reefnet | TO994M | day 4 | morning

[There's the sound of footsteps on sand; she's walking as she talks, heading away from the beach and up towards the scrubby jungle.]

So I got got by what I think was a crossbow bolt. Kinda hard to tell for sure; it all came at me pretty fast. Got an arrow to the leg not long before that, but the one that came for my head seemed bigger in the point-two seconds of reaction time I had before it hit. And it did hit. Should've been difficult-to-impossible to survive, but here I am. Which tells me some things.

[She relays the news of her almost-certain death matter-of-factly, in the same flat-ish tone as her previous radio contributions. If anything, she sounds a little more upbeat here: it's not by much, but having (what she thinks are) answers is a relief. At least now she (thinks she!!) knows what she's dealing with.]

Look, guys; this isn't real. Fifty-fifty odds whether you're a part of it or not - maybe you're all artificial constructs and I'm the only real sentient person here, or maybe we're all hooked up to machines in a lab and we've been tossed into this simulated... thing together. Gonna be nice and assume the latter, for now. Point is, signs have been pointing to this for a while, and this proves it. But this is good news, kind of. It means that whatever happens here doesn't really matter. We die, we screw up, we do something our monitor overlord doesn't like - we just reset. I fired off three bullets, and they're back now, because the gun and the bullets are just lines of computer code that can be rewritten in whatever way the people running this want.

Priority number one shouldn't be escaping the island or long-term survival or whatever. It should be figuring out how to get out of the simulation. Then the party can really get started.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Honestly? It's a toss-up. Why don't you take her?

I'm in a cell.

[Well, fuck.]

Any sign of Blackwood?

[ A noise in the negative, preoccupied and slightly critical. ] Different building. Same size, same layout. I have fruit, a little water. I've got time.

[ This time he doesn't pause so much as break off. His voice, when it comes back, is tentative. ] What's it like?

Dying?

Yeah.

Like waking up.

You're smart enough not to off yourself for no good reason, right?

[ Something in him rears back from that. He's still coming to grips with it, the senseless sense of disappointment bleeding into his voice as he says: ] What'd I tell you, about me and sleep?

[ Even before this, he took stock—shoelaces, belt, knife. Gun. He's only imagined the gun, his feelings mixed on the thought of a police-issue death.

If she's not having some kind of episode, not lying (who fucking knows why)—if she is actually here—it's the most efficient way out. So stack practicality on top of all the other reasons, all his philosophical convictions, and still the gun stays holstered. A part of him still insists: I can work this. ] I'm not a suicide risk. [ A bitter, intractable fact. ]

Good, because it'd still suck getting there. Dying of thirst in a cell won't be any fun, either. You working on getting out?

[ Only when it doesn't come—when he bristles at its absence—does he realize he was expecting judgment. ] Yeah. Saving my more dangerous notions for later.

Kinda funny that I'm the only one with a mattress.

Lucky you. Bet the other guys are burning with jealousy.

[ Radio silence from Rust for a few hours—call it three, call it four. Then his voice cuts back in, sounding faint. ] Hey, we gotta meet. Gotta show you something.

[ A pause. ] Remember, ah, the wheelbarrow?

[ Slowly, long intervals between each number, he sends: ] 22 18 26 68 40 8 1 [ Which—if she has the time, patience, and remembers correctly—will spell out WALKIES, each number corresponding to a letter in the poem. ]

[The fact that she definitely doesn't remember the poem exactly word for word hinders her here - but after puzzling it out, figuring out at which point she's gone wrong, and wracking her brain until she remembers the right word (that's right, it's glazed with rainwater, not dewdrops), she finally manages to piece together the message.

God, that was annoying. She can't believe people do this for fun.]

Got it.

Don't know how a meet's gonna happen, though.

[ He abandons the walkie while she's piecing everything together, but he's quick to reply once it crackles back to life. Joys of a six-foot cell. ] Yeah, you're on your vision quest. [ Despite the phrasing, it's not dismissive. ]

It's a two-man job, I can tell you that. And it's important.

I think I almost had something, before I bit it. But if you can get out, or you can give me an idea of how to get to you--

I only know it from the coast. The northeast shore, I was following it south, marking my trail with three rocks in a stack. Ah, you'd see the downed cockpit, maybe the remains of a fire.

Before I headed into the jungle I sketched a little compass in the sand. From there, mmmm, ten hours due west? Set out early morning, arrived near dusk.

[ With sharper interest: ] What do you mean, had it?

[Ah, the direction she's already kinda-sorta headed in. Good.]

Shouldn't talk about it over this thing.

Alright.

Drones're still up and running. Only way I can figure to short them out is to clog the fucking toilet. [ And for obvious reasons he's keeping that one in reserve. ]

TO994M | day 4 | morning | audio

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