C'est La Vie #04.1
A/N: Fun fact, this, the next snip, and the snip after that were outlined as one snip, but then my optimism let me down! Again! Also, might I just say that having such a large gap between working on something can make things so very, very, complicated.
Anyway, after much delay on my part, this is the beginning of Arc #02.
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"What would be the harm," I muttered, absently swirling the lukewarm dregs of stew in my bowl.
I watched the as yellow light cast by the lantern threw harsh shadows around me and over the white porcelain, but my thoughts were on what was happening beneath me within the building. Through the enhanced vision of the whiptail I watched Artur Yurievich, one-time mercenary and "technically" (whatever that meant) still enlisted serviceman of the Russian Armed Forces, pick through the piles of equipment and supplies scattered throughout the lobby.
The sole surviving member of what had been a four-man squad of heavily armed mercenaries plus their charge, a hunter. And it was my fault.
I stay one more night to satisfy my curiosity and this is what happens.
One more night.
Closing my eyes, the decisions I'd made and actions I'd taken throughout the past day that'd been simmering in the back of my mind came to the fore. Could I have done anything differently? Could I have done anything else? Yes, but…
With a resigned sigh, I slouched a bit, relaxing as I began reviewing the events of the past day; it didn't take long before I settled into a familiar pattern of reviewing, analyzing, and questioning what I had done and why.
It was something of a tedious process I'd been all but forced to develop during my time in the Wards. Useful, and a continuation of what I'd already been doing to some extent, but by and large it had been because of how close an eye was kept on me.
I'd had to give, and verbally submit, more after-action-reports during my first year in the Wards than I could remember and the self-critique process had come in handy at those times. Getting ahead of certain critics had made things easier for me when matters eventually came around to how I'd conducted myself in the field—regardless of what a given meeting had been about in the first place. It had happened less and less after the first six months, but whenever something serious enough happened… at some point, things would come around to what I could have done differently. But, more important than how I'd acted in the field, had been how I'd reacted.
It was that latter aspect of my AAR's that made the initial encounter particularly damning in retrospect.
Rushing in when the helicopter came flying in… that had been a bad idea. The smart thing to do would've been to stay back and observe them from afar, take the mood and gauge how they might react to someone. At a minimum, I should've found out what they were here for and planned out what I was going to do before moving in. I should've had a plan ahead of time, rather than having to come up with something on the fly after things had already gone south.
But no, instead I rushed in, got too close, and got burned for it.
Everything that happened after that could, in one way or another, be traced back to that first poor decision.
If I had just announced myself when I'd been spotted, could things have turned out better? Maybe, I'd never know. Although considering that their employer had ordered them to shoot, it likely wouldn't have gone well either way.
I was still for a long while, just sitting and picking over every little detail that could have changed the course of things one way or another, ruminating on what could have been.
Fuck that. Be rational. Anger. Not mine, but a memory. A shiver ran down my spine.
Passenger?
A few seconds passed. No response.
I shook my head to dispel my apprehension. It was just a vivid memory, my mind playing tricks, nothing more. I wasn't turning into the monster again.
Still, the recollection was enough to snap me out of my pointless circling.
I sat up and glowered out at the darkening jungle for want of anything to focus on.
My fault? No. My inaction had played a role in their deaths, I wasn't going to deny that, but they had been the ones to shoot first. What happened from there on was on them—Artur, at least, had been hesitant, but he had been the outlier.
I had accepted long ago that I couldn't save everyone and refused to become dragged down by misplaced guilt, especially for people who had been trying to kill me.
A bit of that fire faded as my new, overly large, sleeveless undershirt fell down around my shoulders.
Frustrating as it was, I couldn't help but feel some culpability for what happened. Some, not much, but that feeling of complicity was compounded by the fact that their deaths had turned into a windfall for myself.
One day, I was running low on food and water, had been worried about finding a way to start a fire and gathering more information on the island I'd been interred on, and so, so, many other things. Then, in less than an hour, my fortunes had been all but reversed. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I now had a sizable supply of food, water, and more survival equipment than I could've ever needed or had a use for.
I was using one of their lanterns for light, reading over their intel on the island, and wearing their spare clothes.
I was set, I'd gotten everything I could've wanted and more when I set out from the radio bunker.
I had everything I needed to establish myself, and all it had taken was an unwillingness to expose myself and the preparations of Artur's people acting against my anemic attempts at discreetly protecting them.
I sighed.
Of course, in all likelihood, they'd have gotten themselves killed anyway considering their boss' complete lack of situational (and self) awareness. I knew that, but it still nagged at me.
The tear gas though, of all the things they could've used it had been that. It'd certainly been effective, just not against what they'd intended to use it against. The stuff may not have dispersed very well, but the concentrations of gas had all but decimated the more susceptible species in my swarm. Unfortunately for them, those species had made up the majority, the filler.
If I'd recognized the silver grenades for what they were, things likely would have ended differently. Then again, recalling how quickly things had been flipped on their head, their formation breaking, falling to friendly fire… Shit happens.
And the irony of it all was that, in the end, my fears of being identified and hunted for what I'd done were unfounded. My attempts at discretion hadn't even mattered. Well, they did, but now for an entirely different reason; I'd be hunted for what I was if it word ever got out, rather than what I'd done.
That said, there was only one person left that could tell anyone, and from what I had gathered he seemed more interested in getting home than anything else. Besides, even if he did talk, it would require someone believing him. It would be the word of a mercenary who'd seen his squad die all around him. Anything out of the ordinary would likely be put down as trauma-induced insanity, or something his brain had come up with so he could cope.
No, it would be easier to say they'd been eaten… which was even the truth, in a sense.
My stomach clenched as I forced myself to swallow the... unpleasant memory of what I'd done.
I just sat there for a bit; not thinking, but distracting myself with feeding some of my swarm's filler species to the resident bat colony.
Eventually the memory was forgotten amidst watching the little mammals swoop after mosquitos and I sat up a bit, wincing as I straightened my neck. Ignoring the aches and pains from having been sitting for so long, I rolled my neck, stretched out and re-crossed my legs, and settled back on my new bedroll. There were a few more twinges from the bruising along my abused ribs as I shifted about, but the pain was only a minor annoyance at this point.
I glanced down at my bowl and sighed.
The dinner had been a brief affair, unfortunately, though not entirely without good reason. Once both of us had asked what we wanted of the other—or the most pressing and pertinent questions, at least—the atmosphere had become too… awkward. That was a good word for it, even if it didn't come close to encompassing the complexities of it. It had been like he hadn't known how to act around me. He seemed afraid to do anything out of turn, as if it might set me off and I would unleash my swarm upon him.
That was a few hours ago, and in that time I'd gorged myself on something that wasn't berries and mentally ran myself ragged trying to decide what to do. Artur on the other hand… I checked in on him again and saw the man still sitting at the foot of the stairs in the lobby, working at a piece of wood with a little carving knife.
A hobby, a distraction. Save for the few times he'd gotten up to get something or relieve himself, he had been at it ever since filling up the heavy grey dish tubs containing what remained of his compatriots with dirt and performing what I assumed were some sort of improvised funeral rites.
We'd only finished off our first servings before he excused himself, citing a need to see to his compatriots' remains.
Raising the bowl to my lips, I finished what was left before setting it aside with the much emptier pot. It had been full enough to feed four, or two others after our first servings. Now it was almost empty.
I make one appreciative comment about the meal and mention only having eaten berries for the past week, to try and break the ice, and suddenly he's all but forcing little packets of dried fruit on me to get my vitamin levels back into balance while insisting I have as much of the stew as I wanted.
Evidently, my eating nothing but berries in the time I'd been on this island had been a rather horrifying revelation to him—even after clarifying that I'd only been here for a little over a week. Like, ok, all things considered, it wasn't a bad reaction per se. I hadn't exactly had many other choices at the time though, I'd known what I was doing and the risks involved and had been expecting the side effects of that dietary faux-pas to rear its ugly head at any point in the past few days. That particular issue hadn't arisen though, fortunately, and now I wouldn't be forced to take my chances with whatever tropical bacteria or parasites might be present in the local wildlife.
A bit of food poisoning would've been the least of my worries in that regard.
Interestingly though, for a brief period after that, his awkwardness was forgotten as he lectured me on the necessity of proper dietary intake in an increasingly thick Russian accent. He'd gone on about it for a fair while, and while I'd known what he told me about to one degree or another, having learned it from the PRT's physical trainers, or while figuring out what the people in my territory had needed, I'd just let him talk.
I'd been rather nonplussed at the time, but, thinking on it after the fact, his reaction had struck me as the one a professional might have to someone doing something unfathomably stupid in a field they knew a great deal about.
Getting nutritional advice from him though? Of all the things he could get worked up over?
My lips twitched up for a moment as I recalled his expression twisting through a flurry of emotions before settling on indignation. Some things, it seemed, were enough to make him ignore his apprehension... if only momentarily.
The small smile turned into a bitter grimace.
That assertiveness had only been momentary though. And that was the issue, wasn't it?
I wanted him cooperative, not fearing for his life. Not that the two were mutually exclusive, but it made things awkward and was sure to complicate getting anything done if he was walking on eggshells around me.
Although, that hadn't stopped him from approaching me, which was something. It meant he could overcome his trepidation, provided he had the proper incentive. What he had offered in exchange though… a way to get off this island, if I took it.
'Protection in exchange for transport'. That had been the sum of his offer.
A simple enough exchange, and one that could see me back on the mainland in a week's time, but where would I go from there? A U.S. Embassy? That in itself had problems I had barely even begun to consider. Maybe make a plea for asylum from the Costa Rican government? Or perhaps I could simply disappear into South America, leveraging my power and experience to clean up the entrenched criminal elements while supporting myself by raiding their coffers. I wasn't sure I was ready to throw myself back into a mission now that I finally had this chance at peace, a chance to rest… but if it did come to that, perhaps I could finally live up to the hopes I'd had back at the beginning of it all.
The latter idea made me smile a bit, but quickly enough my thoughts turned away from old dreams of heroism and back to the issue at hand.
I had options, but I didn't know enough to make an informed decision—something else to question Artur about. However, what I did know, was that I had to consider who the offer was coming from. Or rather, I had to consider who would be fulfilling Artur's part of the bargain.
Artur's description of his employer's affairs had been barebones at best, but several points he'd been unable to ignore had sent up red flags. Namely, that his boss had been in negotiations with South American cartels and that he was some big-shot in the Russian mafia. It was the latter point that was the issue, as it was his boss's people who would be coming to the pre-arranged pickup. If they found some stranger with Artur, rather than their boss and the other two mercenaries… well, the idea of flying in a helicopter over a hundred plus miles of open ocean with the hunter's (now unemployed) men wasn't exactly an appealing one.
Not that I couldn't remove the danger, it would be laughably easy, but if I did it nonlethally it would complicate matters, and I didn't need any more blood on my hands.
Alternatively, I could simply wait. Evidently, the people who had built this place—the ones who created the dinosaurs—were coming back to try again. The information Artur had on that was minimal. An unfortunate combination of language barriers and him focusing on his job, but the news had apparently been big enough that he was certain they would be returning sometime within a year.
A year. Here. On my own.
It was a… daunting, proposition, to say the least. But, it was one that didn't give me nearly as much pause as it would have the day prior. For the past few hours, I'd been weighing my odds: the chances that they'd shoot me and unceremoniously dump me into the ocean somewhere between here and the mainland, against what it would be like if I stayed.
Personally, I wasn't exactly willing to gamble on being able to survive being shot in the head. I self-consciously touched at my forehead and grimaced as I heard the two shots with near-perfect clarity. Shot in the head again, that is.
Drumming my fingers on my knee a few times, I leaned to the side and grabbed up the laminated topographic map of the island that Artur's people had had. Well, the one that hadn't been annotated to hell and back in Cyrillic, shot through with shotgun slugs, and left soaking in blood for upwards of half an hour. This one was, fortunately, one that had just been copied, with only minimal translations from the English labels and markings.
Even if I had to wait six months, or even a year, with sufficient infrastructure and reserves, I could use the supplies I now had to settle in and just wait.
My eyes were drawn to the peak of a mountain ridge overlooking the eastern coast.
Or… not. I had spent several days scouring that mountain, hiking up and down its sides to forage when the rains let up. Those trips had kept me fed, but aside from that, they hadn't been what I would've considered productive.
I glowered at the mountaintop my bunker was situated atop and recalled just why I'd come out here in the first place.
The isolation of the location was exactly what I wanted, and having searched over the map I had identified only a handful of near-equivalent locations. However, while being secure, its relative remoteness also put a damper on its long-term viability.
How long would it be before I depleted everything in the immediate vicinity? How long before I was forced to venture further and further afield to get what I needed?
I'd already done that with the berries, what would be next?
The fact of the matter was that I'd already stripped the mountain and immediate area around it of the low hanging fruit, literally and figuratively, which had instigated the trip to this place. If I just had a rucksack and kept on the move…
Scanning over the map, I surveyed the tangle of roads running to, from, or near various structures scattered across the island. I was sure most if not all of them were in just bad shape as the radio bunker had been or this place was. But that wasn't too great an issue, I had more than enough helpers to clean them out and if the theme of the buildings being built from concrete held true, then many were likely to be more or less intact and readily habitable (after a fashion). And then there were the tunnels, though those seemed somewhat limited to the center of the island—mainly to areas within the fence boundaries, though they did seem to connect to a number of small tertiary surface structures.
Cupping my cheek I bent over the map and, while occasionally referencing the legend, picked out a few locations that seemed like they could be as promising as the radio bunker: a hydroelectric dam to the southern end of the island, an airfield to the west, a geothermal plant between some hills in the north, and a water treatment plant along the coast to the north-east. And then there was my bunker, to the east.
I imagined them in a circuit. I could move between them, relocating as necessary or when one area was depleted, with stops in between at various 'emergency bunkers' or whatever else worked. Such as the little utility building I slept in after waking up here.
Of course, this time I wouldn't only be reliant upon berries to sustain me. Big tropical birds, those little dinosaurs, fish (if I could figure out how to fish), river crabs, lobster… Now that I had a way to cook things, the dearth of food options had become an abundance. I just needed to figure out what was available where.
It wasn't the best long-term plan, and roaming the island like that wouldn't be without risk. The supplies Artur's people had brought more than covered moderate to severe injuries—within reason—but breaking a leg would be a death sentence, and that wasn't even taking the wildlife into account. The scanned pages and annotated pictures in the guide-book they had put together on the region—and this island—made me think that that may not be as bad a problem as I'd originally imagined.
Ultimately, while my odds of surviving here looked far better than they had been, I still needed more information before I could make a decision. I needed time to think on it. Though fortunately, time was one thing I had for once; I had a week to decide what I was going to do.
I put the map aside. No matter what I chose to do though, it came down to a binary decision: Leave, or Stay.
The question then became what each decision would entail.
Leaving would be… complicated, very complicated; so much so that I had little idea of where to start once I reached civilization, save that I would need to find a good lawyer. But if I stayed... well, I knew what I was going to do if I stayed, at least in the interim. I wanted to explore the Green and investigate what it was capable of. The prospect was appealing on a level I hadn't known since a simpler, more optimistic time; back when I'd been ignorant enough to see the world in black and white, rather than in the shades of grey it was really made up of.
As far as I'd been able to determine through my experiments, however, it was definitely somehow tied to the nature, or environment, of certain locations. Even among the breadth of parahuman powers that didn't exactly fit the 'normal' categories, iit was... odd. Although, that wasn't saying very much. It had been years since my trigger and I still didn't have an entirely firm grasp of how my passenger determined which creatures I had control over, even after experimentation both on my own and with the aid of the PRT's parahuman researchers.
What that would mean if I left the Island though… I didn't know, and that was just one sticking point.
I was being stymied by a lack of information. Again.
My eyes narrowed in frustration at the unspoken acknowledgment.
Thankfully, with someone to help me, I could get a fair amount of preliminary work done that would allow me to more safely hedge my bets. I would just need to get as much done as I could in the time allowed; it would likely be the deciding factor.
If I stayed, would I be living day to day, hand to mouth, or would my position be stable enough that I could explore what the Green was capable of at my leisure? Could I live without the risk of going hungry overshadowing everything else? Was I ready to deal with anything big enough or fast enough that I couldn't stop them?
Questions such as that went back and forth in my mental debate as they were answered, then revised with conditions, and answered again. At some point I found myself flipping through my notebook to help organize my thoughts.
The issues I'd have to deal with should I stay were roughly the same as those I'd been facing before, but over a longer period of time. The supplies and equipment Artur's people had brought would get me off the ground, but that was in the short term; my supplies would go to waste if I didn't use them wisely and I would lose whatever footing I had if I was careless.
For an extended stay like what I was considering, I'd need infrastructure and redundancies; I couldn't simply rely on having a readily accessible source of food and drinking water.
That was only the overarching issue I needed to address, among other things: what did I need to do while I had someone to help me, and what could I get done on my own when I didn't?
I slowed as I flipped through pages filled with notations and observations in gradually more legible chicken-scratch, my eyes catching on various notes until I reached the one I'd made that morning: the observations I'd made the night before. But again I kept myself on task and moved on, stopping at a blank page and beginning to outline what I now had to work with, what I needed, and what I was going to about the latter.
Pg.95
—Fire:
—With the equipment now available to me, fire in itself is not longer an issue; however, fuel is. With several sm propane bottles, I can have a fire easily enough, but they won't last forever and would be best kept in reserve for when a full sized fire is non-viable. As such, a supply of fuel will need to be stockpiled. Twigs, sticks, leaves, and other kindling are simple enough, however wood will be more difficult and labor intensive.
—Make an eternal flame?
—Stockpile firewood
I took the pen off the paper and considered how to keep a store of water before a small smile ghosted across my lips. Now, how could I forget about that little beehive? Where before I'd been balancing the use of my flightpack against short-mid term gains, I now had a helper.
—Water:
—Iodine drops/tablets will last me a while, but I can't waste them. A basic sand+gravel+charcoal filter will work fine (in conjunction with boiling) to maintain a supply of water. I'll need to set one up and figure out a better way of storing it (other than filing cabinet drawers). There are several water cooler jugs in the building, can clean and repurpose.
—Use filing cabinet for sand+gravel+charcoal filter?
—Note: Check 5 gal jugs (Will need to clean. Boiling water+soap? Sand?)
—S/M/L silk water bladders sealed with beeswax?
—Food:
—Having access to fire has opened up food sources I can now safely access without risk of parasitic/bacterial illness. Will need to test what is edible or not (observation of animals, big bug tasting) but roots and wild herbs should be viable sources that can be cleaned and eaten as is/to supplement captured game (bird/fish/crab/etc). Rationing the supplies that Artur's people brought (enough for 4 men for 7 days) should also allow me a decent buffer during less bountiful periods. Honey harvested can be processed to act as calorie supplement/reserve and preservative if I can find edible fruit.
—Build beehive(s), cultivate palatable insect colonies
—Look into/consult on dehydrating foods (fish, fruit, vegetables) and guidebook
—Security:
—Spreading the tripwires throughout the mountainside would be effective, but is it necessary? If the fencing can be patched (how? fill?), then the only things that could get through would be something that can slip/break through. By itself the bunker is a suitable shelter, look into reinforcing/barricading the door if necessary. Put together an escape bag if necessary and scout+stock alternative locations. Practice shooting with off-hand.
—Barricade for door, set up tripwires, transplant toxic/dangerous insects
Considering the page a bit longer, I flipped to the next page and began listing out what I had and what I could use for alternatives.
Pg.96
—Food
—Indeter # canned fruit/veg, 1 week +/- supplies for 4, 1 beehive
—Fish, shellfish, birds, insects, berries, wild Fruit/vegetables
—Re-check vending machines
—Reference Artur to translate his guidebook.
—Fire
—3x lighter, 1x matches, 2x sm stove+4x propane, flare gun, batteries, gunpowder
—Keep something constantly burning/eternal flame(fuel/gas/?)
—Water
—Iodine drops, 12 liters/5 gallons bottled water
—Boiling/evaporation, silk+gravel+silk+sand+charcoal+sand filtration
—Copper pipe(plumbing), sand(beach)(wash), gravel(river)(wash)
—Storage: 5 gal water jugs(glass), waxed silk water bladders
—Make charcoal, get and clean sand, find gravel (pebbles? river rocks?)
—Filing cabinet as filter?
—Security
—Incomp-fencing, radio bunker, shotgun shell tripwires, machete, sidearm, hand cannon
—Constant movement/relocation
—Patch/fill perimeter fencing
—Practice offhand shooting
—Specialized swarm (wasp/spider/ant), non-lethal effective (wasp/ant/?)
—Quality of life
—Clothing(shirts, foot wraps, oversized pants), sandals/shoes(boots)/bedding, inflatable pillow, thick gurney pad, blankets
—Increase silk production for: clothes, utility, other
—Gather more orb-weavers(or enlarge?)
—Re-wrap gurney pad in waxed silk (cut in 3rds?)
—Equipment
—Lrg/sm packs, duffel, combat belt+accoutrements, 2x tent(compact), duct tape, 4x gas mask+filters, multi-tool, rope, 3x lantern, heavy plastic wrap, 2x tarp, propane stove+bottles, watch+compass, lrg-compass, monocular, claw hammer, machete, hatchet, camera
—Sanitary
—Medical kit (advanced), wet wipes, TP, no-scent soap, toothbrush+paste,waste bags
—To Do:
—Gather wood, dig latrine, gather+breed spiders, produce silk, make dyes, dye clothes, laundry/cleaning system, silk TP, scout 2nd location, make filter, stockpile water
Twirling my T-rex headed pen, I put it back to the page and over the next half hour added several more notations and refined a couple of ideas. But eventually, I hit a wall and began going around in circles.
I attempted to think of anything else I could add, to cover my bases, but after staring at the page for nearly a minute straight I realized I was drawing a blank.
Flipping the notebook shut I sat there for a moment before standing. Vertebrae popped as I straightened out and stretched.
I had a roadmap—vague as it was—of what needed to be done in the days ahead, now I just needed to give Artur my answer and start getting things ready. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.
Besides... craning my neck back, I examined the stars appearing in the darkening sky.
If I was going to be here for one more night, then I wanted to be ready when it was that time again. Best to keep the parameters of an experiment constant, after all.
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