sixthiterationlogs | [arrival] doomed as the source

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[arrival] doomed as the source

WHO: Owen Prichard
WHERE: 6I Fountain Park; 6I Inn
WHEN: April 1st. On the tail end of everyone else exiting the simulation and coming out of the fountain.
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Owen's coming to 6I just after killing a zombie he was locked in a room with, which will be described in an intro segment under a cut.

Time is blurrier indoors. There's no sun to judge, just the sound of feet squeaking on linoleum; the rattle of the sliding gate at the end of the hall. Shift changes, the whine and pop of an old photo rig. Thankfully the Runner's retreated to a corner--the flash whiting out the room was what set it off the first time. Probably why they use it, Owen doubts they want that many pictures of him sitting on the floor.

Is this how it goes, every time? Is this what people volunteer for? One Runner's a lesser risk than a room full of spores, but--

He wheezes a breath between dry lips. Not humane. He's losing it. He'd lost it when he'd broken in here, and done anything but back away and disappear. With no sense of time, he doesn't know how long he held out. They'd chained him to the Runner's cage; he'd kept still and quiet. They'd agitated it with the flash; he'd dropped down flat, hands inches from the bars, too low for it to bite. Stalling tactics, nothing that would save him. Eventually they'd come in, armed and armored, and pressed him sideways into the bars until his shoulder pushed through.

It hurt less than he'd thought it would, but maybe he'd been struck too dumb to feel it. They could have killed him, they could have sent him back into Montana's wide open wilds; but they'd chosen this. Followed through.

How long has his shoulder ached; how long until they know? Food's been pushed through a slot at the bottom of the door, nudged close enough with a pole. He hasn't touched it. He can at least mark a second or third day if they have to come save him from dehydration. Petty, but petty is what he has left.

A sound cuts down the hall; the face disappears from the thick window on the door. Behind him, the Runner's voice picks up, a constant whine that broadens into a moan. Louder, higher. There's a trill at the end that catches his attention, has him turn his head just enough to look at it from the corner of his eye. "How long have you been in here," he wonders. Long enough to start bouncing sounds off the walls, not long enough to lose its sight entirely. Not long enough to stop feeling the pain, fungus overtaking the body. Not long enough to stop retreating to that corner, hunched over. There's a withered hand on the back bar. A loose grip, papery skin, blue veins.

Do these people really know what they're volunteering for?

Owen checks the door: empty. It's another shift change, meal delivery. He's been bitten and he's chained to the bars--no point in watching too closely. What clever plan could he possibly have, at this point? Nothing's going to save him.

Nothing but one good deed, and the hope that someone will do the same for him.

Standing isn't easy. The floor slants under his sense of balance, his shoulder burns. It takes both hands on the bars and a false start to get up, but the rattling of his chain gets the Runner's attention. Lifting his arms gives him a bit more height, enough to grind the chain over the bars, let off a metal shrieking that draws the Runner over with a snarl. "That's it," he wheezes, dropping his arms to its shoulders--not to hold it back, but to level the chain with its throat. "This room just isn't big enough for the both of us."

Crossing one hand over, he loops the chain and hangs his weight, until the Runner's shoulders catch on the bars and hold. It's human enough to scrabble at the chain with those thin hands, and inhuman enough to snarl, spit, scrape its teeth over his wrist. He's always hated this--up close and personal, and somehow it's worse when there's already nothing in the eyes. Fungal cataracts and pinhole pupils, nothing but pain and rage.

He's ending that. Ending and starting, today.

The last thing he remembers is the door bursting open behind him. Less armor, more urgency; the same guards pressing him into the bars. There's no bite, this time. The Runner slumps and drags its weight on his arms, and the pinch at his neck is a needle. The weight drags him to black.

--

arrival; fountain; after the groups of three have arrived

Owen comes to submerged in water, something solid and braying pushing on his chest. A splash, concrete at his back; his hands instinctively find and map the object at his chest, pressing him up out of the water. Wet nose, wicking in fur, a wide brow. He coughs and sputters awake to find a cow blowing hot breath and shockingly loud calls into his chest. It butts him with its brow, shoving him all the harder against the side of--

A fountain.

One arm wings back over the edge, steadying him as he looks for any kind of bearing. Cattle's not unheard of in the right places; but a fountain that's still running, not overgrown with ivy and moss--that isn't something he's seen. People build wells if they're smart, aqueducts if they're trying to save the world--but they don't build shit for decoration.

Satisfied with his grip, the cow butts into him one last time, before paddling to the right. He's still catching his breath when it reaches over the short barrier with its head, dragging with its heavy chin in the grass until it can scrape a foreleg over the edge. On the other side of the centerpiece, there are wide antlers breaking the water, a bull moose pushing a younger one similarly onto the grass.

Did he get out? Did he push north? The tree cover is a little heavy for where he'd been, once he starts looking out. When he looks down, he's in blue-green scrubs, and there are black straps on his shoulders. Did he steal the scrubs and pack, had they prepped him for surgery or had he simply escaped?

He can't remember. Just the bite of the needle, and the fountain.

On the list of vital information, he shoves am I infected to the bottom. There are others a short distance away; their similar attire answers no questions, but it might let him blend in. They're disheveled, long-haired, and someone appears to be taking stock. Did they all escape the compound? Were there more unwilling victims, hidden deeper in the facility? Right now, it doesn't matter. He could be infected, they could. He needs to roll himself out of the fountain--accomplished after a few floundering tries, and find a place to watch.

Next to him, the cow keeps trying to drag its second leg over the stone lip. Its legs aren't as long as the moose, and it doesn't appear to have any family to help it besides. Livestock has to be important, and at this point--one good turn deserves another. Owen pauses briefly in his retreat, dragging off the backpack and looping one of the straps around the cow's head in a makeshift lead. Digging booted heels into the dirt, he leans back, adding his weight to the effort to pull it free.

--

inn; later that day

Aside from the utter irrationality of their situation, nothing has quite tipped him into the early stage of frothing aggression. He hasn't lashed out, he hasn't lost his shit. How long was it, in that room? Long enough to be weak with hunger, long enough for security to relax.

Not long enough for the bite to scar over, glossy indents with just a hint of old scabs. Not long enough to stand in the inn's bathroom and feel fine. Look fine, when he pulls his collar wide enough to examine the bite.

They did it.

He took a bite and he didn't turn. He's standing here, in this impossible place, impossibly in his right mind.

And not a one of them here to see it. Not a one of them here to put him down and cut him open.

His first thought is to get out of here. Second and third thoughts are traps, what ifs: what if he'd been left to provide a cure, what if the people responsible for this had a cure. Somewhere in the line, a dozen, twenty thoughts down, repeating and repeatedly rejected: what if it's safe. What if I'm safe. He looks at the bath behind him. He looks at the face in the mirror. Still on the lean side of things, but healthy, rested. Like he really did sleep between points A and B. Like someone took care of it.

He knows better. Nobody takes care of anyone. Not for free.

Eschewing the bath, he changes into the dry clothes in his pack; overalls over thermal layers. He was just in a fountain, after a sterile facility; he's as clean as he's been in years. Someone had mentioned checking the supplies up here, and it wasn't difficult to pop open doors. Nobody seemed to blame a new face for peeking in and backing out of an occupied room, and eventually he was pointed to storage. There was some kind of checkout, but nobody standing by to enforce it. His scrubs would have to stay drying on the side of the tub, his pack filling up with socks, flint, rope--and with further digging a compass and set of snares.

The room is an unguarded treasure trove, but he's one person, with one pack. Everything and nothing might be necessary, and not everything could be carried. The snares helped him compromise, rolling a sleeping bag into a tarp and fixing it to the top of his pack, and attaching the store of arrows to the side. He slung the bow with some signs of use over his shoulder and slipped a knife into the pocket of his overalls, scrawling something illegible on the sheet with his off-hand.

Now he just had to pick a direction, pick an excuse, and get out of this settlement.

--

house 40; southeast village; nightfall

Unfamiliar with the canyon walls, Owen had simply chosen to move with the sun at his back, cutting first through a crop field recovering from the cold weather, then through wild grass, trees. The pines and hot spring spoke to the west of where he'd been, so east he would go.

Except, it didn't stay quite the same kind of pines. As he caught up to a curve in the river, the shale and pebbles were coated in some oxidized mineral, sharp and crumbling to the touch. Ferns grew thicker, the needles and leaves on the trees were filled in more than the buds of their counterparts. There was something--off. Something unlike the forests he'd cut through most of his life.

A bird shrieked out a call he'd never before heard; it appeared in a clap of gleaming plumage as it cut through a spot of light, and the moment it left the shaft disappeared from sight.

Whatever kind of wilderness this was, it didn't seem the kind to push blindly into on his first night. He hadn't gathered much by way of medical supplies--too many people picking through the crates--and he'd readied himself to hunt instead of packing food. As uneasy as this patch of woods felt, he might not know edible from poisonous.

Getting that far hadn't seen him to nightfall, but the return trek walked him into the setting sun. By it's ruddy light, he let himself into the first house he found at the edge of the wild field, just past the spring.

Silence inside. Gathering shadows, layers of dust. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Before he has to fortify the house, before he has to find hiding places for weapons and supplies, he strides to a couch, picking up and inspecting a cushion. Turning it over, he presses his face down into the cleaner side, and he lets the long, impossible day out in a muffled series of screams.

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Bela heads back to the inn after changing her clothes at her home. It's much warmer and with any luck, there will be some food (maybe even alcohol). She's tied back her longer hair with a piece of scrap material, fully intending to ask someone to cut it for her when they had the time.

Today has really thrown her for a loop and she's reluctant to go anywhere by herself in case something else strange happens. Perhaps the inn would have a spare room that Bela could crash in until she felt more comfortable in returning to her chosen home. She’s also hoping that there would be a meeting at some point to open up a discussion about today and what the next steps were going to be. Until something is arranged, Bela is going to remain at the inn for the rest of the day and indeed, tonight.

Should anyone come across her, they will find Bela in a prime spot in front of the fire, curled up on a chair.

Caution and judgment go hand in hand; Owen's gaze heavy with both as he descends the stairs. One hand on the rail, his shorn pinky displacing a layer of dust. They call it the Inn, and it delivers with a sort of dining area, a dusty bar. He doesn't expect much behind it, but any kind of alcohol is good to have on a trek. Bargaining chip, antiseptic. It's been a long time since he drank any himself.

The woman by the fire gets a glance. Not a gatekeeper, not anything he can immediately place. Worn, resting.

Is it safe--

He shuts that thought down. Of course it isn't safe here, even if someone buckles enough to sit by a fire while there are answers to seek, supplies to gather. It's to his benefit in the moment: if supplies haven't been counted on this side of--whatever they'd all been through--they might not miss what he's taken. He doesn't skirt her; casual or determined, you just have to move like you're supposed to be there. He's supposed to drag this stuff outdoors. He's supposed to slip behind the bar and root through the cabinets, unsurprised to find only dust and the things that live in it.

Perhaps Bela is off her game today, but it takes a while before she actually notices Owen moving around the room. Her back straightens as she sits up and stretches out her legs, making sure to look more alert than she was before - not that Bela has any obvious reason to mistrust him, but she's being careful.

"You're new," Bela says, giving Owen her full attention and briefly checking out what he was carrying, namely the bow and arrows. "I see that you have found the storage room as well. A lot of interesting items in there."

She is quiet after that, waiting to see if he was going to engage with her in conversation or just head out of the inn without saying anything; Bela can't help being curious about what he will do.

Much as he sometimes wished people were like certain other creatures, that could be frozen in front of and avoided by not acknowledging them back--Owen isn't about to pretend he didn't hear her in an otherwise empty room. "A wonderful collection of socks," he agrees--only so dry, when one considers. The best feeling in his decades of experience? Putting a clean, dry foot into some clean, dry socks.

He's managed one out of two, today. Halfway to nirvana. Good thing too, considering the empty state of the bar.

"Some of the things in there seem like they've had previous owners."

"Socks are a luxury in this place." A statement that Bela thought she would never say in her life, considering what she spent money on back home - nice apartment, nice clothes and a nice car. The belongings she had in the village were a mere fraction of what Bela owned in her own world.

"Waste not, want not." She nods at his observation, not disputing it. "Supplies are very limited in this place so if a person leaves something behind, the usual practice is to keep those items in storage for others to avail of them."

"It's a good practice," he allows. His hands, unable to find immediate use, tuck fingers to fingers and curve at his waist. The digits stretch out from their fold, and he checks the exit to the room. Clear enough, but there's no dismissing the idea that she's keeping a kind of watch.

He can't imagine why else someone would be here, right now. "It just seems like one that's gotten a lot of use."

As it had everywhere else he's been; as it likely would everywhere he'd go. The talk he's heard of canyon walls and long winters, he wonders if they're any safer with one gone and the other coming to a close.

"I am sure you're not the only person who sees it like that." Bela says, deciding to talk about herself for a moment. "In my own experience I have never had to share with others and rely upon so little. Been a real learning curve."

She didn't know him so maybe he was used to living like this. Bela also doesn't know if he has spoken to anyone else ever since he arrived, but she isn't going to ignore him.

"Have you decided to pick a house for yourself or stay in the inn?"

"Haven't decided much of anything," he says, though everything in him is aiming to get out of dodge. A house is only as good as its exit points, its traps, its sight lines and the weapons to fire along them.

Even then, it can just be a place to get cornered. The inn, far as he can tell, is all the pit falls of a house plus too many neighbors.

"Seen the fountain, the clinic, and the inn; got a little more sight-seeing on the agenda for today."

He seems evasive (perhaps rightly so) as Bela felt that way when she first emerged from the fountain and treated everyone with suspicion.

"Have fun exploring your new surroundings." She doesn't know how much fun a person can actually have with going into the forest and the wider area - hence the slight flippancy in her tone.

Then, as an afterthought:

"If you're hungry later come back to the inn for a meal."

Danny's been busy trying to make sure the animals get taken care off and afterwards he doesn't quite know what to do with himself so he hangs around, just in case some more people need his help. When he sees a guy coming out of the inn with a filled backpack and a stressed look on his face, Danny's cop senses kick in. It does kind of scream suspicious after all.

"Hey, Hey there." He runs up to the guy, looking him over. Now to try to figure out what is up. "Not sure we've met before?"

Getting out of the inn is one thing, but the distractions that kept most people outside have still left them on the immediate path. Owen stands out less, perhaps, for the supplies, and more for the still-shorn hair, jaw no patchier than a few days neglect would bring him, and utter lack of recognition he has for anywhere he looks or anyone he looks at.

Half his unease is for how much others seem to understand, how many bonds he's seen played out that he simply doesn't have. Being the odd one out in a group that's just gone through a crisis--that never plays out well. He can only hide so much apprehension, standing straighter when the man approaches him so directly.

"No," he answers, "I don't think we did." He tips his chin up, indicating the people still centered between inn and fountain, talking and rounding up animals wandered from their homes. "Everyone doing okay?"

"Seems like it. Wet and cold and confused, but more of less whole and safe. Claire is taking care of anyone who is hurt." He looks the guy over and then offers his hand.

"I am Danny Williams. You new here or have we just not crossed paths?"

"Owen," is all he returns; belatedly, a false start of the hand at his right hip, then a proper at the left. Too many people get antsy about missing pieces, better to put his best hand forward. Owen gives Danny's hand a solid shake, doesn't linger.

"New," he admits, weighing the context with what the aforementioned Claire had already told him. New is acceptable enough, and he doesn't know enough to pretend otherwise. "She helped get me sorted, a bit. Said something interesting about some missing walls?"

Danny nods. "Yeah, the place we were before this place looked exactly the same, except there were walls around that made it so we couldn't get out. Seems like we might be able to here."

"Seems like," he repeats. There's a long list of trouble he's found and things he's lost on seems like. Owen rolls his shoulders under the pack, the weight familiar enough for what it was, if not yet for what it actually weighed.

"Too many trees to see from here, if there's something else out there," he points out. "Figured I'd see it for myself."

"If you wait a few days I am sure there is a group of people that would like to go with you. It'd be safer that way."

He looks the guy over again, trying to assess how capable he is.

Owen bites the inside of his cheek, defying expression as he flicks a gaze to the sun drawing overhead. "Scouting parties are good for trouble because they attract it. And I'm sure they'd have an easier time walking a new perimeter if they know what it looks like."

He doesn't know how far he can stretch new, or if anyone here understands--the stranger-danger goes both ways. "No offense, Danny, but I don't know this group of people any more than I know these woods, and I know which one I can get an idea of by sundown."

"This is a good group of people, Owen. They welcomed me with open arms." Besides he was carrying supplies, Danny is pretty damn sure of that, since that is what McGarrett would do.

"We have no idea what is out there, but here we have the protection of houses as well as food, and there is safety in numbers."

Seems like, good people, safety. Owen can't hear that kind of talk and not feel like someone's trying to fleece him in a different language, one they don't think he knows.

"I'll believe that enough to break this down for you despite the waste of daylight, and then I'll believe it enough to think you aren't the type to keep a man from moving freely through your little town," he says, not crossing his arms despite the impulse. He keeps them at his sides, ready but visible, hands empty. "This place is just getting out of winter, so food you've got is old stores or comes out of those woods. The numbers you think keep you so safe are only enough to keep this place in order because these powers that be already gave you what you have. So you do need an idea of what's out there, and I'm not asking to go get that idea for you, because I already plan to do it."

Danny nods. He isn't going to keep Owen here if the man really wants to go. He does cross his arms however as the explanation comes. He doesn't really agree with the other's assessment of the situation.

"And we're going to get that, with or without you Owen. I'd just rather it be with. And for that matter that you are safe as well." He takes a deep breath and lets it out as a sigh. "I hope you'll reconsider leaving. But I am not going to stop you. And if you come back there is always empty beds here."

"Thank you," he says, shoulders sloping under his pack, one heel setting back. Standing down, preparing to walk away. Maybe he'll be allowed to. Maybe Danny, at least, means what he says.

He'll find out soon enough.

"I'll let someone know if I find anything." He can prove the worth of his own word. Danny isn't wrong, even if Owen doesn't trust the group's merit: better for them all to know the edge of this assumed safety.

"We'd appreciate that." He nods and then steps back, holding his hands up enough to make it very obvious he wasn't going to stop Owen.

"Take care out there."

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[arrival] doomed as the source

Inn

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Outside the Inn

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