It would suck if someone was already in the room when Dusty entered

[Polybius]

Some of you must have been wondering why ol' Dusty hadn't shown up yet, right? No? Well, who needs you?

((P018: Dustin James - START))

Dusty had felt like he'd been climbing these stairs for weeks. Actually, he was only halfway between the third and fourth floors. Dusty identified as a "Fat Fuck" so he hated stairs, and climbing four flights while carrying a giant gun had taken a lot out of him. The Russkies hadn't invented elevators yet, clearly. He was already panting and disgustingly sweaty, his chest burning. If the giant monster that had killed Professor Harrison ad approached him at this point, he might have welcomed having his lungs ripped out. But with one last push, he shambled up to the top step, and immediately collapsed back into the wall.

Dusty dug in his pack for a water bottle, which he greedily drained halfway before reluctantly putting it back down. He had to think about resource management. Dusty had pondered his chances for a long while, and came to the obvious conclusion that he was fucked unless he was both very careful and very lucky. Thankfully, he'd already had a small bit of luck when he was given a fancy sniper rifle along with his dorky PDA. He'd never fired a gun before, so he was forced to rely on the PDA's manual and his experience playing PUBG. His experience told him to find high ground, so he went to the top of the biggest building he saw. Hunkering down in one of these tiny apartments seemed like a good idea, too. It was unlikely that someone would find him in this large building with dozens of apartments- and if they did, there was only one entrance. It'd be easy to defend if someone came knocking.

When Dusty regained his breath enough to stand back up, he tried to remember which direction the town square had been in. If he had a view of the town square, he'd be able to see anyone coming. And, well, it'd give him the best chances of finding a target. If he felt like it. That was the one part that Dusty hadn't wanted to think about. Not right away.

He found an apartment that still had a door, facing where he believed the town square was located. The door was closed, but he tries the handle and found it unlocked. For the briefest moment before he pushed the door open, Dusty thought it would be funny if someone had the same exact idea as him and was already in the room.

Dusty hoped that nothing funny would happen to him in Survival of the Fittest.

[Dr Adjective]

[Esther Ježek didn’t like it in Switzerland]

Fuck fuck FUCK.

All she’d wanted was to make the screaming stop.

Esther’s legs carried her as fast as they could across the frozen ground, which given her small stature and sedentary lifestyle, which not fast at all. Alternating between crunching in snow, slapping against paving, thudding on frigid earth, her frantic steps punctuated the constant drone of her suitcase’s wheels behind her. She didn’t want to see someone die over a fucking power tool. Not when she knew damn well she could’ve done something to stop it.

She’d just wanted the older lady to calm down.

Why was she so fucking bad at expressing that?

The diminutive runner came to a stop at a door, ajar, leading into one of the tenement blocks. It seemed far enough away. She’d wanted to go indoors, somewhere she could at least be enclosed, keep the heat in and the wind out. So in she went, avoiding actually touching the exterior door. Better to disturb as little as possible, leave minimal trace.

She’d had the opportunity to do something good in her life. She had a gun, she had power. Esther could’ve been helpful. Instead she’d gone an intimidated someone, mocked her distress, and run away at the first sign of trouble. She whacked a nearby wall with the sturdy wooden butt of her SMG, cursed aloud when the impact recoiled back up her arm and hurt her elbow. Why was she like this?

Still. She had her own survival to worry about. Esther decided that upstairs would be ideal, maybe monsters would struggle with staircases. Getting a good vantage point would definitely help spot them coming, at least. So upstairs she went, struggling to pull her suitcase up with her. She considered abandoning it, but she couldn’t entirely remember what was in there and decided it would be best to find her hiding place first. If she started going through her things someplace else, she feared she’d get comfortable and decide against moving on.

It was about the time that she got to the top floor that she began hearing the telltale sounds of human activity. Echoes in the halls. It only served to make the abandoned homescape feel even more like some kind of Backrooms liminal space creepypasta. It was eerie enough in the Chernobyl-looking-ass building already, unidentified noises from an uncertain location? Much worse.

So Esther darted into a nearby room. The door had been open, but she could see inside that the windows were all intact. It was as good as she was going to get. So she closed the door slowly, shoved her case into a corner, and tipped over the living room table to serve as makeshift cover. Hunkering down behind it, the girl trained her PPSh on the door.

She waited, hoped, prayed.

Footsteps drew nearer.

Oh come on. What were the odds?

The door handle turned.

She didn’t want to shoot, so…

“Hey! I’m armed, okay?!”

[Polybius]

Oh. It happened. Dusty shouldn't have been surprised. Dusty didn't know if God was real, but he was sure as shit that comedy was real. The universe contorted around itself to create the highest amount of comedy possible. That's why everyone was so fucking miserable all the time.

Dusty backed away from the door. His plan was all well and fucked at this point - this chick knew he was here, and even if he chose another room she'd likely come knocking as soon as she felt like racking up her score. He had to abandon the building, try another. Go back down the stairs... and go into one of the other buildings... and climb to the fourth floor again...

Oh. Actually, it was more intelligent to try and find allies. It would be idiotic to try and tackle this whole "game" by himself. The loners would get picked off.

"Hey..." he said hoarsely. "So am I."

He ran his hand down the Dragunov, hanging off the strap around his chest. Right there in case he needed it.

"We could just shoot at each other, but that would be dumb. We're not animals, right?"

Dusty didn't know where he was going with this, or what his plan with the girl ultimately was. Temporary safety? Getting too into your head was the worst thing you could do in improv. Those principles probably didn't transfer to whatever this was, but...

"God, those stairs are a bitch." he panted. "All I'm looking for is a tiny bit of peace. I'm dusty."

He assumed she didn't know who he was. It was a big school. And he wasn't exactly a celebrity, yet.

"And my name's also Dusty."

[Dr Adjective]

So he was armed too. Not a big surprised, everyone apparently had something, and if they were expected to provide a remotely meaningful challenge to that chimaera monster it stood to reason that weird assignments like Catarina's buzzsaw would be less common than weapons that were... well, purpose-made to be weapons. Kind of like that bit in Stranger Things right? They gave the guys in the gulag actual weapons so... wait no, they did that so that the victims would believe they had a chance, and actually try to fight so the monster didn't get bored.

So were they expected to actually stress-test the monsters - plural, Esther recalled, they'd indicated that Manbearpig wasn't the only one - or were they just keeping the things entertained?

Her line of thinking was interrupted by the fact that Dusty was still speaking. He indicated he wasn't looking for trouble. Of course, someone looking for trouble would also say that. The optimal approach to genuinely sharing safety with her and the optimal approach to betraying her and taking her gun were kind of the same approach.

But then he made a joke. And despite the gravity of the situation, Esther snorted and giggled out loud. Okay fuck it, he earned a pass. The odds were stacked against survival for Esther anyway, she could think of worse ways of going out than getting shot in the back of the head and never knowing it. Of course he could do worse, but... that didn't bear thinking about. Still probably better than being dismembered and eaten. She tilted her gun up towards the ceiling in a sign of peace, though of course she didn't actually let go of it just yet.

"Alright Dusty, I can share. Be less fuckin' cold with two of us in this shoebox, right?"

She wondered briefly if it would be possible to get the heating back on. Probably no mains power on the island, so probably not.

"Oh. I'm Esther. Don't worry, I didn't know you either."

[Polybius]

"Alright, thanks. Esther."

Shit, he was being smooth here. It was working. Now there was nothing to do but open the door and walk in. ...Fuck, that was gonna be the worst part. There was a decent chance Esther was pointing a gun right at the door and that his life would end the second he opened it.

C'mon, Dusty. You cant chicken out now! That would suck! Yes, and. C'mon.

Dusty slowly pushed the door open a crack and then poked his head through. Esther was a short ginger - hey, they already had two things to bond over! She had a distinctive appearance. He'd definitely seen her before, maybe in some of his history lectures? Her gun was smaller than his but it'd certainly be more dangerous in close quarters.

Dusty opened the door the rest of the way, making sure to show that neither of his hands were on his rifle. He looked at her bear hat, whose eyes were almost level with his. Battle royale game? Funny hat? His mind began to formulate some joke about how she must have gotten it from the cash shop. It kind of made sense, right? But it was a stupid nerd kid joke so he forced his mind to move on.

"Nice to meet ya. Mind if I take a seat?"

[Dr Adjective]

As Dusty entered, Esther likewise regarded him. Her immediate thought was that he looked like a nerd. The sort that might get bullied in a high school drama show. About her age too. In other circumstances maybe they could've been friends, if true. More importantly he made up for all this in the threatening-appearance stakes by toting a very large rifle - Esther had only recently started delving into her interest in guns and World War 2 history wasn't her strongest suit, but she thought she recognised it as an SVD? The name wasn't important, in any case. The unwieldy size and scope on it suggested to her it wouldn't be much of a threat in such close quarters, at least not when she herself was carrying a much more compact weapon that could fill the whole room with lead in a couple of seconds.

Plus, he genuinely seemed like he wasn't looking for trouble. Sure she'd stay on her guard either way, but she didn't expect to be attacked in the small room at least.

So, she stood up from behind the overturned table, shfiting her grip on the PPSh away from the trigger (but not too far away) as a peaceful gesture, and looked around at the seating options. Not exactly salubrious but better than the floor. She elected to remain standing for the time being anyway.

"Yeah, knock yourself out."

While he sat, she investigated the other doors in the room, careful not to take her eyes off of Dusty for more than a few seconds at a time. Two bedrooms and a kitchen even smaller than her own college dorm's. At least they'd have some privacy if they two decided to bunk down overnight. That said...

"Think we can get the heating back on in this bitch?"

Probably not any power on the island, actually. Oh well.

[Polybius]

Dusty plopped down on some stained old couch that creaked when he sat down on it. He hadn't realized just how worn out his legs were until he'd sat down, and now they felt like big, aching weights hanging off of his torso. He let out a long, relieved sigh.

"Heat? No. I don't think so."

He craned his neck to watch Esther zip and out between the rooms, while shooting him apprehensive glances every so often. He looked away as their eyes met, his sigh resting on the overturned table.

"Were you planning on just hunkering down here?" he asked. It had been a good idea. Dusty was just too slow.

In his relaxation, he couldn't forget that she was a competitor. Esther didn't give a flying fuck about him or his safety, and he felt the same way about her. Er, not that he wanted her to die or anything. It was just- it was complicated.

"This whole thing is stupid. Janus-Hayes are a bunch of dumbasses." he grumbled.

Dusty's whole existence was going to be minimized to being a data point in some stupid report about how fast a monster could digest his flesh, or what shade of brown its shit would be afterwards. It was outrageous. He had so much more to offer the world! He was better than this! He was so angry that if his legs weren't killing him he'd get up and break shit!

"Blegh." he enunciated.

[Dr Adjective]

Yeah. Didn't think so. Still, something had compelled Esther to speak. She felt like that was what someone was supposed to do in this situation, wasn't it? She'd seen movies. You suggested bad ideas, you quipped wittily, eventually something smart came to mind and you did that. Perhaps it was fortunate for Dusty that Esther had no idea how to be witty on purpose.

As for the environs, yeah. Cold comfort. Literally. But it was better than being outside. So was she planning on hunkering down in the dorm?

"Yeah. Probably. For now."

Meanwhile he was grumbling about how stupid their captors were.

Oh yeah, that had been her train of thought before. What the fuck they were all doing here.

"I don't know what the fuck they want from us."

That was sort of an agreement. Mostly a segue to her favourite subject. She was a history student, and a conspiracist, so naturally she'd tried to learn how to better read and interpret propaganda. In the course of that attempt, she'd learned to see just about any messaging of any kind as potentially a form of propaganda. Government literally putting out a message to tell you they want you to do something: obviously propaganda. The overall output of popular media and the themes deemed acceptable: also propaganda, but subtle. Hell, she thought of the state of discourse around civil planning was propaganda, pushing for roads and cars at the expense of public transit and indeed the working poor. But that was beside the point. The point was that Janus-Hayes had elected to tell them, and indeed that they'd chosen to tell them anything at all in the first place, was a form of propaganda to be deciphered. What did they want? What understanding of their messaging were they hoping their captives would come to? What could they do to achieve the opposite instead, assuming it wasn't an elaborate double-bluff and that wasn't what they actually wanted to begin with?

"Tell us only one of us can go home, sure, they want us to fight amongst ourselves. Makes sense. But then they've already faked all our deaths. And how are they going to stop us telling the actual truth when we get home, even if they scrub any proof? Kill us and make it look even more sus? And then the fuckin' monster things, are we meant to want to fight them? Be scared shitless? I can't get a read on these cunts."

Deep breath. Huh, she really had wanted to get that out, hadn't she?

"Fuck. What do you think? I wanna do the opposite of what they want but I don't know what the not-fuckin'-opposite is."

[Polybius]

What did he want to do? Well, Dusty had wanted to sit alone in an apartment and watch people from the window. Instead he was doing this. He was making shit up as he went along. That was what Dusty was best at, after all.

His comment had really gotten Esther worked up. He'd only known her for like two minutes, but Dusty thought that she seemed much smarter than the average U of C dumbass. He though it wouldn't be a waste of time to have this conversation with her. Bounce ideas off of each other. Maybe the girl could keep up. He leaned forward and clasped his hands together.

"This Sycamore guy. He's clearly just an idiot who was given too much money, right? What is he supposed to gain from this experiment? Even if giving us all weapons and pitting us against each other could give Janus-Hayes information about how societies collapse -which I don't see how it will - why would they muck it up by dropping a bunch of monsters on us? That's like four different experiments in one. Like-"

He paused.

"Obviously they're hiding a lot from us. Why would they want us to kill each other? Why would they ever let someone go home? Why just one? What happens if more than one person makes it two weeks? We can't trust anything that guy said."

He'd reached the end of his line of thought. He could try reasoning it out, but in the end he just didn't have enough information. He was just talking.

"Shit. I wanna piss them off, too. But we don't know what they really want, to begin with. I don't know what would piss 'em off. Maybe destroying those monsters of theirs."

He laughed awkwardly, then coughed.

[Dr Adjective]

Esther listened. She scowled and she listened.

The boy Dusty seemed sharp. He agreed with her for starters, which she automatically took as a sign of intelligence. Then he expanded, explained, explored. Her only quibble was dismissing the man in charge as an idiot out of hand: she wasn’t ready to assume that just yet. Incompetence was often a better explanation than malice, sure, but when malice was already plainly obvious, no, better to presume they were missing vital context.

“What if it’s really simple?”

She took a moment to look out the window. Only a moment. Still not willing to trust Dusty 100%. Sure his gun was of little use indoors, but Esther’s SMG wouldn’t be worth much either if the puny arms holding it were pinned by someone bigger, stronger, and heavier. She’d started taking an interest in firearms for a reason after all. Couldn’t feel safe around men in civilised society, why start in a death game?

“What are we, like, thirty-some people, loosely connected, mostly kinda know each other.”

She paused. Snorted.

“‘Cept me, but whatever. But like a micro-society, right? Maybe we’re as close as it gets to a situation just like this? Small town America, everyone sort of knows each other and everyone’s armed, society’s broken down but only recently, and then there’s monsters? What if they’ve got a real end of the world scenario planned?”

Or what if they were well-intentioned extremists convinced they were the good guys for looking into how best to survive that scenario? Assuming it was somehow coming against their will rather than because of it. Wouldn’t exactly surprise Esther to learn that the Chinese, or the Russians, or someone else had a similar thing going on. More likely to be the first thing though. Rich assholes terrorising the normal people for their own ends. Same war, different weapon.

“I wanna… I wanna say just don’t engage, right? Don’t give the fuckers what they want? But they got drones, can probably send their pet monster after anyway, and,”

Esther thought back. Thought of the hot trophy wife and the technicolor mugger. Her expression sank visibly.

“And I don’t mind admitting I’m a fucking coward, alright? I wanna live. So I don’t know. I don’t fuckin’ know.”

[Polybius]

"Micro society..."

Dusty wasn't sure about the theory. Taking a bunch of college students, giving them random weapons, telling them to kill each other, and throwing them into some unfamiliar ruins seemed like an awful way to simulate a normal American town in crisis. But it was a better theory than anything Dusty had. And he'd already assumed incompetence on Janus-Hayes' part, anyway.

"So they want to test how people would respond to a very specific end-of-the-world scenario... involving monsters." Dusty repeated, slowly. "Either because they want to know how to defend against it, or how to pull it off successfully." He groaned. "Because they're evil."

That was it, wasn't it? It didn't matter in the end whether they understood or not. They were still just getting fucked over.

"Fuck, I don't want to die either. I don't think anyone's gonna be brave out here. Who would be?"

[Dr Adjective]

"Not even being a hero or nothing, just, I'm not out here about to die without fighting back just in case fighting back is what they want."

That was always how they got you, though, wasn't it? Society. Insert funny Joaquin Phoenix Joker png here, bottom text. The powers that be, whatever their party's favourite colour happened to be, they set up the carrots and the sticks just right, make it so it's in every individual's personal interest to do the things that perpetuate the system. Can't reject the system, they always find ways to criminalise opting out. So you accept the shitty wages and the exhausting hours, you let it grind you down so you've no energy to protest when they keep your wages the same, tell you it's fair while the prices all go up, because hey, they didn't cut your wages. Not their fault their parent company made living more expensive.

Fuck. Cost of living. Why did Esther even have to pay for something she didn't ask for?

"Anyway. Yeah. You make it sound pretty dumb, saying it back to me like that. Guess I'm still drinking some of the 'they're rich, they can't be that stupid can they?' Kool Aid. Maybe they are that stupid."

Esther looked out of the window again. There was something out there bothering her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Something uncanny, somehow.

"Fuck it. We can't really be blamed for just surviving, right? Power's not on our side. Fuck else are we supposed to do but stay alive?"

Even if the cost of living was more than mere money.

[Polybius]

Dusty looked down, twiddling his thumbs. It dawned on him that this little pity party they were having was inevitably going towards one of two end points.

"No. No, all we can do is survive. We can't take on giant corporations or monsters or anything, we just..."

He looked back up at Esther and slowly rose to his feet. One hand held onto the strap of his gun, the other he kept palm-out in a sign of reassurance He didn't want to make any sudden moves or startle her. But he also didn't want to be caught with his ass on the sofa if things went south quickly.

"Personally, I don't feel like killing you, though. And I'd hope you don't feel like killing me." he involuntarily let out another titter of nervous laughter. He had to stop doing that. Two possible end points. Either they killed each other, or...

"I have some ideas. About how to last a while. That's why I came up here in the first place, y'know? It wasn't because I love the cardio."

Esther kept looking out the window. Maybe she'd had the same idea as him.

"And I'm sure you have some ideas of your own, right?"

[Dr Adjective]

It hadn’t really dawned on Esther how heavy things were getting, metaphorically speaking. It had felt like a perfectly natural progression for the conversation, given the perfectly unnatural circumstances, and she’d never been much of one for reading others’ expressions well. Not until Dusty started sounding powerfully maudlin, and speaking like killing one another was on the table all of a sudden.

Well shit, that wasn’t what she’d meant at all.

By the time she’d even got the slightest handle on how to explain that, he was already awkwardly moving on, asking about her plans.

Fuck it.

“Shit dude, I didn’t mean… I just meant if one of their ghouls shows up I’ll shoot at it rather than, like, die on purpose to spite them, right?”

Right. Plans.

She really wanted to come up with something on the fly and sound intelligent, but the truth was inescapable.

“I just wanted a room with a view though. Bed and a vantage point, and a front door I can block with something heavy and sleep soundly, you know?”

[Polybius]

Esther tensed up a bit. Shit, had he fucked up somehow? What had he even said? He walked to the window, looking out to the square. Even if Dusty had slipped up, somehow, he couldn't dwell on it. Generally if you moved on like nothing had happened, the other person would just go along.

"Ah, yeah. That was my idea too." Dusty replied, scratching his chin. "This is one of the safest places to be, I bet."

Was Dusty starting to wear out his welcome? It was hard to tell. Esther didn't seem in a rush to kick him out. But he doubted she'd want to sleep with him around. He probably had till nightfall before she'd show him the door. He glanced back out. The sun was setting, so-

He furrowed his eyebrows.

"Didn't that statue have two eyes?" he said "Or am I going crazy?"