Survival Of The Fittest

((Theodore Fletcher's story continues from Ya Gotta Make That Play))

Theo sat, almost pathetically, arms drawn into his sweatshirt as he listened to the announcements. He was in it, again. Stupid, he was probably never going to have a pleasant conversation with anyone for the rest of his life.

He was too busy killing people.

It was dumb, really; this whole thing. Summer, she'd run for class president, had killed Naomi, who had become class president. A stupid grudge shouldn't have mattered but it led to a brutal murder. His good friend, Megan, had shoved someone down stairs? It startled him, he hadn't expected it, but he supposed she had a reason. Joachim...the name stuck out. He'd met him in the library once, couldn't say his name.

He'd been with Megan, too.

He didn't know many (if any) of the victims besides that.

Theo shivered. He wanted food, and he was fucking freezing in the early morning chill; he wanted to go home, and he almost wanted to cry. He'd never get home, fuck if he even deserved it.

Theo would literally do anything to erase the past week from his life and go home to his sister and parents and cat and internet and gaming and his Seattle and all that.

But he couldn't just wish it away.

So Theo shook his head, and gazed at the ground, and wondered if it'd be worth it to fight his way to the end or not.

((Katarina Konipaski continued from Part of This Balanced Breakfast))

Birds were singing and the sun was shining and the gentlest breeze touched the air as a list of murders roused Katarina from her nightmares. She wasn't on it, to the terrorists' glee or dismay she wasn't sure. Maybe they didn't really care either way and the whole Best Kill deal was like throwing out a french fry just to watch the seagulls fight over it. Or maybe the people in charge were actively resentful of whatever the kids had and they didn't and they just wanted to rub it in any way they could. And rub they did, because Naomi was dead and Naomi had been Katarina's friend and now her killer had a prize like her. At the same time, there was a feeling there, not of pulse-jumping rage or stomach-rending grief but of a sort of empty regret. Emptiness because her feelings barely wet the bottom of the well of sadness she'd dug in preparation; Regret because by all rights it should be overflowing. Maybe it hadn't all sunk in, she tried, but really it had. She'd felt the tearing of Kelly's flesh under her blade, spent two nights hounded by cold and demons. Cried over the last cheeseburger she'd ever eat, made decisions like kill and hide and bide time to kill again.

Speaking of which, maybe she could kill Summer. That was a nice diversionary train of thought, except that it was retarded. Engage the most dangerous sort of prey there was, someone with what she had to imagine a stupid grudge and a shiny new toy for no real reason except she wanted to. That was no different that a murder for thrill or sport, when it came down to it. Revenge didn't put anyone's survival forefront, and when the odds were so slim the single smallest deviation from the safest course was tantamount to suicide. She stood up, wrapped her fingers around the handle of the scythe, smiled despite herself as she hefted its weight. A stupid thing to carry, except where it wasn't because of what it had earned and what it could earn yet. Her pack on her shoulder, the MAC-10 in her other hand. Always in hand, and her ammunition spread throughout her pockets. It was no mystery what might happen if she put it down for the wrong half-moment.

And then, as she pushed her way out of her hidden nook, planted her soles on the silent gray street, a hunched figure in her path. She lowered the barrel of her gun and then stepped closer and raised it up again as recognition gave wings to her heart. A voice, a face, a name still fresh in her ears. A murderer, and just another dead body in ten seconds' time if she knew what was good for her own survival. She was playing this smart, playing it tight, and nobody was entitled to last words or smokes or messages when that didn't budge her chances, at least not for the better. But then, a staying thought. It didn't fit the plan, the picture. She knew where Theo's like belonged, and it wasn't on the ground, rimming her boots with gore.

She lowered the gun, stepped into easy shouting range, scuffed one heel and then skimmed and stuttered and finally scuffed the other. "Fancy meeting you here." A warm half-smile was on her lips.

Theo wasn't really sure he'd expected someone to climb out of an alleyway.

He was almost certain that, of all the people to climb out of an alleyway, it'd never be KK Konipaski. Theo knew her from track; she was skilled in the art of politics, among other things, but they'd never been super-close. It was probably because of their political viewpoint differences; she was a lot more conservative than Theo, who was a registered Democrat.

He also knew she'd murdered another girl, earning her a prize of some kind presumably that giant-ass handgun thing. She also had a scythe, and if Theo remembered the announcements right that was how she killed the girl what's-her-name.

But she seemed friendly, although it could be a rouse, but Theo was glad to see someone not willing to attack on site. "Hey KK. Yeah, long time no-see. How've you been?" Theo stretched, and stood up to face her. He scratched the back of his head.

(Veronica McDonald continued from Musing)

Despite spending nearly all day yesterday sitting in a cave with nothing to do but think, Veronica did little thinking during that time. Even less so when the announcements came on, and no thinking was involved in her running from the beach.

What Veronica lacked in tact was made up in speed, and she managed to escape the danger zone unscathed. Of course, due to the aforementioned lack of tact, she ended up back at the nuclear power plant; or at least the general area.

But instead of a car garage, she ended up in some sort of neighborhood, supposedly for the former workers at the power plant. Actually, neighborhood wasn't the best way to describe it; slums were a much better word.

If you put the words 'abandoned' and 'dilapidated' next to the word 'neighborhood', it would conjure up the image of the nuclear plant slums themselves. A terrible place for terrible people.

Speaking of terrible people...

Theo and Katarina were having a nice little chat in a neighborhood that seamlessly reflected their morality. Veronica had long decided to play the game (at least in self-defense), but even to her the idea of attacking two known murderers wasn't smart or heroic. A vigilante isn't that good if they die in the process of vigilanteing anyway.

She stood far enough away to not be seen, but close enough to see. Sadly, she was too far away to hear anything they were saying, so their conversation was a mystery to her.

Oh well. The farther away, the less of a target she was.

She'd expected him to start or yell or shoot or even run, or maybe, her imagination weaving its own little melodrama, a coy little smile; a threat and a greeting rolled in one, a standoff and an argument she'd weave her way through, sliding and grappling and coasting on oiled words. Anything but to stand and stretch and lay down the most cavalier hello like he'd been leaning on the wall and waiting to take her out to lunch.

"Been better," she said with the smoothest tone she could muster in return because what even made this guy tick, letting the scythe rest itself against gray block concrete and sweeping back a wisp of hair with her fingers. "but haven't we all."

She watched his reaction, tried to scope the a little twitch of the elbow or restless fingers but nothing seemed to be preempting a hail of lead in her direction and she honestly wouldn't really tell if something did. The muzzle of her gun tipped up and then down and then swung listlessly, casually against her calf while she rested her own body on that starkly chilly prefab slab. "Not even gonna try to shoot me, then?" she blurted as her arm left the freezing edifice and she drew upright again. "I mean, sorry, that's a sucky greeting, but, like - you are still going?"

Theo had mixed feelings in regards to KK's response to him. On one hand, yay, she wasn't going to kill him while he was unarmed!

On the other hand, she was going to make him explain himself.

As KK sat down, Theo followed suit, looking over at her. He took a breath, went to speak, and ended up being totally silent for a few seconds. He just...he wasn't sure what he was fucking doing anymore. Like, he kept bitching and trying to ~*Redeem himself*~, but at the same time he had not had a non-hostile interaction with another human being in 2 days save for like a 3 minute talk with a cheerleader, and she probably thought he was fucking insane.

Maybe he was?

Theo suppressed the unexpected giggle that came. Was he crazy? He acted it, certainly, but was he actually like, brain-damaged or something? Did he suddenly develop a disorder? That was possible, right?

Since Theo didn't exactly know why he wasn't going to shoot her (besides, y'know, not actually having a firearm but he wasn't going to tell her that), Theo decided to make something up.

"Well for one, I may still be killing," (was he?) "but it's not exactly something fun or enjoyable for anyone involved including me. Uh, for another? I don't think I could pull my gun on you without getting blown apart by that giant-ass-"

Theo saw a shape moving in the distance.

"Hey, what's that?" He pointed.

Veronica was doubting her decision to stay back. She really should've ran when she had the chance. Lingering around was too risky; every second is time spent a sitting duck. You simply had to keep moving to avoid murder, being murdered or being a murderer yourself. But despite her anxiety, she had stayed. This proved to be a bad idea.

It was proven the second one of them lifted up their hand to point in her direction.

Shit!

The first thing the girl did was drop to the ground. Then she began to crawl towards the nearest alleyway, in hopes of sanctuary.

Dammit, you should've listened! Her conscious and sane side roared at her. Her less sane side agreed, saying that Veronica was taking too much of a risk as it is.

Maybe she could run. She was pretty sure that she could outrun Theo and Katarina, and she could leave the area. Besides, she was too far away to be identified.

...right?

Yeah, this guy's totally off his rocker.

And if she was planning, really seriously laying down her new life's goals around the fact that she was going to be hunting down innocent acquaintances to relive the shrieks and spatters and the swirling rush of murder, the heart-pounding, mind-snaring, nightmare-inducing process of ripping their body until the life was forced out of it - if for the barest sliver of time the whole idea didn't seem completely abhorrent, then maybe she had just a little something in common with him there.

But in the present, she was facing down a - triple, was it? - murderer of a classmate and trading words and silent threats with him, which somehow seemed even weirder than facing off against some innocent kid. And he was being honest, as far as he could tell, disarmingly so, laying things bare enough that even if he wasn't speaking the purest truth, his words still had the feel of it. He wanted to kill again which was terrible and so amazingly relieving because it meant a lot of things, chief being the fact that she wouldn't have to gun him down right there. And it sucked for him like it sucked for her and so she got the most brilliantly stupid idea in her head and she decided to follow it through. She giggled a little and felt the corners of her mouth pull upwards but then he broke off and pointed and she followed his finger briefly with her eyes before snapping right back to his face.

"Mm, don't see anyone. -thing." Could be trouble, and trouble wasn't something you ignored here because once you'd marked yourself it meant anything up to and including some aggressively stupid little crusader without a cent of value placed on their own continued existence. A turn of the head, a louder, stronger voice. "Nobody who'd screw with us, of course, if they're not straight suicidal." Which was the best kind of threat because it was true, and impressive as a prize the pair would make for some poor misguided soul, a pair of guns pointing their way made as good a fence as any. Only the worst would try their luck and they'd doubtless be the talking type anyway.

She turned her thoughts back to Theo, felt her stupid smile coming back. "Glad you noticed, though. I had this great little spiel if you were as thick as I thought you were, how I'd aim at at your ankles and be all badass talking about how I was really pointing at your face, cause this this thing's full auto and it's climbing like a Sherpa if I pull the trigger."

She felt that trigger out, tried casually to pass the gun behind her legs and feel out the same pattern with her other hand.

"Keep getting off-track though. I don't - it's good. I'm glad you feel that way." It was hard not to giggle again because why the hell would a person ever think that was an appropriate response.

Theo could read between the lines easily enough to tell, if she did see something, it wasn't worth their time, and if someone was up there, they'd have to be stupid to attack them.

So he turned his attention back to KK, ruffling his now-filthy hair. She seemed...unstable, but Theo wasn't one to judge. He chuckled a little upon hearing her joke, but it was suppressed by the fact that she'd casually prepared a badass-sounding threat for him. Which was a little disconcerting.

She was...glad he felt that way? Glad he was apparently willing to kill more people? She...did know she sounded really fucking freaky, right? Speaking so casually and all, glad he was willing to kill again? Weird.

Was he willing to kill again? Theo doubted it mattered at this point. People would attack him, and it was more-than-likely that he'd have to kill people even if he wasn't going to attack. So it was fine...right? Self-defense was a legal excuse for killing someone in the real world?

Didn't excuse Gabby, Dan or Xavier, though.

"You're still playing too, right Kat?" Theo asked.

"Nobody who'd screw with us, of course, if they're not straight suicidal."

Well, at least they gave me the chance to run.

Something about a suicide mission interested a part of her, but she shook it off. Veronica lingered for a moment to make sure they were too engrossed in conversation before taking off.

She was probably interrupting whatever murder freak fest they were holding.

(Veronica McDonald continued in Nowhere to Go)

((Steven Salazar continued from Messiah, Complex/Eat Your Heart Out, B098))

Steven was glad that Veronica wasn't suicidal. It took a lot of the pressure off of him, since it meant nobody else was in danger of being sunk by his actions. It was all well and good to put his own life on the line, but when it came to dragging others in, well, that was no good. Steven knew Veronica and he had some common ground when it came to temper and jumping in with both feet. He hadn't been at all sure she wouldn't intervene,or misunderstand, and so he'd stayed a good ways behind her, lurking behind a heavily-rusted dumpster next to the alley he'd made his way down a few minutes before. He'd only been able to pick up about half the phrases from the conversation with even a slight degree of accuracy, and that only due to his experience picking words from mumbles, reconstructing meaning from hiss and distortion when a tape was getting old.

He'd caught the slight elevation of tone when they'd discussed someone nearby, though, had read the meaning in it. The girl—Kat, if Theo (and Theo's was a voice he could recognize) was to be believed—had delivered her real message loud and clear. She'd been warning anyone nearby away. That suggested she was perhaps a bit more discrete and sensible than the announcements had suggested.

Didn't matter. Steven had hit the jackpot, turned up triples sevens on the slot machine of life. He'd stumbled into a conversation between two of the most prominent and problematic murderers on the island, and if there was to be a convention of killers it seemed only right that there be a spokesman there for peace.

Of course, Steven wasn't totally brain-dead, so he'd have to approach this with a bit of subtlety.

He hoisted the chair leg over his shoulder. His pillowcase was stuffed into his left hip pocket, bulging it out. His coat was stowed in his bag, with most of his other stuff. He'd consolidated it all into the duffelbag. Slowly, he jerked the tails of his shirt out of his pants, tugged its top two buttons undone. He didn't need to fake the sweat and dirt.

The announcements hadn't been too long ago, but long enough. And lying, it was such a little thing. Steven was good at stories, good at saying what he wanted to.

So he stood and turned the corner around the dumpster and started walking towards them, not making any effort to really hide. He was at least sixty feet away, had only been able to hear them because of the mind-numbing quiet of the rest of the world and his own intense concentration. By showing himself early, he tossed the ball into their court, gave them warning, didn't spook them. If they didn't want him there, they could start shooting nice and early. For a nice little bonus, they'd also be extremely unlikely to hit him from such a distance.

Steven was getting rolling on what was almost undoubtedly a lengthy and elaborate form of suicide, but he wasn't gonna go easy. He had things to accomplish, good to do.

He took a few steps, paused, feigned like he was only just recognizing them. Yeah, Theo and Katarina. Just the sort of people he was looking for.

"Player's party?" he called, raising his voice nice and loud. The term was slang, ubiquitous enough he was pretty sure they'd know what he meant, dissociative enough he hoped it'd give him a nice little air of latent psychosis. "Room for one more?"

And, the inevitable question. Katarina knew it had to come up, just like it did between any two people who were indeed "playing" the game, or even those who weren't. It did one good to know who was slicing people up and who wasn't, except a little more thinking on that front and there was a pretty simple solution to dealing with the potential problem of being sliced up, especially when you had a few tools like she had. Not easy, as flippant as she tried to make it seem, but simple enough. And as much as she felt the sudden urge just to screw with the most objectively dangerous person in her tiny little world, she was screwing around enough already and there really wasn't anything to hide when sudden, noisy death dangled from her fingers. Even if she'd wanted to, it wasn't a question could have answered in any other way.

"Of course I am. Why do you think I didn't just shoot you?"

Her reply trailed away as her attention shifted to the return of whoever it was Theo had seen. Just walking towards them, clear as day, and then asking... if he could join them?

She sized him up, looked away from the guy who she was pretty sure by that point wasn't entirely likely to randomly murder her. Newbie looked a little ragged, but who didn't? And again with that stupid little term. No use fighting it, of course, since it was all things considered rather clear and concise, but still she found it grating. She wasn't playing some stupid little low-stakes game. Of course... she kept her mouth and her eyes impassive because any more giggling and Theo would certainly peg her as a lunatic. A fun distraction in the moment, because what was bravery without a dash of recklessness? But she was in no real danger by it and neither was anyone else, and it wasn't even important. Was she shooting people in the face, though? Sure, if it came to it, and that's what it all meant in the end.

And so was Theo, and so was the new guy, apparently, who somehow thought it was a good idea to make a little party of it. It was stupid, but the kid was stupid and so was whatever his ulterior motive was. Stupid, and a mite bewildering and even disconcerting, because who in their right mind would want to approach the pair before him? It was abundantly clear what he was getting himself into. So, option one, he was straight suicidal like she'd suggested, and he probably wanted to try something, but he wouldn't be all that fussed about it when she pushed back. Option two, he wanted to feel cool or something, which would make sense because he was short and the short guys always had some freaking thing or other they needed to prove. Option three, he really was just plain retarded and he didn't even know what was going on. A hell of a lot of unknowns, but she'd hedged her bets the moment she let the safety off her prize.

"Yeah, I hope you brought the balloons 'cause we're fresh out" Katarina called dryly and let let her eyes slip off of him, lowered her voice in an aside to Theo before Captain Retard came fully into range. "For reals, though." A subtle nod of deference, another sweep across her hairline. "I'm counting on you."

Right then, so Kat was still willing to kill people. Theo thought he was, too, so they had something in common, right? She was someone to be wary of, clearly, but not someone Theo couldn't trust, since she'd made her intentions perfectly clear. At least she wasn't lying about it or anything.

Steven approached, casually. Theo knew Steven was into the newspaper, and writing, but they weren't the best of friends and honestly did it even matter anymore? Logically, old relationships were meaningless now, seeing as Megan had killed yesterday. So he needed to not let emotions and friendships cloud his judgment, right?

He needed to be in it to win it, because it was too late to turn back.

Kat was counting on him, but he wasn't sure about what. Were they going to kill Steven? Theo doubted it, since she could've probably opened fire right then and there and gotten a shot in. Partners in crime, maybe? A team of two, killing their way to the end, until the finale where they fought to the death? That sounded exciting, certainly, but the final showdown sounded like an inherently bad way to win.

Logically, he should kill Kat here and steal her stuff. But emotions were in his way, because she was nice to him, she didn't attack on the spot, and Theo wanted to trust her. So...he was going to do what it took to stay alive, but he'd stick with her for a bit if she wanted him to. And if not...all bets were off, or at least they should be.

Theo was lost in thought for a second, but as Steven approached he snapped out of it. "What do you want?" He asked. A simple, clean question, making them get right to the point, no crazy crap and deceit. Just explaining one's self.

They didn't shoot at Steven, which was in the long run probably gonna be a pretty bad call for them if he had anything to say about it. Then again, it meant they weren't totally gone yet, which in turn meant there was a pretty good chance this could all be solved with words and logic and only a minimal exertion of force, so maybe it would be for the best all around. So Steven kept walking right on up towards them, letting a little grin slip onto his lips. He just didn't think too hard about the fact that he was facing down people who'd taken lives.

It wasn't even that the idea scared him. Rather, it made it all too easy to tap into the anger in all the wrong ways, to think thoughts about justice and capital punishment and these very big and complicated ideas that were The Greater Good's kissing cousins.

"I was mostly thinking," he said, because they'd asked what was up with him and it wasn't polite to leave them hanging, "that maybe we might have some stuff in common, maybe could chat a bit? I mean, I had a little run in just a bit ago, and, hell, it turns out things aren't as easy as I thought. And then, I bump right into Theo and Kat, and I've got a couple of choices. Maybe I run away, but maybe it makes more sense to ask a little advice, you know, get the inside scoop, tips for a newbie."

Stories were easy, and Steven's story was already in full swing, spinning itself longer and wilder, fleshing itself out with little details. He had his victim. That was the easy part, because he knew a lot about who was alive and who was killing and who knew who. He was pretty sure he could peg the social circles these two ran in, and Mormon woodworking wasn't a part of that. So Steven had killed Cyrus, unless someone better came to mind before he had to answer.

"I mean, it sounds weird, but I figure we're kind of in this together now." He chuckled, just a little, under his breath. "Not gonna be winning any popularity contests, so why go at each other's throats?"

He'd made it a lot closer to Theo and Kat. Theo wasn't holding any weapons. Kat had a gun and a scythe. So if stuff got bad, Theo was the weak link, the one to go through or grab. But Steven had his story ready, so he didn't think things would have to go that way.

((Skipping because I'm at day 10 and I don't want to get in trouble here))

Theo could read between the lines. Sort of. He more or less got what Steven was saying, and it made him nervous. Steven was implying he was playing, and Theo was pretty sure he'd killed someone, based on what he was saying. Steven was eyeing him, too, watching the both of them in a really unsettling manner.

Theo was suddenly less comfortable here. Sure, if it came down to it, he...might be able to kill one or both of them, but was he physically capable of it? He had no weapons, and presumably both of them were armed. He didn't know Kat very well, and she'd killed, and Steven he was mostly unfamiliar with, and he'd dome the same. He couldn't trust them, really.

If they turned on him, hoping that taking out the top killer on the island made them special...

Theo could end up dead. That would make everything a waste.

Theo opened his mouth, to excuse himself. He froze up, not wanting to make either of them more hostile. Then he spoke. "So, uh, Steven, right? Yeah, if you really want to kill people, just...don't tell people that. It makes you a threat." He backed up, and walked slowly, confidently, away, calling back, "And right now, I don't have time to deal with threats, so later!"

As soon as he was out of view, he broke into a sprint as quickly as possible.

((Theodore Fletcher's story continues in Memories of the City))