And All Because Of A Snail

[Pippi]

KATANA “KAT” LOCKE-BALDWIN – BEGIN

Kat leaned against the bar, elbow on the wooden countertop and chin in her palm, expelling a long, drawn out sigh as she lazily spun the bubble gun around on her index finger.

Yeah, she’d tested it already. Obviously. She wasn’t an idiot. She’d stood with her back to the door a few minutes earlier, facing the row of empty glass bottles collecting dust behind the bar, holding the gun with both hands. She’d pointed it at her makeshift targets, squeezed the trigger, and instead of the expected earsplitting bang and recoil, she’d gotten… well, nothing. Nothing but a spray of bubbles and silence, before they all drifted down to the floor and gently popped.

She stopped spinning the fake gun, glancing at the paint job on its side, then staring down the barrel. It looked real enough to her, like all the weapons she’d seen on propaganda posters or on the covers of books. That was what the Yanks had been relying on, of course, providing a little bit of assistance in their subterfuge with the fake weapon manual in her bag that had listed this thing as a ‘Beretta’. She had no idea if that was a real gun or not. She didn’t know the first thing about weapons, and she didn’t want to, not after her parents in their infinite wisdom had decided to christen her after one. And considering this thing’s special properties, she wasn’t any closer to finding out more about them

It wasn’t totally useless, of course. There were plenty of potential applications for a fake gun that looked just like the real article. Just sucked that, right now, Kat couldn’t think of any, and didn’t really care about trying to think of any. There’d been the initial flurry of terror after she’d woken up, as all her memories of the past few hours flooded back into her mind, the strange mix of fear and excitement upon finding the gun in her bag, nestled amongst all her other supplies, her testing of said gun, and then… she didn’t really know. She couldn’t quite tell how she was feeling. She didn’t really care.

The thought crossed her mind that she was in the worst possible strategic location, with her back to the door, and nothing to defend herself with. Again, she didn’t really find herself able to care too much.

Would it be fair to say she’d lost hope already? Not exactly. But it wouldn’t be too far from the truth, either.

Kat sighed again, then let the bubble gun drop to the counter. She paused for a moment, then slipped off the barstool, bent her knees, and vaulted over the bar itself, pressing her hands into the smooth wood surface to propel her to the other side. The bottles on the shelves behind the bar were all empty, sure, but maybe there was a full bottle of whiskey or something underneath it. It’d be something to do, at least.

She crouched down again and peered underneath the bar, brushing cobwebs out of her face.

She scowled. Nothing. Just plastic crates and dirty glasses. Of course.

[Polybius]

Virgil start

It didn't matter which direction he went, he would arrive at the same destination. Virgil knew this and that's why he had ripped up the map and thrown the compass into the sea. They were lies, false promises of control over his own fate. Really, it seemed as if all he could do was wait for his thread to be cut. It was decided he was to die and be forgotten, just to help some government's bureaucrats prove a point against some other government's bureaucrats.

It filled him with fury. He hadn't yet reached his potential. He wasn't supposed to die like this, he was supposed to create something meaningful, something immortal. It was too early, too early...

General Adams and his ilk weren't gods or Fates, no matter how much they tried to play at it. There had to be a way to break from the destiny they had given him. If not to live on in body, then in soul. But how? Virgil didn't yet know. Ghosts of thoughts bounced around in his mind (as they always did), but nothing solid, nothing real. Not yet. Thus Virgil merely walked towards his destination, for the moment.

Virgil had quickly discarded the accoutrements from home that would be useless in his new existence. He'd thrown away his tie and his jacket, and he had unbuttoned his shirt to let his chest breathe. It was very hot here. He wondered what part of America they were in. He strolled along a brick building (a pub, he'd guessed). As he was doing so, he trailed his outstretched hand along the side. Grime accumulated along his fingertips.

Virgil pulled his hand away to examine the muck coating his fingers, but as he did, he heard a sound from inside the building. A rattling (or was it a shuffling?). Upon hearing it, he entered the pub. There wasn't any other choice.

The doors swung open, and Virgil saw the parts that made up an old-fashioned saloon. A piano, paintings, a shelf of empty bottles. The one thing out of place, however (and the one thing of interest to Virgil), was a gun resting by its lonesome on the bar. The shuffle-rattle was also coming from the bar, though Virgil couldn't see the person making the sound. Were they behind the bar, searching for something? How strange. Virgil figured that anyone would consider a gun to be the most important possession in this place, yet this someone had put it aside to search for something else. Was it something that could alter one's fate, more so than a gun? Strange.

Still, for Virgil, the firearm remained the point of focus. He took a step towards the counter, then another. His end could come right at this moment, couldn't it? But perhaps not. He took another step.

[Pippi]

Kat was tempted, for more than just a hot second, to grab one of the empty bottles and just hurl it into the corner of the room. Maybe that’d release something inside of her, make her feel how she should have been feeling right now. She should have been raging and swearing, flipping over chairs and tables and smashing her stupid bubble gun to pieces. Right now, she was more annoyed at this bar for lacking any alcohol than at the people who’d stowed her away here to die and rot and be forgotten.

Mmf. There we go, that was something. A little bit of righteous anger, bubbling to the surface. She wrapped her fingers around the bottle in front of her, dust transferring to her skin, pulling the vessel out of the plastic container with a familiar clinking sound, like she was just popping down to the bottle bank.

She was about to stand back up and get ready to launch the stupid bottle, when she heard the sound of a door swinging open, and footsteps on the wooden floor of the pub. She paused, pressing her palm to the ground to keep her steady. There was silence once more. Then another step.

So not somebody scared, then, or at least somebody trying not to show that they were. Not somebody panicking and looking for friends, or a familiar face, or anybody, else they would have called out a searching greeting. And not someone panicking, or desperate, or not thinking straight, else there was a good chance they’d have made a dash for the gun still on the counter. So. Someone very cautious was on the other side of the bar.

Interesting.

Taking a breath, Kat stood up quickly and smoothly, still holding the bottle in her hand, coming face to face with Virgil Raeburn. She tried to hide the distaste that instinctively made its way to her face, but it wasn’t easy. Virgil was not a likeable person. He was creepy and weird, and needed a shower badly. Then again, in all honesty, she didn’t mind him anywhere near as much as most of her classmates. Turned out not opening your mouth did wonders for your reputation sometimes.

Could have been better, could have been worse. Another median.

Kat placed the bottle onto the bar, next to her gun, fixing Virgil with a dry smile.

“So what can I get you?”

A little ice breaker, just to see what he’d do.

[Polybius]

Kat. Katana. Katana Locke-Baldwin. He looked her up and down and up again, taking her in. Virgil had always appreciated her presence. The mix of feminine and masculine. The force of opposition that seemed entrenched in her being, her personality, how she viewed the world. He had drawn her before, more than once. Two or three times, he estimated.

(Virgil's mind wandered back to the unpleasant memory that he had tried to push away. The discovery he had made shortly after awakening. They had taken his pencils, and his sketchbook, and his notebook. They might as well have taken his arms, legs, and tongue. But as horrible as it was, Virgil knew he needed to focus on the matter at hand.)

The item that Kat had been searching for appeared to Virgil to be an empty bottle. Perhaps it was something else to Kat, but Virgil couldn't figure out what that might be. The gun was left in its place, untouched, discounted. She offered him a friendly welcome. She was acting out a role, and inviting him to join the performance.

Virgil would play along. It was the only path he saw in front of him. He walked up to the counter and took a seat on a dusty stool. He smiled at her, an approximation of the type of smile that a man would make when he saw the bartender after a long day at work. He spoke his line.

"What do you have that will help me forget my sorrows?"

[Cactus]

Casa del Diablo.

House of the devil, if her minimal Spanish skills were to be trusted. It seemed appropriate. If the Americans had their way, this once-bustling community would be a den of horror for most of them, in the end. Victoria Amaro wasn't sure what else was going on with her classmates, but she'd already been on the receiving end of the sobering reality of their situation. As she slowly walked toward the single-story pub, her hands tightened around the stock of the submachine gun, trying to keep her mind focused and sensed occupied on the task at hand.

Don't die.

Easier said than done. She bet M01 had probably told himself the same thing before he'd gone back upstairs.

That had worked out swimmingly for him.

((Victoria Amaro continued from I Ran (So Far Away)))

The sign in front of the pub was loud, gaudy, yet in such disrepair that Victoria was surprised the wood still allowed it to advertise. She had set out from the wharf after the smell became too unbearable and the tide threatened to return. As she slunk towards the old bar, she continued to try and get used to the uncomfortable feeling of holding a lethal weapon in her hands as she walked. Never in her life had Victoria ever even had the inkling of doing any kind of soldiering, and when she'd picked the firearm back up at the docks, it had been overwhelming, to say the least.

It was an implement of death, which held in her hands, meant that now she too was an agent of destruction. The sad, sickening feeling that lay in the bottom of her gut knew that the unexpected gain from the dead boy's bag probably did more for her survival chances than any additional supplies might, and for the first time, she had given her situation more pause than she often would. In her mind, action was better than inaction, because inaction lead to failure, to death. But to arm herself with both a machine gun and the protective vest she wore sent a message to anyone who would see her.

Naturally, this was mildly problematic. Most people received one weapon or accessory, it appeared. Victoria had gone through the second bag and taken what supplies she'd needed, leaving the remainder behind at the wharf, and the only thing different about his loadout had been the weapon. So anyone who ran into her might assume (correctly) that she had looted or stolen from someone. Perhaps they might even jump to a conclusion about her intentions.

And what were her intentions? Victoria wiped one of her hands on her pant-leg as she quickly darted around a corner. She had decided to keep moving, but then what? Her classmates were around - she'd passed more than a few buildings and habitats where voices were audible, but what was she to do once she found them? The moral part of her heart knew that teaming up with them made sense. But there was another part...

The part she'd buried, the part that she didn't want to accept or acknowledge, that bluntly stated what she knew to be true - act, or be acted upon.

It was a cold thought, and before she knew it, Victoria was quietly crouching beside the back door to the building. Lost in her own thoughts again. Once more, she heard voices from within, but this time, they gave her pause. They seemed... friendly, almost pleasant. Victoria barely knew the names of her classmates that weren't on the track team, and didn't know if anyone was around she could possibly consider a friend, especially in a situation like this. So she knew that her options were limited.

Quietly, she crouched, waiting and listening for something inside to happen, or for a name to pop into her mind that she could attach to one of the voices.

[Pippi]

If anything, this was worse than if Virgil had been carrying a gun and looking for trouble.

That, at least, would have been fitting, would have been suitable for the world they had been thrown into. It was a bizarre, unfamiliar world, but this casual dialogue was unfitting and even stranger, even more… wrong. It was a complete disregard for the scenario they were in. It wasn’t right. Nothing was right. She shouldn’t be feeling this way, because she didn’t know what she was feeling.

“Well, just for you sir, we have our house special,” Kat said, giving Virgil a smile with no warmth or feeling behind it, ducking down again briefly to grab another empty bottle. “A finely aged blend of dust and dead flies.”

She placed the bottle next to the first one, the two clinking dully against each other. She played along with the scene, even though it all felt wrong, even though the words felt fake and unnatural coming out of her mouth, even though she was talking to someone she’d never spare a single moment for back at home. Maybe for Virgil it was some sort of coping mechanic, some way to pretend he was somewhere else, anywhere else but where he was. That didn’t work for Kat, not when she knew exactly where she was, not when she could see the Spanish covering the labels on every bottle, not when there was a gun, fake to her but real to everyone else, inches away from her on the counter.

But she played along still. She didn’t know what else to do.

“It may not cure all your ailments, but it’s the best we’ve got at the moment.”

C’mon. She just needed something. Anything. Any impulsive spark to remind her brain what she was dealing with here.

“If I had what you’re asking for, I’d have taken it all myself already.”

[Polybius]

Kat placed another bottle on the counter. It clinked against the first. She continued the act with a few clever improvised lines. He looked through the bottle, flecks of dust gently floating inside the glass.

(What was his next line?)

His eyes drifted across the counter and fell on the gun. It was only inches away from him, and from her. The most important thing in the room, a tool that would grant either of them power (to an extent anyway, as their ultimate fate would still be beyond their control). Yet it went unmentioned, ignored.

(It was on the tip of his tongue, what was it...)

He could grab it right now, if he wanted. Just pick it up, pull the trigger, and paint the back wall with blood and grey matter and bone fragments. He could, but that wouldn't change his fate, would it? Or she could do the same. But she hadn't, she hadn't even reached for it when he appeared. She'd just left it there. Why? Why?

His gaze shifted upwards, meeting hers. He looked into her eyes. Brown. Dark. Strong. He tried to burrow into to them, see behind them. There was that old cliche that the eyes were the mirror to the soul. Oculus animi index. Virgil had found it fairly accurate in his drawing, the emotions and desires of his figures starting in the eyes and emanating outwards. If he looked hard enough, could he find the answer? Would her motives and reasons be laid bare before him?

(Ah, it was still his turn. He'd almost forgotten)

"A shame. I suppose I'll have to make due. A pint of dust, if you will."

[Cactus]

As she crouched beside the closed back door to the bar, Victoria's hands felt clammy on the steel stock of the submachine gun. She stayed silent, straining to hear the voices from inside of the bar, and to her frustration, she didn't have a name to put to either of them. The more she stayed put, the less certain she was that she'd be able to guess. Which, really - was it all that surprising? Making those connections hadn't been overly important to her. There were other, far more interesting things going on in the world, and Victoria had always been more wrapped up in disassembling a television remote or reading about the relationships between matter and energy.

Never had she assumed, however, that social relationships might be the key to her very survival.

Attention going back to the weapon in her hand, Victoria took another close look at it. At the pier she'd poured over the instruction manual, knowing that every bit of information she could retain would be the difference between living and dying. It would be a cruel irony if she needed to use it and got stuck with a safety on or a jammed cartridge and didn't know how to use it. Guns were - in theory - simple. Point, brace, squeeze. The manual had contained many warnings regarding the recoil of the firearm, and while she'd never fired any weapon before, it made perfect sense that such a device would need to be tightly controlled. The reaction of the firing pin hitting each bullet as it was ejected at high speeds meant that the cool piece of metal in her hands would generate a massive amount of energy. Such a weapon was usually found in the hands of soldiers, of evil men who meant to perpetrate harm unto other men. Not in the hands of high school kids.

Victoria furrowed her brow and frowned at the thought. Was that truly accurate? Was it truly a device used by evil men? Were soldiers actually evil? She blinked. Perhaps she was mistaken - she was definitely mistaken. Soldiers were never usually good or evil, they were just... there. Following orders. Trying to serve their country. Even the Americans - while thought of as misguided tyrants by the British, the Russians, and any other country that remained independent - were only following what they believed to be a just cause. Were she an American, would she have believed in that cause as well?

Blinking, she remembered herself. This was no time to get into an ideological discussion with her own mind. She still knelt by the closed door, weapon in hand, in a death game that she'd been forced into against her will. The Americans expected her to kill her classmates, or to die. How was that for cause and effect?

Act, or be acted upon.

She didn't have any more time to sit around thinking about it. Perhaps she needed to act, to take a chance. The voices inside were unfamiliar, but they were a start. She swallowed the feeling that gnawed at her stomach, and slowly reached for the doorknob, turning it slowly and quietly. It obliged her, and the door silently came ajar.

And still, she hesitated.

[backslash]

((Rue von Schroeder continued from Perestroika))

The walk across town wasn't great, to put things lightly. Rue and Nastya made some conversation, but while Nastya seemed to be handling things as well as could be expected, the tension wouldn't leave Rue's shoulders. She should trust, shouldn't she? She'd decided to trust Nastya. Thing was, Rue could clearly see Nastya's gun and that it was in no way aimed at her, and that couldn't be said for every shadow lurking around every corner that they passed.

She had kept hold of the tool, swinging it absently while they walked. Its weight sat oddly in her hand. She was used to the balance of a golf club, not some Frankenstein crowbar, and every time the metal brushed her leg, it reminded her of the reason why it had been given to her in the first place. She needed that drink, and soon, and the building up ahead looked promising.

That, of course, couldn't be said for the person who seemed to be in the process of sneaking in the back when Rue and Nastya rounded the corner and almost walked right into her.

[Cactus]

Victoria had been so focused upon opening the door quietly and slowly that she hadn't even noticed the approaching footsteps until it was too late. She heard the crunching of gravel underfoot coming around the corner at the last possible second, and just like that two people almost barrelled into her. Unlike the encounter in the house, there was nowhere to hide, nowhere to retreat to. These people were standing less than a meter away from her. Everything shot into hyperfocus as she noticed the vicious-looking rifle that one of the women was carrying. Flinging the door open, she stepped back into the door frame, submachine gun at the ready.

"Stop!" She croaked, her voice weak from disuse.

The girl nearest to her had a club of sorts, with a wicked-looking end on it. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end.

Act. Or-

Yes, she knew. Her heartbeat picked up and her legs tensed. They were surprised - that made sense. She needed to say something, but words didn't come easily.

"Don't come any closer," she blurted out, her voice stronger but sounding harsh, blunt. Not exactly friendly, though... her eyes narrowed as she quickly considered her options, none of them good.

Victoria wasn't feeling all that friendly.

[backslash]

"What."

Rue's heart stuttered in her chest when the girl - oh, what was her name, she was one of the runners - spun towards them and the gun followed suit. Her voice came out surprisingly steady, more baffled than anything.

Suddenly, the full absurdity of the situation struck her. Here she was, in a foreign enemy country with a scattered handful of her classmates, all of them with weapons in their hands and instructions to use them on each other. Rue had been jumping at shadows since she woke up, desperate for anything to numb and distract her. Now, with possibly real danger staring her in the face, she was just... disbelieving.

Were people this stupid?

"Don't come any closer" like they were- enemies. Like they were unknowns. It didn't make sense, and neither did that vest whats-her-name was wearing. That wasn't part of the uniform.

Rue's gaze jumped between the vest and the gun in the girl's hand. A lot of things were wrong with this picture, but the vest and gun in tandem nagged at her.

"What... have you been doing with that?" Keep talking, right? Talk and get her to stand down or buy time so you can escape. That was what they did with hostage situations.

[Cactus]

The girl wielding the club was doing all of the talking, and her words barely made sense to Victoria. She seemed to have her wits about her, much more than anyone who'd been at the house. Which likely meant that neither of these two had been present during the earlier encounter. That was good, she supposed. As her brain processed the information, it occurred to Victoria that she'd been asked a question, snapping her out of her own thoughts.

"Wh- I... I found it."

Her words were uncertain, hesitant, as if she didn't really believe them herself. They were the truth; why did she have such a difficult time applying conviction to what she was saying?

Perhaps it was the omission. Sure, she'd found the weapon - on a corpse of someone who may have been someone's friend. Maybe one of theirs. Victoria didn't know. The personal relationships of her fellow classmates had always been uninteresting, unimportant to her. The lovers, the haters, the friends, the enemies, the bullies and the heroes... none of them had ever mattered, because the universe was far more interesting a place to worry about. Chemical reactions, cause and effect, the nature of things - those concepts had always held her attention more.

As it all ran through her head, Victoria finally understood that she was more on-edge than she'd first thought. The fear hadn't set in as she thought it might, but her heartbeat was quick and her palms slick with perspiration.

Gripping the weapon just a bit tighter, she kept it raised, pointed firmly at the girl. Her voice was still barely a whisper.

"Please don't."

Words didn't find her well on a good day, and this was perhaps the worst of all.

[backslash]

Things weren't adding up. The other girl couldn't be more suspicious if she tried. Escape had to be their option, but how to engineer it? Rue was glad that Nastya was hanging back, because if she got another gun involved there was no way things wouldn't turn violent, but it meant that the responsibility of unraveling the situation rested on Rue's shoulders.

She could do this. Mind racing, she mapped out all the steps, just as neatly as a computer program.

Get the girl's attention off of them, make sure that she couldn't strike back while they fled, run.

She could do this.

"I'm not doing anything," Rue said slowly. "But they might." She jerked her chin at the empty space over the girl's shoulder.

Oldest trick in the book, but it was there for a reason. The girl turned, Rue lunged, and her reach and the tool let her strike a glancing blow across the back of the girl's head.

Without waiting to see how well it took, Rue spun back to Nastya, already moving to run past her if she wouldn't. "Let's go!"

[Laurels]

((Nastya Zharkova continued from Perestroika))

Nastya had enjoyed the walk as much as any prisoner of war could have enjoyed the slow march to death. Obviously, she couldn't just enjoy the fact that she was in a foreign country taking in the sights without remembering that there was going to be a lot of death and chaos over the next few days. However, Rue had been pleasant company, so Nastya could allow herself to forget it momentarily. If anything, it was easier to pretend it didn't bother her and that she could just shoot the shit with Rue as if they were back in Bellington. Sure, it was fake, but Nastya was a pretty good liar, so she could keep it up.

They had their bit of peace quickly smashed with a sledgehammer when some girl materialized out of nowhere and was suddenly threatening them with a frightening looking gun. Now, Nastya could tell immediately she'd lose in a firefight with something that looked like it could rip Nastya in half with the sheer amount of bullets it'd put into her. Rue, who had been walking slightly ahead and was closer to the new girl, had taken to chatting with her. Nastya merely kept her hands up and a passive smile on her face so that she could assure the other girl that she'd be no trouble. Nastya wasn't ready to get into fights yet, especially since she needed more time and practice with her sniper rifle.

But it turned out that Nastya would have to adapt much sooner. Rue pulled a classic fakeout on the gullible, heavily-armed girl. Nastya always enjoyed a good, harmless prank, but this one wasn't so. Rue decided to club the girl, causing Nastya to gasp and raise her bleached brows. She quickly began to step back and turn, already beginning to pick up the pace to hightail it out of there before Rue even told her to.

"On it!" she shouted in response.

Now all they had to do was be faster than the girl's scary gun and they could go back to chatting about whatever random shit came to mind. That shouldn't be hard, right?

[Cactus]

Eyes widening as the girl gestured behind her, Victoria panicked. She'd already lost her focus and been surprised from one side, but the other as well? Spinning around instinctively, she narrowed her eyes to look into the darkness of the bar. How could this girl see anyone? All she could see before her eyes adjusted was darkn-

The world exploded into stars as something heavy clubbed her on the back of the head, sending Victoria face-first to the floor with a pained squeak.

Trying to blink the stars away from her vision, her hand instantly went to the back of her head and she winced as her fingers brushed something warm and painful. Whatever she'd been hit with, it hurt like hell. Looking at her hand, her heartbeat quickened as she saw her fingers now slick with bright red blood.

Her blood.

She had not taken action, and someone had instead acted upon her. Just as she'd dreaded.

That girl, that innocent-looking classmate of hers had tried to kill her.

Now laying in the doorway of the bar, Victoria flipped over onto her back and sat up. The girl and her ally were fleeing. It was cowardly, and it was wrong.

The girl had tried to murder her. For no reason.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Newton's Third Law was an odd thing to pop into mind while she was fighting for her life, but that was the only way that she could justify the actions that she seemingly took on autopilot, raising the submachine gun in the direction of the fleeing girls. Victoria was barely halfway through wondering if she'd be able to pull the trigger before the report from the weapon informed her otherwise. Three short bursts flew out towards the back of the bar, the kick from the weapon knocking into her chest and sending her falling back to the floor once more, head knocking off the ground and sending pain through her skull a second time.