jettisons | week two, sunday

week two, sunday

[Bellamy doesn't go looking for Prussia immediately, not after the execution. That was something, and he doubts she's in any state to be spoken to. Still, he feels like he needs to make sure she's alright, especially after he voted for Austria. Austria would have died anyway, but he still feels responsible. He's starting to feel responsible for every death on this island, like he's not moving fast enough to find a way out.

He spots her on the beach, still covered in Austria's blood, and he stops a distance away, giving her space as he clears his throat.]

Prussia?

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Most people don't. Lots of people die every day, lots of times for reasons they don't even understand.

...You want to hear my explanation for that halfassed stunt of hers, yesterday? You can be pissed at her, I don't give a shit. But...

[It sits poorly with her, having people remember Austria as the villain. That's always been her role.]

I'll listen.

[He might still be pissed at her, sure, but he's still willing to hear whatever Prussia wants to tell him.]

One thing you have to understand is that the two of us? We've seen a lot over the years. Done a lot, been a lot. It's not that she didn't like you guys, I don't think. Or she wants to see more people die.

I think she was trying to help, in her own stupid melodramatic way. If we're going to win this game and go home, we need to catch the killers. We're not going to do that by minimizing casualties. Wish we could.

[She rakes a hand back through her hair, gripping her scalp momentarily.]

She was never any kind of great military leader. I kicked her ass up and down Europe for years. And there's no way to say it without sounding like a bitch, but she was giving us our own kick in the ass. They gave us rules like a chess game. If we're going to play to win, we have to...

[Sacrifice a few pieces. She hates it, and it's clear on her face that she finds it distasteful as she struggles with the words.]

Like I said, hate her all you want. But that's what she was trying to do for us. Make sure we had the resolve to move forward, no matter what. Of course, I could be wrong. She could just be an idiot.

[That's understandable, he thinks. He gets the reasoning, even if he doesn't agree with it, but he's still shaking his head.]

I'm not playing this game any longer than I have to. If surviving means I have to kill everyone here, I'm not doing it.

Aaah, what'm I doing, making that idiot look good?

[She's talking to herself for a second as she extricates her fingers from her hair, then glances back to Bellamy with a nod.]

You're on the right track, kid. But until we figure out how to break this game and shove it straight up those robots' asses, they have us by the balls. We're stuck with their rules.

So keep your eyes open and drink plenty of water. You're going to need it to keep yelling during these stupid trials.

[Bellamy snorts quietly, eyebrows raising.]

You want me to keep yelling?

I want everybody to keep fighting. Give it their all.

[Her lips curve into a hint of a wry smile, though.]

But maybe try to listen to some other people once in a while, too.

I'm listening.

[Mostly. And then, more genuinely than before:]

I'm sick of watching people die. If you think we need to stop focusing on minimizing casualties, then we disagree.

[She holds up a hand as if to stop him, shaking her head.]

Austria always scolded me for caring about regular people too much. You don't have to worry about me disagreeing with that. Just... letting you know what she was thinking, probably.

I want us all to go home. That aristocrat has paperwork left at home, and I'm not subjecting my cute little sister to all that work. So we'll have to bring them with us, too. Which means making the robots play on our rules.

[Now she's got his full attention, and he seems to relax a bit.]

What are you thinking?

Right now? Not much. But-

[She holds up a hand, ticking off points on her gloved fingers.]

Eins: we need information. Zwei: divide and conquer. We're fighting a two-front war right now with both of those robots. There has to be something we can do to split them, I think. Eliminate one if we have to.

Drei: find a way to to sabotage their game. Make it impossible to play by their rules. That's the one I need to figure out first so we can move toward it.

If there's a way to access their code on this island, we can take care of it.

[But that's a big if.]

If they weren't lying at the trial, something is able to screw with us, something that they're not in charge of. I don't know what started those hallucinations, but we don't know something like that won't happen again. This whole place could be rigged.

...

[She's silent, bringing a finger to her lips as if that might help her think. That... smears a little bit of the blood that hadn't dried onto her face but uh. Whoops.]

Could be. Which makes it even more important to lessen our fronts before we're flanked. We're lucky nobody got killed during those hallucinations, or...

[She's silent again, thinking.]

Wonder whose side that other force might be on, besides their own.

We don't have enough information, and we're running out of time.

[It's pointless to be frustrated, but it leaks into his voice anyway.]

Someone had to make those robots. Whoever did that might be the one in charge, or they might have been programmed and left to it. Maybe they're misinterpreting some protocol and this is the result.

[But that doesn't make sense to him. Raven's always been the tech savvy one, and he knows he's making uneducated guesses here.]

[She's counting on her fingers again.]

Worst case scenario, with the rules how they're set right now and the information we have, we've got eight more weeks. Nine at the most. Let's hope it doesn't take that long. Those aren't good numbers.

[A muscle in her jaw twitches.]

Someone had to make them, ja, but that doesn't mean the -hallucination-asshole is the one who did it. Keep that question in mind, but set it aside. We have to break down what we think are the facts before we bring in even more theories, oder?

[Bellamy nods just slightly.]

I don't buy that this is just for entertainment. There has to be a goal beyond that, something they're not telling us.

[Why else would they drag a bunch of people from different worlds to do this?]

They have to have some system in place to get us to keep playing, even if we don't know what it is. They're not going to let us just stop.

Ja, I think you're onto something there.

[She nods slightly, resting her free hand on her hip.]

So whatever we do... it has to destroy it so thoroughly that they can't ever bring it back. Not for us, not for anyone else. I want to make this the last Gottverdammt game like this.

[That gets a smile out of him.]

We're on the same page. If there's a security system, we need to find it, but I don't want to risk killing everyone on this island if we're wrong.

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week two, sunday

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