Survival Of The Fittest

((G074- Brianna Battaglia continued from Cala Luna))

Diplomacy had failed. Reasoning had failed. All in all, everything about the afternoon of Day Two on this island had failed Brianna. They were out of that base, sure, but she'd lost her chance to ask these killers the burning question on her mind: how?
The idea that they could effortlessly make the decision to slaughter another human being was such an alien concept to Brianna. She was too tired to hate Theodore Fletcher, or Jaquilyn Locke, or Joachim Lovelace. Hate took too much effort. Hate implied understood dislike. And for the most part, Brianna simply just couldn't understand. Were they scared? Did they kill out of fear for their lives?

Truth be told, the night of Day Two signified a drastic shift in the overall personality of the group. Especially in Brianna's case. She'd been so brave, so hopeful that the day before had been a simple fluke, or a mistake. It was so easy to be blindly filled with hope when your life hasn't directly been on the line. Day Two changed all that. Brianna's mind kept flickering back to how close they'd all come to being riddled with bullets. Especially with Ben's provocation, Brianna wasn't sure if she'd still be alive if she'd fallen back on "diplomacy."

Brianna chewed on the edge of her water bottle in angst. The sun had risen hours ago, though one couldn't particularly tell from the sullen downcast of clouds masking the sky. Everything out there was gray. Everything in the maternity nurses' station was gray. From the miserable gray desk, to the miserably gray chair. Even the cabinets were an abysmal shade of gray. More than anything, Brianna wanted to close her eyes again and lose herself in fantasy. However, she knew that she couldn't lose herself again. She could now acknowledge her life was in true danger.

Brianna flicked through the pages of the instruction manual that had been assigned to Theodore Fletcher. Though it wasn't entertaining, nor engrossing by any stretch of the imagination, it was something that Brianna tried to busy herself with. All alone, she didn't want to attempt to wander off of their third floor base. They all agreed that after the morning announcements, they would regroup and decisively come up with a course of action. Until then, Brianna was covering the last night shift until dusk.

Growl Brianna felt her stomach churn in hunger. It was a strange feeling to have in conjunction with the pressing nerves, yet that was what she felt. She hadn't really eaten many of those protein bars since the first night. One bite was a mistake enough, eating the entire thing was some form of masochism.

Brianna was about to give reading another try when she heard footsteps stemming from a delivery room adjacent to the nurses' station. On instinct, Brianna gripped the handgun and leapt off her chair. She didn't know if she was expecting Jaquilyn Locke and Joachim Lovelace to come back to claim this base too, or for Theodore to come back to reclaim his gun. Probably neither, but maybe all of the above.

Brianna turned the corner, her gun arm rigidly locked to her side. "Oh. It's you." Brianna sighed with relief. A familiar face. An ally. "The announcements haven't started yet, but they should at any second." Brianna led her comrade over to the information desk. It had become their base of operations for now. Brianna's map laid sprawled across the counter, along with a golf pencil donated by Jesse. There were exactly enough chairs at the desk to accommodate the small group, assuming one of them sat on the chair with the rusty wheels.

"Would you like breakfast? I think we still have a few cans from the cafeteria, plus half a bag of chocolates from the plane ride. Try whichever will make those protein bars more edible." Brianna smiled a fake, toothy smile. It was meant to be endearing, but it looked forced.

((Chris Harlin continued from Interstice of Time))

Day three. Three days normally wouldn't even pass through Chris's mind as a event, but when every living moment was precious, Chris recognised the importance. Still, sleep had been fleeting, the escape from team JJ's gun wielding take over having exhausted the group. He had been restless, unable to get comfortable in the hospital. They had been lucky to find somewhere unoccupied and not marked as dangerous for now. Carmina was dead in his mind, he had lost some of the others and Chris was aware of how futile his weapon was. How could you kill someone when they could gun you down before you could even get close?

Still, the night had been full of reflection for the jock. Nobody could be trusted anymore, from friends to enemies, you had to keep one eye open. Jesse and Brianna were the closest thing he had to trust at that moment, mostly because they had been in the same boat, all running for their lives, their plans in ruins. The clubhouse had been an ideal hide-out, much better than the hospital ward. Chris had always hated hospitals, the way they smelled so clinical, how they seemed so cold. They were supposed to be a place of recovery, instead they always seemed to be a place where people died. He couldn't think of a worse way to go than to slowly fade away in some ward, hooked up to machines. The fact that they were in a maternity ward just seemed to make it worse. Where life used to begin here, it would most likely end.

Chris had taken the first shift, unable to sleep, jumping at every distant sound. At points, he swore he had heard people moving about downstairs but he knew that was most likely his imagination. Still, he had been unwilling to check, even more unwilling to touch the gun that Theo had left behind in his haste and that they had appropriated. His mind had been blank. Thinking of friends he could try to track down, maybe work with had merely come up blank. Players who he could depend to have his back on the field, now he didn't even want to face them. Chris knew he could be worse off, he had avoided a real conflict, had not killed, no injuries. He had a roof over his head, a few hours sleep and he was in good enough shape. Most importantly, he was still alive.

But with the dawning of the day, he knew he could not hide away anymore. Stretching out his stiff muscles as he walked to find Brianna, glad they had picked somewhere not so confusing. The separate rooms had given the illusion of privacy, although he wished for a decent bath. Something to soak in, just relax his troubles away. Walking over to Brianna, he raised a hand in greeting, aware that the bags under his eyes told how well he slept. He was glad he didn't carry a mirror around, he was aware how bad he probably looked. His clothes were dirty, scuffed up and his hand ached from where he had cut himself. He had tried to cover the cut over, but the soreness when he moved his fingers told him that it wasn't healing like he would have liked.

"I'll stick to the protein bars for now, I mean, I used to eat them back when I was trying to bulk up extra muscle for the season. They still taste just as bad as they did then. I just pretend that they taste of maple syrup. I just want these announcements done with today, as long as we don't have to book it from here if its a dangerzone, I am happy" Chris replied, the thought of the breakfast making his stomach flip slightly. He returned the false smile, apprehension over knowing who else had ended their lives on the island slowly rising through his body.

(Jesse Jennings continued from Interstice of Time)

Jesse was changing his shirt. Just because they'd all been tossed into a fight to the death didn't mean he was going to let himself go. And oh, you think it's shallow of him? Fuck you, bro. Fresh clothes are a necessity; they make you feel better; they make you think clearer. Same with the brushing; you think Jesse's dumb enough to believe his minty fresh breath will defend him from a killer?

And he needed to be thinking clearer right now, because it was only Day 3 and already this challenge they'd been given had deepened. That shit with Theo and Jaq and Joachim had been enough to rattle anybody's confidence, and while Jesse Jennings sure wasn't what you'd call just anybody, he wasn't excluded. It should have been easy for them to bring Jaq and Joachim into the fold and kick Theo's ass out on the street where it belonged.

Instead, they were holed up in the hospital, and reduced by another two. Sure, Ben Ward was a loose cannon and Jesse couldn't bring himself to trust or care about Matt, but man, a group of three was what he'd started with back on Day 1. They were supposed to be moving forwards, building something up. Instead, Jesse felt like they'd been spinning their wheels.

Then the announcements hit.

And holy shit, cross out "spinning their wheels" and write "circling the drain" in its place.

Carmina was dead, all right. And Jaq and Joachim had killed her; Theo was telling the truth.

Of course, that didn't mean dick with regards to Jesse's opinion about Theo, because the fucker had gone off and killed again, even after Jesse'd taken his gun and bag. Theo had just met up with Xavier Contel, taken Xavier's gun, said thanks very much, and shot him.

Stacey Mordetsky was dead. It was kinda hard to process the fact that a girl he'd once slept with was actually dead. That shit wasn't supposed to happen.

And Naomi? Seriously? Forget Stacey, Naomi being dead was damn near impossible to get through his brain. It was just... he fucking KNEW Naomi. She could be a bitch, she could be an ice queen, she was never gonna get close to being a big-time politician like she thought she'd be, but if there was anyone in their class that could've approached Jesse himself when it came to having 100% confidence in their ability to survive this island, it would've been her.

This shit was getting bad. Jesse knew Summer, too. And if kids like her, and Theo, and Jaq and Joachim and all the others, were really going for this garbage and throwing themselves into this law-of-the-jungle crap, then just maybe they had to rethink their strategy here. But how the fuck were they supposed to do that?

Jesse didn't know yet. He stared ahead into the mirror. Smiled. And remembered to focus on the good stuff.

They had extra supplies, for one thing. And a gun, for another big thing.

And while kids were actually going crazy and killing, he sure as hell knew that Brianna and Chris weren't gonna pull any of that on him.

And hey, Ben and Matt were still alive, and maybe they'd manage to rope some others into-- no, that wasn't good enough. He couldn't count on most of the other kids out there anymore, it seemed.

He'd have to count on himself.

And that, that right there was what brought on the new spark.

Jesse smiled a bit wider into the mirror, then turned around and strode with a purpose to where Chris and Brianna were. They both knew the score. They'd all heard the announcement.

"Alright guys. We gotta quit screwing around and figure something out."

Forget about peaceful protest and getting a whole shitload of kids together to passively resist this stuff. It was time for some hardcore revolution. It was time to take the fight to the streets, and hell yeah, it was gonna work.

Brianna was raised polite enough to not say anything, but she could recognize that Chris Harlin looked awful. Seeing someone normally filled with such caustic, brutal energy looking so downtrodden and worn down was utterly haunting.
The Chris Harlin that Brianna knew was a mean-spirited bully that made the lives of so many Aurora High students miserable. That Chris Harlin was fearless and relished in his brusque behavior. And here he stood, scared and tired. Behind the apprehensive smile, there was a faint murmur of fear dashed across his face. Brianna wanted to comfort the boy somehow; maybe she'd give him a hug and tell him everything would be alright. That they were going to find a way off the island. That they were going to round up allies and together they'd pool their knowledge together.

However, even Brianna couldn't readily believe that anymore. She was about to make some off-hand joke about regretting that the protein bars would help her put on weight, when the announcements struck.
Like a grim bolt of lightning, Brianna immediately felt her nerves explode the second the announcer's sadistic pitch emanated from the loudspeaker. On instinct, Brianna reached out and clutched Chris Harlin's hand.

Nine..ten...eleven.

Brianna's mouth was hanging open. With her free hand, Brianna drew her palm over her mouth to conceal her horror. With the other, Brianna anxiously squeezed down upon Chris' fingers. Only after the following comment did Brianna release her tension.

Seven of the killers were ladies.

During the last announcement, two of the five players were girls, so Brianna wasn't quite sure why this struck her the way it did. Maybe the emphasis scared her. She was a girl just like the rest of them. While she didn't have Summer Simms' energy, or Eliza Patton's gruff edge, she wasn't exactly incapable of murder in a physical sense. The announcement was taunting her, begging the girl to try and switch her position.

But could Brianna actually do something like that? She'd told herself from the moment she evaluated the situation that she would fight to the end to save everyone she could and find their way off the island. But Hope drastically dwindled. They lost the clubhouse, they lost Matt and Ben. The most stinging blow came from the fact that despite disarming Theodore Fletcher, he'd still managed to kill someone else.

How could he? They'd tried reasoning, and they took a weapon away. It seemed that no matter what Brianna tried, people all around the island were dying. Her helplessness made her want to give up. Let whoever was coming just come and get it done. There was no way she could survive if hours we're bought in blood, and days bought in bodies.

"R-Right." Brianna's voice was shaky at first. "We need to start planning something. Not just planning...doing." Brianna slowly started to contort back into a confident facade. She dragged the back of her sleeve across her misting eyes. Now wasn't the time for weakness. If Brianna choked again, she wouldn't be the only one to suffer her inability. Despite how much the girl felt hopeless, having Chris and Jesse was an immense comfort. She had to keep trying as long as they were. They needed her to keep going, and Brianna couldn't let them down.

"The hospital seems like a good temporary base for now. We can gather some supplies, things that will last us the remainder of our time here." Brianna paused, waiting for a thought to catch up to her mouth. "But then, what exactly is the point of biding our time if we're not fighting back? We need to find the people who aren't playing and fight back. The terrorists are expecting us to fight against each other. We need to turn those tables against those fuckers."

The girl wasn't sure if she meant the words she hissed out, but she did know that it felt cathartic to say.

((So sorry for holding this up, broken laptops and six day working weeks are bad combos))

The announcement did little to ally any of Chris's fears about the events of the island. Rather than getting less affected by the announcements, the most recent one just sent a deeper blow to the small sense of safety that he had managed to find within the hospital walls. Carmina, they had left her behind and she had died. Directly it may not have been, but if they had taken her with them, she would not have died. She probably would be around the table with them, listening to the statements of the announcement, not being an name on the lists. He felt stupid for nearly falling for the lies of Jacqui, even if it had been for a split second. Who could you trust anymore? Even the fact that the majority of the killers had been women did little to surprise him. When it came down to it, everyone would fight to last one more day and that meant nothing in regards to gender. Give someone an opportunity and the the right weapon, you could take anyone down. David did conquer Goliath after all. Chris knew he could overpower most of the girls on pure strength but in a fight to the death, would mere strength be enough?

The touch on his hand startled him little but he clenched back as well, grateful for the contact. It helped, the panic rising in his body calmed somewhat by it all. He smiled at her, probably the first honest reaction he had that wasn't fear or anger all day. The time was coming to face the cold hard truth. Maybe peaceful work wouldn't be the answer. Maybe to survive they would have to play the game as well, do as others did to survive. He didn't want to have to hunt for people to kill, but if it came down to it, the way to make it to the end was through bloodshed. The sooner he could face up to that fact, the better their chances would be. But, he knew he couldn't hurt the people around that table. People who he had trusted not to smother him in his sleep or shoot him while he washed. What they had done at the clubhouse, had they done anything helpful at all? Even with disarming Theo, they still let the murderers win, fleeing like rats from a drowning ship. Hell, they had even failed to stay together as a group, what good did they do there? No, they needed something better, something more proactive in this case.

"I agree, we can't run and hide every time trouble comes to the door, we need to do something to protect ourselves. I mean, we have weapons, we won't be sitting ducks here, but Brianna is right. We need to make it out of here, we can't do it by being the last man standing. They won't let it end that way. We will die anyway if we do nothing, so we need to do something. They need to be on this island somewhere, right?"

The ideas were coming again. Brianna and Chris were filled with righteous anger, and now it was just a matter of channeling that the right way.

"You got it, we gotta take the fight to them, but, I dunno. I mean, were they even on the island the last few times this happened? Maybe if we could find someone who knows a lot about this stuff, watched it when it was on before, we could figure something out..."

As he spoke, Jesse flipped his map over a scrawled a few words down with his golf pencil.

--Don't think we can just take on the terrorists by force.

They'd been going about this all wrong the first couple days. That was it. You don't play a crooked game like it's on the level. Standing up and taking the high road and pretending like you're better than the bad guys was some weak shit that might look pretty, but in the end, it wasn't enough. Jesse had thought they could get a group together and just say they weren't gonna take any crap from the terrorists, and then what-- Danya would just give in and they'd win? Nah. That was Greenpeace or Occupy Wall Street, and sure they made a statement and that was better than nothing, but Jesse Jennings was not what you'd call some half-assed hippie hopeful.

--We've got to hit them somewhere, either screw with their plans or do something to get a message out.

No, Jesse Jennings was Anonymous and Wikileaks and Jesse Jennings was the Arab fucking Spring. Jesse was Oscar McAllister breaking down the wall built by two centuries of racism and slavery. Jesse Jennings got results, because he wasn't gonna be afraid to get his hands dirty.

He turned the map over, tapped his pencil against two places -- the airport and the nuclear plant -- and jotted one more sentence down at the bottom of the sheet.

--What if we blow something like that up?

And Jesse won. And it was fucking glorious.

"But yeah," he finished aloud. "We should check the place for any supplies we can use, and then take off. You got any ideas of your own?

Jesse Jennings was going to beat them all, and they wouldn't even see it coming.

What did Brianna really expect the outcome of their fight to be? Did she think that the terrorists could be negotiated with? Did she really think that with carefully constructed words, everyone would change their minds, throw down their weapons, and stick together in solidarity? If nobody fought, the terrorists wouldn't have their twisted footage to prove some insane plot. Were they bluffing about detonating everyone's collars if nobody played?

Everything that kept Brianna stable for the past few days vanished in the course of 24 hours. She'd lost Matt, her anchor. She'd been held up at gunpoint by that gruesome "Bonnie and Clyde." She'd heard about the deaths of twenty classmates, bitterly murdered by this monstrous system. She'd had a combined amount of seven hours of legitimate sleep over the past three days. Each sound, each gust of wind rattling the hospital's tattered shutters made the girl's heart stop.

Brianna wasn't just tired of living in constant fear. She was angry. When hope is robbed from someone so repeatedly, there are only so many times they can resiliently bounce back. But not any more. Brianna was mad, and she wouldn't submit any longer. It's time those ceffo fuckers that we're not giving up.

But how?

That was when Jesse diverted the girl's attention to the backside of the map. The boy couldn't scribe down the words quickly enough. Brianna was completely encapsulated by Jesse Jennings' point.

Blowing them up!? Brianna was angry, everyone was justifiably so, but that plan was crazy. Not only would the terrorists probably put an end to that plan quite immediately, but an explosion wasn't discriminating. Other students who would be unluckily in the vicinity would be harmed.
No matter how justified the assault on the terrorists' facilities might be, it wouldn't be justified if the group just served as additional antagonists.

Brianna looked up at the hall's camera. She'd studied the way it's lens moved when she was patrolling the hospital floor. She knew that there was one camera to each end. She knew that there were few places that the two cameras affixed to either wall wouldn't intersect to cover. However, few didn't mean that there were none. The girl stood up and affixed herself into place naturally. Between Jesse, Chris and Brianna, the group had concealed their activity to the viewing cameras.

We need our collars off first. Then we can dismantle cameras and enter DZ's. Then we have all the time to send an S.O.S message.

Brianna scrawled down her thoughts onto the paper. She agreed that perhaps the nuclear reactor might have an emergency broadcasting system that would alert a nearby country, or the airstrip might be in contact with radio all over the world. One of those could send out a message of distress and rally a rescue team. However, blowing them up wasn't the necessary step.

??? We can still do this without killing anyone else. A bomb doesn't choose who gets caught in the blast.

"I need to find Matt." Brianna started. "I'm not sure what friends mean here, but I promised that I wouldn't give up on him." If they were getting off this island somehow, then Matt was coming with her. There was no question about that.

OK... well, shit. That wasn't the response he was looking for.

Because Jesse does like you Bree (he could call her that, right?), but going off on some way-too-personal friendship bracelet mission was totally the wrong way to be going about things at this stage.

It wasn't even about Matt, really. Sure, Jesse'd slagged on the guy a bit, but it wasn't cause he disliked him; Matt was just pretty damn interchangeable. Unless Brianna knew 100% that finding Matt was guaranteed to be their ticket out of here, the time they wasted searching for him was just time that could be way better spent on...

Yeah, on what exactly? Blowing stuff to shit? Sure, that was the plan. Jesse had that part figured out. No, he didn't have the explosives, or the method down pat for how exactly to do that without the head terrorist honchos noticing, but it was a damn sight better idea than the old 'get your collars off' idea that was the only other thing they had. Everyone knew what happened when you messed with those things. You up and got yourself.... blown to shit.

Hell. They had explosives all around them, didn't they?

This was going to take some thinking through. Some more time to plan. And as Jesse rolled that thought over a bit in his head before glancing back at Brianna and Chris, it came to him that maybe taking the time to cross the island to look for Matt (and certain other things) might not be that big waste of time after all.

He looked back down at the paper for a moment before speaking. There wasn't really any need to keep the conversation secret any more. The terrorists wouldn't care about another doomed search expedition, so no reason to antagonize them by making it look like they were hiding anything. He'd write down some specifics later on and pass it along to the others.

"Alright Bree, I get you. You got any good ideas for where we can find him?"

Did they have ideas? Sure, why not. Jesse and Brianna and Chris always had ideas. Now whether those ideas would ever solidify into something solid, something tangible, that wasn't for them to say. But as they spent the next couple of hours hashing them out, Jesse knew that it would just be a matter of time before they stumbled upon the right recipe for success. Maybe they'd find Matt and friends immediately and get the hell out of here, maybe they'd be wandering the island aimlessly for the next couple days before Bree finally admitted that she was wrong. Jesse would keep on smiling and planning, and he sure as fuck would keep on moving towards glory.

Jesse Jennings was a middle child. Sandwiched between a squeaky-clean, golden boy older brother and a whirlwind, near-prodigal ball of genius younger sister, he could have turned into a pale shadow of either one. He could have withered away into sullenness and jealousy. But did he? Hell no. He might never have his brother's discipline, he would never have his sister's talent, but fuck you, that only added to Jesse's legend, it didn't detract from it. And so Jesse would go just as far in life as Luke and Nadege would, and he would do so without their natural gifts, and while he didn't begrudge his siblings or anyone else their future success, he knew that theirs would never be as sweet as his.

"Alright. We're heading east."


(Jesse Jennings continued in Daddy Long Legs and Dead Things)

Brianna scanned Jesse's face. She scanned it hard. How well did she really know Jesse Jennings? She knew him well enough to trust him to help campaign for more funding for academic clubs back home. Back home, she could be so trusting. Sure people could betray that trust easily in high school, but that's all it was, high school. Brianna was content to count down the days until graduation, where she'd keep the few real friendships she'd made in high school, and look forward to all the new ones in college. She should be contemplating her first college lecture, not her own death before the age of eighteen.

Brianna sighed heavily. Everything about this wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that trust, something Brianna had worked so hard with her psychologist, Dr. Grulke, to find in people, was the first thing to go on this island. She hated hearing the names of all those who'd lost their minds and lives to this warped system. She hated having to wonder which acquaintances would stab her in the back, given the chance. Joachim sat near me in 10th grade homeroom. Could he have pointed a gun at my face even back then? But most of all, she hated herself for having to look at everyone with distrust.

There was much more at stake here than just high school. Her very life depended on what relationships she held on this hellish island. If Brianna trusted the wrong person, she'd feel much more than betrayal; she might very well be yet another name callously listed off in the announcements. She knew Jesse enough to trust him in their past life, but here his political platform was an entirely different extreme. What he recommended, terrorism, was something lifted from the pages of an anarchist textbook.

But what were her options really? She could stick around with Jesse and Chris, people who could have both easily betrayed her trust and eliminated her with their shared gun. In another life Chris Harlin and Brianna Battaglia were enemies. They were polar opposites on the spectrum of high school humanity. Yet here they were, Brianna's hand clenched around his, still reeling after the announcements.

Or, she could try to find Matt on her own. Matt was the closest thing she had to a real friend in high school. He knew exactly what it was like to have the weight of everyone's judgment on one's shoulders.  What Jesse proposed was crazy. A bomb? Fighting against the terrorists? They had weapons of their own, if the collars weren't a deterrent enough. At least Matt would probably help her think more diplomatically; maybe even help start negotiations with the terrorists for their release. But that would also mean being alone against the wolves until she found him.

For someone who spent so much time alone a mere few years back, the concept of loneliness frightened Brianna. Here she had security, strength in numbers. Out there? She was just that a whole other arbitrary number the terrorists assigned her, one of many trying to fight for their lives.
With that thought in mind, Brianna hung her head down dejectedly. She hated what Jesse was planning, but she feared being alone much more.

"I think I said something about the lighthouse. You think he still might be there?" Brianna asked, half-heartedly knowing that he probably had left a long while back.

There was some sense of comfort having someone to follow on. Brianna was so used to leading herself, that the concept of being a follower was an unexpectedly frightening one. Yet at the same time, it was a relieving one. She didn't have to be brave, she didn't have to be the hero. She could just survive. Who knows, maybe through Jesse, they'd be able to save some people along the way. She could at least be a hero in that respect.

((Brianna Battaglia continued in Nessun Dorma))