Re: Yes It Is
Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 8:31 am
"Strange, how that works. You're a player who hasn't killed anyone. I'm not a player, and I've killed twelve people. Aren't we confused, or what?"
Adam's heart finally stopped trying to burst its way out of his chest, and his pulse began to ease its way back to normal. Having a gun pointed at one's head generally will do that to you, and now that Julie had lowered her weapon and explained herself, Adam couldn't help but feel a sense of relief flood over himself. It was amazing, really.
Every single time I've had someone holding me at an obvious disadvantage, or at gunpoint, or whatever, I've cursed and carried on, ranted and raved, and generally just been a complete asshole, and I somehow manage to get out alive. I hate to think of the old cliché 'nine lives' thing, but how does that keep fuckin' happening?
Not that he was complaining. He'd fought damn hard to survive once, and now that he had to do it over again...
Hell, I'll do it again if I have to.
Something struck him as odd about the girl's wording, however. Her proclaimation that Adam would not be the winner again struck a chord with him. In all fairness, she was correct. The odds of Adam making it through again were absolutely astronomical. He'd have to manage to remain relatively healthy throughout most of the game, and find something way better in terms of a weapon. Adam knew that it was possible, but so was winning the lottery. So was contracting a fatal form of cancer. Anything was possible, but not everything was probable. There was no way that anyone was going to let him get anywhere near the final four, and that much he knew.
Though...the look on Danya's face sure would be hysterical. Imagine that, I walk in again, and he takes one look at me and shits out a brick. The satisfaction of that would almost be too much to handle.
But luck had as much to do with winning as survival skills did. Adam had gotten lucky a whole hell of a lot in V1, and while he hated to admit it, luck didn't seem to be giving him a whole lot of leeway this time around. As far as his health, he was perfectly healthy at the moment, save for a slight dull throb where his shoulder had been dislocated, but he was okay. Who knew for how long? The doctors had told him that if he hadn't been given antibiotics by the terrorists immediately after he'd left the island, he would have succumbed to his wounds within twenty-four hours. If the game had lasted one more day, Adam Dodd would certainly not have won. So as Julie proclaimed that she herself would fight as hard as she could to win the game, Adam couldn't help but smile a genuine smile.
"It's funny that you should say that...it really is. No sarcasm. It's funny, because I've heard almost those exact words said aloud before...the first time around, there was one person who was as determined as anyone to try and get out alive. That guy...God, who was that...?"
Adam smirked, knowing full well who it was who'd said those words.
"Oh, right. It was me. Julie...I don't mean to be an asshole, I really don't. It's just that...after all this? It just kind of happens naturally. But take me at face value when I tell you that playing the game? It's not the way to go."
Adam bit his lip, knowing that she'd put her gun down, and hoped that she wouldn't reconsider and decide to blow him away, regardless of what she'd said about meeting again - or not wanting to. Her voice was laced with remorse, and Adam felt this.
Jeez...reminds me of Hawley Faust all over again...
"Playing the game...Julie, how many players have won? How many people have tried to play the game but realized far-too-late that they weren't capable of it? There's a lot of names out there. Bryan...the winner of the second version of this program? I researched him. Hell...I've never met the guy, nor do I even know what he's even doing now...but he's the other winner...the other one who got out. He started off playing, but stopped...because his humanity took over before it was too late. If you commit yourself to playing the game, you lose yourself in it, and it takes you over. You become paranoid; you alienate people who you might have been better off using as allies...it's not the way to go. You don't play to win this game, and win. You win by accident, more than anything. You want to know how to really make it far?"
Adam smirked, almost unbelieving at the fact that he was so freely sharing the information with everyone. He'd said it to Andy and Sean at the church, but he didn't think that it'd had the same impact that it might on Julie.
"Survival is the key to this whole thing. You don't play to win. You don't...play, at all. You just try and keep yourself alive. That's the most important thing. Strike only when you're attacked, try and ensure that you and the people around you stay safe from harm. It's a futile goal, but if you work together towards that common goal, you'll probably last a lot longer than if you go around shooting people at random. Plus..."
Adam gestured at the pistol around her hip.
"...you've got a formidable weapon. People are afraid of guns. I had several pistols and a shotgun last time around, and a lot of people wanted me on their side. If you have a gun, people won't want to piss you off. In fa-"
Adam was cut off by a squeal, which wrenched his attention to the other side of the bridge. The struggle was still going on, and it looked like the smaller student was losing the battle.
Shit! That kid's getting fuckin' lynched, and...
Taking a second to ponder his options, Adam decided to essentially disregard the advice that he'd just given Julie. It may have been hypocritical, but hypocracy be damned - it was his advice, and he could decide not to follow it if he saw fit. Even though he knew that acting in this situation might not end well for him.
Fuck it.
Turning his head back towards Julie, Adam bent down and shovelled all of his things back into his pack, and reached inside and unzipped one of the internal pockets in his pack. Withdrawing the knife, he held it up in the air, and shrugged at Julie.
"That's the other thing I've learned - you always have to assume that whoever you're talking to is concealing a weapon, because nine times out of ten, they probably are. It's like I said before - how do you think I managed to take a bite out of crime?"
Unfolding the switchblade, Adam glanced at the sharp blade, and gestured to the struggle on the other side of the bridge.
"Look. I don't know what you're thinking right now, I don't know if you're now going to shoot me because I hid a weapon, and quite frankly, I don't really care. But I can't just sit back anymore and let THAT happen. I'm sorry, but I just can't. It goes against everything that I just said, but that's my fatal flaw. As much as I've experienced, and as much shit as I've been through, I stlll can't just sit around and let someone else get killed because they don't happen to be good at the whole 'natural selection' thing, alright? Now, you can either shoot me, or you can help me. I'll leave the choice up to you. But I'm not letting this go on any more. I can't. Fuck, I won't."
Turning around, not knowing if Julie was now aiming her gun at him (and not really thinking about that possibility), Adam slipped his pack around his back, and with the knife in his right hand, started to make his way towards the struggling boys across the way. He made decent time getting across the bridge, and he saw that the smaller boy had a very vsible wound in his eye, and was reaching for something - a gun of sorts. Not sure who exactly was the agressor (though assuming it was the kid who was lying on the ground), Adam took a step forward and tried to give the Asian kid a shove with his left hand.
Adam may have been a murderer himself, but he still had the shred of humanity inside of him that said that murder was wrong, especially when it was the (supposedly) strong preying upon the weak.
Look at me, I'm a fuckin' modern-day Robin Hood...and where're my tights?
Adam's heart finally stopped trying to burst its way out of his chest, and his pulse began to ease its way back to normal. Having a gun pointed at one's head generally will do that to you, and now that Julie had lowered her weapon and explained herself, Adam couldn't help but feel a sense of relief flood over himself. It was amazing, really.
Every single time I've had someone holding me at an obvious disadvantage, or at gunpoint, or whatever, I've cursed and carried on, ranted and raved, and generally just been a complete asshole, and I somehow manage to get out alive. I hate to think of the old cliché 'nine lives' thing, but how does that keep fuckin' happening?
Not that he was complaining. He'd fought damn hard to survive once, and now that he had to do it over again...
Hell, I'll do it again if I have to.
Something struck him as odd about the girl's wording, however. Her proclaimation that Adam would not be the winner again struck a chord with him. In all fairness, she was correct. The odds of Adam making it through again were absolutely astronomical. He'd have to manage to remain relatively healthy throughout most of the game, and find something way better in terms of a weapon. Adam knew that it was possible, but so was winning the lottery. So was contracting a fatal form of cancer. Anything was possible, but not everything was probable. There was no way that anyone was going to let him get anywhere near the final four, and that much he knew.
Though...the look on Danya's face sure would be hysterical. Imagine that, I walk in again, and he takes one look at me and shits out a brick. The satisfaction of that would almost be too much to handle.
But luck had as much to do with winning as survival skills did. Adam had gotten lucky a whole hell of a lot in V1, and while he hated to admit it, luck didn't seem to be giving him a whole lot of leeway this time around. As far as his health, he was perfectly healthy at the moment, save for a slight dull throb where his shoulder had been dislocated, but he was okay. Who knew for how long? The doctors had told him that if he hadn't been given antibiotics by the terrorists immediately after he'd left the island, he would have succumbed to his wounds within twenty-four hours. If the game had lasted one more day, Adam Dodd would certainly not have won. So as Julie proclaimed that she herself would fight as hard as she could to win the game, Adam couldn't help but smile a genuine smile.
"It's funny that you should say that...it really is. No sarcasm. It's funny, because I've heard almost those exact words said aloud before...the first time around, there was one person who was as determined as anyone to try and get out alive. That guy...God, who was that...?"
Adam smirked, knowing full well who it was who'd said those words.
"Oh, right. It was me. Julie...I don't mean to be an asshole, I really don't. It's just that...after all this? It just kind of happens naturally. But take me at face value when I tell you that playing the game? It's not the way to go."
Adam bit his lip, knowing that she'd put her gun down, and hoped that she wouldn't reconsider and decide to blow him away, regardless of what she'd said about meeting again - or not wanting to. Her voice was laced with remorse, and Adam felt this.
Jeez...reminds me of Hawley Faust all over again...
"Playing the game...Julie, how many players have won? How many people have tried to play the game but realized far-too-late that they weren't capable of it? There's a lot of names out there. Bryan...the winner of the second version of this program? I researched him. Hell...I've never met the guy, nor do I even know what he's even doing now...but he's the other winner...the other one who got out. He started off playing, but stopped...because his humanity took over before it was too late. If you commit yourself to playing the game, you lose yourself in it, and it takes you over. You become paranoid; you alienate people who you might have been better off using as allies...it's not the way to go. You don't play to win this game, and win. You win by accident, more than anything. You want to know how to really make it far?"
Adam smirked, almost unbelieving at the fact that he was so freely sharing the information with everyone. He'd said it to Andy and Sean at the church, but he didn't think that it'd had the same impact that it might on Julie.
"Survival is the key to this whole thing. You don't play to win. You don't...play, at all. You just try and keep yourself alive. That's the most important thing. Strike only when you're attacked, try and ensure that you and the people around you stay safe from harm. It's a futile goal, but if you work together towards that common goal, you'll probably last a lot longer than if you go around shooting people at random. Plus..."
Adam gestured at the pistol around her hip.
"...you've got a formidable weapon. People are afraid of guns. I had several pistols and a shotgun last time around, and a lot of people wanted me on their side. If you have a gun, people won't want to piss you off. In fa-"
Adam was cut off by a squeal, which wrenched his attention to the other side of the bridge. The struggle was still going on, and it looked like the smaller student was losing the battle.
Shit! That kid's getting fuckin' lynched, and...
Taking a second to ponder his options, Adam decided to essentially disregard the advice that he'd just given Julie. It may have been hypocritical, but hypocracy be damned - it was his advice, and he could decide not to follow it if he saw fit. Even though he knew that acting in this situation might not end well for him.
Fuck it.
Turning his head back towards Julie, Adam bent down and shovelled all of his things back into his pack, and reached inside and unzipped one of the internal pockets in his pack. Withdrawing the knife, he held it up in the air, and shrugged at Julie.
"That's the other thing I've learned - you always have to assume that whoever you're talking to is concealing a weapon, because nine times out of ten, they probably are. It's like I said before - how do you think I managed to take a bite out of crime?"
Unfolding the switchblade, Adam glanced at the sharp blade, and gestured to the struggle on the other side of the bridge.
"Look. I don't know what you're thinking right now, I don't know if you're now going to shoot me because I hid a weapon, and quite frankly, I don't really care. But I can't just sit back anymore and let THAT happen. I'm sorry, but I just can't. It goes against everything that I just said, but that's my fatal flaw. As much as I've experienced, and as much shit as I've been through, I stlll can't just sit around and let someone else get killed because they don't happen to be good at the whole 'natural selection' thing, alright? Now, you can either shoot me, or you can help me. I'll leave the choice up to you. But I'm not letting this go on any more. I can't. Fuck, I won't."
Turning around, not knowing if Julie was now aiming her gun at him (and not really thinking about that possibility), Adam slipped his pack around his back, and with the knife in his right hand, started to make his way towards the struggling boys across the way. He made decent time getting across the bridge, and he saw that the smaller boy had a very vsible wound in his eye, and was reaching for something - a gun of sorts. Not sure who exactly was the agressor (though assuming it was the kid who was lying on the ground), Adam took a step forward and tried to give the Asian kid a shove with his left hand.
Adam may have been a murderer himself, but he still had the shred of humanity inside of him that said that murder was wrong, especially when it was the (supposedly) strong preying upon the weak.
Look at me, I'm a fuckin' modern-day Robin Hood...and where're my tights?