perhaps, in this situation, neither could be trusted fully... ever. Joey's eyes flicked back and forth between the potential Amazon Murderer and the may-be-Sociopath playing weak on the ground.

"You," he looked to Iselle. "Check his bag to see if he's got another weapon. If the yoyo's all he's telling the truth. " He turned back to Garret on the ground. "I wanna believe you guy, I really do but nobody here wants to get fucked over."

Iselle sneered at Joey.  Who the hell did these boys think they were, constantly barking orders at her?  Especially since Joey was the one holding a close-quarters weapon. 'Sure, I've just been repeatedly accused of attacking people.  Let me just rifle through their belongs now so I can add thief to that list...'  

She shook her head, her braid swinging around to hit her on the cheek.  "Check it yourself," she counter-ordered.   "I'm not going through anybody's stuff.  In fact, I've had enough of you two.  I'm outta here."  Trying to keep an eye on both the boys, she felt around for her bag.

She needed to get the hell away from these guys.  Iselle needed the familiarity of her friends.  If she could find the other girls, they could figure out what to do.  After a few futile pats, her fingers closed on the strap of the bag.  With a grunt, she lifted up the bag and stood.  'At least this thing isn't heavier than our standard gear bags.  I could carry this for days, no problem.'

With careful, measured backward steps, Iselle put more space between her and the guys.  Once she felt there was sufficient space, she turned and jogged off.

((Iselle Ovalle-Vandermeer continued in The Doll's House))

A hot head leaving without attacking someone. We'll call that another little victory.

She wasn't his concern anymore. She was likely to become a player at some point with that temper, but he couldn't stop her. He wasn't going to kill her, and she wasn't going to listen to reason. At worst, the situation had been a draw. There was still a chance that it could end favorably, though.

He kept his eyes on Joey as she walked away. Then he shrugged and nodded toward his bag. "All yours, friend. I've nothing to hide. I'm afraid you'll be quite disappointed, though. Now, if you'll pardon me," he said shutting his eyes and lapsing back into his meditative pose a few feet from the bag, "I've wasted far too much time being irate in such a beautiful place. Wake me once you're satisfied."

He wasn't really asleep, of course. In fact, he was more alert than ever. He was focusing on the noises of Joey's movement. The second he heard something that sounded like a weapon, or like Joey was trying to make off with his bag, and he'd be ready to pounce. He suspected that his disinterest might put Joey at ease though, and perhaps leave him in a more amiable state.

Minutes passed, and after Iselle's departure Meera was still unsure whether or not she should speak to the two people who remained. On one hand, Iselle clearly didn't trust them, and Meera wasn't particularly sure she did either. Even without weapons, the two of them together could easily overpower and kill her. Meera didn't particularly trust any of them, but Iselle had left while the two others had stayed. Garett-- that was his name, the smiling one-- was resting, seemingly at ease with the grim situation.

Meera looked around the clearing. This would be an easy time to slip away without being noticed.

They don't seem that threatening. Either way, I should at least ask them if they've run into anyone else here before I leave, Meera thought. After all, they let Iselle walk away.

She stepped into the clearing. "Hello?" she said, hoping her voice sounded even.

Iselle was gone, and Joey wasn't complaining. Everything she'd had to say was defensive or confrontational, and trying to cooperate with her was impossible. He would have liked to have helped calm her down, but it seemed she'd already crossed the paranoid point of no return. Whatever, there was nothing he could do about it.

Garret remained relaxed as Joey began to rummage through his bag. He said something weird about the beauty of this hell of an island, but whatever he was talking about didn't matter. The bag's contents were exactly the same as those of Joey's. It figured. That was what he got for listening to Iselle's accusations, but at least he knew for sure that they were entirely baseless.

Joey zipped the bag back closed and pushed it towards Garret. "Aight, you're good. Sorry man, just had to make sure."

He stood up and looked down at the kid, hoping he wasn't just going to lay there now that Joey accepted he wasn't dangerous. He thought for a moment to say something else to make sure he wasn't asleep when he heard the new voice in the distance.

He squinted his eyes to see who it was. Meera Steel or something, he'd known her to be quite an athlete. She had been more into the speed sports rather than the strength ones, but he recognized her as a athlete nonetheless. She would be a better ally than a rival, that was for sure.

He waved his hand at her, "Ayoo, it's just Joey 'n Garret. Come talk!"

"Aight, you're good. Sorry man, just had to make sure."

Garrett opened an eye lazily at his announcement, and nodded. "No harm done. Trust is a justifiably scarce resource here."

There was the sound of someone new at the base of the hill. Joey seemed keen on welcoming her, and Garrett saw no reason to turn her away. She didn't appear hostile, and it wasn't like there was much he could do if she was. Still, two of the three women he'd encountered so far had been border-line psychotic. Statistically, his odds weren't looking good.

He rose and strolled over to Joey's side, waving down at the girl below. "Hello! Care to join us? We seem to have lost our third Musketeer."

"Hello! Care to join us? We seem to have lost our third Musketeer." Garett called

"Sure, I'm coming," Meera answered. As she approached them, any lingering thoughts she'd had about them were gone. Neither seemed at all hostile, and immediately she relaxed.

Meera searched for words, not sure how to communicate her relief at running into other, non-hostile people, but found she was lost for words. It wasn't that she didn't have any questions, it's just that she had no idea where to start. The situation was just so wild, so beyond anything she'd ever expected to happen to her, she was at a loss how to communicate that.

"So, what are you guys doing?" she asked. "I saw Iselle leave a few minutes ago, but didn't catch anything else."

Joey beamed at Meera approached, a very nice replacement for the softball grump who'd stormed off earlier. This was a trade up, easily. He turned away, lifting his knife up and hurling it at the ground.

The blade hit the ground long ways rather than at the tip. Some grass beneath the edge was cut, but it didn't stand up in the ground as he had intended.

"ah, whatever.

He turned back, relieved to not need his weapon, and that it was finally time for calm conversation.

Meera opened up the floor with a question. A simple, ambiguous question at that. The only problem was that Joey had no idea what the answer was. Garret had mentioned wanting to wait, but he wasn't exactly how to explain that. Especially since they might have different ideas of what they were waiting for.

"Uhh..."

He looked to Garret. His eyebrows raised and his mouth open as if he was going to say something, but his face reading that he had nothing. Joey was no leader, he needed direction just as much as Meera.

A knife. It would have been nice to know he had that before now.

Garrett cocked an eyebrow as Joey pulled a face at him. He wasn't sure exactly what he expected. Still, this new girl raised a fairly important question: What exactly were they doing? 'Waiting' was a nice, general answer, but ultimately uninformative. He wasn't exactly sure what the plan was, but he knew a good place to start explaining it.

"You'll have to forgive me, but I don't think we've met. I'm Garrett, and this is Joey. As to what we're doing, 'not dying' is currently at the top of my list of priorities. Second to that is finding a certain acquaintance of mine. Looking at the long term, I'm waiting for one of two things: The military to show up, or for the bluff about blowing our collars to get called. Both place us in favorable positions and are necessary developments if most of us are going to leave this place alive. So basically, we're staying alive and not killing anyone. How's that fit into your current plan?"

"That sounds good, yeah. Not dying is good," said Meera. "I'm Meera, by the way. "

Of her priorities, survival was at the top of the list as well. As far as the government rescuing them quickly or the idea that no one would kill before the day was out went...Meera wasn't sure. While she obviously wanted to believe the best about all of her classmates, Meera couldn't get the video the terrorists had shown them out of her head.

People could panic and choose to fight. It's happened before in Survival of the Fittest. That video the terrorists showed us. Those two students were apparently best friends.

Meera shoved those unpleasant thoughts aside for now. After all, do you have a better idea? The government

She looked down at the knife, which had fallen not far from her feet. "So you have at least one weapon. Have either of you drawn anything decent?"

Meera reached into her bag and pulled out the car owner's manual. "This was my designated 'weapon'. Pretty sucky, isn't it?"

She thought for a moment, then asked, "Have either of you run into anyone else here? You two and Iselle are the first people I've run into since the game began."

As Garret explained their "plan" to Meera, Joey couldn't help but notice there was still no action plan. It was just waiting around to see what fate had in store. He narrowed his eyebrow as he thought of other approaches they could take to be more active and productive in any possible ways. Garret's sureness that the collars were a bluff comforted him slightly, if Garret was so sure, he probably knew better than Joey did.

Joey smiled at Meera's introduction, but then frowned at her weapon. Between then three of them, they had a knife. His knife, as a matter of fact. While his comrades couldn't be blamed for their misfortune, Joey was entitled to feel like he'd gotten the short end of the stick here.

"That knife there, she's mine. 'N I just seen Theo something, Baxter, 'n Summer Simms. Only really got to talk to Theo, he was bugging about something, no clue what though... I think he had a gun too."

Hopefully nothing would be assumed from that. Theo DID have a gun, and HAD been acting strange, but that didn't mean anything. It sure as hell might imply a lot of possibilities, but it didn't mean anything. They needed to find out soon, though.

"What if we walked to see if anything happened yet. Like, if anybody's... done anything or whatever..."

If somebody had died, it meant they had a little bit more time. He was fine with Garret's plan for now, but if twenty three and a half hours passed and they hadn't seen or heard of any deaths, nor seen any signs of sure rescue, they would have to rethink their strategy.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Meera, though I'm sure we'd all prefer it under better circumstances."

Garrett quietly added Theo to his list of potentially dangerous individuals. Having a gun was enough to land anyone there, but strange behavior needed to be watched. It was a fine line to walk, maintaining skepticism while fighting paranoia, but it was necessary for survival.

"I've seen Tyler Lucas and a woman I wasn't able to identify. She was a bit too tied up threatening Tyler and I with an automatic rifle of some sort to give pleasantries. And for my weapon draw? A yo-yo. So it appears all in all we're at a rather large disadvantage."

He sighed as Joey brought up the inevitable question. "Right. We need to talk about that. Movement is probably our best option right now, somewhat selfishly in my case since there's someone I need to find and she's obviously not here. However, that means we're going to encounter more people. Probably a lot of people. Some of them will be playing. You may have run into one of them, Joey, and I know I've run into at least two, assuming Iselle's just full of hot air and isn't planning on doing something stupid. I don't know what we're going to do about them yet, but I know what we can't do: Kill. Forget morality. Forget that these are our friends. Those are both noble sentiments, but they aren't going to mean a whole lot to us within days, maybe even hours. This is about survival, and killing destroys our chances of that in three ways: First, Killers get identified, and that makes them targets. Second, the more people that die, the smaller our window of escape is. We need as much time as possible, and that means keeping as many people as we can alive for as long as we can. Third, and most importantly, killers don't get rescued. Once you kill, you're in here to win. So don't make that decision unless you're ready to pay for it."

He paused and looked back and forth between them. "I know this is heavy stuff, and I know I'm going on and on about it in away that probably seems very cold. I've been thinking about this non-stop since I woke up, though. This game they want us to play relies on us freaking out and making hard choices. They promise that if we make enough of them, and if we're really lucky, we can win and go home. I think we all know that's not true, though, and we need to keep that in mind. The only way to win this game is to refuse to play it, no matter what. That means making our own rules. Any objections?"

"You've put a lot of thought into this," said Meera, echoing his sentiments. "Playing by the terrorist's rules is just a way of giving in to what they want."

She hesitated for a moment, then added, "You're right. We will run into players eventually, and they probably will have guns. Or other, better weapons. We should find other people, people we know wouldn't play the game. Keep as many of them alive as possible, like you said."

Joey nodded at Meera's thinking out loud. Garret had apparently done some deep thinking, and everything she said made sense. The only question now was how would the three of them decide who was friendly or not.

He looked up and to the side as he though, but ultimately realized that as long as they were in a group, it would probably scare off any potential infiltrators. And those who attacked would be obvious enemies, a group of three or more would be able to look out for one another.

But this location seemed to be tapped dry of recruitable allies, and the standing around was beginning to make him antsy. He needed a change of scenery, and since he couldn't up and leave the island, he'd have to settle for a different place on the island.

"Aiiight, sounds like a plan. Where we startin'??"

We. That was the catch of it. There was safety in numbers, so it was assumed they'd stay together. Given the rest of Garrett's plan though, he wasn't sure he could ask them to come with him.

"That's a good plan, Meera. It's smart. It still leaves us without a solution for playing, though. I have a plan, but it's not smart. In fact, it's very, very stupid."

He looked back and forth between them. "Right now, I think the best bet is for you two to stick together and try to gather as many people as possible. I'm going to try and find as many hostile people as I can and talk them out of it. I don't expect it will work, but I haven't seen anyone far gone enough to kill without talking first, and any time they waste arguing with me is time they aren't killing someone. Maybe I'll get lucky and a few of them will quit, or at least give me a chance to get rid of their weapons."

He turned back to Joey while he idly fished through his bag. He'd seen some sort of booklet in there, and it might be useful. "Joey, do you know which way Theo was headed? I could start with him. Hopefully I can catch him before he does something stupid."