sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Scout's Honor

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[MINGLE] Scout's Honor

WHERE: Hot Springs
WHEN: 21 Sept, after sunset
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Please warn in your subject line as needed
NOTES: Details found here

It's been a strange, rough couple of months for our intrepid villagers — Bunkers, superpowers and clones, oh my! Perhaps the Observers are sympathetic to their plight, or maybe they just have a peculiar sense of humor. At any rate, they've set up a gathering space chalk full of summer camp goodness, no strings attached. Not that anyone knows that part.

Just before sunset, a cheery message pops up on wrist devices all across the settlement and beyond. The instructions seem simple enough, although one does have to wonder at what dubious gift awaits them all after everything is said and done.

Marshmallows are on the house, so grab yourself a stick, strap on a sash and get to roasting, villagers. Skinny dipping, sing-alongs and friendship bracelets optional.

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There is a thing many adults share when they were raised being told one thing that was, in the end, blatantly untrue. Where they're convinced they're unattractive, too geeky, too weird, what have you but it's something that sticks with them into adulthood.

Hence why Jake is really confused by her reactions to him. He's gotten it from another, and he's still not sure what to think of it. As she says, it's not like there's a shortage of hot people in this place, so he's not sure what they're seeing with him.

"Yeah, I've noticed that," he says, shrugging. "Used to having hot people around, so I guess it's normal." He's spent years with his unit, and he's not believing he isn't bottom of the list of gorgeous.

"Naw, welcome is fine. Or sorry about your luck. Whichever works," he says, laughing a bit roughly at that. "But yeah. It's only been a few days. You?"

She laughed in return, a rusty, broken sound that clearly suffered from lack of use. "Me?" she said. "I've been here..." She sucked in air between her teeth. "About a year and a half. Maybe more. Every fucking day is the fucking same. You can lose track, but I'm pretty sure I've only had one birthday so far."

And what a crappy birthday that had been.

Sam gave the water a little kick.

"I'm Sam," she said, turning to offer him her hand. "It's 'Sam Skywalker' on the network. AKA, the vodka lady. AKA, the blue bitch." She didn't know that anyone was actually calling her 'the blue bitch.' But it seemed more than likely.

"Really?" He frowns, nose wrinkling as his brow furrows. "So really, we're in it for the long haul, huh?"

Despite what some have said, he's still hoping he'll find himself back with his unit any day now. Or more that they will break in and find him and put things back how they're supposed to be. Until then, all he can do is wait and do the best he can for this place.

A year and a half is not promising.

"Pleasure's mine, Sam," he says, taking her hand. "Skywalker, huh? I like it. I'm Jake Jensen, and the only additional names I have are Captain and Loser so..." He winces. "Okay that last sounds worse than it is. Let's focus on why they call you the vodka lady."

Loser? Oh, this guy had no idea who he was talking to. She was probably Prince of the Losers, if such a title could exist. But there was only so much information a n00b could take. Especially when it came to her long list of failures.

And why ruin the first half-decent conversation she'd had in weeks?

"Oh, I brew it in the kitchen," she said. "I have a still. It's pretty much the only scientific contribution I can make to this shit show, given the depressing lack of tech. It's halfway decent, if you don't mind drinking something that could substitute as a pretty good silverware polish."

People live with the names their unit gives him. He just feels he lives up to it, but right now they're technically all dead so there's that. He arches a brow though at that, definitely impressed.

"Then you are probably one of the most popular people in this place," he says, chuckling, though his expression is decidedly hangdog at that. "Isn't that the truth? Driving me nuts and been here less than a week. I get a feeling though that the strength of it, or taste, isn't putting people off. Not with the way this place is."

Sam laughed at the notion she was popular. Behind them, the popular kids were pairing off in twos and threes and slinking away from the scene together. Big, happy families out there. Not so much in Sam's situation.

She was alone.

Physically. Emotionally. Metaphorically.

...genetically.

"Well, the brewing keeps me busy, anyway," she said, ducking her head. "At least when we're not dealing with the abject terror of living in a Skinner Box. And by the way, do you have a name, or should I just call you Skinner Subject 87?"

He arches a brow as she speaks, considering that. Not nearly as self conscious as he was a moment ago. Mostly for something to focus on that isn't compliments paid to him.

"Not seen a lot of reason for terror," he admits. "Lot of questions, and maybe less liberal use by people of that red salt but not terror," he says, frowning as he's not sure if he's really missing things or if there's a reason to put the fear of God in a new guy that he should have noticed before now.

"It's Jake though. Jake Jensen."

"Jake it is," Sam said, with a nod. "Just as well. 'Skinner Subject 87' isn't the sexiest name."

Even if it was eerily accurate.

She whet her lower lip. "Jake, I don't know how familiar you are with the social sciences. Personally, I think they're largely hokum, but in this particular case, I think it's important to understand a Skinner Box. What we're in here. This whole village," she made a broad, sweeping gesture, "is just a giant operant conditioning chamber. An operant conditioning chamber permits experimenters--like the aforementioned Skinner--to study behavior conditioning by teaching a subject animal to perform certain actions in response to specific stimuli."

That her AP Psych coursework was proving useful now was beyond mystifying.

"Now," she continued, pointing a finger back and forth between the two of them. "You, me, and the rest of the clowns? We're the subject animals. And the stimuli is what the Overlords do to us. But here's the kicker. We have no fucking idea what sort of behavior conditioning is in their endgame."

"Neither is Jake I'm told," he says, though he shrugs with it used to not being exactly the world's most eligible bachelor.

He stares at her for a long time, considering what she's laying out there. It's not that he hasn't heard it before, it's just that he knows his place and position before this and isn't looking at it changing much.

Shifting slightly, not finding himself entirely comfortable with the subject while he's sitting half dressed in a hot spring, but that's part of it all, he supposes.

"What I know? I'm a soldier. I'm already a subject animal. Different mazes, same games. So really, whatever they're playing at? I don't care really. I know that sounds stupid but... I care about making sure those stuck here are well taken care of and that I do my best to make sure the civilians get through things unharmed until I'm returned to my unit. Whatever they want with me it got weird enough when I was told I'm some guy's body double. Long as people aren't dying, they can use me in their little games, I guess."

Which isn't entirely true, he is worried and he's upset, but he's going to do the best he can to hold it together and be the military man he vowed to be. Just as long as he can.

He was right. It did sound stupid. Incredibly stupid. But Sam could be a little judgmental. Both as someone entirely used to being the smartest person in a room and as someone utterly fed up with the Skinner Box life.

Now there was a hashtag.

Still, she appreciated his noble sentiments. There was definitely something to be said for having your heart in the right place. Even if your head was up your ass.

She bit her lower lip for a second. "People do die," she admitted. "Sometimes. We had our last funeral about two and a half months ago. A kid named Peeta. Couldn't have been more than sixteen."

"Then my work's cut out for me, isn't it? My last funeral was, for me, a week ago when twelve children were shot out of the sky instead of me because I thought putting them in a chopper was saving their lives." He's tensing up, and rambling about the shit that he knows no one cares about, but he can't help it.

He's already too long without his unit and too tied up in the pain that he won't give himself time to work through, and if he's a fool for worrying more about others than what they want with him, then so be it.

"Doesn't change what I will try and do, or that someone should try and do it. I doubt I'm the only one either but if I am, so be it. Because sixteen year olds shouldn't die. Kids shouldn't be murdered, and without a lot more resources than I've found so far, I can't take the place down but I can try and help people."

There was a hell of a lot to parse out in what he was saying. But the overwhelming fact of the matter seemed to be that even if he was a little bit stupid, he definitely had a good heart.

And one fucked up backstory, apparently.

But she didn't judge. Her own history would probably make this poor bastard's eyes pop out of their sockets. Then again, people here were way too weirdly calm about living with a vampire.

"Well," she said. "I imagine you'll have a lot to keep you busy here after a while. Just trust me on that."

"Good." He nods as he says that, though he can see the warning that is in those warnings as well. "I'd rather that than having time to think." There's too much he hasn't dealt with, from the betrayal to Cougar and right back around again.

And he is glad for that. Already he's gotten into his own head and even Jake knows that's a bad place for him to be.

"Besides, whatever is going on here, if I can make things easier on the rest of those here, then I've done my job."

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[MINGLE] Scout's Honor

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