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Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 03-07-08, 10:50 AM (EST) "The Mole: Season #5: Episode #2: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" ----------------------------------------------------------------- Is this a funeral procession making its way through the fog-shrouded streets (or in this case, the sidewalks) of London, mourners so devastated by the recent death of one of their own that they don't trust themselves to drive? Probably not. We can put most of the slow pace down to a combination of relative lack of sleep -- it was just a little bit into the wee hours when they finally got to bed, and not all that far past clouded sunrise when the knocks hit the doors -- and a desire to take in what might be the last of the local sights. We're on our way to a bus station: beyond that, the destination is unknown -- but there's a good chance we're leaving London, and it just might be for the last time. U-turns are a province of another show entirely. No mourning -- but maybe there's a little bit of shock. The first execution is still on some people's minds: in particular, Sadr keeps examining his PDC's screen, as if wondering when it's going to go dark. David's spent part of the walk double-checking notes, and Patricia is making additional recordings as they move down the mostly-empty sidewalks: getting the marching order down, just in case. The game only starts to become real when the first person leaves: that's been said before. A war is just an extra-noisy training exercise until someone bleeds. And this isn't war, not quite yet -- -- but there's a hole in the phone link menu where parallel bars used to be. The other symbols haven't rearranged to close it. Mind the gap. Someone could fall in. Our eleven carry, pull, and occasionally drag their luggage along, Felicia struggling with a too-stuffed bag which seems to have been packed for every conceivable event -- including, judging by the apparent weight of the thing, interactive bullet catching. (Charity offered to help, but Felicia crossly insisted she could handle the thing herself -- which left Charity carrying one of Patricia's bags: as long as someone was volunteering...) Only the host is free of baggage at the moment, at least for the kind that can be checked. Past a old hotel that faces a large open square, and here we find England's finest: a unit of the Royal Air Force is doing morning exercises in that space, leaping, vaulting, moving in time to the commanding officer's whistle. It's an odd place and time to find the four hundred occupying the square, and yet here they are, wearing uniforms that seem older than they should, young men who haven't seen combat yet, who don't truly understand just how many wounds can be borne by a single body or how long a soul can take to heal, celebrating their youth and vigor while they still have them -- because they'll never lose any of it, truly they won't, no matter what's happened to everyone that's come before. The sergeant blows one last note -- and the men propel themselves directly up, heads tilted back, a primal scream propelled from four hundred throats ringing across the cool morning air and cutting away nearly all of what remains of the fog -- -- they land, spin, run off in eight directions: into hotels, through alleyways, onto neighboring streets. It takes less than twelve seconds to empty the entire square, leaving no evidence that they had ever been there at all beyond a single faint echo -- and that passes on its own. The sergeant pockets the whistle and steps into the last pocket of fog. The group collectively realizes they'd frozen while they watched, draws a momentarily-united breath. Erin immediately pretends she was never a part of it. Alex turns to regard the pack trailing at her heels, looks them over for a moment -- then moves on without a word. They follow. Until the end, some of them will always follow. ----------------------------------------------------------------- And here we are on the bus, which was not painted with a green thumbprint -- although the rotating destination display did say Mole Express at one point, which has made for the first giant lie of the game. There may be no intended stops between here and whatever our eventual destination is, but there's plenty of unplanned ones. It's the first taste of London traffic for most of them, and they're very quick to learn the recipe: take Manhattan, add Los Angeles, stir in Chicago to taste, then add accidents, slowdowns that exist for no apparent reason, arguments on the side of the road, arguments in the middle of the road, flavor with assorted accents and serve very, very slowly. It's somehow made worse by their being in the trailing bus: the lead one has most of the camera crew in it. Those twenty extra feet could wind up making a whole second's worth of difference, and at least that would be one they could conceivably get back. Alex gets up, stands in the aisle towards the front of the bus, looks back at our eleven. She's shifting very easily with the minimal stops-and-starts of the vehicle, having no trouble keeping her balance. (Christopher's eyes are carefully following a series of resulting secondary shifts.) "It's probably a little too early to punch up the movies," she decides. (There are no screens hanging from the bus ceiling.) A small shrug. "I'm surprised no one's asked where we're going." "We get to ask questions?" Patricia teases, a little more energetic than the others after having had to carry that much less luggage. She also seems to just be enjoying herself, period -- which is drawing touches of suspicion from some of the others and annoyance from at least one. It takes a lot of looking around to pick up on just who's displaying what: there's more than enough room in the bus for everyone to have a seat to themselves, and no one is visibly comfortable with partnering up just yet -- at least, not in the open. "You always get to ask," Alex clarifies, which suggests that answers may not always be forthcoming. Jacob decides to try a nibble of bait, if only to get the taste. "So where are we heading to?" "Thirsk," the host tells them. "It's a fairly small town in Yorkshire. Normally we'd be looking at a three-hour ride to get there, but right now, it's going to be more like five..." An even smaller shrug. "We're not going to miss much of anything by getting there late -- we left the morning open for travel." "Never heard of the place," Christopher declares, and the lack of name recognition from the rest of the group is displaying the first-ever mass agreement with Christopher. "What's so special about it that we're going there?" "It's a fairly small town in Yorkshire," Alex repeats herself. "For the most part, it's still a farming community, leaning more towards animal raising than vegetable harvesting. Small towns still exist, Christopher -- not every place on the planet had major historical events centering around it. If you believe there's a specific reason for choosing Thirsk -- then you're going to have to figure out what that is." "But something must have happened there," Felicia insists. "We wouldn't just go to nowhere -- would we?" "'Nowhere' is a good way to stay out of sight," Alex reminds them all. "And yes -- things happened there. People were born. People died. Stories were told, and some of them are still remembered. The same things that happen in every small town." Patricia seems to be just a little uncomfortable with the direction of this discussion. "Which means the gossip is constantly flowing -- and we're going to be the biggest thing worth gossiping about in years." "Could be," Alex says. "Now -- there's some special rules for Thirsk." The group instantly focuses all their attention on her: Mihoshi even stops playing with her PDC for a few seconds. "First and foremost: you have to wear your PDCs in the open at all times. No covering them with clothing: they must be on full display for every second you're in public within the Yorkshire Dales. Don't worry about rain -- they're waterproof. No matter what happens or what you're doing for a mission assignment, they have to be visible. No exceptions, and there will be a five thousand dollar penalty imposed for every person who violates it -- per violation, even if each one only lasts a few seconds. This could add up fast -- so try to avoid it." Some open confusion from the group, and Sadr gets to express it. "Why?" "Because," Alex replies. "You can take them off in your rooms, though. Rule two: if you get expedition time here, you are now allowed to go out in groups. Feel free to socialize a little and enjoy the area -- summer in the Dales can be a special experience all by itself. And third --" which brings in one of those potentially fatal pauses: the slight inhales from David and Verni show they've spotted the trouble coming early "-- there are two Exemptions available in Thirsk." You couldn't get their attention off her with a crowbar, unless you tried applying it to the back of the head. "For these Exemptions," Alex says, "you're looking at open competition: everyone here is eligible to receive one. You're also looking for the solution to a riddle. The first two people who give me the right answer will receive an Exemption that's good for the next quiz. You can page me by PDC or just give it to me privately, whichever's easier for you. However --" and this time, everyone freezes "-- I won't tell you if you had the right answer until just before we start searching for the executed. So you'll take the quiz in doubt -- but you'll know you're protected during the results." "Wait a damn minute!" -- and that came from Prime Suspect #1, at least when it comes to any and all interruptions. "How the hell is that supposed to be fair? The stupid Mole can just text you with the right answer five feet up this death swamp of a road! Only one of those things is really up for grabs -- and that just brings the rest of us --" read 'me' here if you want to "-- that much closer to being screwed over!" Alex slowly turns a few degrees, locks eyes with Erin, grey to deep brown. Erin doesn't flinch, doesn't blink. A slow nod from the host. "Right. It isn't fair. Some things aren't. I could give an Exemption to the Mole at absolutely any time, for any reason I felt like, and no one here would have any complaint coming." Still looking at Erin, her voice completely toneless, "Charity, that's a very nice outfit you've got on today. I really like the earth tones. You know what earth tones remind me of? Burial after an execution. Want an Exemption?" Charity blinks. "Um..." Very awkwardly, "Well -- yeah, of course..." "Too bad: I'm not giving you one." Alex still hasn't taken her gaze off Erin. Neither one has shifted by so much as a millimeter, even allowing for the occasional movements of the bus. "David, that's a classy tie. Do you think it's worth one free shield?" David's voice isn't toneless so much as it is flattened. "I believe I see the point here. You don't need any more of an excuse to grant an Exemption than whatever you feel necessary to provide. The Mole always advances from cycle to cycle: whether it's from quiz results that never counted in the first place or Exemptions that don't need to do anything is almost immaterial." "Exactly," Alex says -- and now Erin blinks (but still doesn't look away). "But at the same time -- there might be occasions when the Mole is playing hir own game. I could say 'The Mole doesn't have the answer to this riddle, and will be fighting to keep the Exemption away from one of you by solving it first.' And it would be your choice as to whether you believed me. Or you might choose to believe -- as Erin seems to have -- that there's really just one Exemption up for grabs after all, and in that case, be glad I didn't announce it was just a single offer to begin with, because then all the players would be closed out." Just a little more softly, "You know the best way to get by without an Exemption? Don't need one. Beat the quiz every time and you'll never miss the thing. Exemptions don't protect you from the others: they just save you from yourself. Anyone think they need saving?" And with that, Erin looks away -- only to glare at Mark. "I bet some people would love to know if they need it or not..." Mark doesn't seem to be taking this badly. "I'd like to know my place in the rankings, sure -- that tells me if I'm on the right track. Hell, I'd love to know what George's answers were -- knowing where he might have been wrong would be one of the best clues anyone could get." Verni, almost to herself. "I wonder what his dream was..." Everyone looks at her. "Well --" hesitantly "-- we all put something on the application." Something that ultimately determined who would be approached and asked to turn Mole. Their host nods to that, and her voice takes up the burden of light rise and fall again. "How badly do you want to know?" "Not enough to take anything out of the pot," Verni too-quickly decides. "And -- dreams can be private. Even if we put them on the form, it doesn't mean everyone wants them shared out with the group." "I'm guessing that means you're not willing to admit yours," Alex says. Another hesitation. "Not right now," Verni finally admits. "Maybe at the end." Christopher tosses off a shrug. "I'll admit mine," and immediately basks in the attention. "Because it's impossible now. I wanted to go on the Tonight Show as a performing act -- but I wanted to score the old one. Johnny's dead -- so I'm never getting my dream." "That doesn't mean you wouldn't settle for the current host," David feels the need to point out. "And that would be a fairly easy thing for the show to arrange." Christopher grins, making sure to show off every possible tooth. "Probably and probably, school-man -- but it would be settling. What I dreamt about was mixing it up old-school, with the master of his craft. You get pretenders to the throne, and you get the occasional prince who knows how to wave the sceptre around -- but there's only one king." "Let's not talk about waving sceptres," Mihoshi wearily suggests. (She got very little sleep, but she doesn't really need that much -- at least short-term.) "I still don't know what was going on in there..." Verni's looking uncomfortable again. "Either you believe me or you don't. I don't care either way. I know what I saw." Charity seems a little eager for a subject change. "People could lie about their dreams -- giving out something that the show would have an easy time doing could make them seem more like the Mole." And to some, Christopher might already be looking rather Mole-like. "There's all kinds of misdirection. Saying you just wanted your childhood public park renovated could be a really easy tactic." "You must have been on the Dream Team for seesaws, at least when you were pushing," Erin sarcastically proclaims. "Fine -- so that's just one more thing we can't trust. Not like we've found anything we can yet, except for the ugly guy on his way to Wherever..." "George wanted a rezoning." Felicia is the first to break the very shocked silence. "...a what?" "A rezoning," Alex repeats. "Thanks to a little muddle of Chicago bureaucracy, most of the area around his clinic is a no-parking-at-any-time zone, and the local lots are hideously expensive. George wanted the city government to allow handicapped parking on those streets." A very brief smile. "I'm not sure he took the form's question entirely seriously, but -- that's what he put down for an answer. Some dreams aren't necessarily all that complicated, at least to describe -- but they can still be just about impossible to make real if you don't have the resources to bribe your way through twenty layers of city officials. I'm sure George had other dreams: that's just the one he couldn't manage on his own. I don't think he'd mind having it put on the air -- and maybe broadcasting it will do some good, because the parking regulations really are stupid." "Parking regulations?" Christopher, startled. "Of all the things in the world he could have gone for, he went with parking regulations?" "He didn't know he was 'going for it' at the time," Alex points out. "And after seeing some of his patients trying to figure out how they could arrange pick-ups and drop-offs for therapy sessions, or face parking fees -- or fines -- that they couldn't afford..." She lets it sink in. "George's answer was dreaming for someone else, not for himself: that's the part he may not have taken the way the form intended. But it's what he wanted. Not all dreams are self-involved." "I would have liked to have known him better than I did." David, very slowly. "He is a better man in retrospect than I knew at the time." Erin's not impressed. "And he would have donated the entire jackpot to Jerry's Kids -- come on. We're not looking at eleven saints and one paragon-for-hire. Somebody's got to have a really selfish dream -- something completely self-involved, without a single damn given for anyone else." "Very likely," David dryly admits. "So what is yours, exactly?" Sadr chokes back his reaction -- no, not quite in time: Erin gets to deliver a double-glare. "None of your damn business," she snaps. "And the Exemptions can still be a stupid joke." "Then you'd better work on figuring out just who's finding it funny," Alex tells her. "Do you still want the riddle, or do you think these Exemptions are so much of a joke that there's no point in making the attempt?" Erin's ready for that one. "There's two of the things," she immediately responds. "The Mole cheats into one and I get the other. I'll take on your stupid riddle -- let's hear it." Their host obliges them. "Tell me the three whose names were never spoken during that part of their lives, and tell them to me by those names which were never said." The words immediately flash into existence on eleven PDCs -- then, once noticed, compress into a question mark icon in the lower right corner. "And if you'll look to your right, you'll see a fistfight starting over what appears to be a question of who decided to disable their lane-change signal last. If this was Cairo, we'd already have at least three fatalities..." -----------------------------------------------------------------   Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Subject     Author     Message Date     ID    RE: The Mole: Season #5: Episod... Colonel Zoidberg 03-07-08 1  RE: The Mole: Season #5: Episod... ohmyheck 04-11-08 2    RE: The Mole: Season #5: Episod... Colonel Zoidberg 04-13-08 3  I Never Promised You A Rose Garden:... Estee 04-17-08 4  I Never Promised You A Rose Garden:... Estee 07-10-08 5    RE: I Never Promised You A Rose Gar... Colonel Zoidberg 07-13-08 6    RE: I Never Promised You A Rose Gar... Belle Book 02-15-09 7  I Never Promised You A Rose Garden:... Estee 02-28-09 8    RE: I Never Promised You A Rose Gar... Belle Book 02-28-09 9  RE: The Mole: Season #5: Episod... Belle Book 03-19-10 10

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Colonel Zoidberg 3370 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Car Show Celebrity" 03-07-08, 11:42 AM (EST) 1. "RE: The Mole: Season #5: Episode #2: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" {Blog Entry, 03/07/2008 Authored by: tonganoxiegirl "Tell me the three whose names were never spoken during the part of the...hang on a sec while I shake the confusion out of my head. What the hell is this all about? I can never do those damn brainteasers. Not to give anything away, but my complete inability to do brainteasers would have been my potential undoing on Survivor if it made a lick of difference. But you'll find out about that later. This group seems to be the most paranoid that I've ever seen in anything. And I've played Survivor twice, for crying out loud, and I've hung out with some of the first crop of All-Stars. Bunch of whack jobs they were. But at least they were only paranoid about each other. Honestly, Erin. Give it a rest - so the Mole might have an advantage. Doesn't mean the other nine players do. Unless you're the Mole. I'm so bad at this stuff. It also seems like the players aren't really over the loss of George. Hell, some of the time, we were downright glad to be rid of people. For a group of folks who has absolutely no trust and probably very limited respect for the others here, there sure is a lot of grief over losing someone. You had to know what you were getting into, people. Seeing people leave shouldn't be that big a shock. Now I wonder how soon those PDCs will be on the market. Those things are cool.}   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

ohmyheck 1919 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser" 04-11-08, 08:46 PM (EST) 2. "RE: The Mole: Season #5: Episode #2: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" So, umm.. when can we expect more of this?   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Colonel Zoidberg 3370 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Car Show Celebrity" 04-13-08, 02:59 PM (EST) 3. "RE: The Mole: Season #5: Episode #2: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" I'm wondering about that and the March Madness finale. Maybe Estee got detained or held up or busy or sick or driven mad by chickens or something...I will say this: Rocco had nothing to do with it. GO RED WINGS! GO WILD!   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 04-17-08, 06:06 PM (EST) 4. "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden: Part II" As it turns out, the movies play on their PDCs. Not everyone watches the films (spy thrillers from the 50s, natch): there's a little more socializing going on at this stage. In particular, Mark and Felicia seem to have made a connection: they freely chat about sports for most of the drive, Yankees versus Dodgers, and may the better team hire the manager away from the lesser. (Sadr tries to get in on this, but is told by Mark that it's a private conversation. Forcibly.) Christopher tries to approach Verni, but gets solidly (and verbally) tossed aside by someone half his size: the small blonde is very decidedly not interested in the hypnotist's advances. He takes this with a grin, a light shrug, and a definite air of planning to try again later: hey, once she really gets to know him, how could she possibly say no? Alex spends most of the ride drawing in a large sketchbook: as she reminds a curious Sadr, she happens to have a day job, and the website has to update come mission assignments, executions, and pursuing tower guards -- among other things. Charity stretches out on the long seat at the back, tries to catch up on a little sleep: a medical student's trick being prepared for later in life. It doesn't work that well: the seats aren't particularly wide, sleeping on her side is an invitation to let the bumps of the road send her flying -- and there are bumps in the road, particularly as they start to enter the Dales. She eventually gives up and just rests her legs in the middle of the aisle, watching the scenery go by. Several hours later, this makes her the first to spot the white horse -- one which has no chance of being labeled as 'grey'. This is a horse made of limestone, wider than a football field and taller than a stadium, cut into the side of a hill: the soil has been peeled away to expose bare rock. News of the sighting quickly spreads through the bus, although it isn't enough to get Mihoshi's attention off her Minesweeper game. She only has one chance to find all two hundred on her custom board. She can look at pictures of the horse when she gets home. (A woman has to have her priorities.) Christopher's not all that impressed. "Who would bother doing something like that?" "Who would bother carving out Mount Rushmore?" Verni counters. Christopher doesn't seem to realize he's not scoring any points. "That's presidents. Historical figures. This is just a horse. It doesn't even have much of a mane. Besides, it takes work to carve out faces on that scale -- all this guy had to do was take out some trees and hit the ground with a shovel." "It's a hundred and fifty years old," Alex quietly comments. "A century and a half ago, someone directed people to do that -- and now, here you are talking about it. Not so bad as immortality goes, is it?" "There are other ways to live forever," and that's from David, who has added no tone to any of the words. Alex doesn't respond to them. Christopher does. "Preach it, David -- broadcast immortality is the way to go, and it takes a hell of a lot less shovel-work to put together." "A late night talk show segment is what, five minutes?" a clearly annoyed Verni breaks into David's growing offense. "Looks like your priorities aren't based around duration..." Christopher looks like he's about to say something, which is a look he gets to hold all the way through the laughter produced by most of the bus plus an extra half-mile down the road, which is how long it takes for the landscape to change the subject. The signs are starting to say that our eleven can start looking forward to Thirsk, although they're not being all that helpful regarding just what we're supposed to be looking forward to in it: the signs are being renovated, heavy cloth hung over the lower two-thirds. Erin decides the one working indoor toilet (which people have been coming from miles around to see) must be out of order, or perhaps they're just in the middle of finally installing the flush version. Felicia grumpily declares she'll take anything up to and including a bucket and mop because she doesn't trust the equipment on the bus -- then gets to actively consider the greenery along the roadside, because we've just hit one of those fun things about being on television again: this bus has to pull over and wait a few minutes so the one carrying the majority of the crew can get ahead and set up at the arrival point. After all, if they arrive in the town and no one's there to record it, can anyone truly say they were ever there? Finally, the bus gets moving again -- and a little bit later, we find ourselves starting to move through Thirsk proper, which isn't an experience that comes even close to impressing Erin: it looks as if the sundial is also closed. A lot of things are closed or being renovated, at least to our players' eyes: opaque dropcloths hung suggest the painting was interrupted and the workers will be back just as soon as someone can be found who wants the job. Other buildings have name signs partially vanished, covered or removed: perhaps businesses in transition, or ones where no potential occupant can be found. The town seems active -- but names always change. Something their host has already reminded them of The streets wind here, straight lines never truly considered, odd slopes and strange turns the order of the day. The bus has to do some interesting tricks just to keep from getting struck, and there are four moments when our eleven hold their collective breath and wonder if they're about to take out just the mailbox or the entire front fence -- but somehow, their forward progress continues. Some of the homes look old, older than anything the States have to offer, the light grey of the overcast sky descended to tint residences and the faces of the senior inhabitants, who don't even bother to regard the near-collisions with casual disinterest as they fail to happen. Puttering in the gardens is so much more important because the lotuses will be here tomorrow, and perhaps the day after that if the gardener is careful. The visitors? Gone quickly enough. Anything lasting less than a hundred years is of no immediate interest, and perhaps of no interest at all. People come, people leave -- but only those who truly belong to this world will stay... The bus pulls up next to a large market square, the tall center stonebound clock in clear view from the front windows. Alex waits for the hiss of the opening doors to fade away before disembarking, quietly leading our eleven across the medieval stones, heavy blocks laid into the ground in something that so badly wants to be a pattern, forces the eyes to look for regular transitions and teases with a few of them before fracturing into something else entirely. Past small trees in the middle of circular benches, Jacob showing some interest in the ancient-feeling brick buildings that surround the square -- and their host stops in front of the clock. There are a few natives watching as the players also stop, but not many: a small number gathered at the edge of the square, looking because they may want to discuss it for a few seconds later before turning to something much more important, like -- well, anything, really. Others wander through the market square itself, vaguely annoyed about having to move around the edges of the gathering. "Gerorf," one of them mutters in Verni's general direction: she has no idea how to take that, much less translate it. (Erin may understand enough of it to look offended, but since that's very nearly her default expression, there's no real way to tell.) Another local shuffles up to Mihoshi, dragging their right foot in a way that's either faked or suggesting the last bits of string holding it on are finally ready to go. "Little somethin'?" a broken voice crackles from somewhere inside the layers of fabric that hide what's hopefully a face. "Somethin' from the miss?" "I --" and now Mihoshi looks more than a little out of her element: a new form of reality (or artful acting) has intruded, and she has no idea how you're supposed to deal with this bit without a reset button in sight. "I really don't have --" She does, but she's been holding on to it and this isn't quite an incentive to let go, much less to touch a hand covered in a torn glove and what's either makeup or -- well, Mihoshi is really hoping it's just makeup. Simultaneous movements: Jacob and David are the first to go for their pockets. The follow-ups bring the donating parties into the majority, although four never join in: Mihoshi still has no idea how to handle things, Christopher's been hit up before this and wasn't impressed by the machine-bankrupted either, Verni's hard stance suggests she's one passed-over coin away from being in a position where she'd have to ask for it back, and Erin is -- just watching, really. The beggar shuffles off. Some of the group watch the upright mound of tatters go. A long moment of silence, waiting for their attention to return to center -- and when it does, Alex tells them "Welcome to Thirsk," not quite leaning against the old stone. It's a very non-committal introduction: here's the town, take it or leave it -- actually, as long as the options are on the board... "You have four hours to do some exploring -- on your own or in groups, your choice. When that time runs out, head for the hotel -- and don't worry about getting lost: your camera people will guide you in for this one. I'll see you when you're done." "That's it?" Mark asks, surprised. "Just walk around? That's what we came here to do?" "Do you want the Exemption?" Alex coolly asks. (Mark, slightly surprised, nods.) "Then you need a little time to work on getting it. You've got four hours' worth of potential here: what you ultimately do with it is your choice. You control what you do in this game -- most of the time." A small shrug. "There are other things I'll tell you to do here -- but they aren't going to start just yet. Go out and see the town. The game will go with you." There's some brief confusion as people try to work out where they should first, who they could consider going out with (if anyone), and just how much they trust their camera operators to get them back -- but when it ends, people start to leave the market square in groups of one to three. Their host watches them go -- -- as does the beggar, who chuckles to herself as she wipes the makeup off her hands... ----------------------------------------------------------------- Charity starts the journey alone, wandering in no particular direction with nothing that seems to be approaching a plan of attack. Solve the clue? Perhaps she needs to, and that applies even if she's the Mole -- keeping it out of someone else's hands (and just as important, putting it in your own) could be crucial here. But at the moment, she doesn't exactly have a definitive place to start. What Charity has is a riddle: there was no hint book provided with it, much less an all-out cheat manual with secret codes and arrows pointing to secret locations within the maps. She's not looking for a place to start so much as hoping to randomly run across one that's willing to announce itself as such. Working on it by not working on it: overfocus can result in a potential execution as much as anything else. She's not used to this kind of winding street, is Charity. What her legs automatically look for is hills: Scranton is built on a series of slopes, severe enough that you can take a sidewalk past two stories of the same house without ever changing your stride angle. There's some rise and fall here, but there's much more in the way of twists and turns. And everything seems so old. 'Ancient' in her homeland typically works out to eighty years or more and by that standard, every little cottage here would be added to a list of historic, protected sites -- which would effectively make it impossible to ever change the town. (She hasn't seen a single satellite receiver dish in this section, and suspects they would just fall off the sites, the patient's body rejecting a foreign organ transplanted in against its will.) She wonders if England has that kind of registry, and just how much of the nation falls under it. No forfeiture of your national heritage, by order -- but no looking forward, either. There has to be a way to balance those factors, remembrance of the past with allowance for the future. Charity's just not sure what it is. We have a few more people here in this little residential section -- small people, laughing, running, playing. It is summer vacation after all, and the school calendars of different lands allow for this level of intersect. What catches our visitor's eye is that they're doing all of it without supervision: no adults watching over them, no constant surveillance to make certain the one-in-a-million chance of a snatching doesn't solidify in the here and now. The various (and mostly padded) devices designed to protect children from being children are completely absent: they're allowed to play and take the consequences of it: a little rough-and-tumble to get them used to a world that takes both halves of the activity far too seriously. All she's finding here is a steady stream of laughter, shouts -- and the curses which the young let fly when they're certain they can speak naturally without being punished for it. There's no fear here. Charity hasn't seen that in a group of children for a very long time... ...and she seems to have picked up a procession. Charity smiles as she turns, looks down to gently regard her followers, automatically (and carefully) drops to rests her right elbow on the matching knee. This, she's used to. And for a very pleasant once, there isn't a panicking parent in sight. "Hi," she tells the leader, who appears to be about six: age and layers of dirt. (The gender is currently indeterminate thanks to long hair plus an early flying tackle into the flower garden, where some lotuses now need serious replanting.) "Yer one o' dem," the child tells her, incidentally identifying itself as a male. "One of who?" Charity asks, tilting her head slightly as she smiles again. The child follows the movement, as do the six companions behind him. "The visitors." He looks at the PDC exposed on Charity's arm, quickly runs his hand over the screen, leaving a trail of mud behind. "Dey tole us not to say sum things to the visitors." "Like what?" Charity doesn't make direct eye contact, not on the level of a one-to-one stare. She just keeps her attention focused on the children -- all of it. She's here, they're here, the rest of the world can take a number and go wait in line until they're done -- and for now, the mud can stay where it is. The lead urchin seems vaguely impressed by this approach, which he hasn't gotten much of from adults: equal status granted by those in nominal/delusional charge doesn't come along every day. It's still not enough to make him give up any goods. "Just stuff," he tells her with a grin, letting her know he's not going to fall for such a simple trick. "I had to try..." Charity tells him, and he gives her that much with a nod: yes, he's been in similar positions of hopeful asking for hopeless causes. "They told you we were coming?" Another nod -- then a quick glance at the camera operator, just noting the presence -- followed by a briefly confused look, trying to wrestle with concepts outside of the eternal now and achieving no more than half a pin. "Way back." He looks Charity over, up and down, and the others copy their leader's action. "You 'merican?" Charity assents. "My folks don' like 'mericans. Said yer too --" and this may be an internal edit "-- pushy." Another critical survey. "You don' look pushy." And a thoughtful pause. "Bet you could push pretty good if you wanted..." Charity sighs. "People complain after they land." They all understand that -- and it seems to be the end of the conversation, so she straightens up and heads down the street -- -- but the procession is still trailing her. Without half-kneeling this time, "Coming with me?" The fairly-elected leader shrugs. "Goin' sumwhere interestin'?" "I'm new here," Charity points out. "I don't know where the interesting places are." He thinks that over. "Yeh -- we'll show you." The group agrees with his decision -- which is followed by one more survey of Charity. "Dad's right -- you do talk funny..." The children get in front of her, take the lead. Charity follows. No fear at all. Charity knows they have nothing to be afraid of. Besides, she's pretty sure they could take her. ----------------------------------------------------------------- It could be argued that Mark can't help this: give his feet free reign, and they'll inevitably bring him to this sort of place. The little Foley artist has made a few light complaints about it since the start of the relationship: no matter what he's got planned for them, it stands a ninety percent chance of turning into dinner and a movie... 'Dinner' is probably off the immediate list. Brown-bag meals were served on the bus. "Beautiful," and it's just about a rhapsodic statement. "Look at that balcony -- damn, do you know how hard it is to find balcony seating? I'd come back here in a heartbeat just to get a show in, and the sign said they've got double features..." Felicia's more than a little amused right now, even if the cameras have to be adjusted before they can really pick it up: the house lights here are a little on the dim side. Mark's wandering feet have brought them to the Ritz Cinema, Thirsk's movie house of record since the day someone first decided there just might be a market for it, and they don't seem to have plans of leaving any time soon. There may be only two hundred wooden (unpadded) seats between the two levels, but Mark's expert opinion has declared every one of them to be a classic. He could arguably get two minutes out of the armrests alone, and already managed three on the screen's side draperies. "The sound's probably pretty bad, Mark." "Doesn't matter," Mark insists. "All you need is up here..." He taps his shaved head. "No bells going off, huh?" Felicia carefully runs her hand across the back across the back of a seat: much to her surprise, there's no rough spots present. "Not for me -- sorry. It wasn't a bad idea, and it could still be right -- but I don't have anything coming to mind. Or anyone." Does Mark look just a little bit concerned about his choice of traveling partner? Maybe -- but it's mostly concealed under a layer of agreement. "Made some sense at the time -- I was really figuring on a sibling act. People who changed their names to something Hollywood would like a little better." Felicia solemnly nods to that, and Mark continues. "Looking for old posters at the cinema wasn't a bad place to start, but..." He shrugs. "I don't remember any one guy who said this was their hometown, forget about three of them, and this place isn't jogging my memory at all." "No, it's just setting off your inner museum visitor," Felicia teases. "I never expected this side of you, Mark." Who looks a little embarrassed. "They're -- temples, you know? Mostly just the old ones, but when you find the really classic places..." Another pause, perhaps trying to figure out if what he's about to say will sound too silly. "People were worshiped here. This is where you could really believe..." "Someone's a romantic." And this has a very teasing lilt to it, along with a bit of a wink. Matt blinks, visibly tries to recover -- then seems to decide the only way out is forward. "You needed more faith back then -- that's part of it. When the geeks didn't make special effects that passed all the way for reality, you had to believe in what you were seeing, make yourself think it was real. You had to fool yourself in order to get everything you could out of the thing, and then you had to forget you were doing it..." A very awkward pause. "I'm -- real steady right now with someone, I said that over that first dinner..." Felicia's laugh is light. "Mark, I'm sure there's hordes of women waiting to fall into your bed: I'm just not one of them. We have some things in common, and that means it's very easy to be around you. But there's no physical attraction on my end -- so relax. I may wind up playing femme fatale' before this thing is over, but you won't be the one I do it with." This does seem to have eased the tension, even if the camera operators look vaguely disappointed about the open loss of what might have been an entire will-they-or-won't-they story arc. "Damn. You mean I'm not your type?" Mark appears to have found some comfort in joking about it. "I thought I was damn near universal..." Which gets a stronger laugh. "Or paramount. Come on -- there's no posters here to work with, and I think you've had your walk down memory lane for the day. Let's go try for some more locals. Someone here has to be willing to talk to us." And this comes despite all prior evidence. "Maybe you should be doing all the advances," Mark grouses as they move up the aisle. "And put on one of their accents before you start. Plus you could hide your arm behind a plant or something... This is why Alex wanted us to wear the PDCs in the open -- they see it, they clam up. Figured there would be a price to pay, getting her as the host -- she knows too much about how this stuff works. Probably ran through every assignment we're going to get looking for loopholes and closing every one as it popped up." And Mark never hears this: it's a whisper, one that Felicia may not even know she's released into the world -- but the sound pickup gets it, and there's always subtitles. "The price you pay..." Back to normal volume. "It is sort of like having someone go directly from wearing the uniform on the field to making out the lineup card, isn't it?" Thoughtfully, "Do you think it's worth the penalty to take this thing off for a few minutes? If they're only looking for the PDC and don't know our faces yet -- I'm sure I can get this accent down if I just hear a little more of it." "Might be worth it later," Mark decides. "Just not yet -- not unless we absolutely have to. It's like the punk said: I don't want to go spending our money..." She lets him get away with the 'our'. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Patricia has stopped at the midpoint of a wooden bridge over the Cod Beck river, arms resting on the slightly warped railing. David seems to have accepted this for the moment. (As he told Jacob after the execution, while they can certainly work together in public, they shouldn't do it on every assignment. Jacob wasn't sure about the benefit of keeping coalitions secret because anyone trying to fool one of them would almost automatically be trying for both, but was willing to go along with it for now -- and that means they're not going to head off together each time. Besides, they can arguably gather more information if they're separated.) He may be starting to wonder just how long that moment is supposed to continue. "Patricia?" "Just watching the river, David," she tells him. "Thinking." She turns, smiles at him from over her partially-exposed left shoulder. "Water helps me think -- and even if it didn't, there's always time to watch a river." David's posture is suggesting he's not quite in line with this philosophy -- but he still joins Patricia, although he's not willing to trust his arms (or bearing) to the wood. "I'm not entirely certain why you came with me." There's a touch of challenge to that. "You looked like you could use the company," Patricia answers. "Besides, I want to keep an eye on you." One of David's eyebrows goes up. "You think I'm the Mole?" "Not just yet." Softly, "I just think you're someone who needs a person keeping an eye on them..." David doesn't react to that. "Clearly you didn't come here for the relaxation." Very dry: "Clearly." David attempts to watch the river for a few seconds, then brings his eyes back to Patricia. "Did you?" "One of the reasons," she casually tosses off. "One of many..." A light sigh, a smile to go with it. "So far, David, we have stood in the meeting place of a secret society and raided the Tower of London. Now I'm standing on this bridge -- and guess what?" With a twinkle in her eyes, "I find this experience to be a match for those. Because none of them were something I've done before -- are you a man who's comfortable with cursing?" David blinks hard: that one came out of nowhere. His answer is still fast, though -- and solid. "No." "Too bad: I'm about to pronounce one." Patricia takes a deep breath. "'I came here for the experience.'" (Which gets her a blink with about ten percent less force behind it.) Grinning, "There's people who'll argue I can't win just because I said that, and I'm lying at least a little bit just because that's not all of it -- but I think it's part of the reason for every last one of us. Even Erin -- but we're never going to get her to admit it." It's not the first time David's looked at Patricia, and it won't be the last. So why is he staring at her as if something new had just been invoked? "Do I know you...?" And then stops, shoulders pulling back like a regiment snapping to formation. Patricia turns a little, carefully examines his features without any attempt to hide her intentions. "I don't think so," she tells him. "If you did, you would have said something about it by now -- and you really don't strike me as the type who would even have a clue in the first place." Another smile. "Pity..." And now he's confused enough to let a touch of it into his voice. "I'm sorry -- but I have no idea what you're talking about." It didn't sound like an insult. "Right," she tells him. "Which proves you don't know me, because if you did, you would." This smile shows he's getting nothing else out of her about this -- at least for a while. "As come-on lines go, David, you're very out of practice..." Atlas would have envied this posture. "It wasn't a -- 'come-on line'." The internal quotes are acting as guards. "Of course it wasn't." There's a lot of teasing in the air today. David abruptly steps back from the railing. "I'm going back to looking for this Exemption. Are you coming?" "I don't need to look for it," Patricia shrugs. "But I'll come along." A full body turn, facing him directly this time. "Now why do you want me to come with you?" "I'm not comfortable with a woman traveling alone," David states. "This is still unfamiliar territory." Patricia's very bemused by this. "There's always them." Nodding to the camera operators. David takes two full seconds to look them over -- then wordlessly turns and heads across the bridge. His possibly-inadvertent companion lets him get out of casual hearing range before speaking directly to the cameras. "I don't know about you," she tells them, "but I hope I'm here to see the moment when someone finally gets the stick out." And follows the advancing (or possibly retreating) broad back. -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 07-10-08, 12:12 PM (EST) 5. "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden: Part III" LAST EDITED ON 07-13-08 AT 03:26 PM (EST) We don't need to watch everyone's attempts to find the answer to the Exemption riddle, especially not when all of them seem to be failing. In particular, we might want to draw the curtain of mercy over Erin's myriad efforts: she's not the first to openly declare that their host has set them all up, but she is the first to invoke bleeps in doing so -- not just her own: a few are produced from those she confronts -- and the only one to throw the accusation at said host over dinner that night, to which she gets a light shrug accompanied by a very neutral "So what's your point?" On the whole, dinner doesn't go all that well: nearly everyone seems frustrated about the lack of local cooperation, and no one's happy about their hotel rooms: the Thirsk Inn has given them their first taste of double occupancy (except for Mihoshi, who won a random number draw) in suites that are just about large enough to contain Felicia's luggage, as long as Felicia is willing to unpack it while standing in the hallway. Charity's already openly opted for the floor, and even Verni's small dimensions are finding themselves constrained by a shower that seems to have each drop of water passed along by fae hands within the pipe, with plenty of drop-outs and lots of time to cool. And it's also most people's first experience with British foods with names like bubble-and-squeak or toad-in-the-hole, dishes that exist to stick to the ribs -- with absolutely no way to scrape them off. Ever. Leave our eleven to a very uncomfortable evening, tossing and turning on beds that don't host insect life only because six legs would be harder to wrench into a usable position than two. There isn't much to watch right now: no coalitions gathering because roommates would see, none being formed because everyone's just a little too suspicious -- and, after a few hours of trying to sleep on those beds, too sore. Instead, we'll check in with them in the morning, muttering their way to answer the knocks on their doors, receiving packages and being told to don the contents, glimpse their reactions (ranging from curious to extremely upset) as they see just what those contents are -- -- and when we come back to them for more than a shutterbug-flash, it's to find them marching in line behind their host, moving across a hilly pasture towards an unknown destination. They've picked up a bit of an audience along the way: several grazing sheep turn to watch the procession with something approaching boredom before going back to their much more interesting grass. The local humans are much more amused by the process: about fifty of them are currently following the group, with another twenty or so keeping their distance along the sides, plus a dozen up ahead, calling to the Americans to get a move on already, they've been waiting for their entertainment for a while now and the visitors are just so slow. Some of this attention may have been produced by the new outfits. Our contestants are wearing grey and white stripes -- shirt and pants alike -- along with heavy farm boots, the weight of which is producing some of the slowdown. (The host remains dressed in black.) Felicia and Christopher are the most visibly unhappy with this blight on their wardrobes, stuck in outfits which no one could possibly make look good. Sadr's not exactly comfortable in his current wear, Jacob has reasons to be less than fond of this sort of thing, and Charity -- well, she's happy that hers fits, but the material isn't exactly a joy to have against the skin. Costume changes are a hallmark of the show, with embarrassing outfits the specialty of the house -- but these outfits haven't been designed for humiliation. Separation, isolation, dehumanization -- yes to all of it. The humiliation is just an incidental side effect. They walk on, the teasing and jeering of the locals grating against their ears. Erin isn't screaming anything back, at least not just yet: there's currently no point in doing so. Words have to be backed up by actions whenever possible, and Erin's not going to be taking any actions for a while that don't involve shuffling along with the pack. There's no rushing out to take on the man who just told her it's nothing less than what she deserves for wearing that hair color out in public -- not when she's chained to the others, moving to their pace in the two-foot steps the ankle bracelets will allow, shuffling ahead with the fury building in her eyes... Actually, if she was at either the front or rear of the line, she might try it anyway. As-is, trying to drag everyone behind her in a V-formation (five to each side) is asking a little too much. Time passes, the locals jeer, children point and laugh (although a few silent ones are keeping pace with Charity, keeping a curious eye on her) -- and finally, Alex stops them just below the crest of a hill. "And that's six miles," she tells them. "We're just a few feet away from your next mission assignment -- so it's time to tell you what it is." She moves around to the right of the procession, giving the group equal visual access. "Walking around in a damn chain gang isn't it?" Erin snarls. "You wake us up at the crack of damn dawn, you force us into this stuff without an explanation and then you slam us in irons..." Alex isn't even remotely bothered by this, although some faint surprise is registering up and down the line at Erin's free (and possibly one-time-only) usage of 'us'. "It's a taste of the experience," she says. "Just a small one. You get to go somewhere else at the end of the day. Your predecessors didn't." She glances back at the locals, who've quited down for this -- after a great deal of camera cues plus the occasional bit of coercion. "They take their fun where they can get it, don't they? This is a culture that's never had any pretensions about using people. Making rats run mazes is about sixty percent of the national entertainment -- and they get most of the remaining forty from deciding who they're going to treat as the rats." The words are soft: the chain can hear them, the locals can't. "They'd admit it if you asked them -- just not in those words. If you're not local, then you may not be quite human -- and if you're not human, then they get to decide just what you truly are." "They must really enjoy reality shows," Mark mutters. (He's been cuffed in by his left ankle, allowed to work his broken leg freely back and forth as he swings along on his crutches. The two feet of clearance he has to either side are more than enough to let him regularly catch Christopher and Jacob across their shins.) Alex catches it -- and gives Mark what might be just the barest flash of a smile. "There's a connection. By coming here, you've stepped out of the main race, distinguished yourself as something just a little different -- but by some people's estimation, you've also moved below them -- because they're too good to do it themselves. They decide whether or not they're going to elevate you back up -- and how far. Whether or not they're going to take you in, and to what degree --" a long pause "-- which brings us back to your predecessors again." Patricia stops rubbing at her ankles where the light padding of the interior cuff meets the metal, straightens, gives Alex a slow look. "Whose uniforms are these?" she asks. "I thought they were prison wear, but from what you're saying..." Alex shakes her head. "Not normal prisoners, no." She looks Patricia up and down, pauses on the boots before coming back up, stops again at the strange contrast of the PDC's screen shining against the harsh fabric, gets back to eye level. "Prisoners of war. We tend to focus on the struggles of our own side during conflict -- our captured, our held. But we take people from the other side, too. And we need places to keep them. The British brought a large number of prisoners back to English soil and kept them nearby -- very nearby. Lodge Moor Camp, Long Marston -- and, with the local irony on full display, Eden." (David looks as if he's restraining some sort of facial movement: Jacob quietly listens.) "But the locals are practical -- and occasionally somewhat cheap. If all those prisoners were going to be housed and fed, then they could work for the honor of continuing to exist. People who labor only to stay alive make for a very inexpensive labor pool." She gestures to the watching locals again. "Some of the oldest here might remember a strange accent at the dinner table, or odd words called out across a field. Soldiers from the other side -- turned into free labor for the farms. All you had to do was give them a place to stay, a meal or two when they needed it, and find a way to give orders they could understand." "Didn't they try to escape?" Sadr, curious -- and more than a little disturbed. "If all they had watching them was a few farmers, getting out should have been easy." "And run -- to where?" Alex queries. "It's an island, Sadr -- a big one. The instant they opened their mouths, people would know they weren't locals. The number of sympathizers for the other side was lower than any spy movie would like you to believe: the odds of coming across someone who'd help them were almost zero. They never had the numbers to make a rush against the locals, never had anyone on their side -- and crossing the border back to their side involved a lot more water than the Allied prisoners breaking out of European Axis camps had to deal with. And besides -- on the farms, they weren't subjected to the casual abuse of the prison camps. Some might have been overworked a little at the very start -- but that just about always faded. Prove that you were here to do the job you'd been given, and you'd be treated well, fed well -- just about brought into the local families. They will take you in here, some of them. If you give them cause." Sadr looks more than a little doubtful about this, but doesn't interrupt. "Most of the dreams weren't of escape: they were about communication," Alex continues. "Get word around to the other camps. Find a friend, make sure your brother was all right, a cousin was being treated well. Escape was just about impossible -- but making connections could be done with a lot of work." An artful pause. "You're about to find out just how much." Our eleven listen, shuffle in their irons, watch the locals and try to get glimpses of what lies over the crest of the hill. Alex just touches the screen on her PDC -- and the locks fall open. The chains rattle as they hit the ground. Christopher jumps, then pretends he didn't. "Nine to work," she tells them, "and two to serve." -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Colonel Zoidberg 3370 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Car Show Celebrity" 07-13-08, 02:40 PM (EST) 6. "RE: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden: Part III" {Alex with personality - the contestants are even more glad she isn't playing} Congrats Red Wings! 2008 Stanley Cup Champions!   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser" 02-15-09, 12:44 PM (EST) 7. "RE: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden: Part III" This is interesting! Please, please continue this as soon as possible, Estee! I need to know more! Belle Book   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-28-09, 06:09 PM (EST) 8. "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden: Part IV" This time, the arguments have less to resolve -- but they have one major factor to place, and no one can figure out quite where to put him. This sounds like manual labor approaching, and that's asking Mark for some potentially major movement on his crutches -- particularly if this winds up centering around farm work. On the other hand (or broken leg), serving might involve carrying trays of drinks, polishing up the house china, or figuring out how to make the presumably-ancient cooking equipment in the (also presumed) nearby farmhouse work -- all of which also sounds like it's something Mark might have trouble with. For his part, Mark has no problem declaring his expertise with anything he can pretend is a saucepan, but leaves the others to settle the rest: he has no idea what they're up against, so he's not sure where he can do the least harm. Some of the others are wondering where he might do the most, not to mention if he's doing some of it right now by causing a division. Eventually, the decision is made: Erin and Verni will serve -- with the former in place because the others are already harboring a deep amusement about the potential of having her wait on them -- while the remainder will divide up whatever the labor is supposed to be and hope Mark's crutches don't swing around to catch them in the shins (again). The result is reported to their host, who nods once and silently leads them over the crest of the hill -- -- dirt. Lots and lots of dirt, with the occasional rock for variety and a few mini-boulders placed just to break up the landscape. There's a little flat piece of soaked-down mud field here just beyond the crest, somehow looking a lot larger after having had all the grass removed before the rope-aided division into nine separate parcels, each ten yards square, representing a relatively small portion of the thirty-by-thirty section of rough earth, a tic-tac-toe board waiting for someone to claim the center box. The area presents enough space around the sides for people to move about without getting their feet muddy, and some of the locals are crowding forward in anticipation of a virtual box seat. (The camera people are holding them back for now -- but the 'for now' part is extremely visible.) Look to the left and very decidedly up to find a barn: faded red verging into brown, with the wind moving down the hill from it towards our eleven. The scent the summer breeze carries lets them know there's cattle within. Also that they've eaten recently. A tiny lamb wanders up to David, butts him in the right thigh, bleats. He glances down, blinks twice, and then forces himself to focus on the dirt field. His attention doesn't seem to be making it shrink in on itself. "Back in the forties," Alex starts, "farm automation was still fairly minimal in some areas. Bulls did most of the heavy pulling work on a lot of the local land -- and the farmers were glad for them: you don't have to work out your cattle's availability with ration coupons." All of these words have been pitched to reach the locals, and a few of the oldest ones are nodding to themselves. "But even in places with plenty of machinery, some jobs were seen as being best-suited for human hands. A machine can't think. It can do what you tell it to, but it can't spot a problem in the instructions and adjust course. Admittedly, it can't betray you either -- not the way a person can. It can break down, or it can not be designed for a task you were expecting it to perform -- but it won't deliberately turn on you." (Charity isn't even remotely trying to conceal her doubt. George would have approved.) "A human can see when something goes wrong and try to solve it, not just bulldoze through it and break a gear -- most of the time. Some of the current farmers still believe the best results come from having people involved at every step. That includes Mr. Grunderson." She turns, waves slightly to a very large man standing at the base of the rise to the barn, one who is somehow giving off an aura of solidity: he looks as if air would have to fight its way into his lungs and then ask permission to leave. "He was happy to let us have the field for the day -- after all, reality contestants are the current definition of cheap labor." A very slight head tilt. "And possibly even some kind of prisoner of war..." "Which makes you what?" A very irritated query from a typically less-than-happy Erin. Alex seems to give that some light visible thought before openly deciding to table any possible answer for later. "Each of the workers will be given a shovel and assigned to one of the roped-off areas. Your manual labor will be to overturn all the soil, remove the rocks, and make sure the field is ready for planting. But -- you're not the first people to work this field. Generations ago, your predecessors were here, being put through the same task -- and they left a few words for those who would come after. Buried somewhere in that field are nine messages, waiting to be found. Words from one group of lost travelers to the next, hoping for someone to hear them and pass them on." Focusing on the group now, one at a time. "As you find each message, pass it on to the servers. Their job will be to bring you refreshment when you need it, which lets them get close enough to take custody. They'll figure out where each message needs to go. Each one they successfully place will be worth seven thousand dollars to the pot." A pause, followed by a glance back at the field. "And since this is some fairly intensive labor you're putting in, each section of the field completed will be worth a hundred Euros to the digger -- and that's not money for the pot: extra spending cash, paid right after you finish." Verni softly groans: Alex focuses on it. "Something wrong, Verni?" "I could use a hundred Euros," the small blonde grumps. Christopher immediately disagrees, which may not be his best possible choice of moves. "You're too small for this," he smiles. "You shouldn't be out in the field with a shovel for the next --" he stops, glances to Alex for his feed line. "Four hours," Alex supplies. Christopher nods. "-- four hours, baking in the sun -- you're too pale for that." And all of this is being said with total self-inflicted ignorance of the virtual steam plumes starting to rise from Verni's multiply-pierced ears. All Christopher does is grin as he finishes with "So we'd have you wiped out and burnt to a crisp -- they'd wind up serving you for dinner: it's the same thing we had last night -- " and finally something gets through. Possibly it was the mass backup from Verni, who now has a solid three feet of space in all directions except down -- -- and the ground just can't get away fast enough. "I know I'm short," Verni hisses. "I can still put in as hard a day's work as anyone here, with hours you wouldn't stand a chance of completing and enough tasks on the table to make up missions for twenty seasons. All being short means is that if I had a shovel and decided to swing it, I'd be that much closer to your --" "-- you'll find being a servant has its own compensations, Verni," Alex smoothly cuts in, incidentally getting the attention of the others away from the approaching mini-apocalypse (which Christopher is already halfway to dismissing) and disappointing most of the watchers on the ridge. "Choose your sections -- the four hours will start right after the last person gets their shovel." "Wait a minute," Mark protests. "What kind of messages are these things? And where do they go?" Alex's only response is a very brief glance in his direction, followed by a nod over to the shovels. Mark's eyes reluctantly widen -- then slowly wince closed. "Right, right -- for a second there, completely forgot who I was talking to..." He begins swinging his way over to the shovels, with the full attention of the others on him as he goes. Sure, this is something a man balancing on one leg and two rubber points can do -- while dumping himself into the dirt six or seventy times. But that doesn't mean the cast is covering perfectly healthy bone, now does it? Well, it probably doesn't. Erin easily produces a practiced snort of discontent that reaches the audience in the back rows (and gets the mild (and very temporary) interest of the sheep). "Should I even bother asking if those messages are in a language anyone can read?" More silence, which Erin tries to break up with a frustrated "Can we get one damn piece of completely useless advice?" "Don't get caught," Alex tells her -- sparking the rest of the group to full alertness. "Erin, you and Verni head up to the house -- it's just past the barn. For the rest of you -- your field awaits." A small, somewhat quirked pause. "Start dreaming." ----------------------------------------------------------------- The mud is deceptive. It's probably serving as the warm-up act. Lift the rope to step into the chosen section of field, and nine of our eleven find themselves sinking up to their ankles. But the ancient (and somewhat rusty) shovels are supposed to bite down farther than that into the dirt on each push -- and what's under the mud is too-solid earth, with perhaps just a touch of chalk to give it that extra texture. The soil has to be turned over and de-stoned to something over a foot down, and it's not a depth which can be reached with casual effort. It's like something like shoveling snow would be if the white fluff had a personal vendetta against the movers plus the ability to fight back. Felicia's the first to make the comparison. "Alternate side of the ocean digging-out-my-car regulations are now in effect in all nations of the Isles..." A soft groan follows as she hits her first major rock -- coincidentally weighing in at one stone: fourteen pounds in rebel measurements. "Where do I put this?" Alex instructs her to carry it out to the rope border and drop it onto the grass. Which miraculously manages to get Christopher's attention. "Wait a minute -- I'm center square!" And, once he'd been certain the cameras were on him, had drawn a quick X in the dirt with his shovel upon entering. "All I've got on every side is other people!" The realization of what this might mean just barely begins to dawn -- then finds itself shoved aside for a more frequent occupant of the space. "Okay, people -- I'm going to need a daisy chain here..." "Just throw the small ones," Jacob suggests, not even bothering with a glance at Christopher. He's been very irritated about this assignment since the moment he first opened the package in the hotel. (It's probably the uniform.) "They're not all that small," Felicia notes with nearly equal irritation (and an accidental touch of Jacob's own accent): she's just been forced to dig down into the mire to get that stone completely uncovered, which means all the work done on her fingernails before sunrise just turned into a minor point of irony. "No one's tossing these things thirty feet --" which gets interrupted by a solid thud as Charity, who doesn't seem to have been paying attention to the discussion, casually slings a failed mountain chain seed from the innermost corner of her square all the way to the crest's ridge, with a number of small children cheering at the impact. Several people stare at Charity, and a large portion of the adult crowd temporarily shuts up. She doesn't seem to be paying attention to that either. "...I'll throw the small ones," Christopher manages to not-quite-as-smoothly resume. The future fate of any bigger rocks will have to be a short-term mystery. Sadr hefts a larger specimen out of the mud, carrying from his knees more than his back, and staggers it through the mud to his border, letting the rope take a bit of the weight before tilting it up and over. Several farmer's sons are making comments about the apparent relative lack of muscle strength. But one is very loudly asking him whether he'd be better off strapping explosives to his torso and letting the detonation clear out the area -- and that gets a few people's attention: Charity gives Sadr a quick worried look, and Patricia expresses it vocally. "Sadr -- everything okay over there?" "I'm fine," Sadr replies, his accent ringing oddly among the vibrating sea of Yorkshire brogues. "Mark, how are you doing?" "I'll be fine as soon as you shut up," Mark grunts. It's a lie. His crutches are getting stuck in the mud, he can't readily maneuver the shovel while braced on them, and regularly getting himself low so he can pick up rocks is a lost cause if he ever wants to do anything like get up again. We're eight minutes in, he's still trying to find a way to get his first ineffective shovelful overturned, and the others have already written off seven thousand dollars from this part of the pot and made extensive Mole-centric notes on their PDCs. Mark just doesn't seem to have joined them yet, at least on the giving up part. (It's probably too much to ask for him to openly make notes about his suspicions on his being the Mole.) "Damn it, Alex..." "Right," says their patrolling host: she's slowly walking the perimeter, keeping an eye on the crowd and contestants alike. A few of the crowd's comments have been directed at her, and all of the commentators stopped as soon as she glanced at them. "This is my fault. Because I snuck onto your movie set and set up the accident that broke your leg." Toneless. "I really keep being impressed by my own plans... Mark, as you've already pointed out, we could have called in an alternate the instant you let us know what happened: instead, you're here. But any time you want to quit on the game, just say so." "The Mole can quit?" Patricia merrily asks. She's taking her time on the section: four hours feels like plenty to work with, and the increasing heat means she has to pace herself anyway. English summer, which can last as long as a week, seems to be settling in for some kind of stay. There's every chance the producers paid it off. "Ha, ha..." Mark grumps, then tries out another leverage angle, getting the same results as the prior twelve: a near self-dump into the dirt. "On the show, no," Alex casually replies. "It would be just a little unfair for all of you if we switched traitors in midstream. On the task -- Mark, if you want out of this, just get outside the ropes. It'll only be seven thousand dollars you don't put in the pot -- I'm sure the others will understand." A deliberate pause. "Eventually." It might be just as well that most of the next mutter stays under Mark's breath. "I'm working, I'm working..." For a given definition of 'work'. "Anyone see Verni and Acid Girl?" "Not yet," David answers -- his square is closest to the trail leading up the hill. He's making steady progress, and (from the ankles up) has managed to stay remarkably clean. "They may require some extra time -- we don't know what kind of refreshments they have to bring down, and they may have to make them as well. Does anyone have anything to pass along yet?" A chorus of denials, finishing with Mihoshi's "Not yet..." She's in the not-so-distant second position on the trouble charts: her idea of strenuous physical activity involves either some very active Wii controllers or a partner with a ring on his finger, neither of which has really prepared her for her first expedition into the Thrilling World Of Sweating For A Living. She has yet to figure out how the shovel's leverage should be exerted, doesn't relish the idea of getting dirty, and would really like to know where the cheat code is for getting all these stubborn pixels out of the way. And the hornrims keep slipping. "Just wait for them -- they'll be along," Christopher suggests, going back to trying to figure out exactly how to get dirty and look as good as possible doing it. In his not-quite-worthy-of-best-of-the-worst singing voice, "They'll be coming down the mountain when they come..." ----------------------------------------------------------------- At the moment, they're making their way through the house. 'Dusty' isn't the word we want here, even if it keeps begging for our attention. The rooms are clean, every surface which would hold a polish shined up in anticipation of the cameras to come. But there's a coating of something present, and it almost seems to adhere to anything which enters. Perhaps it's the patina of age. There's an aura about the furnishings which suggests they became antiques the hard way: through being used every single day without a thought for what was new and exciting because what was in the house counted as present and paid for. Some of these chairs may have been in the sitting room for generations, new shafts of sunlight streaking in to touch the carefully-tended wood. Anything which breaks is repaired, things that can no longer be fixed are converted to something else, items replaced only when death would be the other option. There are no televisions in the house. A single radio, so old that the tubes may still be warming up, serves as the centerpiece of that sitting room. The lights are electric, but only just. Verni's PDC feels as if it weighs forty pounds on her arm: it's not wanted here, not welcome, and the shivers of rejection are starting to sink in... Erin's feelings on the situation come out as a near-spat "The finest beacon of morality World War Two had to offer." She glares at the radio. "I know this guy's never heard of us and doesn't understand anything we're trying to do. He's just getting slave labor for the day before he gets off on it tonight." Verni doesn't reply. "House telling you women aren't allowed to talk?" "What do we talk about?" Verni snaps back. Erin might almost be pleased with getting a response, or at least the tone of it. "The stupid assignment -- we've got to get the money in the pot here. At least I've got some control over what goes in..." Ignoring Verni's incredulous glance, "Get the messages in the right place -- we've got to put them somewhere, so there's got to be a holding area around -- yeah!" And sprints for the kitchen, incidentally marking the first time anyone's dared to run through the sitting room during the last one hundred and forty-eight years. Verni follows, curious as to what was spotted -- and finds just about what she expected to: an assorted of hand-powered kitchen tools on the general sophistication level of 'fork'. There's also a door leading outside, and a number of prisoner uniforms hanging on the laundry line, slowly waving in the breeze. Erin hasn't gone for those, however: what she's found is an assortment of worn books on the oft-repaired kitchen table, all sharing a common theme. "Translation dictionaries," Erin smugly declares. "This one's Russian to English --" picks up another "-- and this one's German..." She puts them both back down, then takes a quick step outside while Verni takes the time to verify the books, poking her head in while the older woman is examining the copyright dates. "The uniforms have their camps labeled on the sleeves -- that's how we sort this crap out. Stick the messages in the right pockets so they'll be sent to the right prisons, just as soon as they get the stupid time machine working." This is accompanied by something which isn't a sardonic laugh, but could make a claim to it after being severely concussed. "Hope you read fast -- most of this is us, and searching through whole dictionaries to spot one word at a time..." Which gets a very sincere groan from Verni. "We'll be lucky to get through one message if they're long!" Erin looks irritated by this, but it's not as if we're dealing with anything new there. "Better pick up the speed -- we're the only ones who can do it, and I know you're not going to sabotage it -- not while I'm watching you." The slightest of shrugs. "You're not the Mole anyway." The borderline despondency drops out of Verni's tone: the challenge may be ready to stay beyond the remaining lifespan on the house. "And you're saying that because...?" An edged grin. "You want it too bad." Erin jabs an elbow at a refrigerator so old, 'icebox' is actually the right word. "Come on -- we can't do a pickup until we get down there again, and we've got to bring the mudskippers something in order to take the trail." The ancient metal door is wrenched open, with several small shards of ice falling to the floor. "Huh. So that's ginger beer..." -------------------------------------------------------------- Two hours in: Alex just let them know. Progress has been made -- sort of. Most of it has been made by Charity, who simply pushed her way through the mud with a speed that suggested mechanical labor might not be necessary after all. More than anyone else, her performance has served to occasionally shut the crowd up (excepting the cheers of the children at the throwing of any particularly large rocks): she has moved steadily, easily, and with a practiced rhythm which suggests her part of the homeland receives more slushfall than snow. Comments about her general build decreased in a hurry when people began considering what might happen if the witnessed results were turned on them. Some of the rocks went a very long way. She wasn't the first to find a message, though -- that turned out to be Mark, a bit of trivia which has left no small amount of local spectators in shock. After pretty much giving up on the idea of overturning the soil while not turning himself into a one-reel comedy special suitable for airing in that museum-quality cinema, our stuntman switched to pushing the shovel's blade into the mud so that it penetrated straight down -- and listening closely. As the little Foley artist taught him, metal hitting stone makes a distinct sound: contact with other materials changes the pitch. It only took twenty minutes of ignoring the crowd before something ceramic gave him the tone he wanted, and then he abandoned the crutches to go into the mud for a little close-up inspection. This eventually produced a very old (and recently chipped) mug with a bit of dirty cloth stuffed into the mouth and a folded piece of paper behind that, all of which were delivered to Verni under the guise of handing back an empty drink. This was followed by a laborious pull-up against the ropes, gathering the crutches from where they were leaning on another support, and swinging his way out to the crest to watch the remainder of the festivities. Mark isn't particularly interested in picking up a hundred Euros today -- something which visibly annoyed Mr. Grunderson, although he lost a little of the tension when Charity's response to finishing her section was crossing the ropes and starting on Mark's. Charity could use two hundred Euros. Sadr is moving slowly, but with some rhythm to the motions -- not that it's helping him get through his section any faster. He seems to be the most resistant to the increasing heat, but we've pretty much established him as being far from the strongest person here. For what it's worth, none of the dirt he's shoveling is landing on anyone else -- with the one-time exception of Christopher, who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time: trying to drop a rock into Sadr's section while no one except the disregarded crowd was looking: they don't count until they start applauding. (After this tactic decidedly affected his popularity, Christopher switched to putting his located mini-boulders in Charity's finished section. This will not cost Charity any of her hard-earned pay, but Christopher's going to be very surprised if he ever gets a chance to see his little money bag.) Mihoshi might appreciate it if we don't pay too much attention to how she's doing -- and it really doesn't matter for her current situation, because the crowd will substitute for us with a coarser job than we might be willing to manage in public. In time, just enough will be shown to verify two targets of what passes for some of the local humor, along with a tiny touch of her continuing weak efforts -- but after that, the future screen will move to just the slightest touch of a mercy edit, if only for her shoveling. Those tossing out the joyous comments about Mihoshi's glasses not being the problem so much as her narrow slants of eyes will receive no such courtesies. Patricia -- now this might be a little bit interesting, because she's not entirely working within the task as originally not described. They were told to overturn the soil, but no one said shoveling was a necessity -- so she's removed the blade from the wooden handle, gone to her knees, and used the metal as an oversized trowel. She's actually making faster progress this way, although she hasn't hit her message yet. The host has made no comment about the change in tactics beyond the brief rise of a single eyebrow. After all, the goal here isn't designing a contestant-proof challenge -- if it was, then how would the Mole manage? This is getting Patricia extremely dirty, but that's not the sort of thing she's ever minded. Dirt is mostly in the eye of the beholder, although this occasion also has a great deal of it on the clothing of the beholded. David works. And when he can, he watches the others work. This isn't always possible, mostly because that little lamb keeps trying to sneak into his section so it can headbutt him again. (Erin got to see one of these displays and remarked on how David's ability to shepherd the young crossed species, or words to that effect. For his part, David has yet to find the firm words which will make the mobile bundle of wool go away.) Felicia -- now, this is where the fun is, at least for the definition of fun that so often loves to permeate the genre: thinly-disguised sadism rejoicing in the pain of someone other than you. Her uniform is dirty, her arms are dirty, her face is dirty because she forgot herself for a moment and wiped off the sweat with her filthy sleeves, and that meant her hair got involved -- a totally unfashionable mess is Felicia, and she's not dealing with it very well. Something in her resents looking anything than her best at all times, and the crowd's comments about her steadily diminishing glamour supply were eventually met with shouted-back notes on their outfits, hairstyles, lack of decorum, breeding, direct lines of descent from the local farm animals -- all in the local distinctive tones and cadences. What Felicia hasn't realized is that at this point, some of them are insulting her just to say what she says back in their own voices: it's a sight that will be the subject of dinner table discussions for weeks to come, and possibly even for generations after their departure. It's not exactly the immortality she was going for. Jacob, who's looking a little worried, is trying to keep Felicia on track. (He was the second to finish a section, which surprised everyone -- but the first to declare he had no desire for additional shoveling.) "Felicia -- we just hit halfway. There's less ahead of us than behind us, and there's only three messages out..." "I know," Felicia half-grunts, forcing her eyes away from a strapping lad who just favorably compared her mud-smeared hair with a muck-coated cow's tail. (This simile may have been inspired by the breeze, which is carrying more scent than before.) "This is why I don't work with an audience, damn it..." Another shovelful, this one sending bits of dirt flying into both Sadr's and David's sections (with the later crossing Christopher's on the way). Sadr winces at the little bits of rock impacting his neck, but otherwise ignores them. David, with the instinct of the trained spitball-seeker, automatically looks over to see who's about to get a week's detention -- -- stops, changes his gaze to point somewhat more downwards. "Felicia." Firm, insistent, and perhaps just slightly tense. "Yours is out." "My what is out?" Felicia shoots back. "The stripes are coming apart at these stupidly thick seams I can feel all over? Enjoy the view, David -- I don't think anything up the hill is my size!" Another shovelful, this one with even less aim. (Christopher still misses out.) "Your container," David quietly says. "I can see the handle of the mug sticking out of the dirt behind you. You must have passed it by when the crowd was calling for your attention." Or at least that's the way he's choosing to describe it for now. Felicia glances back at David -- blinks -- looks down -- blinks again -- then makes a comment which drops her glamour rating all the way into the negatives. This little moment of future bleeping is followed by a hissed "Damn it!" and a quick scoop-up of the container, almost automatically concealing in under her arm. After all, the guards might see. "I hate spectators -- they'd throw these Bleacher Creatures right out of the Bronx..." "Hey, morons!" At this point, do we even need to guess who? The crowd's only been here for a little over two hours and they don't need to make an effort: glancing at the hillside path in order to pick up the near-fluorescent hues of Erin's descent is just a formality. "Are any of you watching each other? Are any of you watching her?" This last is said at full sprint, as Erin decides to turn a fast shift down the slope into the all-out dash it was threatening to become anyway. (Fortunately, she's not carrying a tray -- at least, it's fortunate for the non-existent contents: several people are getting thirsty.) "How hard could it be to do? How can you even miss this bitch? She's only visible from space!" Charity glances up from her work -- then plants the shovel in the dirt and watches Erin approach. The medical student seems at least halfway calm, but she's also more than a little confused. "What did I do?" No, really -- what? "You sent up a mug with no message!" Erin yells, the last few words jarred loose as she brakes to a hard stop. "How are we supposed to translate a piece of nothing?" The crowd has gone quiet. The contestants are watching. Alex is just taking it all in, at least for the moment. Should the confrontation go physical, she'll have to step in -- but if we're talking about things we think we know at this point, we can probably add the likely fact that Erin's just a little too interested in either the money or her dream to get herself tossed out after hitting someone. At least, that should be the case most of the time. 'Probably' is in there for a reason, you know. Charity blinks. "No message?" The confusion really feels honest, doesn't it? "Maybe it fell out..." "Fell. Out." Erin doesn't appear to be treating this option with particularly high regard. "They've all been stuffed in there with cloth. How does the message fall out and leave the cloth in the mug, Mega-Blonde? Unless we're playing phantom passes and the producers just missed putting one in there to begin with -- this is twice you've delivered shoddy goods, and you can't tell me you just dug up the wrong mug!" And now we have something we haven't seen before: Charity's shoulders just went a little bit straighter -- and now the crowd is closing in, just a little bit. (Ringside seats may become essential in a few seconds.) More softly, "Or maybe I gave you a perfectly good mug, and you took the message out and decided to blame me for it. Anyone want to think about that possibility for a minute?" Erin's pupils flare with anger: the rest of her body isn't far behind. "I'm the only one consistently adding money to the damn pot: you've cost us one big donation with those baseball mitts you call hands, and now you just took another seven thousand out because you've got to do something in order to keep the clues coming --" "-- and you were playing the 'almost' game all last cycle." Charity's voice isn't at a whisper level: it's normally pitched and controlled. It just feels like it should be: a private, almost intimate conversation that everyone else just happens to be in on. "Throw out delay suggestions, nearly get into fights, swoop in to save us at the last minute -- then test the absolute boundaries of the alarm system's time allowance, and you can't tell me you've got an atomic clock in your head and can keep count down to the exact second when you're trying to work that fast. Push the borders and see what happens when you finally go over: that's your game, Erin. For the Mole, it's not the most unworkable one -- is it? But you want to keep people off your trail this early, so you pull out the message and blame me for it. That's 'almost' inspired." We can safely give Erin this: she doesn't always follow that favorite debate tactic of reality shows -- the one known as 'cutting the other person off as soon as their lips start to form the first word and screaming over everything that might try to escape'. It's generally not her style. After all, how can you probably cut apart the other party if you don't let them happily hand over their extra knives? And in this case, she's not only willing to let Charity finish her thought, she's listening to it. Erin's almost thoughtful here. "Nice -- real nice. Guess with that many brain cells loaded in, some of them would have to work -- but I'm a percussionist: I've got to have perfect timing on short licks or I wind up screwing everyone else. Twenty seconds isn't even close to a stretch for me -- and while your 'logic' --" the quotes are starting to move from audible to visible "-- isn't bad, it's just a little too fast. Could have been rehearsed." "If it was a mistake," Charity softly proposes, "then the message could have slid out between the cloth and the mug. I can check my section. Jacob could help me. Or should we be searching your pockets? You might want to give us a map to just where all those spikes are -- you don't want to go out for drawing blood by accident --" -- which is when the wind carries the scream down the hill. It's not a human scream. It could never be one, no chance to mistake it for that kind of voice at all. But the fundamentals are the same, echoing across the crest and freezing crowd and contestants alike: I am in pain, I am in agony, I don't know what's wrong or how to fix it and the pain won't stop... Mr. Grunderson is the first to move, and his instinct carries him up the hill in a sort of racing plod: too much solidity for the joints to be all that effective. Christopher's second, but all his movement is vocal. "What was that?" he breathes. "Was that a person?" Okay, almost no chance. And now a few people in the group are heading up... Alex shakes her head. "Animal. Something big --" -- the scream rings out again -- -- and now someone is charging down the hill: a tiny figure with pale blonde hair flying everywhere. Her braking is less effective than Erin's: she has to catch herself against the ropes, and two more cries of torture ongoing resonate across the land before she reaches them. "Is anyone --" It's barely audible: she's gasping for breath, and needs nearly fifteen seconds to recover before she wrenches herself around to face the crowd. "Is anyone here a vet?" Murmurs in the crowd, denials. "Half the town is out here -- doesn't anyone have a cell phone? We've got to call --" "Verni." Alex, and the voice of authority gets the older woman focused. "By the numbers -- what's going on?" "There's a cow up there -- she's giving birth. I was following Erin down after she took off, going past the barn, and I heard that first one..." A deep breath. "I looked in the barn. That's not a natural sound for a cow -- something's going wrong!" And there are mobile phones out now, just a few, and all equally worthless: no signal in this area. "We need to get a vet in there..." "How do you know something's wrong?" Erin, getting past things the best way she knows how. "Country fair remotes," Verni distractedly answers. "Like this is the first bad birth I've been at --" and now there's a new sound: one more pair of pounding footsteps, this time heading uphill: Charity has dropped her shovel and shifted into high gear, which has gotten the attention of the few people who aren't following either Verni's words or the screams of agony from the barn. (Christopher and Sadr in particular are watching with something close to dropped-jaw astonishment.) And Verni downshifts, almost relaxing on the spot. "-- right! We've got a medical student!" Maybe they don't need a vet! A birth's a birth, right? Or maybe it isn't. Ten remain at the bottom of the hill with one out of sight, and some of those ten try to keep digging -- but the screams keep breaking in, and no one can continue working for very long. They're paralyzed by inability: the sound of pain combined with the sure knowledge that there's nothing you can do to stop it produces one of the most helpless feelings in human existence. Look at David now: his eyes are closed and the headbutts of the little lamb may not exist: he simply listens to the screams while trying to let them pass through -- and perhaps he's failing. Something remains behind. Long minutes. No more people go up the hill. The most dedicated farmers, the ones who might know what to do themselves -- they aren't in this crowd: they're using the hot summer day for its designated purpose of work. Some of their children are here, slumming with the strangers so they can get their laughs. But the younger ones don't have the expertise. They can guess -- but a guess is worse than nothing. They all stand and listen to the pain -- -- Charity, running down the hill, the agony providing a tailwind. "Breech birth!" she yells. "The calf is facing the wrong way -- we've got to get it turned around, and there's no way to do it from the outside -- not with the position the mother's in and the hooves to deal with! I think the sac's broken..." Wildly looking around. "Hands, I need hands..." Which makes no sense -- not yet. "Hands?" Jacob asks for the group, confused enough for all of them. "Whose?" "Anyone's!" and it's the first time Charity's shouted. "I need someone who can reach inside! We can't do a C-section -- there's practically no chance of living through the blood loss and there's no way to sterilize the barn! We have to go in through the vagina and turn the calf manually! Someone whose arms and hands aren't too big, quick fingers, decent reach --" We need to freeze the moment here, because the range of expressions on display here needs extra time to fully appreciate. If you'll take a moment to consider the center square, you'll see Christopher marking the spot and on the verge of virtual prayer of thanks for being a decently-built sort. Mark is also in the middle of discounting himself, but has also taken on the emotional position of being extremely happy that he does not have to face the prospect of putting his hands into a cow's vagina. Verni's concerned (and seems to have some knowledge of what Charity's been talking about -- there were several who were completely lost until Charity hit the attention-getting part), but knows she's out of this: too small. Mihoshi would really and truly like to start a cold reboot now, thank you very much, we'll recover any lost data later. Jacob wants to help, but isn't sure if he can. David knows he can't. Felicia is probably the single most stuck on the whole 'putting my arms up where?' issue. Patricia may know what's going on as well as anyone -- small-town Montana girl: some knowledge of livestock may be inevitable -- acting on it is the problem. Erin could not visibly give less of a damn. Alex may be more accustomed to dealing with the presence of helplessness than anyone, but that just means it looks as if it's passing through her -- at least, it certainly looks that way. And Sadr -- -- Charity is looking at him -- "-- come on!" Charity shouts again, she moves, and her right hand closes around Sadr's arm, pulls. Sadr's body decides it doesn't want to part company with such a good friend and makes the decision to follow along, not bothering to update the brain on current events first. "We don't have much time!" "But...!" Still no emergency news bulletin just yet, but we are starting to see some breaking alerts from the field. "But I don't know how --!" "I'll teach you!" It's not so much that she's dragging him up the hill as that he's been helplessly caught in her wake. "I've read about the technique --" and her voice drops out for a count of three, then resumes with "It's not complicated -- I just need to you to do the work!" And now they're all following... "I --!" Sadr's brain has just caught up to the broadcast and would like to change the channel now. "We're going to do this!" Any more speed and he's going to be trailing behind her like a gymnastics ribbon. "If the calf doesn't come out, it dies! If we sacrifice the mother to save it, she dies! We can fix this -- you just have to listen to me!" "But what if I can't?" Just about half a desperate attempt to get the other party back in tune with reality, another half trying to fix himself here, and just a little left over for a cry of despair. Charity doesn't answer that one. Her breath is being used for running faster. Our eleven storm the hill. And for some, it won't be the last time they move towards pain. -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser" 02-28-09, 07:45 PM (EST) 9. "RE: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden: Part IV" LAST EDITED ON 02-28-09 AT 07:46 PM (EST) Whoa, that was a scary one! I doubt the birth thing was faked -- Charity would know, for one -- but I wouldn't put it past the Mole to use it to delay things so that only three messages are revealed -- assuming the Mole is Verni, and I could be wrong there. I hope Sadr is able to help Charity save both the calf and the mother! I'm waiting with bated breath for the next installment -- and I'm glad you got back to it, Estee! Please get the next part out asap! Belle Book   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser" 03-19-10, 07:11 PM (EST) 10. "RE: The Mole: Season #5: Episode #2: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" I wouldn't try for the riddle if I was there -- it's way too hard for me! Anyway, please continue this, Estee!   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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