The Eighth Announcement

[Crash*]

The mood around Headquarters had been hectic for the last two days, and tempers were growing thin. The tension could be cut with a knife in some places, but for the most part everyone seemed to keep to themselves, holding their tongues for fear of having them removed if they spoke out of turn. After all, most of the staff members were familiar with how they'd end up if they said the wrong thing at the wrong time. Danya's subordinates operated under one principle: speak carefully, or you'll never speak again.

In the command center Dorian sat slumped over beside a terminal, mindlessly droning away at his keyboard, covered in blankets of his own sweat. He'd barely slept at all since the incident, working tirelessly in an attempt to counter Jack O'Connor's virus in some futile attempt to make up for having caused the hindrance in the first place. Despite the recent fortune of having his ass saved by one of his previously mysterious comrades, Dorian was still paranoid that Danya would realize he was the cause of all their grievances, and consequently take out his anger on him. If there was any other way for him to help out his mother, it surely beat this; but now he'd worked himself into a bind...

"Good morning, everybody!"

Awkwardly perky as usual, Danya strode into the command center with a grand smile plastered on his face. Dorian felt his fingers tense up as he quickly shifted his attention back to his terminal, staring intently at the screen in an attempt to look busier than he was. His exhaustion was starting to wear him down though, and try as he might he could barely keep his eyes open. Struggling, he stared up from the desk...

Surprisingly, though, Danya walked right past him and over to Grossi's desk, staring down over his shoulder at the terminal in front of him.

"Any progress?" He inquired mildly, monitoring the screen.

"Yeah," Grossi responded flatly, not even looking up to acknowledge Danya's presence. "The P.A. system's functionality has been completely restored," He began, tapping a few things into his keyboard before continuing. "It's not on, don't worry," he re-assured, inputting a few more commands before pausing to deliver the rest of the bulletin. "We also managed to restore one of the cameras for about five minutes, but it went down again. This is what we caught."

Absent-mindedly, Grossi retrieved and activated a file from a folder, then set it to play back. A somewhat fuzzy image of the small cottage showed up on his terminal, and after starting the file Danya began to watch intently.

"Don't FUCKING help me!"

Alexis Machina proceeded to smash her foot into Vera Lang's skull, and while most other faces that watched on either closed their eyes or swallowed the lumps in their throats, a slick smile formed over Danya's features. The footage ended soon afterward.

"Well, I guess we have our best kill, don't we?" Danya added nonchalantly.

Sighing, Grossi returned to the main screen of the terminal without responding to Danya's comment. His frustration at the people both in the office and in charge was beginning to manifest itself in a more visible form of tension.

"Also," he suddenly spoke up, "The collars are being tracked again. We've lost quite a few students since the systems went down."

"Well, let's not keep them waiting any longer!" Danya replied with suppressed cheer, snatching a document from Grossi's desk that had a list of the recently deceased students on it and moving over towards the P.A system.

"S-sir...wait..." The meek voice of Dorian interrupted.

Curious, Danya strode over towards Dorian's desk, peering intently down towards him. Dorian's finger pointed to a certain point on the map, which had been re-activated along with the collar trackers, to a spot where ten or so collars had all gone offline at around the same time. "It l-looks a bit, s-strange, sir..."

"Dorian, you have seen the list of assigned weapons, have you not? Grenades, grenade launchers, explosives, and all that jazz?"

"Y-yes, s-sir..."

"Have an imagination! Think of the possibilities!" Danya advised with a smug grin, taking one more careful glance at Dorian before turning back towards Grossi. The man seemed quite pre-occupied with something, and brushing it off Danya made his way over to the P.A. system, turning it on and tapping the microphone a few times before initiating his daily routine.

---

"Good morning, children!"

The weather on the island had improved dramatically, the rain disappearing and being replaced with a bright orange sun that struggled to shine its way through some dense cloud cover. The storm had passed, leaving a mess both on the island and back at HQ.

"I'm so sorry to have left you alone for the last couple of days, but it just fills my heart to know that you all miss me so much!" He began, giving a moment's pause before continuing his much anticipated speech. "I decided that I enjoyed the idea of not telling you who killed your classmates SO much last time, that I think I'll do it again! I just love a suspenseful drama, don't you all?" The fact that he was improvising and didn't quite know who'd performed most of the kills over the last two days was completely hidden by a well-acted veil of control and intrigue, something he'd had quite a bit of practice with over the years now.

"Well, without further ado, let's hear who's bit the dust now! I'm really proud of you children, I really am. Over the last two days you've managed to kill more than 10% of your competition! That's how we do it! Now, where to begin? Your less fortunate classmates include Nick Jones, Cara Scholte, Ryan Gilbert, Afra Jacinth, Eicca Hietala, Evan Gage, Jim Middleton, Kathleen Martin, Shawn Waits, Raven Lawrence, Petra Andrews, Branca Braunstein..."

Danya snickered at the mention of Branca's absolutely ridiculous name, then took the opportunity to take a deep breath before continuing to rattle off the list of dead students. "James Migato, Clive Maxwell, Anton Wykowsku, Dennis McDonald, Briana North, Edgar Hoskins, Dane Zygmunt, Leo Curtis, Evan Angler, Abel Williams, Vera Lang, Joseph Cande, James Martinek, Heath Trennoby, Lauren Howard, and Anaesthesia Grout!"

Satisfied with how much shock he would hopefully have instilled into the students at this point, Danya was about to conclude his messaged when Dorian cleared his throat louder than usual and looked at him sheepishly. Almost instantly Danya recalled the ten or so students that Dorian had mentioned that hadn't been on this list, whose collars also indicated that they were dead.

Without hesitation, Danya cleared his throat and spoke up again. "Oh, and it gets even better! Joining the recently deceased are Lucy O'Donnell, Dean Portman, Alex Miller, Sean O'Cann, Maxie Dasai, Izzy Cheung, Dorian Ibanescu...and three very special students! Your class vice-president Ianto Murphy, your class president Andrea Vanlandingham, and the newly martyred king of obnoxiousness, Mr. Neil Sinclair!"

Part of Danya was relieved by finding that Neil had slipped off the radar. With the systems in tatters there would've been no telling how a runt like him could've capitalized on the situation, but thankfully it seemed that was no longer one of his worries. Of course, from an outsider's point of view, nobody would've been able to tell that he was even remotely phased by the news.

"Oh, and Miss Machina, please head to the Graveyard to collect your prize for winning our best kill of this month! We're all so proud of you."

"That's all for today, children. Play safe!" Danya exclaimed before pausing and recollecting. "Oh, who am I kidding? Play rough! It's for your own good."

With that, Danya turned the P.A. system off and strode out of the room, leaving a number of the remaining terrorists in awe of how flawlessly he handled the situation.

Curiously, Garnett rose from his desk almost simultaneously and made his way to leave the room, followed by the quizzical eyes of Lucas Grossi the entire time.

---


All right guys! Sorry for the delay, but hopefully these recent developments give you enough food for thought as compensation! As the plot thickens, the game changes a bit as well. The old danger zones have been cleared and replaced with the Field of Flowers, Quarry, Showers, Chapel, and Hollow Tree. The Graveyard will be a temporary dangerzone until the BKA prize is retrieved. Your characters have 3 days to remove themselves from said areas. Also, please try to stay in character; the areas turning DZ would be a surprise, and since the new ones weren't announced, please keep that in mind as well.

Also, I happened to win the BDA prize this month, and the prize is a roll nullification card as usual. Thanks to everyone who voted, it was a close race on both ends!

And now for the doomed. Same rules apply as always - three days to declare whether or not you want to save somebody, and 5 [maybe 7] to get the death done.

Will Sigurbjornsson Nullified
Wade Wilson Nullified
Liam Black
Michael Anders
Jimmy Trejo Becky Holt
Bobby Jacks Margaret Tweedy
Boxer Carvalho

Get crackin', chickadees!