Bad Guys Win

[ItzToxie]

Carl smiled at Esther. Of all the things he's been called by angry college hippies, 'state goon' wasn't the most common funnily enough. Before this, he never bothered to give those types the time of day. Just a dismissive agreeing to being called a baby killer, give a Col. Kilgore quote, and then he'd go on his way. It was in their right to say those things. Same thing with burning the flag. Never bothered him much. He grabbed the dragunov. People hated what they didn't understand. Carl spent most of his adult life in a different world, one nobody would really get. Carl couldn't blame people for their reactions to things they didn't understand, he was the same way when he was young.

"That's the shitty part. You shouldn't have to."

He meant it. They were just kids. They weren't volunteers, not that signing up to die was any better, and say what you will about war, most people fought for the people they loved to their left and rights, not the people they hated in front of them. He sure as hell didn't fight so some fucking eggheads can play God and watch kids get eaten by aliens and shit.

He turned to Charlie on his way out.

"I appreciate it, but you keep them. I'm not gonna take any more than what I need."

Carl took his bag off and left it in the room.

"If this works, I'll be back in the morning. If not, well it makes sense, I guess. Dodged a lot of close calls before, my luck's gotta run out sometime."

Carl returned the salute as he left the doorway.

"Ooh-rah, wish me luck."

((Carl Kowalski continued elsewhere.))

[Dr Adjective]

“Yeah, semper fi or whatever. Don’t die, dude.”

Of Esther’s few talents, a silver tongue was not among them. She’d long accepted that her best way of contributing was amassing knowledge and putting her fragile-looking white self where it might draw more media sympathy than a black body. Different circumstances necessitated a change of approach though. There were no cops to take a propaganda win getting bloodied by, just monsters and mercenaries.

That left knowledge. Esther was no biologist. She’d committed to knowledge everything that the corporation had deigned to send to her PDA, plus what little her brain was willing to recall from her close encounter with the monster. More skirmishing might be enlightening, but it’d also be dangerous, and worse, it was probably what Janus-Hayes wanted: the genius of oppressors, to align the individual’s interest with theirs and against the common good.

Still, she could learn about her unlikely allies, at least.

“So… you’re a uniform too?”

Beneath her politics, she did ultimately see Charlie and Carl as people. People who didn’t deserve to die, least of all deserved to die in so horrible a way as Dusty had. Some of the best anarchists had been veterans before the penny dropped, after all: she’d only moments ago been thinking of Smedley Butler. Besides, even if she didn’t care about their lives, a united front was still as much in her interest as it would be everyone else’s. So knowing who she was working with, and perhaps by some miracle establishing a good rapport? Good places to start.

And hey. It helped that the woman was pretty hot, too.

[Applesintime]

"Uniform in training, really. NRO=, uh, Naval Reserve Officers Training Corp. Majoring in nuke engineering, 'cause once I get outta here I want to be on a submarine and that's one of the more useful ones. Plus, once I get outta the Navy I can walk into any nuclear plant, slam my resume down and pretty much get a job on the spot!" Charlie grinned. She could guess that, uh, Esther was of a political affiliation where she didn't take too kindly to the military. Kinda stupid, she'd always thought. Especially since, like, she couldn't really think of anything the Navy had done that was bad and also done in the past like, thirty years. Sure, they'd done shit during the 1900s or whatever but that just kinda happened with everyone.

"Plus, if I ever get to command one of the subs I can wipe this place off the face of the Earth and nobody'll have to worry about weird fucked up robot worms or really fucking weird bears or whatever the fuck the Revenants are!" Granted, she'd have to get out of here first. And that's easier said than done. And then there's the little matter of the court martial, but eh. Probably would be worth it. Letting out an exhale, she glanced over to the bag that Carl left, before the pistol cradled in her hands.

"I should have paid more attention in Marine week." She knew the basics, point and shoot, squeeze instead of pull, but she didn't really dwell on them because if a submariner was on the front lines with an M4, something had gone very terribly wrong and she'd probably be better doing submarine shit. Even still, she did what she remembered. Pull the slide back (ejecting a bullet that Charlie hastily grabbed before it fell into the fire), take the magazine out (after a little fiddling with wherever the release was), put the bullet she'd racked out back into the magazine and put it back in.

"Like, uh, during the summer they ship you out somewhere for proper training on stuff, and the first summer you get to go practice with everything. Aviation, Marines, surface ships and subs. Didn't really pay much attention to the planes or the guns. Then the second summer they stick you in an actual, uh, whatever you choose with an enlisted buddy and they familiarise you with stuff, then the third summer you do the same thing but with an officer. Pretty fucking cool!"

You know, maybe the anti-military girl wouldn't find it cool, Charlie thought, but it was a reminder of better times. And they needed that.

[Dr Adjective]

It was a mixed experience, for Esther.

On the one hand, she had no love for the military. She had no love for the way they manufactured consent by making education unattainable without service, to say nothing of what that service actually did. But on the other, watching someone talk about The Thing They Love was always an enjoyable experience. So while Esther's reaction began with a scowl, the way Charlie's face lit up talking about what excited her, her charmingly upbeat attitude despite the horror of their present reality, it made Esther warm to the subject at least a little. She couldn't deny that the thought of nuking the entire site from orbit - the only way to be sure - was an appealing fantasy. It did bring a smile to her face to think of it.

Besides, as she kept reminding herself, good and honest people ended up in uniform all the time. Between the material benefits they promised and the pervasive propaganda, she couldn't really fault Charlie for buying in. Besides, it wasn't like Esther had the slightest confidence in her ability to convince the other girl otherwise. Persuasion was not her strong suit. United front, she reminded herself. United front.

"I guess."

It was the best she could muster. Esther had never really taken an interest in military vehicles, let alone submarines. Guns, though, she could do guns. Her fondness for the Second Amendment was often a surprise to other leftists on campus, but her answer was always the same - armed minorities are harder to oppress. And with her social life being as empty as it was, she had plenty of time to spend at the range preparing herself for the revolution she was pretty sure was never going to actually come. She moved a little closer, unsure how comfortable she was actually setting down her own gun. It remained in her hands for the time being.

"I can show you, if you want. I'm a, uh, big... small arms... person."

Smooth, Esther. Smooth.

[Applesintime]

Yep, Esther didn't seem too keen on the whole military thing at first! She'd seen her kinda people, her comrades, gathered around campus at various times protesting about things. The military-industrial complex, political stuff, Israel, the whole shebang of things that leftists liked to protest about. She wasn't gonna agree with them all the time, but they didn't really get in the way much and like, y'know, maaaaaaaybe they did have a point about the military-industrial complex. Or at least, uh, Janus-Hayes. Her beloved Texas Instruments and their combined output of calculators and missiles would never harm her. They would HARM her, though.

She sniggered a little at her own joke.

What Esther did offer to do was show her how to use the gun better, which would be pretty neat. Although, she didn't know how many bullets they had and she didn't want to use up all the ammo that Carl had given them. Carl, Carl, Carl. What the hell was he planning to do?

"That'd be cool! Once we get outta here would be nice, but, uhm, might be cool to do some practice here as well, though. Don't wanna waste all my ammo, though, and I dunno how much Carl has for his gun..." Glancing over at his bag, she then glanced back to Esther, who'd shuffled a little bit closer. "Think he'd mind if we took a look?" As she spoke, Charlie pulled the magazine out and gently thumbed all of the bullets out, counting in her head. Eight in total, which were put back in the magazine and thusly, put back in the gun.

Wasn't much, but she'd rather have it than a bunch of flares.

[Dr Adjective]

Yeah, not surprising. So smooth that even the cheerful and nice Charlie was stifling a snigger at her failed charisma check. Rude. Then she was talking about practice, and ammo, and...

"No, I meant..."

And then Charlie was wondering aloud about Carl and his ammo, and Esther trailed off, falling into her usual pattern of allowing herself to be talked over. She didn't have a particuarly strong attachment to what she'd actually meant anyway. The question of ammunition was important too, in fairness, not that Esther particularly wanted to admit that Charlie was right about anything after she'd laughed at her. She hadn't made fun of Charlie, she'd been nothing but welcoming what with sharing her hiding place and her fire and her fuckin' rifle. Anyway, she had to answer the question.

"I don't fuckin' know, you seem to know him better."

Her answer came with a scowl, not that a blind person could miss the displeasure in her tone either. It was a stupid question, he'd given her the gun hadn't he? And he was probably gonna die out in the blizzard anyway. A shame to throw away her gun - no, Dusty's gun - like that, but it was probably worth it to bloody Janus-Hayes' metaphorical nose by proxy.

Quite abruptly, Esther turned and walked away from Charlie and the warmth of the fire, moving towards one of the windows. Her mind had started going elsewhere, wondering about Carl, how he was handling the harsh weather, if he'd succeeded at doing... anything. What if he came back? The PDAs were almost certainly tracking vitals, that had to be how they knew when and how people had died. They were probably recording sound too, because why wouldn't they include that as a function if they wanted as much data as they could get on their pet monsters, not to mention control over the human subjects? So if Carl came back, just being around her and Charlie would necessarily be giving away his position, opening all three of them up to reprisal if he'd actually done anything properly rebellious.

More importantly, where did all of that leave her?

[Applesintime]

And as soon as they'd been getting along, Esther bitched at her and then withdrew to go gaze out of the window.

Charlie made a face, looking down at the gun she held in her hands. What? Had she said something wrong? Had, uh, her little giggle at her own little joke been seen as offensive? Or was like, Esther one of those people who'd totally ostracize you from anything they did if you said you didn't think everyone in the military shouldn't be put up in front of a court for crimes against humanity? Didn't seem like it, but she was just scrambling to know what she'd done wrong.

Despite the warm fire crackling away merrily in the room — something in the back of her mind was yelling about oxygen and smoke from fires inside causing injuries and stuff, but c'mon, this place probably had a few cracks in it to vent out all that nasty shit — Charlie felt a little cold. Isolated. She worried about Carl. He'd only been gone for what felt like a few minutes, but looking out at the howling storm outside, she wondered what the hell he was planning to do. He was probably gonna snipe, but, uh, could he even see in that snow? Wasn't like they'd slapped a thermal on it, and all that wind would knock your shots off target anyway.

"I hope he's alright. Carl." Charlie didn't know what had gotten into Esther, but she tried to reclaim some kind of common ground. She'd cared enough about Carl to give him her rifle, so maybe Esether was worried about him too. She'd seen what the Chimera, what the worms could do. That could be happening to him right now, and she couldn't do anything about it. His tracks would have been covered up by now. Like he'd never walked his path.

[Dr Adjective]

The Corporation had cameras too of course, Esther had seen their drones flying around, and felt it a safe assumption that some number of static recording devices were spread around the island as well, for the expected high-traffic areas like buildings. Same surveillance state, different place. Plus ça change.

The upshot then, was that she’d rushed into submitting to the urge to fight back, and it was now becoming clear that avoiding retaliation was going to be difficult at best. Destroying their own PDAs was probably a wise next step, though Esther hesitated to cut off her link to the information JH were putting out - she didn’t believe it to be perfectly accurate, but what they wanted her to think was still valuable info on its own… provided she could work out what that meant.

Oh, and Charlie had spoken up.

“Me too.”

Esther’s response was quiet, but it was sincere.

“He seems like a good guy.”

Seems. Present tense. She hadn’t done that consciously, but the hope behind it was real. Carl seemed like a tough enough guy: that blizzard out there would probably freeze Esther’s diminutive body solid in minutes, but if he could withstand that, he surely had all the typical stealthy guerrilla benefits on his side for surviving a counterattack.

“You know him well?” Esther asked suddenly, turning back towards the fire.
“Or was it just a coincidence, the soldier thing?”

[Applesintime]

And just like that, they'd found some common ground again. Something that got rid of all the nasty tension in the air.

Charlie exhaled in relief, leaping at the opportunity to restart this conversation and take it towards somewhere a little less argumentative.

"Nah, just coincidence. Different branches, and he's been out for years, I think. Did get talking about army stuff on the boat ride here, but, uh, the fake nuclear reactor alert sorta derailed that." She was still pissed about that, honestly! You don't fuck around with faking nuclear reactors going off and melting down and all that shit, it just makes people more paranoid about them. As it is, half the populace thought every reactor would inevitably go Chernobyl and make Fallout creatures.

...Granted, that was the wrong thing to focus on, but eh, she had to bitch and whine about something, why not the thing she's specialised in?

"I don't think he did any sniping or anything in the Marines, he was a machine gunner, so I hope he's a natural deadeye." She was still curious about exactly what Carl intended to do, but either way she'd probably end up hearing about it in the morning. "You got any friends on the boat? Anyone who you were in class with, or just buddies or whatever? Uh, did you ever mention what you're majoring in come to think of it?" Simple little questions, but in all the hubbub of Carl breaking his PDA and going AWOL, they'd kinda been forgotten. Being polite never hurt.

[Dr Adjective]

God, she really did waffle, didn't she? It was sort of endearing, Esther decided. Bounced right back to talking a mile a minute as if that whole little episode hadn't even happened. Maybe she didn't even realise what she'd done, and taken Esther for the sort of person who just defaulted to gloomy and prickly... not entirely inaccurate, in fairness. She certainly wasn't the sort who volunteered so much extra information when asked a question. Maybe that was why she didn't have any friends to speak of in her own response.

"Not really."

Esther pulled a face, the sort that said do I look like a girl who has friends? At the same time, she was trying to get a read on Charlie's expression, figure out if she'd even known she'd given offence, let alone intended it. A hard ask for Esther's tragically weak social skills, but an effort worth putting in in the name of cooperation. Mostly she looked... relieved?

"There was one guy I recognised, Xander or something? Tall guy, glasses, curly hair? Got History in common."

And that rather neatly answered the second question too. Or did it? Shouldn't she be volunteering more trivia? Maybe that would make things nicer. Not too much nicer though. Chances were she'd fuck something up and have to watch this pretty girl die at some point, just like...

Esther seemed to be frozen in the moment, mouth half-open to add more information. Nothing emerged. The corners of her eyes seemed to glisten a little, but maybe that was just the fire.

[Applesintime]

Xander, yeah. Charlie had seen a guy around the ship a couple of times who fit the description that Esther had given; tall, a little lanky, looked like he'd be the prime target of any stereotypical high school bully. He seemed, uh... nice enough, she guessed? Charlie'd never talked to him, and she probably wasn't going to get to. She meant, well, yeah, the dude was probably fine right now thinking positively. Holed up in some building weathering the storm like they were.

Thinking less positively, well... eh, she wasn't gonna do that kinda thing! Thinking negatively just made you feel like crap, and here on this island morale was just as important a resource as food, ammo and guns.

Judging by Esther's face, the way the corners of her eyes were just a little wet, seemed she needed a little morale boost herself. Maybe it was just the fire, but for the crackling light to reflect off of wetness, there had to be wetness there first. At least, that kinda made sense. And uh, even if she was being a dumbass and was reading into nothing, she was kinda just... paused. LIke someone'd pressed the space bar and turned off the Esther Youtube video.

Reaching to her a little cautiously, Charlie gave her a few gentle pats on the back, like she was pressing the space bar to make her play again. "You alright?"

[Dr Adjective]

Nothing happened for a moment, then as if she'd only just noticed the physical contact from several seconds prior, Esther jerked away from where Charlie had patted her.

"Other Voices!" she blurted out rather suddenly, as if she had indeed been paused, skipped some sort of connecting phrase that linked it more clearly to what she'd been saying before, then started up again after a slight delay like a vinyl record skipping or a glitch in a digital file.

"Uh. I mean. That's, that's what I was doing this year. Other Voices: Marginalisation in Early-Modern North America. It's, uh. Hard to study that kind of thing and not turn out a little bit radical, you know?"

Yeah, bringing it back to volunteering interesting details about herself and thinking about something, anything, other than the situation they were actually in. Would it still only make things worse if she started seeing Charlie as a friend before some awful tragedy inevitably killed one or both of them in unspeakably violent ways? Sure. But it was better than breaking down and looking like a total idiot. Probably. Either way, only after explaining all of this did Esther realise she hadn't actually answered whether or not she was alright. That hadn't been on purpose, but continuing not to answer was a choice she made. Obviously she wasn't alright. She could still picture human gore and iridescent blood splatters in the dim moonlight of the dormitory corridors, or rather, struggled not to, each time she closed her eyes.

[Applesintime]

Esther pulled away, and for a second Charlie was worried that she'd misjudged the situation and that they were gonna have another frosty situation to match the frosty weather outside.

But, uh, no! She just decided at that moment to talk about what she was doing for her history class. Something about, uh... colonisation she guessed, and how it affected the Native Americans? And maybe the slaves? Really, 'Early-Modern America' kinda seemed like a bit of a wide range, and Charlie had never really been all into history that much anyway, it was all sorta just learning dates and names to her. She always liked to get her hands dirty doing stuff.

"Yeah, I getcha." She'd dissent about like, not having to radicalise yourself in response to reading bad stuff, but then again she wasn't Esther. "I wasn't, uh, really working onanything in particular, but, uh.. honest;y? I wanted to go look at the submarine pens here. You know the Soviets had a sub base here during the Cold War? Nothing fancy, I think it was just a resupply place, but, uh, thought it'd be cool to go take a look." A brief pause, and Charlie reclined back, sticking her hands firmly on the floor for balance.

"Any reason why you came here? No offense, but, uh, don't really think all of this," leaning forwards a little, Charlie gestured around herself, to the building, the island, everything, "is really relevant to learning about uh, racism in the, like, 17 to 1800s." Was this like, North America or was it Europe? Supposed it depended on where exactly it was, but it was semantics compared to the beasts prowling outside.

[Dr Adjective]

Okay good, Charlie hadn’t taken her for a total freak after that little display. Or as more of one than she already did. Fuck, it was probably already 100% and she was only even consenting to spend time with Esther because there wasn’t much of a polite way to leave and…

A scowl began playing across Esther’s features, lasting a good few seconds before she caught herself. Calm down. Not a catastrophe. Or even if it is, play along as if she really is interested in the details and not just taking pity on the weird little gremlin. Esther bit her lip, took a deep breath through her nose.

“Was just curious, more about Janus-Hayes than the Russians. I guess I’ve got Cold War stuff coming up at some point as well though, or, I did…”

Great start. Esther immediately brought it back to being doomed, and so rather quickly trailed off rather than elaborate. Stop. Pause. Take a breath. Don’t start crying just because you’re gonna die just like Dusty and it’s only now hitting you how real that actually is. Don’t fucking cry in front of soldier girl. Deep breath again. Go. Esther couldn’t quite keep the waver out of her voice, but she managed to speak.

“You, um… want to go there? The sub pen, if the storm clears up?”

Might as well, right? Any bolthole was as good as any other, and happiness was in short enough supply in Serensk that failing to chase a passion would feel downright wasteful. And Charlie really was very charming when she smiled, it even managed to lift Esther’s spirits, just a bit.

[Applesintime]

"Yeah. That'd be nice, uh, as long as there's no weird things there trying to eat or subsume or uh, whatever the fuck these things wanna do to us." Charlie smiled again, glancing around the room. Their little desk fire was still crackling warmly, although there was a little bit less of a glow to it. She'd always been told that like, fires in enclosed spaces were capital-D Dangerous, but that probably applied moreso to big massive fires in the middle of submarines a few hundred metres underwater, not uh, small fires in the middle of an arctic wasteland.

"Although, uh, come to think of it there's also an armory in town. I woke up there, big concrete building with all of these crates with Russian on them stacked up. I dunno if, uh, there'd be much ammo we could use, probably doesn't store well in this cold, but might be an idea to check it out? Could get more ammo." Charlie was sure that they'd have more than enough, but also it would be nice to have a little backlog. Just in case.

Standing up, Charlie sorta stretched a little. Not that she was planning to go anywhere in particular right now, but she was getting maybe a lil' stiff. Her NROTC superiors would probably be groaning at her about how she hadn't done her exercises or how she'd done this or that wrong, but trying to survive in this place was probably pretty good exercise!