Performance

You really think you're getting the part?
You have to be better, Callie.
If you want to make it in this business,
You need to be beyond good.
Do as you're told,
And do what's needed.
Don't take breaks,
And you might get somewhere.

Hiking in her filming outfit is weird, but Callie can do it. Besides, she's the only one who thinks it's strange: when they reach the fallen tree, Samudra the lighting specialist releases Callie's hand to leap on it. She turns around halfway across. "You ready for this?"

"I hope so," Callie says, forcing a grin. "We haven't done any outdoor shots before. And it's another Method Acting one." Callie sits on the end of the log and watches her friend come back. "I haven't done that since I screwed up the phone call and had to do another three takes."

"You've gotten a lot better since then," Sammie says. She sits beside Cal. "Your tattoo still hurt?"

Callie runs her finger around it carefully. "Only if I touch it," she says. "At least it isn't puffy anymore, and looks all normal. Besides, it'll be gone in a few months. And it really wasn't that bad."

Sammie kicks her feet. "I know what you mean. Aren't you glad you didn't pigeon out? Having that'll be so much more convincing than make-up."

That Callie didn't pigeon out? She... she didn't want it, did she? She didn't have a choice.

"We could've gone the make-up route if you'd really insisted," Sammie continues. "But doing something that complex and protecting it from smearing every day... ugh, that'd be another hour of work."

She had a choice. She must've had a choice. She just... had a nightmare. That makes sense. She's been so tired, lately.

"Come on, we'd better catch up," Sammie says, and gets to her feet.

Callie follows. It's a beautiful day: overcast, but with none of the heavy clouds that scream rain, just a white fluffy comforter taking its time going elsewhere. Callie didn't even bother to reach for a pair of shades before coming out. They may have to set up a few extra lights for the scene, but it'll be fine.

One of the tech crew waves them off the path a little further up, and Callie steps into a rocky clearing. A huge stump, easily up to Callie's shoulder, is in the center; someone's covering it with a table-cloth, another person drags over a roller to lean against it. The grass and trees stay untouched, but around them people are setting out cardboard props, painted silver and gold and metallic with glued-on dials and buttons and gauges that mean absolutely nothing. Callie knows this is supposed to seem like a secret base in the middle of nowhere, they're already shooting some of Mr. Fish's intro scenes in similar 'natural' bases, but it seems weird to her.

"Okay, Callie," says the director. "New chance. Now. Remember your character. Can you do that for me?"

Callie nods. She has to nail this, method acting or no. Sammie takes her arm and leads her over to get her face touched up.

The director looms. "You're going to go over plans, understand? Discussing things that are in place in your—"

"I read the script," Callie says. "But there'll be an interruption of some kind?"

"You'll know what you have to do," he says, and stalks off.

Callie takes a deep breath. She messed up the last time they filmed, before she got the tattoo. She doesn't dare mess up again now. So, when she stands at the table (now covered in complicated blueprints she can't make sense of) and hears "ACTION!" Callie starts in.

She's muttering with intense dissatisfaction at various difficulties, while pausing to note that none of them will stop her, when overloud exaggerated footstep noises come from off-camera. Callie turns to look and can't stop the little squeak of dismay that leaves her mouth.

Two straight-backed inklings are marching mechanically forward, eyes and tentacles invisible behind their helmets. They drag Harbor between them, bruises covering his arms and legs, one black eye, a cut on his other cheek, is one of his tentacles torn?

Callie almost rushes forward to help him. But his clothes are ripped, artfully, dissheveled but still not showing anything that would raise the rating. This is all pretend; this is all acting. Act, Callie. You're evil.

"Now, what have we here?" she demands, stepping forward. She takes his chin in two fingers and tilts his head up; Harbor winces. He's doing spectacularly at this.

"Double agent," says one of the guards. "Finally caught him. He's already been thoroughly questioned."

He's already been questioned. Callie takes her fingers away from his chin, and he lets his head drop, as though holding it to look at her costs him too much energy, too much pain. He's a great actor; she's surprised this is his first time on the show, but he told her once that he preferred to stay behind the scenes. Though maybe he's been on before, just never on-screen with her. That makes more sense. She hasn't had time to watch the newest episodes, with all the filming she's been doing.

Shell, she didn't even know he was back from visiting Marina. Another bit of method acting: they wanted to see her surprise at him coming in be genuine, even though she knew someone'd be interrupting her.

Focus, Cal. "And has he had any information for us?"

"We have all the information he can give," says one guard. The two step away, leaving him kneeling on the floor.

Oh yeah, this is pretty clear. Callie is the villain's second in command, being brought a traitor who helped the good guys, and they brought her a roller. Time for her to place her character solidly in the 'bad guys' camp. There's gotta be a respawn pad set up somewhere.

Callie turns her back to him, taking two steps away, letting the tension rise. "Are you absolutely sure that you've told us everything you know?" she asks, still not looking. "You may speak."

"Please, I—" Harbor whimpers. Callie's hearts seize. She—she knows Harbor. He's sat with her at meals, made her laugh, comforted her. She doubts his acting skills could fill a tentacle. And he sounds so scared.

It's... this is fine. She'll splat him, and he'll respawn.

Callie runs one hand over the top of the roller. Around them, the music changes, violins adding tension, drums urging her on. "That's not good enough," she chides, taking the handle in one hand and idly circling the end with one finger. She hoists it over her shoulder with a grunt; a dynamo. They want this dramatic. She only has enough ink for one shot without a tank, but that's all they'll need. "Last time," she says, turning. "Is there anything you want to say?"

Nothing. No sound.

With a little jump, Callie turns, raising the roller overhead—

Harbor is crying, his eyes locked on her, absolutely silent and scared and—and—

Callie is supposed to be evil, airheaded, fun, and midair, she makes the slightest adjustment in angle, her vertical strike hitting to his left, because whether or not it's canon until she knows otherwise she's going to make herself redeemable.

Harbor collapses on his face, his sobs audible, as Callie rests on the roller. Her hearts twist, and she swallows hard, because—he's gotta be acting, right? This can't be method acting, they wouldn't take him here without telling him the plan was for him to get splatted. "I think you have more to tell us," she says, and smiles her nastiest. "Take him to Cellblock C. I'll be there after he's had some time to think."

Without a word, the two guards who dragged him in grab his arms again and drag him off screen.

Callie's just taken a deep breath when the music stops with a record scratch, and Callie flinches in the silence replaced by bells and synthesizer when out of the trees steps—

That is not DJ Octavio, Callie. DJ Octavio was a made-up character from a game played with Gramps when Callie was a squidling. DJ Octavio isn't real. He's not—not in Octo form, larger than her even now, on a hovering platform flanked by guards as he comes closer and closer and wraps a tentacle around her neck.

Callie can't breathe.

She drops the roller, she doesn't have enough ink anyway, and claws at his tentacle. He relaxes, so he's not choking her, must've been a mistake, but she can't breathe anyway and—and—this is acting, it's all pretend, there's no reason to have a panic attack she's okay she's—she's not okay, because he looks her dead in the eye and squeezes once, and tears leak from Callie's eyes and she shuts them because this is not okay.

"Do as you're told," he says, and drops her. Callie lands on her butt with her legs twisted beneath her and grabs at the ground, clings to handfuls of grass. "Unlike those who are truly mine, if you outlive your usefulness, I will not hesitate to end you."

Breathe, Callie. Breathe. She gasps for breath, her eyes closed, crying, and she's not acting, that's not method acting, that's DJ Octavio that's people around her kneeling to Mr. Fish it's DJ Octavio she can't breathe she can't breathe but she gets her legs under her and on her knees and bows there before him, still clinging to the grass, because she doesn't want to die.

Do as you're told.

Callie will.