Exploring

[Katie]

"Damn, you're pretty strong babe, thanks," Marion said, giving Kassandra a kiss on the cheek, impressed by her ability to carry her with seeming ease. Marion heard what Mina said, and had her own thoughts on the matter. "Hey Kass, when we get to the door, would you be willing to go through first and hold it open for me and Mina? Assuming you don't get shot at the second you leave this building, that is."

[Aura]

Kassandra set Marion near the door and once more took a spot at the front of the group.  Man, when did she become the leader?  She seemed to be the first one jumping into everything since the shot happened.  But then again, Marion functionally had no hands and they had just met Mina, so if anyone was going to take the head of the operation, it might as well have been her.

She sidled over to the door and put her hand on the handle.  She stared down at the light coming from underneath.  This was a big risk.  Once they were outside, they were targets again.  If the shooter was in just the right spot, then they could shoot them down as soon as they were on the run.  But staying trapped just wasn't an option.  They had to make their move, and they weren't going to just sit around and wait to die.  She took a moment to steel her nerves and turned to adress the other girls.

"Okay, the instant I open the door, you run.  Down the alley, down the street, whatever.  I'm fast enough to keep up, so you don't gotta worry about me.  Just make sure you make it out."

She closed her eyes and turned the handle.  She counted in her mind.  One... two...

...THREE!

She threw the door open as forcefully as she could, turning around and pressing against it with her back to get just a little extra room for the girls to slip through.  She was now facing an alleyway, darkened from the buildings on both sides and strewn with trash that for some reason was not in the nearby dumpster.

"Go!  Now!"  She commanded, disregarding tact and stealth in her zeal to evacuate.

[Katie]

"Got it!" Marion yelled, sprinting forward like Kassandra had instructed. Unfortunately, she was so focused on running as fast as possible, that she neglected to look where she was stepping; as she sprinted through the alley, she slipped on one of the pieces of trash, and, unable to break her fall given her handcuffed state, landed right on her ass.

"OW, FUCK!" Marion swore. "Someone wanna help me up?"

[MurderWeasel]

Go. Now. That was all Mina needed to hear.

It was time, and Kassandra flung the door open and stepped outside, and they went, first Marion and then Mina. It was bright, or at least brighter than the dim room, and Mina blinked, dazzled for a just a moment, as they tore into the alleyway. Her bag thumped against her side, almost pulled her over, but she kept her balance and kept moving,, boots scraping against gravel and garbage. Thank goodness for good traction.

Not everyone was so lucky. Marion stepped wrong, slipped on some rubbish or loose earth, and dropped with a cry. Mina growled under her breath. She knew it. Just knew it.

Faster than the bear. Don't stop if someone goes down. Get a corner as fast as possible.

She passed the prone Marion, made it one step, two. The girl was calling out. Kassandra was big and strong and could carry Marion. There was something between the two of them. Mina had seen the little kiss. They could take care of each other. They could make the stupid choice, take the needless risk. They could be the ones gunned down like dogs for it. It wasn't worth Mina's life. She'd told them. She'd promised herself no guilt.

But she wasn't going to win anyways. She wasn't going to live. What had she thought? A quick shot to the back of the head, her skull blown open and her brain turned to pulp, just one more body on the pile. Nothing meant anything, and her biggest choice left was how to die. She wanted something decent, a fate she could feel okay about. Was it such a bad way to perish, going back for a fallen comrade?

Mina slowed on her third step, stopped on her fourth, though her bag's continuing momentum jerked her half a step further. She looked over her shoulder at Marion, lying in the dirt and the trash. The world hung for a moment, the adrenaline pulsing through her, her breath stinging in her throat and lungs. She was blind to everything except herself and Marion, the girl so close that Mina could duck back, reach down, hoist her up and help her along with ease.

In a split second, Mina decided how she'd die: not here and not now. No stopping for the fallen. She'd warned them and they'd agreed.

Mina whipped her head back around and picked up her momentum again and darted around the corner and beyond, making her way halfway down the next alley before slamming her back against the stucco wall of another dirty building and then sliding to a crouch behind a dumpster, one palm flat on the ground to balance herself, waiting to see if the other two survived to catch up with her.

[Aura]

"Fuck!"

Kassandra's shout came not just in reaction to Marion's fall, but Mina's reaction to it.  She saw her go down.  She even stopped.  She knew exactly what happened and what could happen, and she just moved on.  She would have been angrier, but she was a little preoccupied by the other piece of the situation: Marion needed her.

She left her post at the door, leaving it in its half-open state as she rushed to aid Marion.  She crouched and hooked her arm around the other girl's midsection, helping her stand up as they got back on the move.  "I got you.  I got you."  She repeated as they got their momentum back up, trying to assure Marion after her fall.

Kass's footspeed was slowed by having to support Marion, but there was no way in hell that she was leaving her behind.  The two of them managed to make it out of the alley and around the corner without having another shot fired at them, although Mina had gotten out of sight, and Kass was worried that Marion may have been injured in her fall, so that was probably something that she would have to check out as soon as they were relatively safe.

Kass ambled around another corner and caught sight of Mina keeping herself low to the ground right next to a dumpster.  She was incensed, but she wasn't dumb enough to risk blowing their cover in case they were still being stalked.  She made her way over with Marion in tow and gave Mina a look that she assumed would communicate the way she felt about her actions.

[Katie]

"Thanks, babe," Marion said as Kassandra helped her up. She held onto Kassandra for dear life as Kass helped her run. Marion wasn't slowed down too much, only having a bruised bottom as far as she could tell, but she appreciated Kass's support nonetheless.

When they found Mina ducking down by a dumpster, Marion could tell Kass wasn't happy about Mina leaving Marion behind by the glare she was giving her, but Marion wasn't all that bothered. She understood why Mina left her; she probably didn't want to risk getting shot at if she slowed down to help her.

"Cut her some slack, Kass, I can't exactly say I wouldn't have done the same thing in her shoes."

[MurderWeasel]

Mina closed her eyes, breathed deep, listened. She heard nothing at first but her own pulse. No gunfire rattled out. No screams followed her. Then, a few seconds later, came the scraping of people moving. Her hand went to her bag, fumbling for the zipper, but she couldn't find it before she opened her eyes and saw Marion and Kassandra making their way around the corner, decidedly not dead and seemingly not much worse for wear. Obviously, as she'd predicted, Kassandra had stopped for Marion, supporting the handcuffed girl. Based on their current state of affairs, it was pretty safe to say that nobody had been waiting in ambush. That also meant that odds were solid nobody was following them. Whoever had fired might have given up and left, or maybe they were still waiting out front for the girls to show their faces, failing to imagine an alternative exit.

The reception Mina got from the others was a perfect one-two punch of guilt alleviation, at least. Kassandra glared at her like she was horrible for not putting her life on the line after explicitly saying she wasn't going to, so Mina scowled back and raised an eyebrow at the other girl, like, you gonna make something of it? Marion, on the other hand, admitted freely she'd have done exactly the same thing, which was good information to stow away for the future. Mina appreciated the perhaps-unintentional warning, and resolved to pay close attention indeed to where she was in the order of any future travel arrangements. She also appreciated the words of support, because much as she hated to admit it she didn't really want to get into it with Kassandra. Mina had been in her share of tussles, but even an initially small altercation could assume dire proportions here, and even though Mina had dirty tricks on her side, she didn't rate her chances at coming out of a brawl with the larger girl in good shape very well.

Her breathing was slowing, the world around her coming back into focus. The ground was rough, the alley shaded by the buildings to either side. It smelled, but the stench was more rotting garbage than rotting fish, which proved an unexpectedly welcome respite. Mina's left sock had slid down halfway to her ankle, and she adjusted her posture a little, pulled it back up, and straightened her skirt, nearly losing her balance in the process. She noticed at the same time that the laces on her boots were starting to come undone and took a moment to redo them, a nice firm double knot, not tight enough to cut off circulation and not loose enough to mess with her balance.

Distantly, she wondered how KeKe and her high heels were doing. Had the girl yet faced anything like what Mina had encountered?

[Aura]

Kassandra held her glare at Mina when she shot a look back.  She only broke it when Marion spoke up in Mina's defense, and she decided that it just wasn't worth the effort to hold a grudge about it, at least not outwardly.  Wasn't going to stop her from thinking twice about trusting Mina again so quickly in the future, though.  Kass wasn't against forgiving, but she didn't forget too often.

She leaned against the wall and sighed, arcing her head upwards and staring at the sky.  They were shielded from the sun, so all she saw was a sheet of blue with a swarm of clouds floating around.  She noticed that they hadn't heard another shot since the initial one that had startled them in the first place, so it seemed likely that either the shooter couldn't see them any more, or they had given up.  Either of those options would be good, but Kass didn't feel comfortable about taking chances.

"We should get out of the area."  She stated from her slumped position.  "Just in case they're still looking for us."

[Katie]

"Fine by me. Any suggestions on where to go next?" Marion asked.

[MurderWeasel]

"Moving around can be dangerous," Mina said. Kassandra had eventually broken off the glare, so for now peace would hold. That was a relief, a comfort, though inside Mina held a certain awareness that nothing had actually been settled, just pushed until a possible later boiling point. Maybe there'd be a reckoning yet, or maybe they'd split or someone would die and the baggage would never need to be unpacked. In that light, it really didn't seem so important to find resolution.

"Entering new territory is when you're most open," she continued. This was not exactly a suggestion as to where they should head, nor was it a disagreement with Kassandra's stance that they should leave. Mina was just used to challenging. If they were going to move, she wanted to be sure it was for good reason, that they weren't just being flushed by their own fear and an instinctual yet illogical desire to put distance between themselves and a place where something scary had happened. It was, after all, by moving into the unknown and approaching their building that Mina had ended up in the crosshairs to begin with. Right here, right now, she could be fairly sure nobody was shooting at them or preparing an immediate attack on them. Somewhere else, who could say?

Still, she straightened herself up, brushing at her skirt and bag to clear away dust that may or may not have been there. Her back still hurt a little, though the blow the soldier had inflicted upon her and the bruise that had bloomed in its wake both felt far further away than they must have actually been. Her legs and left shoulder were also mildly aching, probably just because she'd pushed herself hard in a state of high alertness and anxiety. Those pains she could probably work out with a little rest, and even as she thought this she massaged her shoulder with her hand, pressing deeply into the muscle, relishing the pressure that neared light pain. It helped a bit.

She looked from Kassandra to Marion and back, trying to get a feeling for how they were holding up. So far, their morale had been fairly unshakable aside from Kassanda getting pissed a few moments ago. Maybe that was because the danger had been a lot more distant to them. They'd been inside when the gunshot hit. Nobody had been shooting at them. If all had gone as the attacker had hoped, Mina would've died on the spot and Kassandra and Marion might've found her corpse when they eventually decided to poke their heads outside. Probably whoever it was wouldn't have even bothered them unless they showed their faces right away.

"It'd also be good to pool what we know," Mina added. "Where have you been so far?"

[Aura]

Mina had a really good point, and Kassandra couldn't deny it.  Once they poked their heads out, they would be targets again.  But even so, she didn't want to stick around for even a second longer than necessary.  They needed a plan, true, but as soon as they had one in place, Kass wanted out of there.  There was danger everywhere in the Program, but she had no interest in hanging around where there was active peril, and at that moment this little cluster of alleyways fit the bill.

She quickly agreed to Mina's plan to share information.  If they could cross a few more areas off the list or find a place that might act as a sanctuary of sorts, then it was definitely worth the exchange.  She counted on her fingers as she went through all of the places that she had visited so far in her head.

"All right, so we were at the graveyard for a while, but seeing as Marion was chained up there for a few hours, I don't think we're too keen on heading back anytime soon."  Kass figured that there was no point heading back there so soon, especially with Marion's experiences taken into account.  "The salvage yard's a wasteland of garbage dominated by a mountain of sharp, twisted metal, so I'd call it pretty dangerous by default.  And then we went to the pool, where..."

She trailed off, remembering the scene that they had come across at the seawater pool.  Her expression became visibly ill for a moment before she shook it off and continued.

"... Yeah, just don't go to the pool."

[Katie]

Marion gagged at the mention of the pool. "Oh God, the pool..."

Marion quickly purged her thoughts of the pool from her mind, and pondered what a good place for them to go next would be. "Perhaps we could go check out the houses to the east? They seem to be the fanciest, and I'm betting a stuck-up bitch like Brittany Chesterton would be drawn to them like moths to a flame."

[MurderWeasel]

Mina unzipped her bag and pulled out her map as Kassandra ran through the places she'd been to. There was other information conveyed too, though Mina wasn't sure how much she could take from it. Apparently, Marion had been held captive for a substantial period of time; she'd probably shaken off the gas and awoken before Mina had. Kassandra had been dumpster-diving. That in turn implied that perhaps the banged-up pipe the girl had been carrying was not actually her assigned weapon; she could have something else in reserve, and it could be decent or terrible. There was no politic way to raise that question right now, not when Kassandra was probably already running low on trust for her, so Mina filed it away.

"Just don't go to the pool," was not particularly illuminating, but since it managed to provoke a response from Marion, Mina didn't push at it. She decided she might just have to go to the pool later, though; clearly whatever had occurred was distressing but not dangerous enough to merit clearer mention, and that sort of vagueness made her curious.

"Houses to the east could be good," Mina said. She was not at all invested in Marion's revenge quest, but these denser districts offered the best opportunities for hiding places as well as the greatest possible comfort. Of course, others would likely have the same idea—who wanted to spend their time in a place labeled "The Dump" when there was even so much as a shack with a plastic folding chair as an alternative?—but that was a hurdle that could be overcome when relevant, which was to say later.

"I was at—" Mina squinted at the map, trying to figure it out. "—the wet market, I think. It wasn't bad. After that, I wondered along the waterfront, but I didn't stop anywhere until I met you."

Collectively, they'd actually covered a fairly large span of the area, especially given how early it still was. The longer between the present and the gathering of intelligence, the less valuable it became, but at least they had a general idea of what to expect and a number of places that might be safe, if unpleasant, to return to.

[Aura]

"East houses might be all right.  Bigger places mean more places to hide.  Hell, it might even be kinda comfortable."  The concept of possibly having a nice bed to lay down in was pretty enticing to Kassandra.  She imagined that she wasn't the only one to have that idea, and tried to piece together how many people may have already headed there for the same reason... or perhaps avoided it knowing how popular they had a chance to be.  It was a bit of a toss-up, but it was an option for now.

The wet market wasn't a place that Kassandra had put any thought into at all.  From the sounds of things, Mina didn't run into any trouble back there, and the word "market" implied that they might be able to find some supplies while they were down there.  It sounded like a pretty viable option in its own right, but she couldn't make a definitely decision between the two quite yet.

"All right, so I guess we're between the east houses and the wet market.  Arguments for or against?"  She figured that doing this democratically would probably be the best solution.  Less chance of unnecessarily pissing someone off that way.

[Katie]

"I'm fine with either one," Marion said, with a shrug. "Brittany's more likely to be at the east houses, but I figure there's also a greater chance of running into trouble there, since I'd imagine the well-kept state of the houses there would attract lots of people."