Email this topic to a friend Printer-friendly version of this topic Bookmark this topic (Registered users only)		Previous Topic | Next Topic
Conferences Story Competitions Forum (Protected)
Original message

Estee 22510 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 01-11-07, 12:22 PM (EST) "Survivor: The Society Islands: Episode #13: I Can't Win..." LAST EDITED ON 01-12-07 AT 10:41 PM (EST) ----------------------------------------------------------------- After ----------------------------------------------------------------- "You should really put some numbers on your door..." He'd grown a mustache and beard: both well-trimmed for length and shape, but extensive enough to change the contours for the lower half of his face. But I could see behind the lines, find the features that had been there on Day One -- and I didn't even need to go that far. The eyes were the same. Large, dark, and cold. His voice, though -- the tone was casual, almost friendly. Just two people who used to know each other getting back together after a long separation, comparing notes. A few degrees under Matt for the exact feel, several miles away on charm. "I even tried calling your number," he told me, "because I'd hate to get it wrong, and nothing rang -- now what's that supposed to do?" He was starting to smile, watching as I moved the nozzle of the fire extinguisher, orienting on him. "That's water. Are you going to spray me in the face with it and hope I melt? I'm not Denadi or Trina, you soulless moron..." No. I'm going to spray you in the face with it and hope you lose a few seconds to blinking -- -- brought the nozzle up, squeezed the trigger -- -- a little bit of underpressurized water came out, a few cups' worth at the most, got about halfway across the distance between us, formed a slick line on the floor. He laughed. I couldn't blame him: it was something of a funny sight. And then he charged. I brought the extinguisher up and back, ready to swing it, bash in his skull with it, the thing still had weight -- -- dying, he's dying, I hit him too hard and he's dying, I have to -- -- didn't matter. It didn't change anything. I had to hit him -- -- except that he'd already crossed the distance, whipped his hands out, knocked the extinguisher out of my grip. I heard it hit the floor behind me, roll away, drop through a gap in the railing. "Wrong, bitch!" And then he grabbed my left wrist, reached over and got my right in his other hand, yanked both arms over my head... It still left me with a knee in reserve. I used it. Nothing happened. "Luxury item: cup," he grinned. "You really want to be a ballbuster, but you just can't pull it off..." Forcing me backwards. I was being pushed towards Mr. Brooks' door. Towards the fire. He was taller than me, had more mass, he was using it all to bear down and back, I was losing ground and -- -- I'm going to die -- -- but it still wasn't giving him any satisfaction. "Why aren't you afraid?" Jake hissed. "Just staring at me like you stared at every damn thing, just those stupid grey eyes that think they can see what's coming next... You didn't even spot my little messages, did you? I gave you a puzzle to work on and you never solved it, bet you never even realized I do a great Spanish accent -- come on, Alex, this is a confessional, talk to me, sinners have to confess something before they go --" -- I lost another step. He was starting to push down, legs spread wide to help him brace and focus his efforts. He was going to put me into the flames, shove my back into them, maybe try to twist me and let it happen face-first... ...messages... ...I knew what I had to do. I would have to be right, I would have to be exactly right, and I would have to be there for it, be there all the way, hear it and smell it and maybe even taste it again, no blackout to spare me from the actual moment, no death as respite, not for me -- -- but when there's a predator trying to pounce on you, and all it wants is your death -- -- how many steps could I lose? Maybe four. So I needed three. I kept pushing back at him, letting the effort show -- then allowing him another small victory: back one. "Guess the children's birthday parties didn't work out, huh?" All pretense of camaraderie gone, the smoke starting to build in his lungs, putting a rasp into the loud words. "I've been out of work for months, freak -- no one knew exactly what happened, but Mark and Jeff got enough rumors out there to keep me off the market, and just about the entire planet knows what I look like -- couldn't even risk knocking on anyone's door to ask which apartment was yours, not with your whole damn ghetto watching..." A surge of strength, and I let him take the round: another step. Maybe I didn't have three. The heat was building fast, too fast, the wood was definitely going up... and Jake's cold grin came back at full force. "I know why you're not afraid! You think you're going home! You're right, Alex: you're going to where there's nothing but flames, you're going to be there forever, and no one's going to mourn a soulless little bitch who never loved anyone and was barely worth the effort to hate..." I had to have one more step. Just one more. "You want to know why I'm not afraid?" I met his eyes. "Because I've seen worse than you." His head pulled back slightly, even as his arms continued to push down. "Because I've done this before." Let him have a little more ground, but make sure my arms stayed straight, elbows locked. Footsteps somewhere, one last person evacuating. Heat on my legs, the intensity starting to become painful. "And I'm not afraid of fire --" -- let him have the next victory, let him push me back and down -- -- stopped fighting. Gave in. All at once. Stop bracing, stop resisting. Legs no longer pushing back: legs slammed together and allowed to slip forward. Into the water which Jake had been instinctively stepping around. Onto the slick trail he'd been straddling the whole time. I let myself slip, I let him push me down, and with no resistance left, he couldn't stop pushing me down. His arms came forward, his torso followed. He'd been channeling everything he had into pushing me, he couldn't abort in mid-motion, he'd only had one plan: overbear and dominate, and the last thing he'd been expecting was that I'd let it work -- -- humans make it up as we go along -- I slid between his legs. I yanked him down with me, adding his force to my own, threw gravity into that mix, pulled his arms down, made him lose control of his body. He was probably going to fall on me: the floor wasn't slick enough to get that much momentum going, I wasn't going to shoot into Ms. Litzfeld's door, not without a lot more force and his actually letting go of my wrists. But I could take that pain -- -- heard the scream. It wasn't pain, not yet. Realization. Recognition. The split-second between knowing you've been had and seeing what the payout is going to be, seeing the queen come out of the deck and purse its lips, waiting for the spray of cider. The anger that came from having been beaten, added to a strange, incomprehensible fear... I didn't know why he was afraid. He thought he was right. He thought he'd be rewarded for his actions, if not here and now, then somewhere else. What could he possibly have to be afraid of? Certainly not the fire -- "-- because fire is life!" He went in face-first. Let go of my wrists. I slid free after all. Not all the way across the landing: just clear of his falling body by a few inches, sitting up fast and scrambling aside to avoid his flailing legs. Got to my feet and cleared his thrashing range -- not quite fast enough: I took a kick to my right thigh, but it was just a glancing blow. He was screaming and screaming, he wouldn't stop, no oxygen in the fire but he somehow still had air to scream with, arms pushing but not getting enough force through as the pain broke up the signal, the alarm that forever keeps you from doing anything about the alarm, his jacket was catching, the screams were getting louder, he was going to die -- -- sometimes, the body does something before the brain knows what's going on -- -- I caught his left ankle. Knelt down, reaching for the right one as it twitched away from me, I needed both if I was going to pull him out of the flames -- -- another hand caught it first. "I've got him!" Marissa reached across, got a grip on the left one as I let go, started pulling backwards as the first coughing fit began. "You get the water!" There was a little more in the second extinguisher, just enough to slow the process, and then Marissa beat out the rest of the flames with her jacket. I went into my apartment, retrieved the chemical extinguisher which was unsafe to spray on humans, used it on Mr. Brooks' door and the area around it: there was almost enough to completely put out the fire. Marissa had sacrificed her coat, sending me for another extinguisher rather than let me give up mine. But I could always get more Coke, at least for a few more months: bottle after bottle was poured on the remaining licks of flame until they were doused. I even broke the window in my attempts to let more of the fumes out. Accident. Really. The last bit of smoke curled up just as Jake stopped moving. It was his fire... As long as Jake still had fire, he was still alive in the game. Jake no longer had fire. I wanted to stand over him, spit on him, say 'The tribe has spoken, asshole!' Robin would have. I didn't think Gardener would have used the chance to get a kick in. Gary... "We need an ambulance." Marissa looked up at me, nodded. "I'll call..." She looked down at Jake. "He's breathing. Just breathing. I don't want to move him any more unless I have to start CPR --" stopped talking and made the call. No reaction from Jake. His face was looking away from me. What was left of it. "I -- I heard just about everything -- it all came down the stairs." The building's acoustics probably hadn't been intentionally designed. "I got to the top just in time to see... I couldn't even shoot him..." She didn't like carrying her gun, she'd been off-duty, the gun was back at the precinct. Marissa was starting to shake. "Alex, you've got a witness, you've finally got a witness, I know you didn't start this..." "I know." Although you could probably get a really good argument going on 'start'. Even so, I didn't think I'd be arrested for this, and in-school suspension was solidly off the board. "We should break down Mr. Brooks' door -- make sure he's all right." The air on the landing was clearing rapidly, but I didn't want him trapped in his apartment with any fumes. "Maybe if we both kick it a lot, or I hit it with the extinguisher..." She shook her head. "He's outside. Went out to get some liquor. He was coming up the sidewalk just as I got out of the car." Oh. Well, that would cut down on the damage a little, but the door was still going to need replacement. Which meant it would probably be like that forever. The landlord wouldn't pay for it, and in the local budget battle of wood vs. wine, wood had been barred from the ring. "Are you all right?" "I'm okay." My rear and lower back were a little sore (and needed to dry out), plus my wrists hurt after the squeezing. But that was it. "How's Jake?" Semi-expert opinion, please. "Breathing." I'd never heard her voice that stark -- or seen her eyes that cold. Not directed towards me: partial cause, maybe, but not the target. "I know why I dragged him out. Because it's my job. Because if there's any chance, then I have to do something or spend the rest of my life wondering what the hell the uniform turned me into. Why did you try?" I closed my eyes, just for a heartbeat. "I don't know." I couldn't say it was because I wasn't him. Not because it made me better than him in any way. I couldn't even pretend I didn't want him dead on some not-too-deep level, and I wouldn't care if he did die. It certainly wasn't because I'd been planning on eating him and wanted to make sure the meat wasn't overdone. I just didn't know. Marissa sighed: deep, slow, and very oddly relieved. "You pretty much raised yourself," she finally admitted, several years too late. "I guess you didn't do such a bad job..." The firefighters arrived and found themselves with very little to do. The police came up, took an initial statement from me, had it confirmed by Marissa, declined to handcuff me, and started examining the area. The ambulance crew showed up and loaded Jake onto a stretcher, put some kind of cream on the burns, placed an oxygen mask over his face and began carrying him down the stairs. I re-locked my apartment and followed them down. No one seemed to need me at the moment: Marissa was talking to her fellow officers, the firefighters were confirming everything I'd seen about the fire being an arson attempt -- a clumsy one, in their overheard opinion -- and they'd just lost track of where I was. So I followed Jake down. I could always go back up later. Besides, I would probably just be in the way once the serious part of the investigation started. Lots of lights outside. Ambulance lights, police lights, fire engine lights -- camera lights. How long had we been up there? Did the various news agencies have people stationed in Haledon as a just-in-case move, the campout scheduled to end five seconds after the Reunion credits stopped scrolling? If so, not many people were willing to pay for the expense: there was a state news cable station, a couple of newspaper reporters very loudly identifying themselves as such as they tried to get through the police blockade, and a few amateurs with camcorders who were yelling questions just because they could. The other occupants of the building were scattered about the sidewalk, waiting for the all-clear so they could go back in. It probably wouldn't be very long in coming -- -- silence. People looking at Jake on the stretcher. The sound -- and scent -- of vomit as someone got a good look at his face. One, two, three -- "Alex! Alex, did you do that?" "Who started the fire?" "Is anyone else dead?" Great observational powers on that last: Jake was still breathing. Not very fast or very well, but it was visible if you looked for it. "How is this going to affect your placement in the game?" One of the camcorder holders, who apparently believed I'd be flying back to the island to compete for Immunity right after these commercial messages. Come to think of it, what had that challenge been for? "Who is that?" And from Mr. Zanter, second floor, "Alex -- is it out?" Well, at least someone had their priorities in order. "Yeah. They're just investigating the ignition point. They'll probably start letting people back in soon." He nodded, the mane of grey hair shifting in waves. "Good. It's cold out here." Another news van pulled up. CNN. There had to be a camp in the area. What time was it, anyway? I started to check my watch -- -- another engine coming down the street: loud, overpowered, a clear-the-streets sort of noise. Not the same as the car that Jake had nearly run me over with: this was even louder, and the dual spoilers on the back were a shout of bad taste, as was the lime green flake paint job that would probably be a tribal color some season. It stopped just short of the police barricade and continued wasting gas as the owner got out, immediately starting an argument with the closest police officer when none was required. "I'm going in there! You can't stop me -- that's my building! Don't even think about it!" There was more than a little wheeze in that: just hauling his bulk out from behind the wheel had taken more strength than he was willing to expend. He'd gained an extra fifty pounds since the last time I'd seen him -- the one and only time I'd ever seen him. He'd watched me sign the lease. "Who's responsible for this?" Jake was in no condition -- or position -- to answer: he was being loaded into the ambulance. "I want to know who set my property on fire!" Some slurring on the last few words: he'd been drinking. One of the younger officers tried to intercede. "It was an arson attempt, but the fire's been put out. There's some damage to one door on the fifth floor, the surrounding wood, smoke damage --" "Arson?" His eyes, already naturally protruding, were threatening to emerge from the sockets. "Who were they trying to burn out? Who's responsible for this damage?" The officer elected not to answer either question. My landlord took a slow breath, working up the strength to say it louder -- but he didn't have to waste the effort. Someone else took over for him. "Her!" And apparently Ms. Bracia had followed the sound of the sirens in the hopes of picking up a good-looking public servant. "She's the one they were trying to burn out! Half the country hates her -- the sane half! Someone finally decided to do something about it -- too bad it didn't work!" Her triumph had to be keeping her warm: there was no other way she'd be able to survive outside for more than a few minutes in that dress. Another voice, male, this one only vaguely familiar: I thought it was a fairly recent arrival on the third floor. "Hey, we don't know --" The landlord was having none of it: he pushed his way through the barrier, shoving the startled officer aside, ignoring the yells to stop as he stormed towards me. "You? I remember you... the one who got the phone company in because she wanted some kind of fancy line... I don't like people poking around my buildings..." They'd found some bad wiring, I remembered that much, and it had been replaced. My rent had 'temporarily' gone up the next month and permanently stayed there. "And now someone's trying to burn you out? Sleep around with too many johns, whore?" Definitely listing to Mr. Brooks' side. (Who was near the door, trying to catch the minimal heat, balancing three brown paper bags and not doing a very good job of it.) "One of them got fed up with it -- I should have known you'd prostitute your way into something bad, seventeen and looking for a lease, but I had to be soft-hearted and throw you a place to turn tricks! Who the hell do you think you are, damaging my property? What's your --" a fresh police car announced its arrival with a blare of sirens "-- name, anyway?" And now nobody was speaking: neighbors, media, police, firefighters, bystanders, all silent. Why should they talk over the scene? If they said something, they might speak through the words that would let them know how it all turned out, and there was no way to rewind... Well, this was familiar: apparently everything was my fault again. This probably shouldn't feel funny, should it? The ambulance took Jake away. I watched it go. It took enough time to let my landlord wheeze his way across the remaining distance. "I asked you for your name, slut!" "Do you have any idea how horrible your breath is? With all the money you've spent ruining that car, I guess there wasn't enough left over for good alcohol." Mr. Brooks sagely nodded a greeting as we entered his area of expertise. "Does anyone have a mint they can give him? Maybe we can get him to take the cost off the rent." He froze. I hadn't just said that. Therefore, he hadn't just heard it. Erasing it from memory required a temporary muscle shutdown to draw the extra power from. The voice, on the other hand, always had a spare battery: it just meant the brain had to live in the dark for a while. "Your name!" No, there was nothing wrong with me for finding this amusing. It was just too funny, that was all. It had to be: one of the police officers had just snickered. Actually, that was almost starting to feel like a cue. Honestly, this was hilarious. "One person. One person in this town who doesn't know, and look who it turned out to be. I was wondering why my rent hadn't gone up. I figured if you thought I'd gotten the check from even sixteenth place, you would have redone the lease to take it all inside a year. Anything over that and you'd probably go condo." And still more editing. "Fine -- you know who you are? You're little Miss Evicted! This is your fault, so guess who's going to wind up paying for it? Don't even bother going into your apartment -- everything in there is mine! I'm going to sell your stuff, pay for the damages -- and forget about ever seeing your deposit back, bitch! You've got the clothes on your back, and you're only going to keep those until my lawyers get ahold of you! Do you understand that, slut?" Looming over me with his bulk, breath growing more foul with every word, thinking he'd won because he always won, he made a living by dominating people who couldn't afford to fight back and this confrontation was no different from any other... How could he not see this punchline coming? Was the man completely lacking in any sense of humor? "Yeah. I think I've got it. But would you mind repeating it for the national news media?" Rewind, prepare to erase -- examine footage. "...what?" Don't laugh, don't laugh... "The national news media. You know -- CNN? And that's New Jersey Twelve over there, but I'm sure they're willing to share... Go ahead and say every last word of that again for them, because they may have missed some of it when your breath melted the microphones. You can also talk about why the hallway smoke alarms didn't go off, which would be because you haven't changed the batteries in -- what was that now? Oh, right. 'Forever'. And you just get the ones that come in dollar store fifty-packs and leak acid two days after air hits them." The firefighters had confirmed it: nothing had ever gone off. The first official sign had been the alert Marissa had called in, the only alarm to the tenants was the one I had sounded. "They'll also be interested to hear all the details of your fascinating new tenant/landlord dispute settlement policy. And as far as getting into my apartment goes? I changed my locks after the one the place came with broke. At my own expense, because you wouldn't pay for it. That means you don't have the keys, plus you have no legal right to my -- what was the word you used? -- oh, right... property. In fact, as long as we have all these reporters here, I'm sure they'd love to take a walk-through and see just how many code violations are in place. That's the great thing about the media, you know -- they always need just one more story to fill a few seconds or inches of space. I think what's happening to the banisters and railings should be good for at least one pre-commercial teaser. Plus maybe three paragraphs." He stared at me -- then, very slowly, looked around. After a while, he saw the cameras. And after an even longer time, he registered their presence. "I -- I..." And that would be the sound of him starting to understand what it might mean. "No -- do it while you're facing them. Just draw an invisible bead on the nearest one, then pretend it's not there." With a little false comfort, "Don't worry if it takes you a little while to pick up the skill. It comes fastest when the camera presence is constant. I can give you some hints..." And now a few of the other tenants were starting to laugh, along with several police officers, and it was just starting to come across to him what their presence would mean if he tried anything now. "You want to be scary? You want to be threatening? Go grow some fangs and claws. Or just drink a little more and get back behind the wheel -- actually, now that I think about that --" -- and the young officer caught on, striding forward with purposeful speed. "Sir, I'm going to need to see your license and registration." And now most of the tenants were laughing, although Ms. Bracia was starting to fume. I didn't know why: it wasn't as if the landlord was really her type, at least outside of the financial aspect. Maybe that was why her rent was a little lower than mine. "You're illegally parked, plus I have reason to believe you may have been driving while under the influence." I started walking away. Someone else could -- and apparently would -- take it from there -- -- and the words hit my retreating back. "Don't you dare go in there! If you set one foot in my building, I can have people do things to you!" I turned and looked directly at him. He pulled back, almost stepping into the officer. "Just in case you lost track -- the media people I mentioned earlier? Still there. And I think the officer just asked you for your ID -- maybe you missed it." Awareness dropping back into his face, maybe for good this time... "Oh, and since you've forgotten my name... if you're really curious, you can just ask someone here what it is. I'm sure they can tell you." And headed back towards the building. Behind me, someone yelled "She's Alex Cole! She's Final Five, you moron!" And a few heartbeats later, from the general direction of the news vans, "Final Four. She just got the last idol!" Huh. Well, now I had a rough idea of what time it was, based on how far into the show that footage was probably going to air. It sounded like at least one of the televisions in that particular vehicle wasn't being used for on-the-spot editing. Maybe that meant some of this footage would actually reach the air. It really should: talk about comedy scenes... Followed by one final scream from my landlord. "What are you people talking about?!?" I shrugged. "I don't know," I said to the air as I stepped through the doors. "Honestly, it's like we're talking another language half the time..." Heh. Ha... ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Okay -- they're interviewing the first officer on the scene. It took a while to get her out in front of the cameras, but she's providing the eyewitness account. Starting a little far back -- apparently this is Alex's police liaison for all the threatening E-mails she's received.} {Hey -- I know this name... this is the officer from Alex's medical records!} {I guess they had her work with Alex because they knew each other... Still feels weird to see her, though.} {So Alex really was having problems from Day One on: 'target zone' confirmed.} {Ohmigawd -- she just confirmed the ID of the assailant!} {Jake?} {How could -- no, wait, it's not exactly hard to find out where Alex lives -- hell, if you read enough stuff here, you'd know she was on the fifth floor!} {And if he had any access to the contestant records, anyone on the crew who would still talk to him...} {That feels like a longshot.} {There was more than one person pissed off about that cross. It's a longshot, but it's still possible.} {Warning graphic -- repeating the footage of Alex first coming out, and -- oh, Christ: look at Jake...} {Pass. I would not look at Jake if it meant I might win Immunity.} {Okay, how drunk is this guy? How stupid? And how much trouble is he now in?} {Very, extremely, and lots.} {'You print that story and I might wind up owning Look Magazine.'} {Doc?} {I'll explain it later. Let's just say that some people really need to pay attention to their environment and leave it at that.} {How disappointed is Connie tonight? So close!} {Still not getting any screaming in West Islip. Maybe she just hasn't gotten the news yet.} {Well, we now know just how much projection she gets -- it probably died out before it hit St. James.} {Connie screams at saints?} {It's a city on Long Island. Places exist in the world that don't host reality shows, you know. Lots of them. There's at least ten left.} {Medical reports coming in. Second and third-degree burns to Jake's face, scalp, and neck, with some spreading to the upper chest and shoulders. Eyes are severely damaged. From what I saw of that shot, his lips were pretty much gone...} {I'll continue praying.} {For Jake? Why?} {He's a human being. Someone should pray for him.} {I'm going to need to see your license, registration, and definition of 'human'.} {According to that last update, he may not make it. If he winds up dying tonight, then at least someone will have wished for the redemption of his soul. Prayer is prayer. If you start wondering about whether the target deserves it, then you're stepping into Jake's world.} {So you're saying you would pray for Alex?} {...I -- already have. Several times.} {Do I want to know what you were praying for if this happened?} {Peace.} {Sure you have. The peace of the grave, maybe...} {You know who I blame for this? Jeff. 'Who will be the hunters?' Well, we sure as hell found out, didn't we? We found one stone-cold, ruthless, deadly predator. And I don't mean Jake. Jake is a psychotic moron. Alex is a killer.} {Go look in a mirror. You know what you're going to see? Two eyes set at the front of the skull, as opposed to being placed at the sides. You know what that marks you as? A predator. Human beings are hunter-gatherers, and you may want to pay particular attention to the front half of that. We kill. Robin said it: every day, things die so people can stay alive. From everything Officer Ramirez said, Jake gave Alex the same choice the jaguar did, and Alex made exactly the same decision. You're telling me you would have just let him shove you into the flames because you're devoted to total pacifism? Yeah, right. I've seen your posts on Bashers. Here's some bandwidth: post to someone who cares.} {She didn't have to kill him.} {He's not dead yet.} {Really? How long do you think he's got?} {If we're all lucky? Five seconds, starting from fifteen minutes ago. I don't care if Jake dies. As far as I'm concerned, the rest of the planet should sleep a little easier if Jake dies. Of course, there's days I've felt the same way about EPMB, so maybe I'm not the best judge here.} {Replaying the clip of the Ramirez interview... no further word on Jake's condition -- no word from the show just yet -- hey, they didn't show this part before...} {'Because fire is life'? Alex actually said that as she effectively made him throw himself in? Dude, that is cold.} {No way. Ramirez must have misheard that.} {No comment from the show because they're probably trying to figure out how liable they are for Jake's actions, and they're not going to say a word before their lawyers say some first.} {Huh? Not being insulting here, but -- huh? Jake was fired. How can the show hold any responsibility for what he did after he was let go?} {It's complicated. Not talking down to you here, but that's the short version: the rest involves a full-fledged instant bar exam. They can be liable: it depends on perspective, the exact wording of any contract designed to prevent it -- and I'm pretty sure we just hit the one thing MB never saw coming -- and the judge & jury they wind up in front of. They may be liable here. I don't know for sure: I just do standard criminal prosecution. But it's not off the option list.} {Maybe that's the latest fifth solution to the problem with four answers. She can't win a million, but she can sure sue for it.} {I don't know... if that's the case, then she could have sued for Jake's actions on the island, right? How comprehensive is that contract?} {Or Alex just isn't the sort of person who runs into court at every last slight. She has no reason to be fond of or trust the system.} {I'm guessing she can't sue: the contract will block her. Come on -- if there was any chance she could get money out of this, every lawyer in the hemisphere would have called her by now.} {*checks recent phone log* No, somehow I missed that opportunity...} {They're switching over to the Haledon police station -- Alex was questioned, Officer Ramirez was questioned, everyone is satisfied with the answers received, and Alex has been released -- out the back door, which seems to be frustrating the hell out of the press. It's been ruled as self-defense. I repeat for our remaining Legion Of Alex-Haters: self-defense. Hurting someone who's doing their level -- or insane -- best to kill you is not a crime. Alex has not been charged, will not be charged, and if you don't like it, choke on it.} {Finally getting a statement from the show, but it's pretty much a repeat: they support Alex and they look forward to seeing her at the Reunion. That's it. I guess anything else might have entered 'please, please don't sue us' territory, and they were afraid to go any further...} {Come on -- there's no way she can sue. Ask Stacey how far she's gotten.} {Point.} {Okay -- I think that's all we're going to get tonight, so unless you're staying up to see if Jake's condition changes, let's call this one, put it in the books, and get some sleep already. This is starting to intrude on West Coast time.} {Yeah -- I've pretty much got to start our own voting thread as of ten minutes ago.} {And I'm going to need some rest before tackling the flood of 'Alex: Murderer' threads in Bashers. You'd think they could at least wait until he died. You really could. I'm not that delusional, but if you could think it for me...} {How do you think she's sleeping tonight?} {Alex? Either very soundly or not at all. And after the jaguar, I'd bet on 'soundly'.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- It was getting colder again: the last desperate push from the cold front before the warming trend could shove it out. I probably shouldn't have been experiencing that in person. My apartment was safe to go back to: the firefighters had agreed on that. The police were willing to station a car in front of the building just in case anything happened, like my landlord clearing his DUI time early or the media trying to storm up the stairs. I could sleep in my own bed, even if Marissa had really wanted me in a hotel for the night. But I'd wound up being driven back to the building, snuck out the back way with no lights running. And as soon as I'd gotten in, I'd gone out. I was very good at sneaking out of places in the dark: some skills don't fade after a few years of mostly-disuse. I knew the back ways out of my apartment, including a few that the landlord had been ignoring for years. Don't move the dumpster because the smell leaks up the side of the building? Fine: don't move the dumpster. And don't fix that window, either. Drop out the second-floor perma-opening, land on the lid of the stinking container, walk away. I didn't like it when people told me I had to stay in one place -- -- and I'd been in the mood to walk. It didn't feel like sleep was going to show up for a few hours. The questioning session had been intensive, but it hadn't been bad: for the first time in my life, Authority had actually been interested in listening to my answers. The contract hadn't even been much of a hassle there: Jake's time on the island was in the footage that had already been aired, his role was played, part complete. I could discuss the scenes that had made the show, at least to the point of confirming them at will, because his part in the show was done. And since they'd shown pretty much everything in that department, I could confirm to their paperwork's content. Discussed, cleared, and released. Something had happened which ultimately turned out to not be my fault, at least in the eyes of Authority. I wasn't sure how to deal with the experience, especially when I wasn't sure the verdict had been the right one. If I hadn't applied, if I hadn't been chosen -- -- then eventually, someone else. It could have happened later, it had just happened a few hours ago, and it had happened to me. Jake's time on the planet may be just about complete. I'd seen the burns. I could even draw them. I didn't want to -- -- I don't care if he dies. It was him or me and I chose me. Gardener would approve. If he died, he'd brought it on himself. I'd been waiting for the gun to come out. Jake without a gun? Surely he had to own one outside the show. Or maybe he'd carried the one on the island because he couldn't get one in the real world: the police were probably running his records right now. Maybe all he'd had access to was paint and fire and bad plans... Try to see it from Jake's perspective. He hates me: he's hated me since Day One. Then, in his view, I get him fired. It's not his fault, of course. No one cares about what happens to a sacreligious little freak anyway -- at least, no one who counts -- so he doesn't take it well when he gets thrown off the island. I snuffed his torch and he got angry: very familiar pattern. So he comes into my area. He can do some things, apparently including stealing cars, which might explain why he would have trouble legally getting his hands on a gun. (He hadn't known the area well enough to get an illegal one. Most of the locals could do it in less than an hour.) And maybe the prints on the bottle were just too smudged for comparison with the database, but he'd known he had to wipe down the vehicle... The bottle as scare tactic, or a serious attempt to take me out? Probably the former. He wouldn't have minded hitting me with it, wouldn't have had many regrets if he'd killed me with it -- except that he might have wanted me to be around for a while. Scared, afraid, dreading what might come next -- but present for it. Why? Because he knew a lot about what had happened on the show. He wanted to see how the public was going to take it. He was convinced they were going to hate me, pretty much universally -- again, for that small part of the universe which counted to him. And he'd been right, at least for a while. But -- -- the tide had started to swing. I'd faked out Turare, bounced Desmond. I'd beaten the jaguar. Taken Angela's plan apart. Tossed my mother off the island, one to nothing, my vote. I'd done other things in the game, twisting challenges, finding idols, winning races, always keeping the viewers guessing. I'd become a character on a television show -- and ultimately, a popular one, at least in the sense that I was helping to get the ratings up. The last thing Jake had wanted to see and nothing he could ever believe was actually happening: just another consequence of being in a nation of the soulless. I was starting to create fans. Gather popular acclaim. Have people watch the show just to see what would happen to me next. Laugh at my actions, weep for my failures and failings. Maybe even care. Becoming a celebrity. When had the first bits of graffiti started to appear? Shortly after I'd bounced Desmond. The point at which people might have started to realize I had a chance to be around for a while. The moment I turned into a long-term character, someone they could risk developing an interest in. So he'd sent a signal to me: don't get cocky. A message... The temperature was continuing to drop, and the wind was starting to come up. A dark, overcast night. There were times when I'd looked for the stars that had been visible from Yanini, but -- wrong part of the world. The sky here should be comforting for familiarity if nothing else, but that was another trick that never worked... The graffiti spreading, but always in the rough vicinity of my apartment building. The local gangs getting worked up, the police concerned, both of them looking for a group of intruders, neither one finding the signs of a major offensive being prepared -- because there hadn't been any. Just one man with a lot of spray cans. More time passes. I run into him at work one dark night, he freaks, tries to either take me out with the car or terrify me with it. Scared that I'd recognized him, probably, and there had been something familiar about the way the figure had moved -- but not familiar enough. Still, it was enough to let him know he couldn't play around much longer. Maybe I hadn't gotten the message, hadn't solved his puzzle. And no matter what happened, he was running out of show. Possibly he knew I was Final Four, might have even known more than that. No real friends among the staff, but one or two people who saw things his way and would still talk to him? A good chance. And no matter what happened on the show, pretty soon, I'd be heading to the Reunion. The season would be over. Everyone leaves, and maybe I'd use whatever winnings I got to skip the neighborhood. (I was definitely going to be in the market for a new apartment after this. I had a hunch my rent was about to go way up.) The clock was ticking, and maybe he'd seen the finale as the last gong. He had to strike soon. Jake knew which building I lived in, had figured out or been told which floor. But -- no door numbers. He'd picked one. Maybe he'd thought the show would have driven me to drink before following the scent of cheap booze, or just decided any door was good enough as long as I came out when the alarms sounded. I didn't think he'd meant to jump me if I came running out: witnesses if the entire floor evacuated at once, and it would have been easy to exit the building with everyone else. He just hadn't been sure I'd been home. He hadn't been able to break in -- theft-proof locks actually coming through, I'd have to write the company and thank them -- and I could have been asleep with earplugs in, or listening to music through headphones, anything where I was moving quietly. He couldn't risk knocking and he couldn't use the blocked security port. But it was getting near showtime. I had to watch the show, right? So I was probably either home (and very silent) or on the way there in a hurry. So hang around, just to make sure he had the right place, who knew, maybe he was waiting for the door to burn through and if it had been someone else's place, he would have put it out -- -- no. Jake didn't care. He'd just stayed to watch the results. And maybe to shove me into the flames as I tried to escape, an accidental bump that no one would notice in the rush. And then I'd come home. And he just couldn't wait any longer. Maybe that was how he'd worked it out. Maybe it was a long-term plan and maybe it was a last-minute decision. Maybe if my apartment had been burned out without my being in it, he would have done something else before the Reunion. Walked up to me at the street fair, smiled, stuck a knife into my throat. No way to tell. Jake wasn't going to be talking for a while. Jake might never say anything again -- -- I shivered. Getting way too cold out. Jeff? "Jake's always been all about Jake: no one else." I know. But you didn't think he had any friends on the crew. He did have a couple of people who at least agreed with him over the cross. If any of them stayed in contact, he would know about what happened... "Jake has been removed from the island. Permanently." You're echoing. It's not exactly helping. "Alex -- I don't know." Because he just knows what I know. "Is it possible? Yes. Will you ever know? Not unless he wakes up or anyone he was speaking to talks. And the first option may be closed." I know. Stepped around a pothole in the sidewalk, dodging on memory alone. If he dies -- "-- it was self-defense. Marissa witnessed it. You've been cleared." Some people won't believe it. "They don't count." Heh. Aloud, "Interesting theory..." Had the temperature just gone down again? It doesn't change the fact that I may have just killed someone. "It also doesn't change the fact that you tried to get him out of the fire." A long pause. "Again." All that means is that I'm consistent in my mistakes. "Mercy is a mistake?" A car went by while I thought about it. No slowing down, no honks of recognition: just another woman on the sidewalk in a heavy jacket and hood, hands in pockets, trying to stay warm. It lets people stay around so they can hurt you again later. The first seven don't get any mercy: out they go to Sequesterville, and you don't have to worry about what they might be able to do. The next seven move to the jury, and save up their rage... Footsteps approaching behind me, a slow, wearied tread. Probably not a threat. It would not hurt to make sure. I turned around -- "Evening, Alex." Direct eye contact, easy for two people of the same height. "I'd ask what you're doing up, but I saw some of the news in the laundromat -- I know you had a rough night." I could sigh. I really could. "Hello, Pastor Roberts." There was a bag of laundry slung over his back, which definitely accounted for part of the walking pace. "Are you always up this late?" His eyes seemed to twinkle under the sputtering streetlight. "Some nights. Insomnia and I are good friends, and there's whole weeks where I can't talk him into leaving." I wondered if he was getting any actual warmth from the ancient greatcoat. "I'm guessing you wander when you're really upset. And if tonight didn't do it..." A sudden sigh, deeper than I thought could come from his small torso. "What's the word on Jake?" "I don't know." They hadn't been giving me medical updates at the precinct. "You probably know more than I do there if you were watching the news. All I know is what I saw." Third-degree burns. Teeth visible where lips had once been. Eyes closed, the right-side lids looking as if they'd melted together. Images that refused to leave my mind. Maybe drawing them would get them out. Talking about it probably wouldn't do it. A tiny nod. "Shock trauma -- he may not make it." Watching my eyes closely. "And you don't know how to feel about that. And you're freezing." He gestured, pointing to the right on a small forward angle. "It's a good jacket you've got there, but sometimes cold comes from the inside-out. What you need is a good cup of coffee and a warm place to drink it. I've got a place right over there, if you think you can trust an old man not to do anything untoward." And a short pause. "You don't drink caffeine. Hot chocolate?" This time, I did sigh. "I'm okay. I can just turn around and go home if I get cold." I couldn't make chocolate milk because I didn't have either ingredient, but I had some apple juice I could heat. That didn't make it cider, but at least it would make it warm. Still looking directly at me, voice soft. "That's the only lie you ever tell. And you're too good at it." I blinked. Did he just say...? No, I was tired, I'd been hearing echoes all night, I knew things came out of the dark when I was exhausted -- "You can watch the show," Pastor Roberts told me. "I've got it taped -- really taped: still using the old VHS. What with one thing and another, I know you missed it tonight. Be a lousy thing, breaking the streak when you've come this far." And I hadn't seen it, not so much as a second of it. If something happens, I think I can take him... "I don't want to impose." He didn't look as if he had much more than I did. Everything you give to someone else is one less chance to keep yourself alive. "It's not imposing and it's not charity." And there went the other primary option. "It's hospitality." He gestured again. "It's your choice, Alex -- I won't force you." We both stood there for several heartbeats, regarding each other, trying to read faces -- and then I stood aside, letting him lead the way. Which, as it turned out, was towards a small church. 'A place right over there.' Figured. Worship in the front and television in the back: choose your site of devotion. "I still don't believe." Let's establish that right now, along with the fact that I wasn't going to start because of a glass of hot chocolate. He nodded without looking back at me, the movement perfectly visible with no hood to conceal it. He really needed a new coat. "I know," he calmly replied. "You may never believe. You've got a lot of questions to sort out before you can start looking for the next set, and mine's a ways down the line for you. Some people need to work out life on Earth before they can really consider what comes after. The book can just confuse you if you're not in a place where you're ready for it -- and maybe that's not even your book." He shrugged as he fumbled with a ring of keys. "You found something, though -- I saw that..." And turned to face me, flashing a smile. "Maybe you started to find yourself. Believe me, that's the rarest thing of all." I didn't want to tell him how utterly stupid that sounded. Maybe later, maybe after I'd warmed up a bit, but any discussion out here would just mean he got colder. Found myself? I knew who I was: Alex Cole, cartoonist. That's what the show had identified me as. 'Abandoned' and 'abused' had been added later. Those words didn't define me any more than they changed anything... We went inside. I looked around curiously, memorizing the interior. It had been a long time since my last research trip to a church, and I'd only wound up using the results in seven panels. But this could still come in handy somewhere, sometime. Alex Cole, contestant. That didn't pin anything down either. -----------------------------------------------------------------   Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Subject     Author     Message Date     ID    I Can't Win...: Part II Estee 01-15-07 1  RE: Survivor: The Society Islands:... AyaK 01-17-07 2  RE: Survivor: The Society Islands:... Colonel Zoidberg 01-17-07 3  I Can't Win...: Part III Estee 01-18-07 4    RE: I Can't Win...: Part III ohmyheck 01-18-07 5  I Can't Win: Part IV Estee 01-21-07 6    RE: I Can't Win: Part IV cahaya 01-21-07 7  I Can't Win...: Part V Estee 01-21-07 8    RE: I Can't Win...: Part V AyaK 01-26-07 9  I Can't Win...: Part VI Estee 01-26-07 10  I Can't Win...: Part VII Estee 01-27-07 11    RE: I Can't Win...: Part VII Colonel Zoidberg 01-30-07 12        RE: I Can't Win...: Part VII cahaya 01-30-07 13            Jury thoughts redux AyaK 01-30-07 14                RE: Jury thoughts redux Colonel Zoidberg 01-31-07 15                    RE: Jury thoughts redux AyaK 01-31-07 16  I Can't Win...: Part VIII Estee 02-01-07 17    RE: I Can't Win...: Part VIII AyaK 02-01-07 18  I Can't Win...: Conclusion. Estee 02-02-07 19    RE: I Can't Win...: Conclusion. AyaK 02-02-07 20        I Can't Win... michel 02-02-07 21            RE: I Can't Win... cahaya 02-02-07 22                RE: I Can't Win... AyaK 02-02-07 23

Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic

Messages in this topic

Estee 22510 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 01-15-07, 11:20 PM (EST) 1. "I Can't Win...: Part II" LAST EDITED ON 01-17-07 AT 03:35 PM (EST) {Topic title: Society Islands Finale: It's Time To Vote!} {Long-timers, you know the drill. Newbies, it works like this: put the names of the remaining players in the title of your post, in the order you think they'll finish, fourth through first. For example, if I think everything we know is horribly wrong and we've just been watching one of Desmond's legendary computer simulations until now, I would say something like Tony/Angela/Denadi/Elmore, because I think Elmore will be the Sole Survivor. (Hey, if it's a computer simulation, get someone good to do it. The man may svck at surviving, but he programs some awesome games.) Put any logic you might have for your choice in the post, or admit you're just guessing. Believe me, if it's that last, you'll have plenty of company. Normally we ask people not to reply to posts on these things, but let's face it: based on the other vote threads this season, half of you are going to ignore that and the other half are going to follow their lead. I think our moderators will be happy just as long as no one starts yet another thread accusing Alex of being a murderer. (Seriously: can't any of you wait until Jake is actually dead?) Still -- try to keep it down to a dull roar, okay? And keep your own prediction separate from any reply, because I have to tally this thing and I like to work in straight lines. (Finally, Angela and I have something in common...) And yes, I know the media -- lots and lots of the media -- are ringing in with their own combinations, all of which seem to end in 'Gardener'. Go ahead and agree with them if you want to -- but for our purposes, their votes don't count. Ready -- set -- vote!} {Gary/Connie/Alex/Gardener. I think the editors redubbed Jeff's closing statement to give us the order.} {Finally, a conspiracy theory I can get behind.} {Going with this one. Gary because he's the jury threat, Connie because whatever her promise was, it's up, Gardener takes Alex, beats her 6-1, then gets her out to Ann Arbor and gives her a tryout on special teams. Three years later, the Wolverines win a national championship. Two years after that, I'm released from the asylum.} {Alex/Gardener/Connie/Gary. Still going with the Knights Templar theory.} {We know Gardener swung Connie, not Gary.} {They could team up at the last minute.} {I still want to know how Gardener approached Connie -- she had to remember that little speech he made about her, and yet, she still came across...} {Connie isn't stupid. I think nearly everyone agrees on that. Bigoted, arrogant, religiously biased, and wearing self-installed perma-blinders, but she's not dumb. She saw her chance and went for it.} {I'd give a jaguar steak to find out what that 'chance' was supposed to be.} {Gardener/Alex/Gary/Connie. Too many Haraiki on the jury.} {Tribal lines vote? Sure, why not? Oh, wait... Robin.} {She could change her mind.} {And vote Connie? Gee, I guess after Gardener rejected her, Robin's romantic desires took a really weird bounce...} {Well, there goes M-J's vote.} {I'm just going to file the resulting mental image under 'never speak to this person again' and walk away now.} {You know you love me.} {Connie/Gardener/Gary/Alex. Yes, I know that's the first Alex vote on a triple-digit thread: I just refuse to believe she could come this far, go through that much, and not walk off with the million. Angela's going to come around and bring Tony with her. She'll be furious about having to do it, but she'll respect gameplay in the end.} {Apparently along with the definition of 'DAW', you need to install a permanent link to 'editing irony'. The whole point of focusing this much on Alex is to have her finish second.} {And naturally, everything she's done up until now contributed nothing to the need for all that camera time.} {Naturally.} {You came over from Sucks just to screw with us, didn't you?} {Gary/Connie/Alex/Gardener. Yes, again.} {Ibid for the biggest vote draw to date. Jeff told it like it's going to be.} {Gardener/Gary/Alex/Connie. And before anyone freaks out, I want to bring this theory over from another board: Connie wins the final Immunity and blows out every screen in the Western Hemisphere by taking Alex. They had a poster who was comparing this to a Guatemala situation, with Gardener as Rafe, Gary as Lydia, Connie as Danni, and Alex playing Stephenie's part -- just in the sense of their actions: Gardener running the game, Connie as the opportunist who knew when to make her move, Gary coasting along, and Alex having offended pretty much everyone. Look at it in that light, where either Rafe or Danni would take Stephenie as their best shot, and I think Connie takes Alex, knowing she can beat her in front of the jury. She didn't hate Alex enough to deny her the mansion, and she doesn't hate herself enough to deny Alex a few thousand extra dollars for second place and cost herself the million by taking Gary, who she might have real trouble beating. Think about it.} {Huh... Okay, that's actually possible, although we never did get to see what Lydia would have done. Come to think of it, I think you could switch fourth with third there and still have it work.} {We know Connie will work with someone she hates if it's in her own best game-interests, and she has to know how many votes against Alex are sitting on that jury... Yes, she could do it, and she might even openly enjoy it from the post-Immunity ballot casting on, because it gives her the final triumph over her rival: maybe Alex gets the 100k, but Connie gets the million. But there's one major flaw in this theory. Connie has to win the final challenge. Even though we've seen challenge weaklings come out of nowhere in the last stages before this, having Connie suddenly reveal her Surgery Woman insignia and cut her way into the Final Two feels like a longshot.} {Connie/Alex/Gardener/Gary. Gardener wins the last Immunity and takes the wrong person because he's confident that the jury will vote based on gameplay. Boy, is Gardener ever going to be wrong.} {Alex/Gary/Connie/Gardener. Bring along the ones you think you can beat at the final Immunity challenge and in front of the jury.} {Gary's a jury risk, though -- he can't make third because of that chance. Unless he manages to reteam with Alex and force a tie, or do the same with Connie under that Knights Templar theory, I think he has to be out in fourth.} {Gary/Connie/Alex/Gardener. Because the majority just isn't overwhelming enough.} {Gary/Connie/Alex/Gardener. Would the New York Times make a prediction that wasn't accurate? (Go ahead and laugh: you'll feel better.)} {Ibid, but Alex ultimately winds up surpassing the million after suing Jake's estate and getting the rights to every bit of film he ever shot.} {She could get his car. Just saw an article online -- they found the thing. Severely overpowered piece of pure macho. It might need mild fumigating, though: looks like he was living in it on and off. Mostly on.} {The hidden idol/Phillip's necklace/the slugs/Azure -- okay, okay. Ibid.} {Gary/Connie/Alex/Gardener. And to all a good night. Except for Alex's mother, who couldn't even sell her tickets to the Reunion to finance that emergency flight.} {And my fearless prediction: Prancer/Rudolph/Dasher/Blitzen. (Dancer was voted off in the last episode.)} ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Topic title: Alex: most scary dangerous contestant ever?} {Just be glad they didn't stick her on Big Brother or she would have done Knife Boy one better by now. (Hey, aren't they both from the same state? Coincidence? I think not.) As is, I hope someone comes to their senses and takes that dagger away from her before she cuts the tribe down to Final Two the easy way, Connie first. Let's look at the record. On the show, she has killed a jaguar -- by hand -- and come within inches of hitting Jeff. She's also thrown Connie off a beam, although that was within the bounds of a challenge. Off the show, she has terrified one person to the point where he fled the country, and she has come within literal inches of killing Jake. I'm not saying he didn't deserve it: I'm just saying she's just about become the first contestant to kill another human being. (I don't want to argue about the strength of Jake's claim to humanity, either.) Yes, he's hanging on, but... Jeff basically started the season by saying they were going to identify the hunters and the prey. As was noted last night on the update thread, we also found one predator. We've had 'Alex is dangerous' comments before, but they've related to her gameplay. I want to look at the other angle: whether Jake dies or not, is this someone you really want to piss off? Has anyone else in the Final Four figured that out? Gary might have an inkling after she broke the alliance over her knee, but Gardener's probably convinced himself that he can take her, and Connie's not going to take anything Alex does as a serious threat. Personally, I don't want her in the Final Two just because she's not going to take that last vote very well. There's a good chance we could lose Jeff.} {I don't understand why you're seeing that as a negative.} {It's like she said to Hough: if he touched her, she was going to leave evidence no one would ever miss. No one will ever look at Jake without seeing that evidence. From what I saw, he needs plastic surgery on a level Connie wouldn't touch, and there's a good chance he's going to be blind -- if he even lives through this. And if he does, he'll be facing assault, arson, and attempted murder charges, so if it's any consolation to him, he'll be spending a lot of time in places that don't have much of a view anyway, although his social life might still find itself with a major crimp. Sure, Alex has responded with violence -- but what's the key word in that sentence? Responded. She hasn't started any of the fights we've seen, which kind of makes me add some extra question marks to those people in the medical records who believed she was responsible for every last incident.} {So basically, you're saying Alex is a mirror. Treat her with violence, and you get violence reflected back. Treat her well, and -- okay, this theory need some serious work.} {Personally, I think the reason she got those five-point pins is because whoever was taking her on figured out one-on-one was a really bad idea. Get into enough fights, no matter how they're started, and eventually you're going to be pretty good at it. Alex got attacked by groups because any single person starting things off would get about five seconds of useful consciousness before the pain started.} {I'm pretty sure Gardener could just hold her back out of swing range until she got tired, so he really doesn't have much to worry about. Of course, she could always sneak up from behind with her inherited jaguar stealth.} {The funny thing? She doesn't look dangerous. And that's even after everything we've seen. She's still short, top-heavy, and generally at least slightly withdrawn. None of that comes across as 'predator'. Maybe crush-worthy if you're Mary-Jane, but there isn't a single one of those qualities that's screaming 'killer!' to me. Outward signs? Much like her positive emotions, there really aren't any.} {I don't know -- in some of the shots where she was getting angry, there was something weird about her eyes...} {You picked up on that too? I thought it was just me.} {News flash: it's just both of you.} {No one on the island seems to have noticed, so there's nothing there to see.} {But they've been around her the whole time. Maybe they're used to it?} {Maybe you should take this to the Tarot thread. I think you people are seeing little gavels in her pupils.} {Here's what I don't understand: why is her strip so normal? (Setting and plotlines obviously put aside.) I've read through her archives, from the launch to today's post. We know her artwork is good: even if you haven't been to her site, we've all peeked over her shoulder a few times to see her working in the sketchbook. But her writing has no right to be that complete. Her characters do all the things she doesn't do. They laugh, cry, fall in love... there's a full range of human emotion on display, all the things we never see out of her under normal circumstances, the things the damage thread would swear Alex doesn't even comprehend. There's friendships there, families, honest caring, sacrifice -- and to look at Alex, with everything we've been shown about her and want to believe we know, you'd swear someone else would have to be doing the scripts. But it's all her. How can she write this thing when she doesn't really understand what she's writing about -- or have we actually been looking at a character the whole time?} {There's violence, too. I think she understands that pretty well. Maybe she's got a ghost writer and just serves as a consultant whenever the fighting starts.} {Okay -- I'll try this one, because it feels like a legitimate question, even if it's on the wrong thread. I think most of us agree that Alex had an abused childhood by now, excepting a few LOAH holdouts: Trina was the first to get an idea, and we've been working on things from there. We don't know the exact nature of that abuse. Being struck by adults may have been part of it, but I think Alex also did get into a lot of fights at her schools -- started by other people most of the time. (She just got to take the blame for it every time.) But we have to assume there was a substantial mental component -- and you can definitely add 'emotional' to that. Why is Alex so quiet? Because quiet survives. Maybe she was in a place where she was literally forbidden to laugh. Don't be happy: if you're happy, then I'm going to do my best to end it. Don't cry, because I can't stand the sound of it and I'll shut you up. Don't laugh, don't smile, don't show you're hurting, don't weep, don't scream. Don't do anything that would hint at what I've been doing to you. Don't be human. So she stopped. And that was how she got through it. Not whole, not intact in any way -- but to have something coming out the other side was better than nothing. But what else do we know about Alex? We know she watches things, takes them in, tries to put all the elements together and solve whatever puzzle is around her. And you won't find a tougher puzzle than society as a whole. She's been forbidden to experience the emotions, but she observes them in others. Maybe she doesn't really understand them, or maybe she tells herself she doesn't understand them because that way, it hurts less: if you don't know exactly what you've lost out on, then you can't miss it. But all around her, people are living, laughing, falling in love -- and it gets registered in her mind. It's not for her: it's never going to be for her. She's already decided that she can't be any part of that world: at best, all she can do is move within it and hope no one ever really notices she's there. But she still can have that world within her... Why is the strip normal for emotional range? Maybe because whatever happened to Alex in her childhood pushed her down inside herself, forbid her to be whatever she should have grown up as, left her entire sections short of an orchestra with broken strings on too many of the remaining instruments. But she's heard the music, and she knows other people dance to it. She can't bring herself to move onto the dance floor, because that's been forbidden to her. She can never go herself -- but she can send someone else in her place. The strip is normal because the strip is Alex's window on the outside world. It's the one place where she's free, where nothing ever happened to her because she wasn't even there to have it happen. It's a world where other people can feel the things she wasn't allowed to, say the words that no one ever said to her. Alex can act out there, create a universe of light, color, sound, and feeling, because all that's involved is the future she creates for those characters and the past she assigned them. It's not a place of pure love and delight: there's conflict, pain, tragedy -- all the essences of stories. But Alex understands the dark parts: she's been through them. And because she doesn't have to have the thoughts herself -- because she can give them to someone else -- it's a safe place for her to try and work through the bright parts, too. The characters have normal emotions because Alex can't. They're her substitutes, sitting in for herself in a world she made. A world that's ultimately safe for her, because she controls the dark aspects and can pull them back when things get too hard. Completely unlike the real one. } {You almost make it sound like MPD.} {She was probably a candidate for it if the abuse had started at an earlier age: most of them fracture -- for lack of a better term -- very early, and they're usually bright and creative kids. Five years old -- that could be over the limit. Don't ask me: I just took this stuff as an elective. But we could be looking at a really weird form of disassociation here: the part of her that creates has an idea of what 'normal' might be, but it only survives by completely distancing itself from everything else: no other contact with the outside world available. I'm guessing Alex kept her art a secret until she launched the strip -- in the environment she was in, if it had been discovered, it probably would have been crushed out of her. That encouraged her to lock it away -- and limit the exposure for what was capable of creating it. In other words, she can't access that part unless she's drawing, and she can only access it through drawing. She may not even really understand what she's made... I think I just overshot my textbook by about fifty feet.} {Um... look, not to put too fine a point on this, but I think at this point, most of the country and a good part of the planet has noticed she's there. She is a DAW, you know -- and a major one. She pretty much admitted that cross was a stunt to get her some attention. It's hard to see her as shy and retreating when she's put herself out there like this.} {Which brings us back to the reason Cole might have originally applied for the show.} {And here comes the snake oil salesman with his freshly-shaved batch of scales.} {I haven't seen anyone disprove it yet.} {I haven't seen you prove it, either.} {Just curious -- did you ever read the strip?} {Yes, online.} {And?} {I wasn't exactly surprised to find any potential religious element had been extremely minimized. Do I think it's well-drawn and written? I can respect the craftsmanship in the artwork and see why some people might find the plot appealing, even if it's not to my personal taste. (She does have an ear for dialogue, though.) And yes, I'll agree that the characters have full ranges of expression. I even see some possibilities in that latest addition to the 'damage' theory. Plus I'm hardly going to pull a Desmond and say the voting for the awards she's won was rigged. I just don't see any need to order a book or purchase artwork from her.} {Too bad: the new volume will come out in about a month. I already put my name in for the first printing.} {Signed?} {Yeah. I figured I'd better get in before she caught on and started charging extra for it.} {So far, Alex does seem to act in self-defense: she defended herself against the jaguar, said whatever she had to in order to get rid of Hough, and when her life was in danger from Jake, she stopped him. Her attack on Connie, much like Connie's attack on her, was within the bounds of the challenge rules -- in fact, hers was pretty much mandated by the challenge rules. Nearly hitting Jeff -- he came up on her in a private moment, she had all the reason in the world to be upset -- but she stopped herself. Unlike some of our murderer-thread starters, I don't think she's going to go up in the nearest clock tower with a rifle and a attack parrot after she loses. She's not a pacifist: she will not shy away from a violent act if one is necessary. But I don't think she's going to respond to every last situation by hitting people until they go away, either.} {No, she'll just stab, burn, or shoot them as the equipment allows.} {So what was the other option? Walk into the fire and say "I'm very sorry about all the fuss: please don't fine my corpse for missing the Reunion?"} {Gee, I guess she just got flustered when they were all carrying Frank out. Completely missed the opportunity to drop him on his head.} {From the way Officer Ramirez described how the fight was going -- everything she picked up on audio and visual, initial talk to the press and the follow-up at the station -- Alex ran low on options early. Seeing the extinguisher fall past her meant the best weapon Alex had went first thing. With her arms grabbed that way, she couldn't hit him, and with the cup -- well, it was a nice thought, but no go. Fancier kick attempts might mean losing her balance and what little control she still had over events. That brought her down to one possibility, and calling in Azure to go for Jake's eyes wasn't it. He was going to burn her, so she did it to him first -- or made him do it to himself. Grisly? Yes. Painful as hell? You never want to be in a position where you might have to find out for yourself. But that was not violence for the sake of hurting Jake: it was acting to save her own life.} {While taking the life of someone who was after her. Guess she closed that door.} {How many times do I have to remind you? He's not dead yet!} {Brain-dead?} {Well, that was kind of a given.} {Does yelling at Azure count for violence? You can add it to the list, although she hasn't exactly started plucking feathers yet.} {Maybe her mother is running from Alex's violent vengeance. After all, it would be the perfect plot for a horror screenplay. 'She thought she aborted her daughter -- but two decades later, her child came back to return the favor...' Alex is even starting to write her own horror/action star lines: just ask Jake.} {Do you think she really said that line? 'Because fire is life?' Talk about being a child of the media...} {Maybe. Jeff might ask her about it at the Reunion. But if we're talking about the real child of the media (at least in last name), we need to go to another thread. Of course, at least one of those many parents now wants to sell her into slavery...} {One question. If Alex is now the most terrifying person to ever make the show -- who gets to tell Matthew he just dropped into second place?} {Nominating Brian.} {Second.} {Carried and passed.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Topic title: The best Early Show segment of all time.} {I'm in love.} {Based on the two minutes I got to see before leaving for work, so am I. I can only hope I'm her type.} {Unfortunately, she's straight. Mine's just going to have to be platonic.} {Can't... stop... laughing... it's been twenty minutes... running out of air...} {Finally! Someone finally said it! Did you see the look on the Chenbot's face? No idea what to do or how to make it stop! And I mean even more than usual! I swear, she might have even realized she'd just been insulted...} {Somehow, I think a statement like "You're a moron, aren't you?" would be kind of hard to mistake for anything else.} {...Robin said what? Damn sister-in-law and her stupid 'How do I cook this turkey?' phone call -- what happened?} {We may never see a transcript for this one and the Chenbot's husband may sue to get the footage off YouTube any minute now, so here's the rough play-by-play. Robin walks in. Robin looks great. As some of us have noted, she is damn good-looking (or cute, if you're at a safe enough distance to say it), and she has dressed to impress, likely because she's still single and she sees this as her chance to get the attention of practically every eligible male in the tri-state-plus-forty-seven. Her legs are being displayed as pure weapons: Ms. Redhead, set calves to stun. Which is already getting Julie's dander up, because one of the perpetually-running programs says Thou Shalt Not Look Better Than The Chenbot, and it's throwing up error messages all over the place after just barely managing to run all the way through The Amazing Bikini Girl's depression: 'Hey, she may be prettier, but I'm not self-aware enough to be that sad!' Robin sits down and almost immediately tries to take over M-J's nearly-vacated place in the modeling industry: she's being slightly less subtle than usual -- but this time, she's had her chance to get ready for the full-scale sensory assault, and there are probably some men (plus a few women) passing out from hormone overload. The Chenbot boots up Interview 101 and starts on the usual stupid line of questions which prove she's the last person associated with CBS who isn't watching the show. Was Robin surprised by being voted out? No, having Gardener tell her it was coming kind of gave her the hint. Did she really expect Alex to give her the idol during that talk on the beach? Not after reading that note, and this is where you can start to see that Scottish-Irish temper burning towards the end of the fuse. And then we hit the trigger point: "Do you feel Gardener made a mistake by not allowing you to seduce him?" After multiple replays to make sure I had her exact words (with breaks to stop laughing), here is the complete text of what Robin said next. (You'll just have to imagine the gestures.) "You're a moron, aren't you?" (she held up a second to watch Julie's face before she continued, making sure something had registered) "Or do you need a two-hour briefing every morning just to get the thirty seconds memorized that'll let you aspire to moronhood? Seriously: the only way you could possibly have gotten this job was if you were sleeping with the boss -- oh, right... You know something? I've been watching this segment for a long time. I'm still waiting for you to ask your first intelligent question. You can't even keep the names of your own people straight half the time, you give the challenge wins to the wrong players, and you don't notice. Or care. You just smile, and you'd wave at people if someone would just pay for an elbow job, and then you blink a few times and hope someone can tell you where you are, because you sure as hell don't know. If you didn't have that prompter, you wouldn't know my name, what show I'd been on, and I'm betting someone's reading off those questions into your shell-like ear because I really don't think you can actually read." (at this point, Julie is starting to become fully aware that she's being insulted, but she's losing time to loading up Yell For Hubbie v6.2) "So what it is? Our plot's too complicated for you to follow, it doesn't give you enough chances to say 'But first' to hold your attention, or watching us would mean giving up ninety minutes of precious time for staring into the mirror and wondering if your twin's ever going to stop imitating you? Don't get me wrong, it's hard to blame you for losing track of your own group because let's face it: they're mostly idiots and you're the brain-dead leading the strategically-handicapped, if you can call anything that happens on that twist-fest of a disaster 'strategy'... But really, I'd think you could show enough interest in what's going on to join the Super Bowl crowds around just about every television in the country, because it would mean someone else could turn one on for you -- wait. I've got to try this." (gets up, with the camera hurrying to track her -- she moves like a snake when she's in a hurry -- reaches the producer, turns off the sending microphone, then shuts down the prompter. returns to her seat) "Okay. What's my last name?" (do I have to tell you the Chenbot was not programmed with that answer? Robin gives her a ten-count before pounding her the rest of the way into the mat.) "Breslin. You're supposed to be a journalist and you can't remember the name 'Breslin'. Go check yourself into the nearest repair bay: it's time for your fifty-thousand kiss-up job. I have to be here and I wanted to be here, but I'm not going to waste my guaranteed national segment putting up with you." (stands up) "Okay, who here actually watched the damn show last night?" (walks over to the main desk, plops down to sit on the edge of it, right in front of Harry Smith) "You were pretty good with Phillip, so I'm betting you've actually seen more than the subliminals they try to program her with -- got any questions?" And thus endth the segment -- at least, the part hosted by Julie. Harry took over from there after a brief commercial break. And no more did we see of Julie for the rest of the show.} {...I love her. I love her more than I've ever loved a DAW.} {They didn't go off the air the instant she started? CBS didn't shut down the network to save the Chenbot's plastic dignity?} {They couldn't. Right now, those segments are the highest-rated portion TES has, and pulling the plug on Robin meant giving up the viewers for that whole section of airtime. Besides, I'm guessing there were people in the control room willing to push any button they had to in order to stay on the air. It's not as if Julie is universally loved at her own network.} {Found a post at the FORT -- they had someone outside the mandatory window. Apparently Julie just stormed off the set. Not a word to Robin: got up, left, and didn't come back out.} {Well, honestly -- what could she say? There isn't a subroutine installed for that kind of response.} {Harry didn't even mention it when they got back. The closest he got was in closing the segment by calling her 'The very colorful and outspoken Robin Breslin.' And then went off to commercial, presumably so he could have the laugh he's been holding back for a good long time.} {Is Robin basically going to be sued into the ground here?} {*reviews speech* Expression of opinion -- expression of opinion -- ratings spike -- giant ratings spike... not really seeing lawsuit potential in this... She basically delivered a comedy routine in front of a live camera. I've never seen anyone sue based on a monologue. Late-night TV wouldn't exist.} {Think Angela and Desmond. The contract says 'show up'. It doesn't seem to say anything about 'be talkative', much less 'be sane'. 'Don't call the host on her idiocy' probably didn't even make a sub-subclause.} {Just checked the CBS website: the place where they keep the latest segment footage only has the Harry/Robin bit. Given that, I believe they've chosen to follow the old river route down The Nile. Don't worry: they can erase Julie's memory of this trauma with the push of a single button. And possibly a raise.} {Which isn't going to keep CNN from running it... again... and again... and again...} {So who says reporters don't hold a grudge? Vengeance is everybody's! Free vengeance for all!} {Someone want to drop by Will's office and make sure he didn't pass out from his own laughter? It's easy to find. Just look for the flames of evil triumph shooting out the windows.} {So what happened with Harry? Any good questions there? Having trouble getting this thing to load: my player just expired. Of course, I updated it twenty minutes before I started, so I'm not sure why I expected it to hang on that long.} {Several. First, he basically called her on her main reason for applying: he felt she went on the show for fame as much as the million. Given that, is she ultimately satisfied with her results? Not yet, but she's working on it: the Broadway community is finally starting to see her potential as an actress, she's loved the autograph signings she's found herself giving out of nowhere, the recognition is fun, and if this means Hollywood, parties, and the like, she'll go for it with every ounce of energy she's got. Apparently she already wound up at a party -- Trump Tower -- a little while ago, although she thinks she was called in as a substitute -- then looked directly at the camera and said "Right, Alex?" So something happened there... guess Party Girl Alex is not available in this stock grouping, and they went for the one who could burn up the dance floor instead. A lot more serious, at least for us: after having seen everyone's movements, plots, and schemes in the show, does she still think her original Final Three promise was valid? Believe it or not -- she actually said no. "I woke up, I smelled the coffee, and I wished I could throw it in Angela's face." She realizes she was played, and she said that was hard for her to deal with -- for about two minutes. But while she didn't get Final Three, Angela didn't either and Angela doesn't have her sweet ride, so all things considered, Angela can choke on her mileage. Not quite Cindy Light: the car was just the most handy weapon available. She's heard the news regarding Alex and Jake: how does she feel? She thought about it for a while, then said "You probably don't want to know what I would have wanted done to him, and I'm pretty sure I can't say it without getting us thrown off the air. What Alex did was fine by me: I just wouldn't have stopped there." So if anyone wants to start a thread about how Robin is dangerously violent, go for it. Anyone want to try getting her a prescription for emotion-controlling drugs without benefit of psychiatric visit, too? There was more, and most of it was a lot more intelligent and insightful than we could ever hope for with our standard host -- download that clip if you can find something that'll work with their site -- but Robin going off on Julie like a rocket launcher taking out tissue paper was the biggest highlight. I thought Harry did a great job just in punching through that F3 delusion, though. About time someone called a contestant on their in-show insanity.} {And about time someone called the host on her in-segment inanity.} {Since we have so many people in love and they should probably know about the competition: she's single, but is she dating?} {On and off since she got back, but not seeing anyone on a steady basis. She did say -- with a grin -- that apparently she's somehow managed to pick up the title of 'horniest contestant ever', female division -- the debate about the real winners on both sides will be starting in Bashers in about eight minutes -- and she thinks most of the men who've been approaching are doing so because they're under the mistaken impression that she's not going to be all that hard to talk into bed. She would like the world to know that she's a little on the picky side. 'Male and breathing' aren't the main qualifiers. She likes her men tall, muscular, and capable of driving quarterbacks six feet into the ground with a hard look. Oh, and intelligence and sensitivity help a little, but really, she wants someone she can, in case of emergency, use as a tire/shelter jack. Which sort of explains why she doesn't pick many people up at work...} {One interesting bit, at least in my opinion -- Harry brought up her replay of the season, and asked her this: if she could change one move that anyone had made at any time up through her ouster -- the votes at that TC exempted -- what would it have been? Robin hesitated a while before saying anything -- looked like she was visibly rejecting answer after answer -- then finally said "It wouldn't have been one move. It would have been a complete reshuffling of the tribes, right at the start of the game. I can't even say I would have had Jeff call switch on us, because there would have been some loyalties in place no matter when we did it. Blow the whole thing up and start over -- that's how I try getting to the end, making it up as I go along from there. There's no single moment where I can say 'For me, this was where it would all come together or fall apart': no Robin True Island Story. Every person in the game is a walking variable -- and you can't toss sixteen coins in the air and ask them all to come up heads." I call that interesting because I think it means Robin's matured a little. Not in ways that are always going to show -- see her speech to Julie for a refreshing drink of Robin Classic -- but it's there.} {You call that a sign of maturity?} {Well, at least it'll pass for it in a dim light. And since the dimmest bulb on the set ran screaming to her dressing room, maybe even in a moderately bright one.} {As long as she stays the Horniest Contestant Ever for three more years... Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to find a good gym membership. And about a hundred and twenty extra pounds of muscle. Love hurts.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Topic title: Bitter, party of seven, your vote is ready: the jury and their ballots.} {The way it may work out, in my semi-experienced, not-at-all-humble opinion, starting with the five we know are there: (Gee, I hope I can do as good a job as the Washington Post didn't even remotely manage.) Angela: is probably pissed off with every possible pairing on the board: I can't pick out a single person that she could possibly want to make it over any other. The automatic ballot here is 'Anyone but Alex': whoever would be in the Final Two against her personal idol demon has her vote. Outside of the bitter pill which she refuses to swallow, she might actually respect strategy: Gardener over Connie or Gary -- but that's no given. (Connie with Gary, she probably takes Gary -- figure she has a long memory when it comes to those campfire lectures.) It wouldn't surprise me to see her pull out a random number question at the end of her speech. It will surprise me if she doesn't make a very long speech. She may be the only juror to get edited for length, or at least for politics. 'And not only that, I'm running for the House, and we're going to legislate idol bounces out of existence!' We can probably assume that no matter who's in front of her, she's going to control Tony's vote -- but there's a chance her not-boyfriend will strike out on his own, or have a mental hiccup and forget who she told him to vote for. Which means we need a separate entry for: Tony: if Angela keeps her hand stuck into his back long enough to control his vote, then we're looking at a pairing: as goes one, so goes the other, and that's two for whoever. In that sense, you can probably just about figure on duplicate results. However, if Tony somehow goes independent on us... I think he wants to be looking at Gardener during F2 over the rest of the group: one athlete who'll respect another, and Tony will vote Gardener over anyone else in the four. If Gardener's out, he would probably vote Connie over Gary -- old tribe loyalties -- Gary over Alex -- because even going independent, he's not going to risk getting Angela that mad -- Connie over Alex: ditto. But in a Gardener pairing with anyone else, he'll want to take Gardener -- and we've seen Tony strike out on his own at least once before when his desires came into play: remember that Survivor Gold confessional after the beam challenge? Angela controlling this vote is not an automatic, no matter how much it may feel like it. Tony has a brain -- he just doesn't use it very much. Phillip: should Connie be there, she has his vote over anyone else. Phillip only becomes a question mark with a double-Turare pairing. Gary vs. Alex is a fascinating choice for him: he's personally all about family, but he respects strength -- as much as he may be disappointed in Alex for booting her mother, he could pick her in that combination as the stronger competitor: challenge wins, idols, et. all. (I think that one could actually come down to his question and how it was answered -- this would be his chance to confront Alex on that decision.) Alex vs. Gardener is harder -- they've both done a lot game-wise, and it becomes a question of how Phillip really defines 'strength': we're almost looking at a coin flip, and at least for me, the thing is refusing to come down. Gardener vs. Gary isn't even a question for him, though: he takes Gardener without a moment's thought, and then takes him out for coffee after the Reunion. Mary-Jane: is probably praying for Gary to get there: the one person who, to her eyes, stayed with her during that backstab. I think we can count this as a lock vote for any pairing that includes Gary: against Alex, it's a question of betrayal, Gardener, same, and Connie, she might not even bother with a question: just a 'Let me think -- done' and back to the jury seats. Alex against Connie or Gardener with Alex would be torture for her: who makes me hurt less? Gardener probably gets the better of that second match: on the first one, she might first try to abstain, then borrow a gold eagle so she can flip a coin. Gardener vs. Connie is an automatic for Gardener, though -- I have to believe she'll be that loyal to her tribe in the end. It just doesn't apply to Alex because M-J seems focused on her as the initiator of the ouster -- think of all those non-reaction shots we've gotten of Mary-Jane during the appropriate Tribal Council bits. Robin: is, if the editing isn't toying with us -- some 'if' -- Alex's one automatic vote in any pairing, given up in exchange for a car -- and also because she just doesn't like the other side of the coin, no matter whose face is on it: Gardener rejected her, Gary wasn't active enough in her eyes, and death before a Connie ballot. She could change her mind -- that applies to almost everyone, but this is Robin and we're still waiting for her to flip on something -- but it would take a massive justification or contestant fumble for an F2 with Alex in it. Take Alex out, and any pair with Connie in it has her vote go to whoever isn't Connie: I'm not really seeing any tribe loyalties on Robin's end, at least not to that tribe member. Gardener vs. Gary is her nightmare -- as she might put it, the one who did too much against the one who did too little. I think Robin might respect gameplay and vote for Gardener there, but she's a major wild card in that scenario. Looking at the four who might wind up joining them, in no particular order: Connie: has one hell awaiting her: Gardener vs. Alex. Normally you'd think that looks like an automatic vote for Gardener, but I think it depends on how Connie gets sent to the jury: one solid knife planting from Gardener turns this into what one poster on another board called 'the worst 'who do I hate less' position in jury history.' She just might fake a heart attack to get out of casting that one -- or have a real one on the spot. (Hey, is Edward still on the island?) Ultimately, Gardener gets that vote, but she'll have to grab her writing hand by the wrist and force it through the motions. Beyond that during-life flame stop, her vote is actually easy to call -- Gary over anybody. Alex: may actually be predictable for the only time this season. We've seen plenty of signs that indicate Alex can put what minimal emotions she experiences aside when it comes to judging people: she was ready to vote for Angela at F2, remember? So I think she would dismiss her lingering anger with Gary, shrug at being ousted by Gardener, and maybe even completely discard -- temporarily -- her enmity towards Connie, then ask one simple question: 'Who was the better at this game?' With that in mind, she'll vote Gardener over either Connie or Gary, just by virtue of his having worked for it. The shock of shockers in this view comes into play with the Connie vs. Gary scenario, because there is a very tiny chance Alex would vote for Connie here -- she acknowledged the possibility in one of her Survivor Gold confessionals. Connie flipped, Connie took a chance in the game and made it pay off -- it's more than what Gary's done in the game, so Connie could get Alex's vote. MB's ultimate irony: Connie wins the million on a swing ballot from her worst enemy -- and, naturally, never thanks her for it afterwards. Gary: isn't easy to call. Does he take Connie as the fellow Christian? Gardener as a tribemate whom he respects? Alex as the island daughter that he's trying to make up with? Gardener vs. Connie is probably a vote for Gardener, Alex against Gardener could go either way, and Connie vs. Alex may be impossible to determine in advance. Everything about Gary is a 'probably' right now -- there's more uncertainty about his vote than there was about anything he did in the game. Good luck figuring this one out -- one of the major hazards with players who coast under the radar is that we don't get as much of an impression for how they might think and feel. Gary's SG confessionals help a little here, but -- he's a wild card. Of all the possibilities to be one... Gardener: Several factors work into Gardener's vote, and most of them work against each other. This is a very rational man who can be extremely emotional on the negative side of the slate. Like Alex, he can discard his feelings and go with logic: unlike her, there are times when it seems to take a while for him to reach that state. The editing has already hinted that Gardener's feelings could influence his vote: as he basically said during Tribal Council, how angry he is about his jury position is going to have a say in his ballot. We also have to look at the possibilities of his alliances. Does he really have one with Alex, or have they been using each other for the entire post-merge game? Is he formally aligned with Connie, promising her a vote as part of the mystery bargain that brought her into the Turare alliance? Does he have lingering respect for Gary as a Turare male -- despite his earlier attempt to cut that jury threat out of the game? With Gary, we can at least speak in 'maybe' terms and have some confidence: maybe Gary will base his vote in religion and take Connie, maybe he'll go with respect and pick Gardener, apology and cast one for Alex. We've been calling Gardener a team-based player for most of the season, but he's ultimately a team of one: advancing his own cause, step by step. Where his loyalties truly lie -- if they even exist -- and what might influence his vote is just about impossible to truly judge. In a very real sense, we know him too well to predict him. But I think I can safely say this: a lot would depend on just how pissed he'd be about having to vote... -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 3603 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Thong Contest Judge" 01-17-07, 03:03 PM (EST) 2. "RE: Survivor: The Society Islands: Episode #13: I Can't Win..." Alex Cole, cartoonist Alex Cole, contestant Alex Cole, survivor   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Colonel Zoidberg 1435 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Beef Jerky Spokesperson" 01-17-07, 03:36 PM (EST) 3. "RE: Survivor: The Society Islands: Episode #13: I Can't Win..." With no Survivor on TV right now, this is my Survivor fix...and I'm getting antsy, partially because I am itching to see how it plays out and partially because I can't start my next season until I know a little bit about the Fiji castaways. Anywho, count me as one who's thinking Gardener takes it. I imagine the season's more or less decided in terms of who wins (though I didn't pick a winner until it was time to type her name, so Estee might do the same) but it leaves some speculation open. I could speculate about the results in detail, but that might be looked down upon in the actual episode thread; suffice it to say, I can claim to have it all figured out, but a curveball will probably mess all that up.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 22510 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 01-18-07, 04:38 PM (EST) 4. "I Can't Win...: Part III" LAST EDITED ON 01-20-07 AT 12:17 PM (EST) Christmas Eve. Normally, Christmas Eve meant checking the weather forecast first thing in the morning, hoping against all prior records that there was some accuracy behind it, then working through a very short normal day before going to bed early and setting the alarm for the small hours. Christmas Eve was all about getting to Christmas, and Christmas was Everything's Closed day -- the single best money-hunting day of the year. Want to check the drive-thrus for dropped change without getting yelled at by people setting up for the breakfast crowd? Walk along the edges of major highways without getting run over? Act at will with a derisive witness pool that could approach zero? Wait for Christmas. My orders were typically a little heavier in December, but the mini-crush ended before the holiday: anyone ordering for themselves or a friend wanted things to arrive prior to the twenty-fifth, and that generally left me with nothing to do on Christmas itself. As such, I was free to spend as much of the day as I liked roaming through the fast food driveways of the area -- and the earlier a start I got, the better: I never knew when someone else was going to have the same idea. Even before I'd gotten out, I'd generally managed to spend at least a couple of pre-sunrise hours on the hunt, and since I'd moved into my own apartment -- well, the day usually ended with my sorting through ten to fifteen dollars in assorted mostly-pennies change, trying to clean up some of the older highway finds enough to be recognized as money by someone other than me. Christmas Eve was for noting which new places were available, which ones had fled, and hoping not to see any snow: curb slush not only froze my feet, it cut my finding potential by about sixty percent. As it was, I usually had to chip through some ice to get at the dimes in frozen puddles. But Christmas would be warm this year: mid-fifties. Christmas, just for the ability to stay out there for hour after hour without catching cold, had absolutely incredible potential. No snow on the ground despite week after week of arctic blast, so the searching field was clear -- and few people had wanted to take their gloves off long enough to pick anything up, so the small coins in the hard-to-reach areas had been accumulating for a while. Christmas could be great -- -- but the only thing on the schedule this year was suffering. I'd overslept on purpose. The Reunion wouldn't officially end until at least eleven at night, unless CBS decided to add time at the last minute: forget the evening news, let's push our all-out attack on the ratings out as long as possible. After that, there would be live interview hookups for everyone in the Final Four, more intensive for the Final Two -- just the usual 'first words' -- followed by the wrap party, and we were definitely getting one: that had been mentioned in the paperwork I'd received. CBS might not have been able to shift the venue to an even larger facility at the last minute and get more business people, politicians, and assorted celebrities into the extra seats, but they were definitely going to throw a party for the ones they had. The contestants were probably a secondary consideration at best -- mostly: we'd been promised some time to ourselves before they let the crush in, presumably so they could pass out the A-list goodie bags that we wouldn't even come close to receiving. Time spent alone with the others. One more punishment in a year filled with them. A little while for the cast to scream at each other in relative peace (possibly with cameras going for one last DVD extra), then a lot of time so the network could make the premium ticket holders happy -- no exact end time had been given, but I'd been warned to expect a late night, and that I was expected to be awake, active, and roaming around the area for all of it. That felt like it was going to mean at least three in the morning, followed by getting a couple of hours of sleep in a chair somewhere and then having someone apply makeup and scoot me off to the Early Show for my interview segment, get thrown into the media cycle after that -- if there was a single day where I was willing to think about starting on caffeine, tomorrow was probably it. I'd been sent a revised list of interview appointments on Saturday: even if I wasn't in the Final Two, I was going to be out there for hours... ...and Howard wants at least thirty minutes. I sighed: that was probably going to be a complete lack of fun. He'd probably been making fun of me from the first episode on, centering on fashion choices and the body type that was underneath them. Maybe I could just borrow some of Angela's 'no comments' and trot them out until the so-called interview ended. The timing of the show was awkward here: everyone was having their Christmas plans disrupted, and that included the media. But given the ratings on the last episode, the hordes were more than willing to fight for their share, and I'd be brought to the studio sometime after that particular host got to open his presents. Another benefit of satellite broadcast: when do you want to record? Fine, no problem. It wasn't as if Mary-Jane would have been able to hear her father in the Sunfire, but... More updates in the revised package. The season was not only destined for DVD, it had been rammed onto the fast track: target release date of two months after the Reunion, trying for less. I would be expected to provide commentary tracks on at least three episodes, possibly more. This probably meant locking me in a small room with Connie for several hours. Plus Gardener. And Gary. I didn't know what they realistically expected us to say to each other, much less about each other. Maybe they'd be sensible: four booths, no contact, careful overlay of the tracks to provide the illusion of having been together. Some illusion. A letter from Sybil's parents, picked out of a swamp of physical mail. They'd gotten tickets -- good thing they were rich -- they'd be at the Reunion, they'd explained their connection to me and been admitted to the party afterwards. They would, as threatened, see me there. And I still had absolutely no idea what I was going to say to them. Nothing in my Inbox with the title of I hope you see this VII. Probably waiting until we were face to face, or just not sure what could be said any more. If there was anything to say at all. Current post-revision pickup projection: four in the afternoon. After it all ended, I'd probably have to take a train back. Followed by walking up the hill, far too late to do any searching. Walking through a world that would know everything, or at least that value of everything which the editing had ultimately decided to display... Christmas Eve. I knew better than to anticipate any presents. If nothing else, I'll finally get my check. The payoff that supposedly meant everything I'd gone through had been worth it. Deposit on Tuesday, clearing the following Wednesday -- New Year's putting an extra delay on the funds. Spend the intervening time looking for boxes, packing my few things, try to find the cheapest possible moving service to help me carry it: all I really needed was a small van and someone to drive it. My landlord had announced (by badly-spelled letter) his intention to raise my rent by approximately six thousand percent. I had no intention of paying it. (I was going to mention it on the air during the Reunion if Jeff gave me the chance.) I needed a new place to live. He wasn't going to try anything physical after his last outburst had made his booze-bloated face familiar to the nation and he knew anything that happened to me would be blamed on him first -- he just didn't see how that would relate to an innocent mega-boost in the rent. Some people needed a lot of time for reality to sink in. Somewhere else to live. Could I leave Haledon? I hadn't left before because I hadn't been able to afford a long run, because I'd needed to stay in the area -- and then even that had been taken away, and there was no reason to go anywhere anymore, which went along with the lack of funds to do it with. I'd need an area I could afford: I couldn't turn my check into a couple of years at several thousand a month for rent. The check was my emergency reserve: the Amazon reward a little extra purchasing power for necessities and the odd luxury alike. As far as my spending rate went, life would pretty much go on as usual. I might keep some of the visitors to my site, but all the sales rates would eventually drop back to normal -- although my bank account had ultimately been boosted from the surge. The clicks program would end. Coleman probably wouldn't have cause to cut me much of a check. No endorsements, certainly no paid personal appearances, just the slowly fading aura of minor celebrity, and maybe everyone would forget... I need more practice at lying to myself. Jeff didn't want to waste his last day. "Just hang on a little while longer, Alex. It's almost over." Unless you invite me back for All-Stars Two. Bathroom: getting cleaned up, getting dressed. Marissa was probably due any minute: police escort for the day, my personal shadow at the street fair. Just in case. A soft chuckle. "Twitch..." I put on a sweater and light jacket. They wouldn't be the clothes I'd end the day in. "There are things to look forward to today. Don't dismiss them." I sighed. "Yeah. I get to say goodbye twice. Some treat." I brushed my teeth. No makeup: I still didn't know how, still couldn't really spare the money for learning through experimentation, didn't care enough to try, and it would be applied by someone else later anyway. But I could at least brush my hair a little. Longer than it had been on the last day for the island. Definitely cleaner. They might trim it before the Reunion began: they probably wouldn't dirty it up. And there was no way to bring me back to Yanini weight in that little time: I was at a personal Day One for my body, at least in terms of total pounds. Still not that much to spare. I was thinking of really leaving. I can do my job from anywhere: all I really need is an Internet connection, a nearby printer, and a post office. I could go somewhere they don't watch the show, someplace where no one's ever heard of me... "You can't." A plain statement of fact. "The world watches, Alex. The percentage is a lot lower outside the United States -- but the show goes to a lot of places. Even if you moved to a country where it doesn't air, there will always be someone coming through who knows your face. You can't isolate yourself any more." Watch me. Brushing my hair. I wondered if it was my mother's shade. Gary had mentioned the excessive highlighting, but never given me a color. Left to my own devices, working with pencils, it had come out as grey. "Do you really want to?" Silence on both ends of the conversation. I like my privacy. There, done. "Privacy and isolation are two different things." Or almost done. "I didn't get what I wanted." He knew exactly what I meant. "I was stupid to want it in the first place. Without that, it just doesn't feel like there's much need for any of it -- does it?" Not endorsements. Not celebrity. Not winning. Just something else I'd never see. "Wait." Yeah, right. Use the last resort: stall for a miracle until it didn't come. That time had been months ago. Nothing had shown up -- -- a knock at the door. I checked the security port: Marissa, somehow looking worried even through the fisheye distortion. Had she heard me talking to myself? It had been very low... I opened the door. "Hey. I'm almost ready -- just let me grab my keys so I can lock up." If there was ever a night for my landlord to try breaking into the apartment, this was it -- which was why there was a police car assigned to watch the building. She took a slow, shuddering breath. "Alex -- something's happened." Oh hell. My immediate first guess: "Jake died?" He'd been skirting the edges of it since the moment he'd gone into the ambulance, they couldn't have reversed themselves on the self-defense ruling and issued a warrant -- could they? Marissa shook her head. "No." So apparently not, at least for now. "I -- oh, Christ, I don't even want to take you out there after this, I..." Trailed off, looking even more helpless than she had every time we'd left the school nurse's office together. Uh-oh. "Death threats? I haven't gotten any lately." Accusations of murder, yes. Promises to retaliate in kind, no. But if someone had threatened to bring a sniper rifle to the fair... Another head shake -- and worse: the first glints of moisture in her eyes. "You haven't been out today, have you?" Protesters? Picket signs? Angela and Connie working in perfect harmony? What was going on here? "No -- I stayed up late so I could sleep late." Trying to clear out the commission pile. "The show already warned me that we'd all be awake for a while -- I just got up about half an hour ago." Full tears now, starting to flow down the work-worn contours of her face. "Oh, God -- Alex..." Her arms started to come up, reached forward -- went back down. "Alex -- she kept diaries." Who's 'she'? Connie wrote in the back of her Bible and the results leaked out? No, that couldn't be it -- -- and it isn't... My eyes closed, just for a heartbeat. Diaries. Too little. Too late. It didn't mean anything. I'd needed them before and it didn't matter now. It didn't -- -- slowly, "Who had them, and who got them?" Marissa wiped her eyes. "Her sister had them -- packed in a big box, never looked at them. The Ledger got them. It's the front page again, Alex -- it's been out there since they started delivery this morning, all over the Sunday edition. Everyone's been picking up the story from there. They didn't approach you because of the contract, or because they knew they could just wait... they printed exerts, and..." Crying harder. "I keep telling myself I should have done more, I told myself that every day I got the runaround, I celebrated after she -- but now, knowing what was going on..." And her hands came up, covered her face. Out of words. Blaming herself because it was the easiest route, a well-marked path that could still be followed in the deepest of personal darknesses. Nothing to say because 'sorry' was too weak, and it was the only word there ever was... I watched her cry for several breaths, not knowing what to do about it. Not knowing how to join her, much less if there was any point to doing so at all -- -- measured the words, made sure the tone was even. "Do you want a secret from the show?" Her head came up, just a little, enough to show me the tears still streaming from her eyes. Enough to hesitantly nod. Steadily, "Don't worry. It won't cost me anything, because there's only one person in the world who can confirm what happened, and she's not going to talk -- at least, not about this." I definitely had her curious: bits of interest were starting to peek through the misery. "After the fall with the jaguar -- after I woke up on the rocks -- it was just me and Azure until I got back to camp. So she's the only person who heard me say something to the jaguar, and I don't think once was enough for her to ever repeat it... Want to know what it was?" Another, smaller nod. "'I got you, you stupid bitch. I got you...' Because I'd just noticed it was a female. Because I'd woken up, it hadn't, and ask anyone on a winning team: when you get a really big victory, you scream to the sky. And --" this hurt, it hurt so much, but she was hurting more "-- because maybe I was screaming at the wrong thing. The wrong person. Because in my life, there was just one stupid bitch I really wanted to get." Her hands were going back down, head coming up a little more. "I was thinking about that a little while ago. After the press first got her name, wondering how much they'd find out. And I was thinking that maybe it didn't matter if it was a little late, as long as I got her in the end..." Marissa's eyes squeezed shut, two final teardrops emerging through the self-imposed pressure -- then opened again. A slow, cleansing breath -- and then she found a smile, just for a few words. "I guess you did. Second or third-hand, maybe, but you at least touched it off." I nodded -- and the smile went away. It wasn't from anything I'd done, though: just a fresh thought. "Alex -- there's a lot in that article, and a lot of the people at the fair are going to have read it. You're going to get hit with so many questions..." A long pause. "Do you want to have a cold?" Sure, and she could even dig up the old-fashioned school thermometer and try to sneak it next to the light bulb. Did I want to go out there, walk among a crowd that knew more than ever, earlier than I ever believed they would find out? No. But... "The questions will come eventually. They're guaranteed to come tomorrow -- you don't want to see my media schedule -- and I won't be able to invoke my contract any more. I might as well be out there for the last hours when I can say no and have a reason people can ignore." Which got a very faint laugh out of her. "Well, I've got the gun if anyone gets too pushy... Let's get moving. The vendors were just about set up when I left, so the fair should be under way when we arrive. Great weather for it, even if some of the local merchants are yelling about the blocked streets. Funny how all the ones complaining refused to spend money to rent a space outside their stores..." A quick grin -- gone again. "I've got a copy of the paper in the car. You should read it before we get there, just so you'll know what they published." No argument -- at least for now, because she clearly wanted to talk about everything in that article, even if she wouldn't like my giving her the anticipated answer -- and we headed out. It was time to face the pity. I was turning out to be pretty good at it. I just didn't have any idea how I was doing it. Besides, there's diary exerts. I wanted to see the justification. I wanted to see if there was one. This excuse probably wouldn't match Connie's -- I didn't think it could -- but they would ultimately be the same at the core. I'd said it to one. I'd never gotten to say it to the other. Neither one had ever truly listened. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Topic title: ' I think you're one of those people who just needs something to hate.': breaking Alex story out of NJ.} {The following story contains hell. The real thing. No death required for admission. Just be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and have all chances for a normal life burned away. I'm having trouble typing this. Part of me wants to just post a link to the Ledger's online edition and let everyone read it for themselves. Ultimately, everyone's going to sort through this on their own and decide how they feel about it. Every hell is personal and unique, and I feel like an intruder just for having come into Alex's. But I'm here, I walked in of my own free will after I saw the story on the front page, I can see why she abandoned all hope after she entered here -- and gave up so much else along with it. I think I'm writing this because it's my way of working out how I feel after reading it, and I need to let it out somehow. Or maybe I'm just that much of a DAW. Either way, really. I may make this sound less ugly than it is. If so, I'm sorry. I know I'm leaving a lot out. The article put together a timeline of events, as seen through this diary, over the month of March in Alex's eighth year. Just a sidebar rammed into the skull. I will not go into that much detail. I can't do it and finish. But there will be enough for everyone to get the idea, and maybe make the LOAH shut up once and or all. Her gameplay, maybe. Her strategy, if you must. But her personality? Sometimes, an entire life needs a mulligan. This is a story about Alex, and about her life before she came on the show -- but it's also a story that follows the same theme as the show. It's about what you're willing to sacrifice about yourself in order to survive. It's about pain, and alliances, and conspiracies, and people bashing you because you're there to be bashed and someone else happens to find it too amusing to stop. It's a very old story that way. And it's only a partial story, because we only have one person in the confessional and she doesn't see any real need to confess. But it's a prime place for boasting. This is the name: Mrs. Helen Paglia. This is the first thing you need to know about her: she's dead. You have to know that before you go any further. She is dead, and she took someone with her. If you've come this far in the season, you probably know the name: Alex's primary caregiver from the age of five on. I want to throw up just from having typed some of those words... She kept diaries. Lots and lots of diaries: she filled up one thick volume every four months or so. Kudos to the Ledger and their amazing speed-reading staff. After she died, those diaries went to her sister in Wyoming, who never read them. They weren't all that fond of each other and the youngest sibling had no interest in seeing what her bullying elder thought of her, so into the attic they went. She never thought about them again until the show came on the air. She wasn't watching: one of the very few left there. But after her sister's name came up, someone mentioned it to her. She didn't think much of it: a child her sibling had raised was on television. Big deal. Then the medical papers hit TSG, and someone else mentioned that. Lots of someones. It's not a common name, Paglia, and Alex never gave us the first one: maybe people thought it was her. After a while, it was more than enough for her to check the boxes. Probably didn't take long to find the names. Possibly even it was right around the same time the Ledger found her: knocked on her door while she was reading, it says. She turned them all over. She didn't want them in her house any more. Maybe because she has children. Meet Helen Paglia. She takes care of kids. There's only one way to read that where it'll be right.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Haledon doesn't hold many street fairs. Sections of Paterson do, and sometimes I'll walk over if I don't have anything else going on, mostly in search of promotional giveaways: one large fair and multiple sponsors' booths is a year's worth of pens, lots of tote bags, and maybe even a few refrigerator magnets with a slight chance of a T-shirt and no chance of having it really fit. This one was big, stretching out for blocks with little extensions off down the major side roads, vendors crowded out because the high school band had a portable stage under construction and no one wanted to be selling within earshot of that din. Flat-roofed tents, raised-roof tarpaulins. Metal frames. Nothing that Desmond would have considered suitable for a shelter, because one good wind and half the fair would be heading over the hill. But it was an early spring day in late December, and the weather wasn't going to be a factor except in letting all the more people venture outside. Christmas Eve, and I'd still been hoping that the locals would have other plans, maybe be in transit to see family somewhere else, they'd had trouble getting vendors for that reason and part of that had to be because it was too close to the holiday to really hope for a ton of last-minute sales -- -- but there were people. And they were buying. Knock-off t-shirts with the season's logo dominated the first booth I saw, and they were doing a brisk-if-illegal business. Nearby, buttons with various show-related sayings on them, and machines that allowed the vendor to custom-make or alter a few on the spot. It was the first stand I approached, Marissa staying close. The vendor chose to notice only me. "Hello! Hey, everyone -- it's the star of the day!" And if they didn't believe him, they could consult the gaudy purple banners which hung over the street, at least one on every block. "What do you think of my wares? I spent most of yesterday getting this stuff ready." People watched me looking over the display. Not many had tried to talk to me in the few minutes since we'd arrived. Some had just looked at me, then quickly looked away -- all with tears starting to appear in their eyes just before they hid them from sight. A few more had shied away from Marissa's presence, or at least the presence of the very openly-worn gun. Others had been sorry. Very, very sorry. Frank might have gotten a laugh out of it. They were interesting buttons. Home-printed pictures of Azure caught my gaze first, and that led to a fairly generic contestant support row. (In order to cover all sales possibilities, there were a few buttons available for Connie, Gary, and Gardener. As the hometown supposed favorite, I got most of the space.) Buttons that wanted people to know the tribe had spoken. Buttons that signaled the Survivors were ready and it was time to go! Buttons that said fire was life... He noticed me looking those over, and his expression went very awkward. "Well -- it's been around a long time, you know?" Yeah, I knew. "Sorry about the other support buttons, but I've got to have everyone who's left, just in case -- that's why I waited so long to make them. Didn't want to get stuck with even a few fifth-place ones." I nodded to that: fair enough, although Robin probably would have taken them off his hands. "Are you selling any of the others?" Still very awkward, "Well, it's early yet -- but yeah. Three Gardeners, one Gary. The same woman took all three Gardeners -- put them on immediately." The grin was very weak. "Can't tell you where." No, but I bet I could tell him who. "It's okay -- I'm not exactly expecting universal support." Not even on Alex Cole Day. This smile was considerably stronger. "Hey -- that's compared to --" he checked a book "-- forty-six for you so far." Most of which were probably bound for eBay. "Relax -- this town is behind you." A year ago, I would have turned around and looked for the ones holding the knives. "Any excuse for a party..." Balloons. Cotton candy. Children laughing because the show didn't matter, they weren't staying up that late anyway, but there were balloons and cotton candy on Christmas Eve, so something was going right -- -- and a police officer running up. "Bad news -- we're throwing out the first vendor." The t-shirt seller in the next booth looked very nervous. "Alex, you should know about this -- someone showed up with a bunch of black-and-white comb-bound printouts of your strips. He was trying to sell them as books." Oh, really. "Is he still here?" The new officer nodded. "We confiscated the merchandise, but he's still packing his tables." Good. "Take me over there? I want to have a few words with this guy." A few very forceful, legal-sounding, I-will-bring-in-a-lawyer-I-can't-afford words... No one had any problems with that. We headed over, a trail of curious people following in our wake. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {It's amazing how no one ever asked any questions, really. How no one can care enough to be curious, because someone in charge says this is one way and no one wants to argue with the paperwork. Or maybe because asking questions was the sin that needed punishing first. Mrs. Helen Paglia. New to the area, and her first job where she's going to be in charge of the whole operation. Her first day gets a long, long entry in her diary. Mostly she's making notes about the children under her charge. Writing down names, appearance, and personality traits, making sure she learns who everyone in the crush is. Very meticulous, and a little bit affectionate here and there. This child has a bed-wetting problem: make sure he get some counseling and special treatment so he won't feel bad. That one is new: lost her parents two weeks ago. See her often, make sure she's getting along. This one is very curious and asks a lot of questions. 'This one' is Alex. This is the first diary entry concerning her. She is the very last child to be documented in the original list. 'A very curious child. Few friends. Does not take 'because I said so' as an answer: wants reasons for things. Shows signs of dangerous independence and free thinking. Potentially extremely disruptive to routine. After a lot of consideration between her and Jason, I've decided to use Alex as my example child. While there are other potential problem areas, I think all of them will clear up after they see how Alex is dealt with. She is the most important orphan here: the one who will show them all how to behave so I can keep my first major assignment running smoothly. The pressure value. Give them a place they can act out, and they will act only in that place. I've been waiting to test that theory, and I feel I have the perfect one to try it with.'} ----------------------------------------------------------------- We'd gathered quite a crowd. The nearly-ousted vendor had people to either side of him, me in front of him, and his back against a telephone pole. Nowhere to go. Which didn't keep him from fumbling for excuses as a means of escape. "It was on the Internet -- that's public domain --" Oh no he didn't. "There is a copyright notice on my front page. There is a copyright notice attached to every strip. Just because it's free to read online doesn't mean it's free to sell off it. You want to download every strip, print them out yourself, and keep a personal copy at a cost of about eighteen ink cartridges? That's your call. But you can't sell it. That's my creation, my intellectual property, and all I need to get you into court is everything the police already took off you. Do you really want to go to court? Because just thinking the law is going to support you won't change what it actually does." He was sweating now, and the people in the crowd who were actively starting to laugh couldn't be coming across as a good sign. On the other hand, as long as you have nothing to lose except your common sense, and apparently didn't have much of that to begin with... "But I paid a lot of money for all that paper and printer ink -- and this spot was seventy-five bucks! Don't I get any of it back?" "You want me to pay for your copyright infringement?" I gave Marissa an incredulous glance. "He's the victim here. Okay -- let's victimize him. I've changed my mind. I want him arrested." She nodded, went for the cuffs -- He'd never been to Yanini. He didn't know how to read a bluff. "No! Look, I can -- I can give people their money back, okay? They can even keep the books -- okay, they can't keep the books. You're selling the books. I don't want to go to jail -- I won't do it again, I swear..." This wasn't exactly drawing public support. "Lock his ass up!" And when that comes from one of the local gang members, you know it's sincere. "Let him come up with his own tags!" Marissa shrugged. "I think a refund is fair," she told me. "But I have absolutely nothing against letting him sit in a cell overnight." Not that I knew if copyright infringement was a jailable offense, but she could probably detain him for a while based on any available excuse. "Plus you had to see how he parked." Hey, there was one. I thought about it. "Refund, definitely. Not for him: let him lose his money. But everyone who bought off him gets their money back." He fervently nodded, the newest convert to the Church Of Financial Reconciliation. "As for jail overnight --" I looked around at the crowd "-- I say we put it to the vote." The infringer's face went stark-white. No idol, no necklace, and a tribe he'd recently offended? The only reason to even count the ballots was the sheer raw sadism involved. And there was always room for that in the show. "Show of hands..." ----------------------------------------------------------------- {From this point on, Alex is in prison. And the warden has let the inmates loose on her. The plan is detailed here, step by step. The first -- and most important part -- is to make Alex a pariah. She's given her own room: the smallest one available. This is to make sure she doesn't have much contact with the other kids and start inciting jealousy. Tainted Reward: Alex has her own room and she didn't do anything in that challenge to earn it: aren't you feeling just a little bit angry about that? Next step: Alex starts getting punished. For what? Anything. Especially if it's something the other kids are doing. Alex is the example child: to make an example for punishment, she's the only one who'll be punished. All the kids are playing and making too much noise? It's Alex's fault and she's the one punished for it. Something was stolen? Alex's fault. Those of you who saw the medical records will start to see a pattern developing. Of course, it's not Alex's fault. As our diary-keeper notes, Alex is just the pressure value. By blaming Alex consistently for everything, she shows the other children what's wrong with the orphanage. If everything wrong is blamed on Alex, then Alex is responsible for everything that goes wrong. That's a very easy connection to form in a kid's head, and the others are starting to follow along with it. It's not universal. Some of the other kids are saying things. They get reprimanded -- and Alex gets punished. The more they say, the more punishment Alex gets. So if they care about her, they'll stop complaining, won't they? And they'll get in line with the others. What form does this punishment take? Sometimes Alex gets hit, but it's rare. Paglia prefers to let the children do that for her. The hints spread out from a subtle source. You can steal from Alex and it's okay. You can beat Alex up and it's okay. And if you say something about it afterwards, Alex will be blamed for starting the fight and punished. Kids can be cruel, and now they have a safe place to do it -- plus someone safe to do it to. So Paglia doesn't have to hit Alex very much, because after a while, the other kids are doing it for her. Admittedly, they have to start doing it in groups, and she has to be careful, oh so careful when the bruises really start piling on. No one can question what's happening to Alex. Too many questions and the plan stops working. More hints, verging on instruction: don't hit her in the face: people can see that. Try not to hurt her hands: that's visible too. Emotional scars aren't as risky for being spotted. Alex can be punished for any reason or none. Mostly none. She's punished for smiling, because it means she got away with something. Laughing means she did something big. The orphanage kids get a small allowance that gradually increases -- just a little -- as they age. A legitimate punishment is to suspend that allowance, but it's not supposed to be done for more than six weeks at a time, and the child gets all the money at the end of that period. Alex's is suspended indefinitely and forever. This means that if Alex has any money, or shows signs of having spent any -- say, having something that the orphanage or school didn't supply -- that means she stole money or stole the item, and can be punished. In fact, sometimes Alex gets punished just for having things from school, just to keep her guessing. Alex gets locked in closets a lot. Alex gets left alone in the dark for hours on end. Sometimes most of a weekend. She can't go out to play. She can't go on trips with the other children unless she's with Mrs. Paglia the whole time: no interaction with anyone else. If anyone starts to make friends with her, they get just a taste of Alex's many punishments. And then they stop. Now there's a problem here: Alex is old enough to go to school, and orphans can't be home-schooled: inherent contradiction. Teachers are more people who can ask questions. So Alex, from the first day of Paglia's supervision, becomes the problem child. Long sessions with the teachers and principal of her school, providing warnings: this is the violent one, this is the compulsive liar, this is the one who's always starting fights. Be very careful having her around the other children. No matter what happens, no matter what she says, she ultimately started it. And this is believed, because it's coming from her supervisor -- and because the fights have spread out to the school. The orphanage kids have basically told the others 'See her? You can do anything you like to her -- steal her stuff, pull her hair, hit her, kick her, anything -- and no one will ever blame you!' So they do. And as long as no one sees anything start -- and no one ever does -- they're right. The school has fallen for the con, because it's the easiest excuse to believe and Paglia apparently has a lot of natural charisma: they just want to believe her. It's so much easier than thinking. What's the pressure value theory? Give the children a place they can release all their frustrations, and they'll be good kids. It's like having a hard day at work, hitting the gym, and spending a few minutes on the speed bag. You feel better afterwards, right? You worked out your stress and no one got hurt. For the purposes of this theory, Alex is 'no one'. If she gets hurt, it's a good sign. That's what's supposed to happen. It means the plan is working, and if the plan doesn't seem to be working completely -- if the other children are still acting like children -- well, maybe Alex needs to be punished more, and then things will really start to click. Are you starting to get the idea? Helen Paglia: in charge of children. Directly responsible for raising them. Trusted by the state to do so in a responsible manner. Completely and utterly insane.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Why aren't you crazy?" It was a very direct question, and it had come from a teenage girl who'd decided the perfect clothing for this weather was whatever showed enough skin to give Mary-Jane a run for her money without really having the equipment to enter the race. And at least the piercings weren't freezing her lips and nose any more, right? "You should be nuts. You should be completely out of your damn mind. No one would blame you if you just lost it -- I wish I had that kind of excuse." Marissa was just staring at her. Generation Next: only seven or eight years behind me. "Alex..." I held up my left hand. "Wait." Looked directly at her, taking a moment to examine the eyebrow studs on the way. "You read the article?" She recoiled, just a little bit -- then felt she had to lean in closer to make up for it. Almost made it, then nodded. "I believe you want the excuse. Do you want everything you need to pay for it?" She thought it over for a long moment -- then shook her head. Metal jangled against her shoulders. The earring were way too big. "Guess not... hey -- can I see the scars? I bet they'd look really cool if you got them pierced..." In order: "No. Maybe. No." ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Alex gave it to us, didn't she? Some people always need something to hate. Alex has a lot of experience with that, because that's what she was to Paglia. Experiment? Excuse. I chose to read it as this: I will repress my desire to hurt people through hurting just one. I could hurt all of these kids. I have that power. But all I'm going to do is destroy a single life. Doesn't that make me a good person? So she decides to hate Alex. And she does. The scars are building. Some are self-imposed. Insanity has a knack for finding more of the same. At this point, Paglia needs some extra support for her story. Alex's current doctors aren't necessarily buying everything she's selling. It's working so far, but she can see some doubt in their eyes. And Alex seems to be talking to the doctors: she's still trying to defend herself when her reputation has been established as a compulsive liar. Stubborn kid. So at this point, what Paglia really needs is an ally. She can't get the emotion control drugs that'll keep Alex quiet: she can't find a shrink who'll do it. And for some reason, Alex is really reluctant to take anything Paglia gives her, even when she's sick. Really, really stubborn kid. But after some research, she finds a pediatrician: Dr. Daniel Montrosse. You know how some people get into child-related professions because they really don't like kids? The ones who take it just a little too far, the shot that hurts, the exam that's invasive -- but never anything you can prove? The creepy doctor you have a bad feeling about and you can never totally explain why? That guy. Yes, we know this name, too: this is Alex's primary care physician, another spontaneous documenter, and he'll do anything Paglia tells him to do, because he likes her theory. Also, they're sleeping together. A lot. The affair is full-speed ahead: we barely hear about Paglia's husband in the diary except for triumphant notations that he still has no clue. But she's got someone who knows what she's doing and agrees with all of it. He even has helpful suggestions from time to time. Now, Alex is still receiving normal medical treatment, even if it hurts a little more than it should and it feels worse than anyone should ever inflict on a child. Paglia doesn't want her dead. Dead means having to start over. So if Alex gets really hurt, Alex gets treated. Alex gets a few drugs prescribed, at least the ones that are available through pediatrics, but it quickly becomes clear that getting her to take them, even under direct supervision, isn't working. Paglia suspects she's making herself throw up because she just isn't showing any signs of their effects. Oh, well -- back to the old reliables: physical punishment and mental torture. Why doesn't Alex run away? Because she's too smart to think she can get anywhere without money, and she doesn't have any. Because no one ever believes her. Because she has nowhere to run to. She can't get out through adoption because anyone who even thinks about asking to see her there gets told exactly what a danger she is. (Paglia believes, through the course of Alex's life, she talked seven people out of considering her.) But she's at an age where she has to be fostered occasionally. Being painted as a violent compulsive liar and thief should be enough to keep her off the list -- but there's always foster parents who shouldn't have children anywhere near them. Paglia is very good at spotting those: she turns several of them in and gets numerous mentions for her sterling efforts in protecting children, pastes some of them into her diary. But every once in a while, she sends Alex out to one first. East, west, home's best. You think you have it bad here? At least it's not there. Not often -- just three times during Alex's orphanage life -- but enough to establish the idea, and too seldom for anyone to pick up the pattern. More places she can't run to. But there's another reason Alex can't run, and it's explained to her fairly early. And she's a bright kid: she gets it. From that point on, Alex cooperates in her own abuse. Never entirely -- she has bad moments, or at least moments Paglia sees as such -- but it's there, and the stage of active assistance lasts until Alex is thirteen. Paglia thinks it's a masterstroke, and she spends a long entry congratulating herself while wishing she'd thought of it earlier. It solves just about everything! She takes hostages. Brilliant, isn't it? Alex is told that as long as she takes whatever she's given, she'll be the only one who gets hurt. But if she ever runs -- if she ever convinces someone of what's going on -- then someone else is going to suffer. In fact, multiple kids are going to suffer, because Paglia doesn't want to risk finding out if Alex is willing to chance a one-for-one exchange. And they will hurt more than Alex has ever hurt. In fact, the more people believe Alex, and the more consequences come from that belief, the more she's going to do. Alex thinks she has it bad? Paglia cares about Alex. Can't Alex tell? It's easy to tell, because Alex isn't dead: she never lets things go that far (or reach the point where serious questions might come from someone. Besides, if she gets a corpse, even if she answers all the questions the right way, she has to start over). But she might not care about the next kids as much. Does Alex really want to see the other kids get hurt? Especially the babies? No. Of course Alex doesn't, not when it only takes a few seconds to do permanent damage. And from this point, Alex almost completely stops talking about what's happening to her. There's the occasional slip, and that probably horrifies Alex when it happens -- but for the most point, she goes mute. She believes her silence means she's the only one who has to get hurt. And get hurt she does. The 'free hits here' label has been applied, and all the kids are reading it. Paglia notes with interest the increasing incidents at school: Alex is beaten up there by kids who've gotten the idea that there won't be any blame or reprisal coming. Alex's locker is broken into, homework stolen in the orphanage, on the sidewalk, wherever it's handy to snatch. Alex has real trouble keeping her grades up to the point where she can advance at all, but she's just barely squeaking by. Once kids get a sniff of 'victim' in the wind, they'll follow it wherever it goes. In packs, mind you: outside the orphanage, Alex still fights back, and that helps Paglia's cause -- it means the attackers can show off bruises once in a while during their claims that Alex started everything. The fix is in, the story is straight, and the victim is helping out. All is well. Well, almost everything. Here comes Officer Ramirez, who seems to have doubts. Paglia's a little worried there: it would be a horrible time for the experiment to go belly-up, especially when she's making so much progress. But Ramirez is blocked. All she has is an officer's suspicions: Paglia and Montrosse have paperwork, and the schools back up everything. Alex is a troublemaker: silent, sullen, bad grades, always starting fights and frankly, the only reason they have her in school is because they can't get rid of her. Ramirez is a worry at first -- but turns into a running gag. Aw, look at the police officer, isn't she cute? Alex won't cooperate, the story is rock-solid, and all is well. If anything, it's just cause for celebration. Let's have a night on the town with our co-conspirator! In fact, let's celebrate by drugging up together! But there's a problem. An ongoing one. Kids leave. As time passes, some of them will phase out of the orphanage: late adoptions, fostering that goes long-term, coming of age. Paglia loves her plan. It's a great plan. It's a plan every orphanage in the world should be using. But she's starting to realize that with every passing year, there's a chance someone will get out from under her warm, loving thumb and realize that something's wrong back at the old homestead. Grow up, mature, have a second thought -- and there goes the plan. So far, she's been safe, especially since she's kept Alex away from the older kids: most of the home abuse is coming from her, Alex's own age group, or those under her. But there's a luck element involved, and she's starting to become aware of it. As the saying goes, all the other parties have to do is get lucky once. Paglia has to be lucky all the time. Her story is rock-solid -- but one hit in just the right place... Throw something else in: Alex is growing up. One day, Alex is going to get out of the orphanage because the state won't be legally able to keep her any more. Once that happens, is the hostage threat going to hold? This one isn't as easy to resolve...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Hey, Alex! Remember me? We used to go to school together!" "Yeah, I do. You burned my homework in front of me twice. You also pissed on it once, but then you buried it afterwards when you decided I might try to dry it off and hand it in. I lost track of the times you snuck up behind me, snapped my bra straps and made that mooing sound you loved doing, but let's round it off to a couple of hundred." "Hey -- I used to give you money!" "You whipped pennies at my face." "And you kept them!" "Right. I kept them." "So -- no autograph?" ----------------------------------------------------------------- {The issues are building. Some of the other kids serve as snitches, and they say they've seen Alex with money. This rumor has been going for a while and Paglia never finds Alex with any cash, but the stories are picking up speed. They've spotted her picking up coins from the street. Checking vending machines. Looking anywhere and everywhere for whatever she can scavenge. According to one snitch, some of the kids at school have taken up a sport: they throw coins at her and watch her scramble for them. Endless fun. And sometimes, they try to get them back afterwards. Paglia decides this is actually happening, but -- Alex never has any money. She doesn't have any possessions, either. She has her clothes, textbooks, and a few school supplies. And it's easy to keep track of what Alex owns. Spending Alex's clothing allowance on something else is a trigger sign for people, so Alex does get new clothes, although they tend to get damaged regularly and postponing shopping trips is another form of punishment, especially after puberty starts. And Alex gets Christmas presents from Toys For Tots and other such agencies, although the other kids can freely steal them and she usually gets about five seconds to look at what she's about to lose before it actually happens. Alex also has books, but they're all from the school library: assigned reading. Alex seems to do a lot of assigned reading. But she's not buying any of them. She can't even pay late fees. She's not eating her way through her found funds: no candy on her breath, and she's been forbidden to have soda, practically all sweets, and when Halloween comes around, Alex spends it locked in a closet. Search Alex's room: nothing there that shouldn't be. Where is the money going? Is Alex going to try running away once she gets busfare together? Worry after worry -- but no proof... More stories from school. From junior high on, Alex seems to be sneaking out of school during lunch periods. When she's caught coming back in -- detention, in-school suspension, and punishment at home. There are also times when Paglia can't find Alex in the orphanage. No money goes missing from there, and believe me, she looks. Alex gets punished for stealing anyway because it's an opportunity, and we get to one of the rare times when Paglia personally beats on her, trying to get the location of the coins. Alex cries and curls up and her pains are described in extensive detail, but she just keeps saying she doesn't have any money, the other kids take it back by force after she picks it up. And she leaves lunch because they throw it at her when the aides aren't watching, and it hurts. Maybe this is the truth. But it's still a dangerous sign of independence, just picking up the coins in the first place, and it doesn't explain when Alex goes missing from her room, or bed, or the building... Time passes. Alex needs bras, Alex needs menstrual pads. Nasty reminders that the clock on the wall won't stop ticking. Physically, Alex is heading towards adulthood. Paglia has another idea. It only takes one all-out orgy with her paramour to get it through. According to her diary, this was a secondary experiment: see how the subject would react to a new form of punishment. Also this, and I quote while trying not to be sick: 'If I can keep her in the body of a child, she may continue to have the reactions of a child. There's a chance we may be able to get her into state-managed care -- an asylum would be ideal. This gives me a first step. After this succeeds, I can start pushing for the next stage. I wish I had more than my phantom psychiatrist, and Daniel just doesn't have the time to study for another field. If I could get someone who was willing to commit her, this would be so much easier. But there are ways to get her to the point where it'll happen naturally. I think I have to do some reading -- this won't be easy.' Right. We're at the surgery, and now we find out what went wrong. Montrosse sets it up well enough: real diseases with important-sounding names that have very few visible effects. The parts you just removed look normal? Subtle diseases, aren't they? Good thing you had a medical genius around to catch them early. One of the reasons they rushed so much is because they were trying to keep Alex in the dark as long as possible. Basically, the hospital got one story and Alex got another: she was just going in for routine kid stuff. What's more routine than tonsils? Paglia thinks Alex is buying this, but we know Alex isn't dumb, no matter what her grades say. Paglia is starting to fall for her own con: if the report card says D-, then the student has that level of intellect. The student -- the experiment -- knows that poking around her body and saying there's something wrong with her throat isn't ringing right. Alex escaped from that double mutilation because Alex had to be admitted to the hospital the night before for observation. Very tricky, even with Montrosse doing the surgery. You don't want other people seeing or talking to her, but it's just not the sort of thing that can be done in a pediatrician's office. Still, they've been very careful in setting this up. Paglia thinks they're at rock-solid again. All they need is to limit Alex's contact with other people until she goes unconscious. So Montrosse is going to sleep in Alex's room. Or not sleep. They'll take shifts. Staying with her to comfort her: good cover story, right? Montrosse goes in. Paglia goes in four hours later. Alex is gone. He fell asleep. He's not sure, but she could have been out there for two hours. Possibly three. He's not sure why he passed out. He gave Alex the sleep aid in the cup, he went to the bathroom, he came back and had a drink, and then... Fight. Argument. Stop the argument before someone overhears them. Sound the alarm. They find Alex quickly. She's in the hospital library. Guess what? She's been reading the notes Montrosse made about her fake diseases. She's memorized the names. Now that she has access to a real research center -- thick books with everything she needs, computers that don't have child blocks on them -- she went down there and started looking things up. How does a thirteen year-old get into the library? By asking. Hi, I'm supposed to have surgery and I'm scared: can I see what's going on? Sure she can, and an intern starts helping her with the terms. Diana Fitzpatrick. The Ledger printed the diary page with her name and noted that she's currently working with the Peace Corps in Africa: no contact available in the limited time they had. Paglia would like to forget this one ever existed. You don't want to see the handwriting in that entry. Alex had suspicions that she was being lied to, so she went and looked them up. Diana figures the kid was told about the tonsils to keep her from panicking, but she doesn't like the trick, and she also isn't seeing all the symptoms she thinks she should be seeing. By the time Paglia and Montrosse get down there, Alex is getting something she's needed for the last eight years: a second opinion. Diana's supervisor is on the scene, and he will not hand Alex back over until he's satisfied. He doesn't like Montrosse. He doesn't trust Montrosse. Lloyd Asprin -- what a horrible last name for a doctor -- has dealt with Montrosse before, and Paglia didn't know it. He's going to run his own tests on Alex. You would expect this to be the cue for a fight scene, but Paglia stops it cold. There's already a crack in the rock: they don't need to hit it again themselves. Sure, a second opinion, if that's what he thinks is necessary. She'd hate for anything to happen to Alex that wasn't strictly necessary. And off they go. Lloyd Asprin. He stopped practicing two weeks after this, died five months later. Doctors make the worst patients: if he'd gone in for his own checkups once in a while, they would have caught the cancer in time. That's in the story, too. Maybe if he'd lived, Alex would have had a defender. Two defenders. But Diana left for Africa three months after and Lloyd died. They did what they could while they were there, though. They got Alex in for the real tests, and they got the surgery canceled. The backpedaling was more severe than Montrosse registered in his own notes. He basically had to go before the hospital board and make up excuses as to how he could have screwed up this badly. Paglia thinks he almost lost his license to practice, but I think that's just what he told her: I've heard of doctors screwing up worse than this when it wasn't on purpose. Still, there is no doubt he is now being watched to see if he makes a mistake of equal severity. The medical games with Alex have just been derailed. Anything from a broken bone on up will not fly with this group. All he can do now is make her uncomfortable and refuse to admit anyone could be responsible for anything. And Paglia can't find another doctor to help her. Back to the original experiment, with the clock ticking faster, and they've just gotten a very loud reminder that their luck can run out. Alex, through her own curiosity, the trait Paglia had not been able to crush out of her, managed to say the right words to the right people at the right time, just once. People who didn't know her, who hadn't heard the lies, who were ready to treat her as a kid who needed some help. But it's the only time. Of course Alex is punished for this. At this point, Alex can expect to be punished at any time for any reason or none: only Paglia knows what any given punishment is for. This is one of the few times she's told. The beating goes on for some time on the first possible night, and Alex is escorted to the babies afterwards and reminded of what's holding her here. One lucky escape. No more. Alex is outnumbered, pinned down, trapped, and ready to be a victim again. We've seen other people think that too, and look what happened to them. It's about to happen to someone else. ----------------------------------------------------------------- We'd taken a little time out, sitting behind one of the food trucks. I'd wound up with a skirt steak sandwich and baked potato: not only had it looked like the most edible thing on the menu, it was also the most expensive thing on the menu. Getting my allowance out of the state, piece by piece. There was even some privacy here. There might be solitude at odd times today: a quick bathroom break somewhere, left alone in the makeup chair for a few minutes... This one was accidental: an artificial hollow created by the way the truck had been parked combined with a bus stop shelter and a trash can for lemonade ingredients that was being used by the next stand over. No one else could get in, at least not without some major work done first to shift the can. Marissa was watching me eat, not saying a word. It was starting to become annoying. "What?" "Just thinking," she quietly told me. "I guess it's kind of appropriate that this came out today. You're ending two stages in your life tonight -- one as a contestant, and the other as -- what she tried to make you into." I examined the words before I said them, took a heartbeat to look them over and consider whether or not to let them out. The desire to hear her opinion won. "What makes you think she didn't succeed?" "Your art." I blinked: the answer didn't make any sense. "If she'd completely gotten through, you wouldn't be able to draw, or write, or do anything creative at all. You would only see the world as she wanted you to see it: a place that existed only to make you hurt. You wouldn't be capable of visualizing anything else." She put her own sandwich down. "I didn't even know you drew until the day they made the introductions and called you a cartoonist." That's what this world is: a place for hurt... At least most of the time. Was. Tried to twist back into. Could be again. But maybe wouldn't be always. At least, not every minute... Running around in circles again: back to the main topic. "She would have shredded it." That got a nod. "Where did you hide it? You had to practice, too -- I don't understand where you picked up the basics." "A lot of places." They all had to be within an hour of the orphanage -- forty minutes for the school: that was round trip and included the time for burial. "The school library in junior high had some old books from the seventies about drawing comics, plus some really old collections of newspaper strips and a encyclopedia about Superman. Whenever I could, I'd check those books out and work on things during lunch. I would always put notebooks aside to use for sketching. It started as a game -- just trying to copy the images. Something to do. But it worked, really easily -- and then I found more books in the high school library, and we got to use the public one sometimes -- there's more over there, plus they started getting in graphic novels... It let me see different styles, figure out what would work and what wouldn't. The library computers gave me access to the Internet strips and let me discover a place I could try to get established..." I shrugged. "It wasn't even supposed to go on for this long. I thought I could break into syndication, or get some work at one of the comics publishers. But the syndicates wanted me to change everything about the strip, make it into something that was safe -- and that turned out to be something that couldn't tell any stories at all, at least not ones that hadn't been told a thousand times already. The comics people --" A long pause. "What?" Marissa forced a smile. "How bad could it be? I think we've hit our quota on 'bad' for the day." Wait until eight tonight. I sighed. "They're the reason I was in Manhattan that day. There was a convention. I took some of my art samples, paid the admission fee --" barely: it had wiped out a month of scrounging "-- and went inside to talk to a professional editor. Try to ask what I could do in order to get work there. I can do more than just strips -- I've laid out sample pages before, just practicing, getting ready... But I got blown off. Really blown off. All I had to do was tell him what I was currently working on, and everything I had for samples got to stay in the folder. He didn't want to hear from any Internet cartoonist, especially not one who described herself in those terms..." Walking out, wondering if it was worth the effort to carry the samples all the way home when I had them stored on the computer anyway, thinking about the money lost to admissions, travel fare and professional-standard paper, the stares I'd gotten the whole time I was in the line, the casual bumps and the two attempts to grope... "He told me to get some real work in and then come back in five years. He didn't even want to hear my name -- asked what I was when I got to the front of the line, not who, and then he refused to see anything." Her voice was very gentle. "I think you got an old-fashioned sexist pig, Alex. With a touch of elitism to go with it. You didn't try with another publisher?" "No. I'd already wasted three hours in that line. There just didn't seem to be any point." The other lines were even longer. And it had been a rotten day to begin with, with the editor not caring about getting caught staring in the middle of dismissing me... Another sigh. "I found a newspaper in the lobby on my way out. Something to read on the way home. And there was the ad about the open auditions -- and it was within walking distance." On the island. "Maybe they'd have food for the people in line, so I would at least get something out of the day: all the freebies at the convention were gone by the time I got out of that line. And I loved the show, applying for it was as close as I was ever going to get to being on it, maybe I'd learn something I could use for the strip, or just spot a contestant months before the season began..." Somewhere behind me in line had been Robin, watching and wondering which club I stripped at and when my shift was going to start. I'd never seen her. Marissa took a long sip from her soda. "That's why you applied? Because you were just in the neighborhood and you'd had a bad day?" "No." That's all: no. It's not enough. "Okay -- why?" And now she's far too curious. "I know you got to watch some television here and there -- whatever the rest of the house agreed to watch if you weren't being punished at the time." And most of my television punishments had been for the immediate-afterschool hours and weekends: no cartoons. "So sure, it was the right time, and you became a fan of the show. But you're the last person I would expect to voluntarily take a chance on spending over a month with cameras filming your every move. You're a private person, Alex -- you didn't have a choice as a kid, and now it's probably because you had so little you got to keep to yourself and you're making up for lost time. And you really didn't think you'd get on, did you? From what you've said on the show, you never thought you'd get this close to the million. So why apply?" Evenly, "I can't talk about it." And by now, she knew that meant just one thing. "Until tomorrow." I nodded. "Tomorrow, Alex -- I know that's busy for you. But at some point, I'd like to hear your side of the story. As much as you can tell me. I knew hers for years, never bought it -- and now that I've got what was underneath her mask, I'd like to see what's behind yours. Just for a few details, because the article left some mysteries open." Carefully, treading through the minefield she felt was under every syllable, "Maybe that way, we can both get a little closure." "It's not a magic word." She tilted her head slightly to the right as her eyes opened a little wider: Azure with a command she didn't understand. "You can't say 'closure' and make things automatically work out. It doesn't lock them away, it doesn't resolve them -- it's just a word people can use so there'll be something else that loses meaning. 'You have to be okay now, because you've done something that gives you closure.' It's what people look for instead of solutions." "It doesn't mean it doesn't exist." Still gentle, but now just a little insistent. "You can always say no again." And probably would. Probably. "We'll see, I guess." Another bite of the sandwich. It really was good: almost Reward level. "I'll have to take that." She shrugged, took a bite of her own, chewed, swallowed. "At least I got one major loose end tied up..." ----------------------------------------------------------------- {...and that was the last time Alex was fostered. Mrs. Paglia clearly felt she couldn't risk it again. Too much attention, too close. Plus now she's just a little bit scared of Alex, although that's reading between the diary lines. Still, that's the same conclusion the Ledger came to: the physical punishments drop off drastically from here, although the beatings at school continue and pretty much take over. Paglia may now be terrified of what could happen if she pushes Alex past the line -- and she doesn't know where the line is. Somewhere, there is a point where Alex stops taking it. She doesn't want to be there when it happens. The only other change she notes is that from this point on, Alex no longer cries, no matter how much she's provoked. She got her to stop laughing years before. After this incident, Alex seems to be taking more chances. Nothing extreme -- it's not as if she's vanishing for days at a time. But there are hours when Paglia can't keep track of her, particularly on weekends, when she's on the way back from school, and a few holidays. Alex is punished for this, of course. But she's just becoming impossible to locate on short notice. There's a few times when the dice are really rolled: calling the police to try and round her up. At those times, she's found and hauled back -- eventually. As Alex goes through her teenage years, more punishments have to be instituted, but they're in the form of more things Alex isn't allowed to do. 'Date' is obvious: absolute forbiddance, and she can't tell anyone why. 'Work' is the huge one: Paglia won't sign the permission slip at the earliest possible age. She's not exactly in the habit: Alex goes on some field trips when she's young because sitting them all out is suspicious, but nothing where she goes too far away and might get a head start. And once she's older, forget it. But give Alex a chance to earn money and an existence outside the orphanage? No way in hell. So Alex doesn't work, doesn't socialize outside school, and she's still the victim of choice for her school's bullies. Lots of things happen to Alex in high school, most of them blamed on her by a clique that she seems to enjoy taking on. Or vice-versa. Such nice, trusted, well-mannered girls with their consistent stories, and I'll say the name that I think has been bleeped out up until now: Cyndi Deveraux. (Come and get me, bitch.) Reverse the charges, please: if everything Alex supposedly did to them, all noted in loving detail, was started by this group, then consider her Paglia Junior. Certainly Paglia seems to admire them and records what she learns of their activities. The newspaper even found the camera incident mentioned in the diaries. But this is also when Paglia starts to get very nervous. Maybe it's just paranoia creeping in as Alex approaches eighteen, but it seems as if some of her personal papers are going -- out of order. The stacks are uneven. And her copier runs low on toner more than it should, plus she could swear someone's moving her mouse. She doesn't know what all this means at first, and it may just be a sugar cube thing -- but slowly, she starts to become convinced that Alex is getting into her office when she's not there. Installing lots of locks, but that just shuts things down for a few days before the signs return. Why would Alex tamper with her things? Is she making copies? Has Paglia left evidence behind of some kind? Not the diaries: those are old-fashioned books, written in with a pen and kept at home. Surely no one will ever read those. But maybe Alex is planning to mail a lot of paperwork to someone. Of course, Alex is a compulsive liar, surely she's proved that by now, persecution complex, she knows all the buzzwords that work and surely she's safe -- or maybe she isn't. Because as the good doctor might note, the day is approaching when Patient is going to get out of Control. Legally, Alex can take responsibility for herself as soon as she graduates high school, as long as she has a place to live, a job, and a diploma. She could even travel that summer if she had the money and paperwork for it, although Paglia isn't exactly going to sign off on that. But there are certain qualifiers that are unstoppable automatics. And while her luck is holding, no one is talking, she's pushing things further and further. At this point, Alex is the eldest child in the orphanage. The others in her group were adopted -- rarely -- transferred -- it happens, and Paglia fought a lot of them because of those fears that someone would talk -- successfully fostered -- another fret point -- you get the idea. She's stressing out to the rafters, and maybe the cracks are beginning to show in her own facade. The diary entries show her husband is getting suspicious, she doesn't like the way people are looking at her, and she doesn't know what Alex is up to -- -- and now the paranoia stops creeping and enters a full-scale dash. It's Alex's senior year, and Paglia hasn't just lost it, she's thrown it away and then accused someone else of stealing it. Alex is going to graduate: the alarm on that clock is getting close to going off. Of course, she has no money. She couldn't apply to college with her grades unless it was a community school, and Paglia wouldn't give her the money for that application fee. And because of her horrible grades, she has summer school classes coming up again. So she'll be stuck in the orphanage for the full season. There's a little more time. But the thing with the papers, toner, and mouse just keep getting worse. Plus -- and this is a big one -- what is she going to do when her experiment leaves? Even if nothing ever happens -- and she's having a hard time believing that now -- she'll have to start over. 'Be good or you'll be in Alex's place' just won't work without Alex. How can she find another subject? Years ultimately wasted -- and if Alex talks, if someone believes Alex without Paglia sending a constant reinforcing stream of 'It's all a lie!' into their ear... She's afraid. She set up a thirteen-year festival of abuse, and she wasn't ready for the closing night. She can't lose everything now -- and all it takes is one open mind to destroy her. She almost got that with Diana and Lloyd, twice lucky that it didn't all fall apart on the spot. But there's still one way to be safe: she just has to plan it out, very carefully, make sure she doesn't miss any details because the smallest things can trip you up. Working with a partner can help that cause, especially one who has access to drugs and is just as guilty as she is, with as much to lose. They just have to really think about this. So they think about it. And what they eventually decide is that July Fourth is a good day for Alex to die. Maybe there's a little underlying irony there: no, you will never have your independence. She'll be stuck in the orphanage, she won't be able to go anywhere, they'll have her pinned and -- dead. That should shut her up. Do it while she's sleeping, so she can't fight back. Paglia mentions wanting to see her eyes when it happens -- 'It's an opportunity that won't come twice' -- but it's just not worth the risk. June fourth. We know a little about this day already: Alex collects her GED diploma and drops out of school. She misses an appointment with Montrosse. This is Paglia's side of it. Alex walks in early. Hours early. Paglia is at the orphanage, of course: working. She sees Alex go right past her door, and she's worried. Her first thought is that Alex has finally been expelled. They've never sent her home because she did something wrong: they'd just stick her into in-school suspension on the spot. And she's not sick, because Alex gets shuffled to Montrosse then and he would call. But here Alex is, and she's heading up to her room. Out Paglia goes in pursuit -- and finds the room is just about bare. Not that there was ever much in there: textbooks, clothing, and school supplies. But just about all of it is gone. This is wrong. It was all there that morning... Paglia confronts Alex: what's going on here? Alex looks at the bare shelves, empty drawers, and says she must have stolen her own things. Paglia wrote this down: 'No tone to her words. She could have been talking about a thousand things, from dead bodies to descending angels, and it all would have sounded the same.' Alex shrugs and says she guesses she'll have to be punished. And if she can make a suggestion, she'll go with exile. She then goes into her backpack and shows Paglia the equivalency diploma. This is the worst moment of Paglia's life -- and it goes downhill from there. Alex very calmly explains that she has an apartment now, and she'll be moving in today. She also has a job. Self-employed, but that counts. Since she didn't want to bother her supervisor with the paperwork, she just sent that in herself with Paglia's photocopied signature on it. So she can't legally stay in the orphanage, and she'll be leaving now. Paglia blocks the door, starts freaking out. Alex can't leave. She had nothing to pay for an apartment with: if she had any money, then she must have stolen it! She's going to call the police! Alex takes a second thing out of her backpack: a bank passbook. She flips a few pages in front of Paglia. Slowly increasing balances. Says that it's funny how pennies add up after a while. Paglia grasps for the strongest straw she's got: if Alex faked her signature, then she's leaving illegally, and she can be hauled back. Alex nods: yes, she probably can. But she's leaving anyway, and she's not going to let Paglia stop her. She just wanted to let Paglia know she was going, so she wouldn't have Alex hauled out of her new apartment after she'd already paid the rent on it. It would be very inconvenient. Moves for the door. At this point, Paglia pulls out the last ammunition she has, the one that's always worked: if Alex leaves, she's going after the babies, and it'll be all Alex's fault. Alex reaches into her backpack again and pulls out the weapon. Not a knife. Not a gun. A microcassette recorder, a very old model. And this, to the best of Paglia's recollection, is what she says. "Try to take this. If you do, you're going to get resistance. If there's enough resistance, the police will be called in. And when they show up, I play this." Paglia's world falls apart. She can't hit Alex. She knows that the only thing keeping Alex from hitting her for years now is that threat. She's afraid to stand in her way. She's created something that she didn't mean to make, and she doesn't know what to do any more. Alex looks right at her and says "I'm going now. If you touch anyone because I went, you will pay for it. Stay right here and wait." Still no tone. Advances on the door. Paglia gets out of the way. Alex leaves. At this point, Paglia believes Alex is heading for the police with that tape. She could do what she's threatened to do for years, go to the youngest orphans and start hurting them until someone pries the weapon out of her hands. But she doesn't. Because she's terrified. Because Alex now has evidence against her, evidence beyond disproving just through calling someone a liar, and everyone will know that she did it. If it was a bluff, it's been called: if it was real, it's been derailed. She runs to her office, calls the state, tells them she's just taken very ill and the orphanage needs someone to take over for a week or two. No problem: they'll send someone. Out the door she goes, right to Montrosse. The jig is up, and he's equally culpable in all this. If they want to live, they have to run. It doesn't exactly take much to talk him into it. Back to her house: husband is at work. Grab whatever she can. Pack the diaries into the doctor's van: they're too dangerous to leave behind. He either didn't have time to grab his end of the medical records or forget them in the rush. Leave Haledon forever. The last diary pages show a life on the run. They're heading for Mexico: Montrosse can set up shop there, and there's plenty of orphanages. Or maybe they can just jump to Brazil from there, anywhere without extradition. Driving because she's afraid to fly out of the States if there's a warrant out for her arrest. Can't go too fast because it'll look suspicious: can't go too slow because it'll increase the chance they'll get caught. Weaving all over the country to avoid police. Waiting for the license plate to be spotted. Paranoia. Terror. Fragmented entries in the diary. Waiting for Alex to exact revenge from afar, trying to outrun it. Ten days after leaving Haledon, Helen Paglia and Daniel Montrosse die in a car accident near the Texas border: hit an eighteen-wheeler in three in the morning and got the worst of it. Witnesses say the driver -- Montrosse -- was weaving all over the road: possibly fell asleep behind the wheel. The trucker is okay. The bodies are identified. Paglia's items are shipped to her next of kin and sit in an attic for several years. There are a few question marks here. Some of them could be answered with more diary entries, but we'll probably have to wait on that. The biggest one of all, at least to my mind, and one that can't be cleared up that easily: why didn't this come out years ago? Because Alex might have been collecting evidence after all -- documentation that her allowance was suspended way past its due, at the absolute minimum -- and then she got the tape on top of it. But nothing happened. The police were not chasing them. Paglia's husband filed a Missing Persons report, but he didn't know to look for the doctor's van, and that was it for police documents on the matter. What did Alex do with that tape? Not blackmail material, surely: I would bet she was heading right for the cops. But she never got there -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- For the eighty-ninth time that day, by actual count. "Alex -- what happened with the tape?" And the sixth from someone holding a microphone in my face. "I'm sorry. I can't discuss that due to my contract, which carries a five million dollar fine for breaking its terms." Seriously: were any of them in the media rotation? On the other hand, if they really wanted some kind of story... "By the way, did you know what an apartment like mine now rents for in this area?" ----------------------------------------------------------------- -- and she's not answering that one just yet, although invoking her contract may just be a way of saving it all for Jeff. Or because there's just too much to talk about, and she's trying to have one last hour where she doesn't have to do it. I don't think I can blame her. But the question is still out there. I don't think Paglia spotted her while they were making the run out of the city, tried to run her over, and had Alex dodge but lose the tape to the van's wheels... This is a story about survival, and what you give up to get it. Alex survived, and all she had to surrender was laughter, tears, and everything that comes between. Damaged? Paglia should have gotten her wish: Alex in an asylum somewhere, afraid to do anything for the rest of her life because every action she could possibly take would lead to punishment. But she moves, talks, creates, and exists among the rest of us. I don't think I'll ever understand how. I can't make myself believe I would have come out with even that much. Hate Alex if you want to. Bash her for her actions in the game, her strategic failings, her rejection of her mother, maybe even the way she's built if you get that desperate. But if you want to keep bashing her as a person, ask yourself two questions. The first is the one I already brought out: how much of you would have come out of that? All of yourself? Half? Anything? And second: would you have given up thirteen years of your life to torture in order to keep someone else from going through the same thing? This is a story about pain, and prisons, and people hating you just because you exist. But it's also a story about sacrifice: about placing yourself in harm's way to keep the helpless safe. About protecting the other people in your tribe, whether they know you're doing it or not. I think there's more than one reason Alex went off the cliff with the jaguar. I think she had to make sure it was dead. Because it was wounded and desperate enough to keep attacking after it had been hurt that badly, and if she didn't make sure, if it got up and walked away, there were other people on the island -- and now, it would be wounded and desperate and mad with pain. She may have done what she'd been doing for most of her life: thrown herself into the line of fire to take the bullet for someone else. She may not have realized that: she probably still hasn't realized it. She's done it too much to think about it any more. There's a word for someone like that. It's just not one we ever use here. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Up and down the street. Checking out the vendors, collecting freebies wherever and whenever they appeared, which was at a greater frequency than I'd expected. Sitting at my own table for a while, signing autographs and selling every book I'd brought to the fair. I really should have had more of them printed, but I hadn't thought I'd see any real interest... Some people talked to me, mostly asking questions I still couldn't answer. Several approached, started to say something, and stopped as the tears began to flow. Just looking at me was enough to get a lot of them going. The politicians were avoiding me: embarrassed, especially given the way the turned-aside media tended to head for them and ask how Paglia could have operated under their collective nose for so long. I'd seen one of my old English teachers in the crowd: she'd spotted me and immediately fled the scene. Probably thinking about all the automatic Fs she'd given me because everyone knew I never did my homework and could always come up with an excuse for it. Burned -- of course it was burned: now take your zero and report to the principal's office. I'd been amazed by the amount of show-related merchandise: hats (faked), shirts (copies), DVDs (mostly copies plus home-burned, especially the ones for the current season -- one of which claimed to have the final episode and commentary, straight from CBS: hello, you're under arrest...), handbags (no idea), and towels (maybe not, but that vendor looked really nervous around Marissa). Even more amazed that everyone in town seemed to be an expert on the series, or at least thought they were. I'd overheard a lot of Final Four endgame scenarios, jury vote possibilities, even a few last-minute twists. The fair was a major speculation center: will this happen? Can that go through? How about this, followed by that, and then if you add just one more thing -- -- it'll mean she wins. We'll have the Sole Survivor, and she's got to get equal billing with old Bruce then, right? Look at all the cameras around today! The media is loving this fair: they're seeing us at our best. Maybe she went through all that and did all those things on the show, but if she wins, it was worth it, right? It'll mean something to us, won't it? We'll keep the fair going after she leaves, and then we'll take the party to the bars. We'll watch the episode, and we'll watch as our hometown girl takes both Immunities, controls the game, gives the jury the speech of a lifetime, and shocks the world by walking out with a 7-0 count and a million dollars. Plus they've got to give her a car... It was amazing how many people believed every last bit of that. Especially the part about everything being worth it in the end. I couldn't tell them, by contract. I didn't want to tell them -- and maybe a little of that was rooted in mercy. Let them dream, at least for the few hours they had to do it in. If they wanted to live through me, there was nothing I could do to stop them. But they refused to see how it could end -- how it would end. They still thought the coach was coming and the castle was just a few miles away. I hadn't been able to take that illusion from Tony and I had to leave them with it, just for a little while longer. They could live through me if they wanted to. And they would go down with me too. I wondered if they would decide that had been worth it. More autographs. More explanations of my contract. Yes, really five million dollars. There couldn't be this many people in Haledon on Christmas Eve: some of them had to have come up the hill or from over the hill. I wasn't even sure some of them were from New Jersey. No, I'd feel really dumb wearing a button supporting myself. No, I can't wear that shirt on the show. No, no, and no. Most people didn't take offense at it, Marissa got rid of a few, and I had words with the remainder. It wrapped up quickly. Quiet acknowledgment from gang members, roaming the fair in muted (but displayed) colors, keeping the peace for the day. Brief eye contact, nod, move on. Tokens of respect. Do your laundry in peace: no one will mess with the hometown girl. Maybe there's been enough of that already. Maybe there's been too much of it. I swam through an ocean of pity. More people who didn't know what to say. Always tears somewhere in the crowd. Strangers came up out of nowhere, told me they'd been abused as children, as adults. A wife left her husband right in front of me, got Marissa's attention, pushed up her sleeve, showed the marks and asked for her husband's arrest. He screamed betrayal all the way to the squad car, captured by a dozen cameras. Over and over, thousands of faces, a million variations on the words, all coming to the same thing in the end. Go up there for us. Speak for us. Be there for us. Win for us... ...let them know we were here... A long, strange day that didn't hurt as much as it should have. Possibly because I knew what the last act was going to be, and I wanted to think I knew just how much pain would be involved in witnessing it, was ready for all of it. I was probably underestimating the amount of pain. I didn't think I'd done the same with my capacity for taking it. And finally, Marissa's radio went off: we'd been at the fair for longer than I'd thought was even possible, completely lost track of time. My ride was sitting at the far end, a little bit early, but waiting to pick me up. I already had everything I needed with me, and Marissa would take custody of my minimal purchases (and maximal freebies). We started making our way up the street, taking the sidewalk behind the left-side booths. "One question," Marissa told me. Because there was almost always time for one more question, especially in confessionals. "I saw your face when you hit that section of the article about Paglia having plans to kill you. You didn't even blink at it." The most gentle tone I'd ever heard from her, without a cough anywhere in it: "Did you know?" "As a definite? No." It looked like the silly string vendor was having a really good day. Purple appeared to be the top seller. "I knew she was worried about letting me go, and I had to think she would try to stop it somehow. Whether that meant a murder attempt -- I thought it was possible, but I didn't know for sure. But she'd done just about everything else -- what would stop her from taking the last step? Nothing I could see. I just couldn't figure out when. It had to be before my birthday, but..." Sleeping so poorly, making myself wake up every couple of hours, watching and waiting. Sneaking out when it was warm, sleeping outside, on the roof, in the nearby woods, as long as I could get back in time. Night wasn't safe. No lock on my door because it had been broken on purpose and never replaced. She was gone at night, home with her husband, but she could always come back at any time. Bed shoved in front of the door that opened outward, hoping she'd trip into it and alert me. Waking up to see if I was still alone in the room. Waiting. A very small shrug. "My primary deadline was graduation. I'd overheard rumors of one last going-away pounding -- major class activity. It sounded like pretty much everyone getting together to take one last shot: corral me after the ceremony, get me out of sight way behind the stands -- popular spot -- and then going to work." I would have been allowed to pick up my diploma with the others, despite having to attend summer school. Some honor. "I didn't know if I would have gotten through it. So I had to find the time to take the GED, get to it without her knowing, and I'd had to open the post office box so I'd have a place to receive it, get to that... I was juggling a lot of things that last month. But as soon as the diploma showed up, that was it." She nodded, scanned the path ahead and behind for potential threats, found only more police officers who'd joined the escort, keeping back the mostly-trailing crowd. "And she ran." That was worth a sigh. "I really didn't think she was just going to stand there paralyzed with fear for a couple of hours." Wished... "It was a little scandal when the affair finally came out. First time I'd ever seen her husband -- he didn't exactly visit her at work. But she was dead, and he'd gone with her, and I wasn't exactly going to feel bad about it. Just a little for the truck driver." Benjamin Kazantzakis. I would never forget that name. "That he'd have guilt for hitting the van, even after it basically went right in front of him. But that was it. They were dead. And -- what was I supposed to do to a dead woman? What was the point? No one could make a corpse break down on the witness stand, lose it and start screaming about what actually happened because she thought the jury would see it her way in the end..." "But you had --" and stopped. "Right. Five million. But that's why you didn't push it." "Because it was over." A solid statement. "They were dead. There wouldn't be another pressure valve -- she actually explained it to me a few times, wanted me to see my part as necessary.. And because it didn't feel like anything I could do after their deaths would matter." "Did you change your mind?" It was a fair question: I thought about it for half a block. "Maybe I just got sick of the editing. What she said happened and what everyone wanted to see as happening compared to what actually happened. This way, the real story is coming out. And it lets people know that sometimes, there is a real story -- if they remember..." "Some of them will," Marissa assured me. "Alex, I just saw a man put into cuffs whose wife has been refusing to press charges for seven years. She did that because of you. No matter what happens tonight, hold onto that: he's in jail and she's on the path to freedom because you inspired her. That's a real difference in the world, right there: something a hundred cops haven't been able to talk her into." And still no coughing. Was this some kind of reverse effect from exposure to the fumes? "And who says she's the only one?" Oh, come on... "It's a coincidence. You saw those marks -- last night was the last straw." She didn't think so. "She'll go back to him. They almost always do." Possible, but she still didn't think so. "That sort of thing just doesn't happen away from a television set." Which got a laugh. "Did you see all the cameras today? I think that's close enough -- oh." Maybe forty feet long. Solid black. Too wide, too many doors, and overall just too much, right down to the tall, solidly-built driver/bodyguard beside it: uniform, cap, and gleaming smile all mandatory on this model. The most reliable cliches always cost the most... "Miss Cole? It's time to head in." "Are all the contestants getting limos?" Not me and not Marissa: one of the officers in the escort group. The driver nodded. "From the airport and for the ones in driving distance." He moved to open a door for me: it took a few seconds to pick the exact one. "But the Final Four are getting the biggest ones. They're treating this like a Hollywood party, and that means everyone shows up like it's the Oscars -- minus the dresses. Miss Cole, you've still got a couple of things in the back -- they want you to change when you get there, but they want those with you when you come out." Figured: some of this was probably going to involve stripping, and while the limo was big enough to contain a changing tent, it couldn't be a standard feature. At least the cameras were gone -- for a few more hours. "In fact, let me just get the first one now..." He leaned into the limo, rummaged around with his hands out of sight -- -- gasps from the crowd, yells of shock, surprise, delight, something they never thought they'd see, someone they never believed would ever be here -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- During ----------------------------------------------------------------- -- and she's calling out to me even as she flies, moving for the arm that's already starting to come up, an automatic reaction: here she is and she wants a ride, so I'd better do my part. I've been very well-trained, too, and I haven't forgotten my lessons after a few months without refreshers. She didn't lose hers after years without practice: how can I do any less? "Pretty Girl! Pretty Girl!" And Azure lands on my left forearm, gazes up at me with bright eyes that have no touch of accusation in them: yes, you went away, but you're here now and we can discuss the other part later. "Pretty Girl!" And moves to my shoulder so she can nuzzle against my hair, along with the occasional headbutt. It has been a few months, after all, and I have to get a reminder that there's going to be a later. I reach across with my right hand, stroke her soft feathers. "Hi, Azure..." She preens. "We'd better get you in the limo -- it's a nice day, but the sun's going down and this is still colder than what you're used to." Marissa is still in shock. So are most of the people in viewing range. You'd almost swear a real celebrity had just shown up. "That's really --" Well, who else would it be? Blue parrots with naming capabilities just aren't that common. "I guess they want us to walk in together." It would help if she'd go back to my forearm: this is a very awkward position for petting. "See you sometime after the media finishes with me -- sorry about tying people up with watching my building." It doesn't seem to be a problem. Besides, they were going to be up anyway. "Enjoy the rest of the day, guys." What there is of it, because it won't come again -- as Jeff would say, 'twitch' -- and the ending will ruin their night. A slow nod from Marissa, who's still staring at Azure. Azure is staring back. I wonder how many people would jump if I asked her to start begging. Or just announced that the Outcast tribe was in the back of the limo. One of the other officers, somewhere back in the mass of people: "Good luck, Alex." And that breaks the spell: the crowd starts to chorus on it. "Good luck!" And finds some variations, too. "Go get 'em!" Which gets followed by "Take them down!", probably from a former Trooper supporter. I nod to people as I make my way to the limo, and force a single wave. I don't know why they're wishing me luck, because it's a problem of tenses again. They can't hope for what's about to happen. It's already happened. Nothing that takes place tonight is going to change what occurred months ago. It's just the last act, a chance for the curtain to come down and the players to take their curtseys and bows, at least for the ones the curtain doesn't come down directly on. Not will happen, but has happened. I wish people would understand that. I get into the limo. There are in fact some items waiting for me. I examine them as the driver closes the door, then gets in and brings down the dividing partition as we start to move away from the fair. "Got everything?" "Mostly." There will be one full outfit waiting for me at the Reunion: the show wanted us all dressed in the clothes we'd had on for the final moments, and they'd known that from the moment we'd left the last Council. One less group of pieces in my luggage coming back. They'd just decided to spare me the joy of changing in the car, or walking from the limo to the building in what's warmer weather than it should be, but still isn't quite suited for tropically-intended clothing. "I have to wait until we get there for some of it, but I think I can see what they want here." I get Azure down onto the seat, which she takes as a cue to get her feathers stroked. Typical, really. "Did you learn any words from Jeff?" No answer. Hmmm. "Burnett." Nothing. No, Jeff did not send me a blackmail-enabled parrot. "Next season." No such luck. "Figures..." The driver laughs. "I don't think she knows who the winner is there. I did hear a rumor that Jeff took her out to the site, though -- someplace warm again." Naturally: how can they expect to get their swimsuit shots otherwise? "Or maybe she knows, but she's under contract... Traffic should be pretty smooth given the day, but we're gonna take it slow and easy for a while. They want you guys arriving in order." Well, that's going to complicate things horrendously. "Vote order?" I can see him nodding. "Up through the Final Four, and they're staggering it so you guys don't have contact with each other going down the red carpet. After that, they'll draw for who goes in when and let us know when to send you." Red carpet? Exactly how much had they trotted out for this? Is there an entertainment network reporter on site waiting to go over everyone's fashion choices? And that still doesn't make this the perfect time to bring out Donald's dress... "I guess I'll wait it out." It isn't as if there isn't enough to do in the limo. Plenty of food. Lots of drinks, all of which I can actually have because Izze just entered my life again. Television. Satellite radio. A sound system guaranteed to destroy your hearing in three seconds or less, or they'll give you something that can do it in one. "In the meantime..." There's some things I can do during the ride. For now, the buff gets wrapped around my left bicep. The dagger goes over the right hip. The cross is already under my sweater and Phillip's necklace settles into its accustomed place over it, the extra weight almost comforting somehow. And Azure, unasked and unsummoned, settles onto my left shoulder. At least for a few hours, even after it all really ended, with nothing left to truly decide -- the game is on again. -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

ohmyheck 1117 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Politically Incorrect Guest" 01-18-07, 08:00 PM (EST) 5. "RE: I Can't Win...: Part III" Wow... I cannot believe this. This explains Alex's behavior and strange habits.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 22510 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 01-21-07, 02:02 AM (EST) 6. "I Can't Win: Part IV" LAST EDITED ON 02-03-07 AT 05:23 PM (EST) Before ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Does anyone else feel like we're in the last hour before the Super Bowl starts -- not just looking forward to the event, but to having the kickoff be the official end of the pregame hype?} {Based on the available evidence, this may be a little more like the Oscars. By the way -- big thanks to a certain someone for all the work he did from the actually-red carpet. Interesting stuff.} {Maybe for you -- I just watched it on E!. I thought their reporting would be a little less biased.} {So where are you, Oh Lucky One?} {En route to seat. Talk later. Single finger key typing very slow. Do have big screens all over Hall. Can easily watch show.} {Okay. Just keep it down after everything starts. And later, I want you to tell me what kind of phone you're carrying and what it takes to get one. I can't believe you're even managing to keep up with the scroll.} {As far as the hype goes? I almost hope the ratings drop again next season. Everyone in the office knows I follow the show. They used to look at it as a silly little hobby followed only by the incurably insane, sort of like being a Cubs fan. And now? Every day, they drop by my desk. Every day, they want to know what the latest rumors are. Every hour of every day -- and that's just my bosses. Speak onto us, expert! Predict the future! I can't even get Trina's original rates out of them, let alone her current ones -- but right now, I'm basically being paid to talk about the season.} {Don't expect us to continue the trend.} {*sigh* Newspaper articles. Magazine articles. Media coverage. VH1 basically turned the Best Week Ever into the Society Islands Mockery In Review. Mentions during the national news broadcasts. Debates on the news channels. Everything but a 'Go, Connie!' banner displayed over the main desk on Faux. And let's not even start on the radio stations, air and satellite alike, except that they got a little more lively on satellite. (Howard thinks Alex can win. Why? Because maybe then she'll be in such a good mood, she'll strip for him. And once again, good luck with that. Let us know how it works out for you.) No, we're not at Super Bowl levels, but that's mostly because the guy who was caught with drugs already had his media time and there's no halftime show to gossip about dread. The fee for commercial time is pretty much a dead match, though.} {At least that means we'll get some good commercials, right?} {Yeah, but there goes my only reason to watch the Super Bowl.} {And look who's here! Hey, Loverboy, how was the street fair? I saw some live shots from it, but I wouldn't mind an eyewitness account. Oh, and for those of you who might have missed it, please note that Alex did not attempt to kill the guy who basically ripped off her life's work on cheap paper with crappy image resolution. Which actually disappointed me: talk about just cause...} {I didn't go. Christmas vacation: I'm back home for a few weeks. Besides, I didn't want to see Alex anyway.} {Crush over? Converted to the Haters side? Started dating? Read the diary article and decided she's incapable of love? Help me out here.} {I described her building, remember? On the Internet, where anyone could see it...} {*sigh* You never gave an exact address. The show had that. Either Jake somehow got it from someone there or he just followed her at a distance until he narrowed things down. And even then, it sounds like he just took a guess on the last stage. A one-in-three chance at a burnout, and he blew it. This is not your fault. Come on -- do you think the man even knew how to get a web address, let alone a clue?} {I guess. It's just hard not to feel like I screwed up.} {What was it Alex said that time? Oh, right. 'Absolved.'} {Caught some of that street fair. How funny was it to see her go up to the skirt steak vendor and order diaphragm?} {Okay, people: open warning. No more debate on the full order unless it's related to what's happening in the show. Talk about what you think they'll do next based on what they did last -- minute -- but the ever-hopeful Gary faction can stop trotting out the sixteen thousand word posts that may be copied from a central distributor. That way, we'll have a chance of bringing this thing in under a thousand posts. A really tiny chance. Oh, our poor dial-ups...} {Um... speaking of clues... guess what just popped up at Sucks?} {...I hate him. I mean it this time: I really hate him. He could have done it any time in the last couple of days and given us time to hash it out, but no, he had to wait until just about the literal last minute... Okay, what's the damn thing say?} {You're not going to like it.} {I'm not going to ban you for posting it, either. Let's see it.} {'Wrong.'} {...okay, I've thought it over, and I'm still not going to ban you. But if he ever comes over here, he is toast.} {Someone says the wrong thing? Makes the wrong move? What the **** is he talking about? 'Boing!' worked out to where it could -- and did -- mean only one thing, but -- wrong? Who's wrong? What are they wrong about? Bring me Paglia: this guy needs to be punished!} {Or Montrosse to remove his mysteriousness gland. Unbelievable. You know what I think? I think his source just ran out of facts. He's had a great run up until now, he doesn't have anything left for us, and he decided to go with the one thing where no matter how the Final Four worked out, he could say he was right at the end. What a jerk.} {Don't let it get to you. It's just about party time: one bad clue won't spoil it.} {It's mostly the fact that nothing has been spoiling this season which has been driving me nuts...} {Okay -- counting down, got to put out the food plates... In honor of Azure, I'm not serving any wings.} {All right, guys. No matter what happens, it's been a hell of a season. To all of you, old hands and newbies, thanks for being here to complain about it with us. And if I don't see some proof of your all having read the guidelines, everyone is being banned in the morning.} {Come on, come on, this commercial break is taking forever...} {At least we're starting on time for once.} {Could they have gotten off the air any faster after the football games ended? And I swear they played through 60 Minutes in something like fifty-two of them. Come on: the hyperspeed talking wasn't supposed to be a clue?} {CBS can't afford to risk having this one go wrong for broadcast times: the network has been synchronized. East, Central, and Mountain will start at the same second. It took a lot of work on their end, but they're doing it. It's a bonus Super Bowl for their ratings, and they're treating it just like one. Right down to the pregame show: most markets got that before or after their football game.} {And the West is here on satellite!} {Yeah, I saw the pregame. Nice strategic analysis. And once again, always go against Boomer: Gary does not win.} {I'm going to let that one pass. Barely.} {'Pregame'. Right. 'Hour-long recrap.' And yet, as soon as Jeff takes over the network, guess what we're going to get?} {Maybe not?} {Okay -- here we go. On the air. Jeff on the beach. Thirty-six days ago -- I hate being right...} {It's okay -- one last recrap pays for all!} {They're starting this thing on Day One, this may take a while...} {Jeff will. We don't have to.} {He's rushing it a lot, maybe because he knows a real one would take an hour. And thus the pregame show -- I'm guessing a lot happens tonight if he's going this fast. They need all the show time they can get.} {Here, let me try for an even shorter version. 'Thirty-six days ago, we dumped sixteen people off a boat. Since then, twelve of them have drowned, mostly through having the remaining four hold them under until the last bubble went 'bloop'.'} {Eleven episodes in triple-time followed by a normal recrap for the twelfth? I shall do my best to beat that challenge. Limbering fingers... taking deep breaths -- chewing on grass -- admitting I'm going to miss ninety-nine percent of this -- and go! See the boat. See sixteen people fall off the boat. See how one of them pretends to like someone immediately and two of them agree to hate each other within seconds. Random swimming shuffles are kind of a fun way to divide tribes, but there's only one construction foreman in the pool, plus only one heretical sinner who doesn't care if she gets tossed off first or not. Fire! Shelter! Angry crew member! Good thing that last will never have any lasting effect... Elmore, you're not that good to have around, but the idol is, so we say goodbye to Michelle: we hardly knew ye. In fact, who the hell were ye? Bumps, bruises, bad calling, and Tony doesn't know his left from his right from his upcoming depression: get used to all of it, campers. For some reason, everyone thinks guns are important, which means Trina thinks her time is up -- but before she goes, she's going to give us a long-term present: do not open for several episodes. Haraiki still doesn't have a good shelter, but they do have a storm, a Reward loss that includes some interesting instructional schooling on improvised combat techniques -- again, it's not as if that's ever going to matter again, right? -- and very little sleep because they work on Shelter 2.0 and wind up finally losing Elmore 0.1. (Who's not here tonight, because if he's really lost that much weight, then he can't be in two places at once any more.) Oh, and see this parrot? Just don't listen to it -- damn it, they did it again! Why does it still hurt? Why? This brought us to the gross food and a warning that you have to be really careful what you eat around here: this is your contestant, this is your contestant on medivac. Goodbye, Frank -- don't chew and survive: you might chew too much and leave in thirteenth place. His departure gives us stilts for Reward instead of Immunity, but the falling down wasn't canceled, it was just postponed. Haraiki finally wins a Reward, but someone forget to schedule an auction this year and they can't buy the complete works of John Nash: Denadi loses the idol to Tony's pass-along finding skills and goes off to get some real health food, like the ever-popular crow. That gives Turare a 6-5 lead heading into the last pre-merge challenge -- not so fast, because Desmond doesn't like it when people try to tell him what to do in the interests of keeping him around: make that a 5-5 tie. Now who told him what to do? Alex. And who's going because of it? Desmond: hello, Mr. Idol! Long time no see! But we're about to see a lot of you, because ten people are brought together in one camp and two factions, one of which suddenly includes Mary-Jane in the first successful all-female alliance. And what does this alliance do? It double-screws Turare on a majority/idol combo and then dumps M-J because Angela is an Evil Overlord who has decreed that Pagonging shall be the law of the realm in her queendom. Off with their heads -- Trooper's first! How dare he impose law and order in her lands? High Queen Angela likes the standard form of vote execution, but you take your weapons where you can find them: I'd like to order one jaguar, on the rocks. This would normally call for a medivac and does, but it's of the U-turn variety, which means Her Highness (6'1") invokes the Vote Of Mercy. Unfortunately for the royals, Alex finds the Idol Of Temporary Protection, so they have to switch to Gardener. Who suddenly has the idol. Revolution over: off with Angela's head! That leaves us tied again and looking for fifth votes instead of sixth, but it's settled quickly: Gardener gets the idol on his own, Connie gets a promise that we're still trying to work out, and Tony gets to take the left turn out of the Tribal Council set. Or the right. Actually, he may still be out there. Now let's see, who hasn't done anything to offend anyone? Oh, right. And he's big and strong and friendly and frankly, he's got to go. In fact, it almost looks like he wants to go -- so Phillip goes, and is considerate enough to strap himself into the chair in order to save the guards some work. Time for a family reward! Who knew Alex's mother was still alive? In fact, who knew Alex was related to Phil? At least we can be sure of one thing, which is that Robin's going next -- no, wait: we can't. We have lost our platinum blonde to a steel dagger protruding from the back: goodbye, Mary-Jane, but at least you can laugh it off, right? Wow, this is just the time for being wrong, because we also thought Gary wasn't allied with Alex, and suddenly, we're right! Gee, it was nice to be right about something this season... Whew. Slowing down a little... Most recently, The Amazing Human Dowsing Rod (taking over the superhuman position from the equally-Amazing Bikini Girl) went on a little midnight stroll, because if you lose your mind when you're walking, it'll give you a larger search area for later. But Alex is pretty good at finding things, so how about a free dagger? Gold eagle? Aggravating mystery? At this point, the only thing Alex can't find is a new ally -- no, wait, she's got one! It's our old friend, the Curse Of The Car! And Alex is so inherently generous, she's going to share him with everybody! Gardener gets to check on one of his teams, Connie gets to practice her future parking techniques for a place where little people make for great paint job cushioning, and everyone except Alex gets steak. Alex has no steak. And no car. And one idol. And everyone knows about that last, or at least really wants to believe they know it. Robin would like to have the idol, but all Alex can do is give her Clay's phone number, and Clay's just not her type. (Probably vice-versa, too, for any working definition of 'Clay'.) So we go to the Immunity challenge, and Desmond wins the necklace in a world-record time of thirty-eight seconds! But playing the home game doesn't count, so let's give this thing to Gardener and make him Final Four! (Only two to go, right?) Robin's only chance is to get everyone's paranoia going, but it's a hard job: she can't get Gardener because he has the necklace, can't shift Alex because the idol is pulling a Terry -- can make Connie twitch a little, trying to send herself to the tiebreaker instead of getting the automatic ouster on a bounce. No, wait -- that was just a message vote, and the message is "I'll get you, my pretty. You and your little parrot too!" (Did we already do that joke? It's been a long season.) So goodbye to Robin, and the poor crew member who runs the bleep and blur machine did in fact just lose all his overtime. Seriously, he really got burned on that one. Not as much as Jake, who's currently in the Michael Skupin Memorial Wing, but he really -- oh, like I was going to get through this thing without getting that in somewhere -- and we have reached the Final Four. Who are they? Gary, who we thought was just coasting under the radar, and guess what? He just registered on the sonar: fire jury threat torpedo! Connie, who's here because -- because -- okay, there has to be a reason: give me a minute... Alex, who has done more in the name of reaching this stage than anyone and has less chance of winning than, say, Michelle. And Gardener, who has the Final Four he ultimately wanted, the jury he'll need, and what the media has predicted as, at worst, a five-two vote baring that Connie Double-Necklace Scenario, which I'm filing under 'Don't start the drinking game before the episode'. Plus if we're very lucky, after Desmond finishes screaming about how his position in the Reunion seats is under scrutiny by nothing except female camera operators, we'll get an extended preview of where the show is going next. Any chance they've placed our upcoming season in this dimension? 'First tribe name: 'Plorgaz'.' Guess not.} {Hey -- maybe after Alex loses, she'll be depressed enough to strip?} ----------------------------------------------------------------- During ----------------------------------------------------------------- Gardener's groan is loud enough to pick up on from the beach: I've dropped that far back in the name of stretching out the walk. He decides to save me the effort of asking what it was about when I finally reach the clearing. "No food waiting for us. Nothing. How many tribes have gotten merge feasts, Final Four feasts, any excuse for a feast -- and all we've gotten is some damn champagne that I can't drink?" This may actually be a legitimate complaint. Or at least it may legitimately be a complaint. You can't always tell with Gardener. I transfer Azure to her perch before getting a proper shrug in. "Maybe breakfast tomorrow." As Connie might note, losing a meal at night doesn't mean there won't be one in the morning. "Besides, it's kind of late to eat." Which just aggravates him. "After the last thirty-six days? They could promise me a solid meal at four in the morning and I'd have to get up for it, presuming I had the strength to just get up..." It's a little late for Gardener to start making himself look like less of a challenge threat, and Gary knows it. With a grin, "I think you're just tired of fishing." Gardener can go along with that. "Yeah -- a little. Or at least of fish. I still haven't gone through all the fruit types here, but I'm pretty sure I've done one of every edible species in the water, except for the octopus." He'd looked -- he'd even gone out to Challenge Beach at one point -- but if it was out there, then it was just a little faster than he was. "I've spent so much damn time in the water, I feel like I'm starting to turn into Richard. Quick, quiz me on my taxes and make sure I'm still going to pay them." Connie laughs. "You're far too heterosexual to ever be Richard. And I'm sure Gary's accounting skills could help any of us to minimize or come close to eliminating the taxes legally -- or in ways that the government views as such. Maybe that should be a topic of discussion over breakfast." Gary has a very weird look on his face. "I'm not that kind of accountant." How much math skill does it take to keep track of how many bullets you've got left? "I do my own taxes, but they're not that hard to work out. I don't have any tricks planned for the show's check -- however much it turns out to be." Connie's still amused. "Of course you don't... well, we should probably get some sleep. I doubt it'll be endurance tomorrow, but you never know when they'll make us put in an early start." She starts into the shelter, then pauses before stepping up onto the floor. "Alex, did I thank you for the car yet?" Ha. Ha. I don't even bother answering -- which just gives Gary a silence to step into. "I know I missed my shot..." Softly, "Thanks for the car, Alex. I'll probably just wind up selling it and getting that minivan, but at least I'll have the money to do it with." Because he can figure out how to keep enough cash from all the tax hits to do it. I can't. (So at the very least, he's expected to do his own mission expense report.) "All right -- it's been a busy few days." The others can hear that however they like: I just shrug again and move for the shelter. "We should sleep." Just because an idea comes from Connie doesn't automatically make it a bad one. Or at least, I should sleep. As Gardener might note, anyone who wants to stay up all night thinking about tomorrow, go right ahead -- but no one's going to be that stupid. Especially Gardener. "The sooner Day Thirty-Seven comes, the better." As expected, no one's prepared to argue with that, and we all settle onto our pallets, four pillows and four blankets for the Final Four -- -- but sleep still doesn't come immediately. "Funny what you forget," Gardener muses. "Before we came out here, I had every intention of making a game calendar. Nothing big -- just the classic: make a mark for every day that passed. Never got around to it, one way or another... Anything you guys wish you'd gotten in?" Gary takes a very slow breath. "Nothing there still isn't time for." Well, that's his opinion. Connie thinks it over for a while. "Beyond a single Reward win for myself?" A weary yawn, followed by words that emerge more slowly than the first group did. "I wish we'd toured the area a little more. I enjoyed the boat ride around the island, but I would have loved to get the view from a helicopter." "You may get a partial one," Gardener considers. "I don't know how they're evacuating us when this is over. They won't want us on the same boat with each other, not after the vote -- so it might be small boats, or staggered departures. But they could just fly us out, too... Alex, you're quiet." A snort. "Not exactly a shock any more. Nothing you wanted to get done?" Maybe I've been quiet this time because I've been thinking about the question. "I wish I could have explored more on foot. I know I missed a lot of the island. But there's only so far you can really go before something happens to reel you back." A very familiar feeling. He nods. "A lot you didn't get to draw -- fair enough." Lapses into silence for several heartbeats. "You should do one more group portrait tomorrow. Original tribes, the merge group -- and Final Four. Any problem with that?" Other than my instinctive dislike of having to put myself into a group pose that I wasn't actually in, no. Connie doesn't even have an objection, possibly because doing so would postpone sleep. "Fine -- see you in the morning..." Final Four. I don't want to dream about it... ...I'm at the Council set, and I'm the only contestant there. No jury, no one else in the remaining active group. Not even Azure, and she just might be the eighteenth player in the pool, the one with perpetual immunity. Or nineteenth, if you count the island, and that has a voice in this Council: a soft wind blowing through that still manages to rattle the displayed torches and shakes Frank's within its resting point. I can hear the wind, but I can't feel it on my skin -- -- no, there is someone here. Trina is sitting in the host's throne. She asks me if I'm ready, and I ask her for what. The eighth card, she informs me. I tell her that we haven't done the seventh one yet, except for the background aspect of it: being judged all the time, no matter what where I am or what I do. She tells me I'm assuming. What? What assumption did I make? I don't understand... She smiles, plays with the deck in her hands. I never let her tell me what judgment means, she says. I think it's pretty clear: the card image couldn't have been more definitive. That gets a nod: yes, sometimes judgment means just that. But it isn't necessarily the only meaning, I say because she taught me that much, and that's true. But maybe the card is what I believe it is in the end, so it will be judgment. That's not what we're talking about, anyway. This is about the eighth card. Don't I want to see it? No. I don't. I'm tired of my future being fixed. I'm tired of not having any real choices. I want my life back. Trina says I've had it all along. She just had tiny hints of what it was going to be. And the eighth card is in her hands, facing her: surely I must want to know what it is? No. Six cards have been pain. The seventh one will hurt just as much or more. Why would I want the eighth? She sighs, tells me it's just not time yet, then. But she'll see me again, and I can't put this off forever. The eighth card will come into the game. I ask her if that's when the game will really end, and her eyes twinkle as she smiles at me and asks if I think the game ever really ends... ...sunlight lancing through the canopy: no beam directly in my eyes, but they dapple the ground in front of the shelter. It's a beautiful effect, and I got a sketch of it on Day Three. Nearly five weeks ago: a day for knowing I had three more, time to find sketches wherever I looked, the most peaceful a tribe could ever be within the game with eight of us still there and nothing to worry about until a tomorrow that in itself seemed a long way off... Day Thirty-Seven has arrived. There's plenty to worry about today. 'Tomorrow' feels like a very distant consideration at best. Up and out of the shelter: Connie and Gary are still asleep. Gardener's tending the fire, and has two pots full of water standing by. "Morning," he tells me. "I haven't been up that long -- just taking care of a few things." I check Azure: she's having breakfast, nibbling on some items which none of us have been hungry enough to try. There is no 'last four standing' Reward breakfast in camp, and no one's signaling Gardener to hold back on his water preparations -- which explains a lot about why he seems a little more grouchy than usual. It's hard to argue with him on that: I hadn't been hoping on a feast after not receiving anything on the merge day, but it wasn't officially off the board until someone got up and didn't get turned away from the water containers. "Morning." Pretty early, too: the Alicias are just starting to wake up, which doesn't put much of a crimp in their volume. Pleasantly warm, not much moisture in the air. "Obviously no Tree Mail yet." "Yeah, obviously -- and I'm kind of curious about who gets to read it..." Interesting point: they have occasionally thrown it to the person most at risk. It certainly seems to have worked that way for a few of the times when I've gotten it. And because he just can't let the day pass without one more reference to it, "Kept my promise, Alex -- Final Four." Another number I count real good up to. It's kind of annoying, though: the way he keeps going over this seems to suggest he believes I didn't play much part in getting there myself. Of course I did. I let him do some work. "The camp's never been this empty," I note as I take a seat near the fire: three spare camping pads available. "We only got down to five at the tribal stage. It just feels like there's so much room." Something else he can agree with. "Makes it quiet." He pokes the fire a few times, shifting the heat. "We always had a problem with quiet as a tribe -- lost a challenge, it turned into a locker room right after the team blew a game against an inferior opponent: no one wanted to speak up because any words would lead to blame. And Haraiki was an inferior tribe." This kind of grin is mostly teeth with very little lip movement: just the minimum needed to expose the veneer. "If luck played any major part in this game, it did it right on Day One. Who swam where -- maybe that was the key to everything. I can't even imagine this thing if they'd done a gender split for the tribes right at the start." As opposed to the one he helped create within the tribe. "You have to think Angela would have been a lot happier..." One sharp, quickly-muted bark -- then "Are they still asleep?" I glance back: yes, they are. "Good." More softly, "Got one major problem today -- just one. I'm hoping we don't have to deal with it. Best way to avoid it is for one of us to win immunity and have the other be holding the idol." I manage to hold back the hard blink. There's still a 'we' in his eyes. There's also a chance I'm being set up -- but right now, I may be that much closer to being right, at least for the first stage. And as such -- "Half of that isn't going to work." He gives me a curious look with a little hint of worry around the edges: Gardener thinks he knows where this might be going -- and he's right. "That was the last idol, Gardener. There was a note attached to it that said so. No more vote bounces -- everything goes normally from now on." His lips briefly twist around as he thinks it over -- then shrugs. "Had to figure there was a chance of that happening -- there just wouldn't be that much time to hunt. And everyone's going to know it as soon as we get back from the challenge, because there won't be a clue up." Exactly, which was part of why I told him. 'We' or no 'We', he wasn't going to throw the challenge just because he'd think he could get the idol afterwards. "Well, at least it takes out the chance of having it used against us -- but I would have liked to have the thing one more time. Terry got to keep his through the next vote, so maybe we would have gotten one last scramble... Look -- I don't want to do too much here --" location: the others can wake up at any time and he's probably comfortable on the pad "-- and we've got to see where the necklace lands. But right now, there's one very obvious vote. I just want to know if you've got a problem with it." "No." The only way out is through. If I have Immunity, then I'll see Day Thirty-Eight from the player side -- and that's the only guarantee. Without that, I have to be right, and trust myself -- -- and even if that works, it's only good for just so long. The volume on this snort is considerably reduced. "Probably too much to hope that you're saying it because we're agreeing on 'obvious' -- we'll talk later." I head for the bathroom, he puts the water on to boil, and Connie wakes up a little bit after that, yawning, stretching, and quickly moving to tie up the bathroom in the hopes that I haven't been in there yet, moving past Gardener and I discussing the last idol clue. (She pauses long enough to give me a very weird look upon hearing that I'd tried openly wishing for the idol. Gardener just finds it amusing.) Shortly after that, Gary emerges, Azure comes over, and we all go about our morning tasks, which for Connie mostly means staying in the bathroom. (For Azure, it just means riding along, unless Gardener decides he wants to use her for a confessional. I still haven't seen that happen.) Have breakfast, clean the camp, check the firewood supply, bring in fruit for later, check on the tarps to make sure nothing's shifted... One of us is doing them for the last time. Maybe that's the reason it all seems to be going so slowly. Still no Tree Mail, but the clearing gets to be contestant-free for a while in case they're delivering something big: everyone is instructed to head into confessional. I keep my mine fairly short, since there isn't much to say until Immunity gets settled. I'm not sure I'm going any further. I think there's a chance even if I don't win, but I still have to be right. Julia's more than a little frustrated when I won't tell her what I have to be right about. I remind her that if I'm wrong, she can film a nice, long one after the debriefing, and then I can go into all the details of what I'd just screwed up. In the meantime, we both have to wait on things. I wish I knew what the others were talking about. Another one that won't come true -- at least until it's too late. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Night Thirty-Six. Gary gets up at one point to hit the bathroom, then sits up on the edge of his pallet for a while, watching Alex. She's dreaming -- you can see the eye movements behind the lids. Completely silent scene: the former alliance partner alone with his thoughts on a long night. He knows he's looking at the one person who might have been able to give him a chance to go further without Immunity, just by forcing the tie. Right now, unless he can get Connie with him or the mystery promise expires -- maybe that's more of an 'and' -- then he's on his own.} {Good morning, Amanu! Gardener's already up when Alex emerges, and just how much was this conversation edited that we aren't getting the name of their target?} {I think this means Gardener's going with the majority opinion -- he's decided to hang onto Alex for at least one more vote, largely because of the jury factor. Which means Gary really needs Connie. Or the necklace -- he's gotten one before this.} {Alex could still be out tonight -- there's every chance this is the setup for a backstab. Make the jury happy by sending her to join them.} {I don't think that gets anywhere near as many ballots as having her there so they won't vote for her.} {Still surprised that Connie hasn't had more of a problem with this... she's almost been too qui -- I didn't say it!} {...okay, you live.} {Anyone else think it was weird that Alex told him the idol meter was reading empty?} {Not really -- like he said, it would have been obvious when they got back from the challenge anyway. And if they're still working together, then neither of them can afford to count on a Plan B.} {Gary's too much of a jury threat. Even Gary knows it: out to confessional, and he's already decided this looks like a rough day. "I had a background check once -- I needed to if I wanted to get the job at all. I knew I'd done nothing in my life that would disqualify me and I was still nervous until the results came back, because you never know what people will choose to see. And now I'm in a position where the others are running reviews on my whole time here -- and I'm not going to get through to the next stage unless they find something." Sighs, then goes on. "I'm not out of options yet. The first one's coming up pretty soon. The other main one is a longshot, but you've got to try everything. I've still got time." By my count, about fourteen hours' worth.} {Connie's having a good day. "I want this next necklace, but I believe I'm actually going to be okay without it. I have my promise, it's been kept just about word-for-word to this point in the game, and that gives me some confidence for the next stage of it. While certain -- other things -- couldn't be controlled, their presence didn't remove mine. Even given last night. That's a lesson, I suppose -- there are times when you just have to be patient. I should try to remember that, even when there's so little time left to wait." Irony quote, and Connie goes at the next TC without really having to wait for it?} {Repeat: Gary, Jury Threat Model: comes with likely 5-2 vote and F2 Partner with Auto-Kick Action. She's talking about Alex again, which makes me wonder if she thinks Alex is out next and the editing is taking pains to either set up the backstab or prove her wrong...} {She was irritated on that on 'last night' -- guess she's still thinking about what she nearly did with that message vote.} {Actually, she would have had a chance to save herself. If you missed the discussion, Robin with the idol would have sent Connie to the tiebreaker instead of the auto-bounce -- and while Connie challenge-sucks, her luck seems to be pretty good. She might have beaten Alex and gone into Final Four anyway. As a strategy play to protect herself, it wasn't the worst idea in the world, even if it requires Alex to cast a fake-out vote for Robin. But it was accidental -- she really thought Alex had kept the idol until Jeff pulled the death pause out of his script.} {Alex with an interesting one: "Final Four: one necklace, no idols, and too much speculation around camp. Right now, all the thinking I can do is still leading to the same place -- and I hate being in a position where I have to be exactly right..." We have more insight into Alex than we've ever had, and I still don't know what that meant.} {Trusting Gardener, I think. She knows she has to, but she doesn't like it. That's why we got this confessional after that scene.} {One to go: here's Gardener's. "This is the stage where something can go wrong. I have one major variable to get under control. Clear this vote in one piece, and things are going just about as well as I could hope for." With a major glare at the camera, "I'm going to try not to be paranoid about that."} {Notice that the confessionals were given in the order we think the Final Four will be?} {Yeah -- if they redubbed Jeff last week, then we just got another major hint.} {Gardener may be due for a scare if they showed that one, though -- keep the suspense going. Maybe he just barely beats Gary.} {Scenelet: Gardener calls Gary and Connie together, and they arrange themselves in the shelter on their usual bunks. Alex then brings out the sketchbook and draws all of them, with everyone managing to hold their poses until she's got the basics down. This is the second major time-lapse we've gotten on Alex's artwork: we usually just see the finished results or a quick intermediary shot. (We only spotted what Gary had tricked Alex into making at the end -- disturbingly accurate for what he gave her.) The tribe flag, and now this -- the three in the shelter, all the way through, and then adding herself. It's a very fair rendering of herself -- there's no emotion on her face in the picture, either.} {Tree Mail! As usual, this is just a scroll: we really haven't had the props this season, and Gary openly notes it for the camera as he pulls the thing out of the quiver. "Last chance for toys, models, and sample sizes -- too late." Back to the others, and hello, Next To Last Owie: 'Out is where you don't want to be, but out is what you need. Find the exit, find the path -- but on the way, pay heed. The course never did run smooth, although run you must. Ask yourself just one more time: in memory you trust?' So the rhyme scheme was passable and the poem still sucked. What's that about?} {Connie believes it has to be a maze, but she doesn't get what 'memory' means here: remember where you've been? Gardener thinks they'll be hunting for things within the maze. (So do I: we've got to tie into the theme one more time.) And off they go for a travel shot, marching across the beach.} {Hey, if Connie trusts in memory, is her church going to be mad at her?} {Alex stops moving, stares out into the ocean, shades her eyes -- Azure immediately moves to that arm -- and calls for the others to stop. They do, with Connie looking really irritated about it and asking what's so important that they have to be late for the challenge. Alex ignores her and points out at the water --} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dolphins. I'm almost sure they're dolphins. They'd have to be closer before I could really try to tell them from porpoises, and my biology textbook was a long time ago and had really bad illustrations. But they're long, sleek, silver-gray, skimming the surface of the water and occasionally going above it just because they can, leaping, twisting... Maybe it's some sort of mating dance: that's what the textbook wanted everything to be (and was part of why some people wanted it banned). Maybe they're playing. Or it could be an elaborate dance challenge to decide who they're sending out of the group. Gardener stops where he is, staring. "Well, hell..." Only this time there's an odd undertone to the words. Reverence? Really, really wishing he was in the water with the spear? Possibly not that last: "Someone tell Jeff he can wait two damn minutes. Gary, can you see them?" Gary's really squinting. "Mostly -- that's a little far out for me -- whoa!" No one could have missed that leap: nearly a pure vertical with the tail just brushing the tip of the wave's crest on the way up. "Amazing... are they even native to this area?" Which gets the oddest thing of all from Gardener: a chuckle. "Is anything?" Connie could care less, but it would take too much effort on her part to reach the lower level. "I suppose this means we won't be seeing any tuna boats. Let's hope this isn't an ocean maze, or someone might need medical again." Not that she'll mind if that's me. Gary stops following their antics just long enough to give Connie another look. "From a dolphin?" "They're just dumb animals," Connie submits. "I've read about those swimming experiences -- sometimes they decide a human is one of them and -- attempt to do things." We can all guess what kind. "One of the few areas where I agree with Angela: you can't have them in captivity. Who wants to pay for the experience of being with a waterborne molester?" "They're not dumb." Gardener. "They don't think the way we do and they don't have what they need for making tools, but they are not stupid." This irritates Connie. "Don't argue for sentience. Maybe they're smart for animals, but that still makes them stupid overall. They're not even intelligent enough to recognize their own kind on sight -- something any human can do. There was one intelligent species created for this planet. Everything else has a place, and that's below ours." She turns away from the ocean and heads down the challenge path. Gardener watches her for a few heartbeats -- then shrugs. "So she gets there first. She can tell Jeff why we're late." Back to looking at the ocean. "Damn -- that makes six of them. I'd give up the opposable thumbs for one day if I could just swim like that for the same amount of time..." I'd rather fly. Maybe the dolphins would, too. They're definitely trying for it. Or -- a fish has no word for 'water'. When you're constantly surrounded by something, you can't always see it. Things that are a natural part of your life fade into the background: miss the individual trees for the mass of the forest, because the forest is always there. So the dolphins may not think in terms of water and air. Maybe it's just something you fly through all the time, and something you can only fly through for a few seconds... I glance at Azure. She's watching, too. I wonder what she's thinking. Possibly something along the lines of 'amateurs'. But I don't know how her mind works, or what even has the potential to go on in there. I have less of a grasp on her thinking than I do for any of the humans. Maybe slightly more than I have on my own. I have to be right... Or have Immunity. I'll feel a lot better about the first if I get the second. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Well, there was a classic 'Connie, you bitch' moment. Maybe Alex is disconnected from the world for all the wrong reasons, but she can still take a moment to stop and watch dolphins play. Connie doesn't see any point.} {Good thing Phillip didn't make F4. They would need the entire crew to haul him off the beach.} {Connie arrives at the beach entrance and gets held up: they don't want her getting an advance look at the thing. In fact, they really don't want her looking: the entrance is blocked by a suspended fabric sheet to about twenty feet up. After a quick time-lapse shot with Connie looking increasingly fed up with the newly-formed Church Of The Divine Not-Fish, the other three finally arrive, and they get ushered into Challenge Beach -- at least, what's visibly left of it...} {Sheesh. The shot moves away from the Final Four, and we officially have The Return Of The Mega-Challenge. This one had to take most of the last cycle to put together. Have we ever had a maze this big? Challenge Beach has a lot of area, and there's just enough of it left to give Amanu an arrival point along with a perch for Azure and a place to stand for Jeff. The camera's swooping through the thing -- what was that?} {Too fast -- all I got was a blur.} {I'll rewind when I get a chance, but I don't want to go for the TiVo replay while Jeff is talking. Maybe he'll explain it.} {Back to Amanu -- order on the mat starts with Connie, then Gary, Gardener, and Alex. Jeff looking them over, neutral beneath the hat. We don't know how long the other three were watching -- it probably wasn't more than a few minutes: the shadows haven't really changed. Clear, sunny day, obviously comfortable judging by the clothing.} {And here we go...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Connie starts to say something as I step onto the mat -- and Jeff cuts her off. "I got the word," he tells us. "No penalties -- this isn't a challenge where we need six or seven hours to complete it and every minute you're available will be used up." In other words, we won't be asked to run the maze until we drop. It has to be a maze -- but all we're seeing is a fabric outer wall and bracing poles, black swirls and simple geometric patterns covering the brightly-colored cloth. Which is a mercy, because said colors are green, orange, and purple, with that sequence continuing around the curve and presumably moving on once it's mercifully out of sight. "Besides, I'm looking forward to seeing that footage." Jeff sees footage? Really? Gee, no one ever suspected that. Especially not Connie, who looks irritated at the mere idea of such a travesty. Or maybe it's something else. Say, not getting a head start for being the only one to arrive on time. "I suppose it'll make an interesting mood shot." And the mood is impatience: why is our host wasting her time with this? Possibly just to see if she'll remember to get into the waiting pose: it takes a count of twenty-eight before she finally settles in. "All right -- Gardener, you know the drill." He does, although it apparently hurts about as much as dental work: while the release is smooth, the removal takes long enough to let Connie start getting irritated again. (She just can't wait to start losing.) "Immunity -- back up for grabs. And if you want a guaranteed passage to the Final Three, you'd better start remembering what you know about the twelve people who were already eliminated." Uh-oh. I'd thought that might be a possible meaning for 'memory', but it looks like Gary really hadn't been considering it, and I hadn't been taking it all that seriously. Connie's getting the 'I'm out' look again, while Gardener seems ready for something that probably doesn't involve a bamboo grid. He hopes. Breakthrough points have shown up before. Jeff gestures to the nearest fabric wall: Haraiki-hideous orange. "Each of you will be starting at a different point in the maze, at an equal distance away from the center -- when considering the shortest possible route. You'll also be assigned a color. On my signal, you'll begin to race through the maze, looking for color-matching puzzle pieces to build a ladder with. There are six of them, one for each rung." Not exactly much of a puzzle: at the most, the ends will have different slot shapes. I'm not getting any advantage here. "At certain places in the maze, you will find questions about your former tribemates and opponents, each of which has two possible given answers -- and an arrow pointing away from each response. If you pick the right answer, you'll get a faster trail to a puzzle piece. Pick the wrong one, and you'll be going the long way around -- plus there's a good chance that you may wind up stuck in one of our hazards. Hunters always have to be wary of traps: take the wrong path, and you just might wind up running into one. Those can really slow you down." Gary is very visibly wondering what 'trap' means here. "Get the pieces, reach the center, make the ladder, and scramble to the top. First person to the platform's center and touching the necklace wins Immunity -- guaranteed to be safe at tonight's vote, with one-in-three shot at the million dollars." After factoring minor considerations like jury votes out of the odds. "Are there any questions about the challenge?" Sure enough: Gary. "What kind of traps are we talking about?" Jeff shakes his head. "They're hunters' traps -- that's all you need to know." Not only that, it's all he's going to tell us. "If you get caught, you free yourself and move on. Okay -- Connie?" "All twelve?" she asks. "I don't exactly know a lot about Trina, Frank, or Desmond." And we don't know much about Michelle, Elmore, and Denadi, so it's a fair point going both ways. That gets a nod, which increases everyone's tension -- but then Jeff lets us off the hook. "The questions for the early ousters are near your individual starting points for the maze. So you won't run into one for the other original tribe unless you get really lost -- but if you do, you'll have to answer it." Fair enough. "Alex?" "How are the pieces fastened?" Because that's been a factor before this -- -- but it won't be one this time. "Slipknots," Jeff tells me. "We figured we'd spare you, just this once. Anyone else?" Doesn't seem to be. "All right. Alex, hand over Azure, then go left -- you've got the purple starting gate. Connie, you're on orange, to the right. Gardener, green, left. Gary, we only had three major colors this season, so you're going on blue, following Connie." Azure doesn't count as a major color? "Once everyone's in position, I'll give you the signal." After the usual pause to turn over a feathered bit of potential problem -- the best she could do for me here would be aerial scouting, and I have absolutely no idea how to make it work -- we head for our gates. Mine is a simple frame of purple-painted bamboo, set so that my back is just about facing the ocean -- a direct line gives me a diagonal slanting away from the shore. Gardener goes past me without a word, heading around the curve. And there's an extra wait factor involved here: Jeff has to reach the center of the maze, preferably without setting off any traps. I can hear soft beeps from overhead: radio relays as the elevated camera operators give him directions to the platform. The count reaches four hundred and eighty-two before he next speaks -- and it's a stall warning. "A little longer, guys -- they're taking out the ladder." Well, he had to get up there somehow. Telling him the Outcasts were back and hoping he'd high-jump it just wasn't the primary option. No, it really doesn't matter that we stopped to watch the dolphins on our way in: right now, this challenge is all about waiting. Possibly not as much as tomorrow's, but I can consider it a warm-up. If I even see it. I think I'm right -- I want to believe I'm right, that Gardener needs me at Final Three, even if the reasons for it were all wrong on my end -- but there's a price to pay for that. And if I'm wrong... One way to not worry about finding out. I need the necklace. Finally, after the new count hits six hundred and twelve, "For Immunity: Survivors ready --" Yes, but Tony may have fallen asleep. "-- go!" I run in. Keeping track of where I've been while moving at high speed: not much of a problem. I probably just have to pretend someone's behind me. (It looks like Cyndi's about to become a very important part of my life.) Three immediate choices of where to go: straight ahead, left, or right on a diagonal. The first question may have to wait a bit. They probably want us racing straight ahead, thinking that'll get us closer to the heart when we don't need to be there yet: fast track to getting lost. So that means left or right. After that -- -- I can't afford to overthink this. Just move and keep track. Left. Short corridor, twists, turns, seems to be curving around something -- maybe a rung station: I may have screwed up already -- -- very possibly. "Gary first to a piece!" Jeff reports. Damn it! Is he moving that much faster, or is his first station just closer to the entrance? For that matter, am I lost after just one choice? No, it's too early to second guess, keep going forward -- -- first question. Softly -- no point in helping the others -- "What's Frank's hometown?" Shamrock or Corpus Christi. Easy. "Shamrock." Ask about their annual St. Patrick's Day celebration and the Pioneer West Museum. I take the arrow pointing right. Jeff said the correct answers put us on the fast track, so any time you find a question, you're at least in the vicinity of something. Charging ahead, and -- yes! A little room on the right! I'm the first person to this one: all four colors are presently hanging from the pole. The slipknot is simple: carrying all six rungs may not be. If I get that far. Out. I can keep going to my current right or I can backtrack to the left. Right sounds good, and continues to sound good right up until the moment my next turn ends in an orange fabric wall, which is at the same instant Jeff announces that Gardener's gotten his second piece. I can't be this slow! What am I doing wrong? Does Gardener have that much short-term speed? On the other hand, at least there hasn't been any word on Connie. Actually, it's not so much a word as a scream, dopplering down and abruptly cut off -- "Connie finds the first of the traps!" Well, yeah. I sort of guessed that. But I can't lose time to picturing it: Gary's on his second piece... ----------------------------------------------------------------- {No, Connie: Elmore has a sister, not a brother. Guess you should have talked to him a little. Like 'at all'. Not much sense of direction and then she gets that one wrong? Say hello to a ten-foot deep pit trap, which you never saw coming because you weren't paying attention to the ground and they actually did a pretty good job of making it match the rest of the turf, even covering up the gap over the hinge. Padding at the landing point, so she's not hurt -- she's just really pissed off about it. There's a rope ladder on the side, and enough room on an upper ledge to let her inch her way back to the safe point. But that'll take a while -- back to the wall the whole way.} {Makes sense to use the hinge -- this thing can reset if anyone gets really lost.} {Okay, that gives us the idea. There may be more of those scattered around, or we could be looking at other styles. Rubber-tooth bear traps?} {The traps will have to slow them down -- Gardener could pry that apart in seconds.} {Depends on the strength of the spring. But everyone has to get out if they hit one -- it can't be that strong.} {How long would Tony have been in this thing?} {That depends. How long ago did they film this challenge, and how much food could he find in there?} {Gardener really making decent time here, but he's a short-term sprinter at best: too much weight to carry. This isn't exactly a marathon, but it means he can't go all-out for the whole maze.} {Alex on her second piece.} {Connie inching her way along -- clear, backtracking.} {Gardener gets his third -- no problem with remembering what Trooper's shirt looked like. I wasn't expecting a visual one.} {Alex may have been: just glances at hers, says "Angela's fishing net," and keeps going.} {Gary hesitating -- he really doesn't recognize those as belonging to Robin?} {It's not like Courtney, who just took out her luxury item at the end and put on a show for everyone. Robin wore her dancing shoes pretty regularly in camp, and I don't remember her ever declaring that they were her luxury item after she reached Turare. Maybe Gary's just not much of one for looking at people's feet.} {Oh, hell -- he just went with Angela...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- ...and this yell comes from overhead. "HEY!" Which coming from another person would definitely mean a word substitution in progress, but in this case, it just might be the strongest word he knows. I instinctively glance up and to the left -- -- it's just high enough. Gary's caught in a net bag, hoisted up so that the top half of his body is just visible above the maze walls. The ropes look fairly stretchy: if he works at it, he should be able to push them enough to create an opening he can drop through, or maybe there's another way out: a trick knot somewhere. But right now, he's still in shock from the upwards jerk, staring up at the multiple lines connecting the net to the camera tower. (Apparently the elective course didn't go into anything this low-tech.) There are four of those supports, painted into maze wall colors: they must have been pressed tight against the sides, waiting to snap together -- -- he starts to look around as he recovers, searching for the way out that has to exist in this trap -- -- spots me. Our eyes lock. There probably is a quick way out of this, but I'm not it. I move on. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Weird juxtaposition there -- Gary trapped, Alex still moving. Mood shot within the challenge?} {EPMB's had some really lucky camera moments this season. Imagine his reaction when TAR wins the Emmy anyway.} {Or he wins and it's for the amazing camera work they did on Phil.} {Connie's starting to catch up -- at least she knows Tanya was born before Eric. Good thing that one wasn't on Phillip's brood, or it would be a twenty-way intersection and we'd be there until the Reunion.} {Alex on her third piece: Gardener on his fourth. He's doing really well with the questions: guess he's been listening in case of a Fallen Comrades tiebreaker. He's also having more luck on his maze choices -- I think he's the only one who hasn't dead-ended yet.} {Gary's out of the net, but he's too far back to catch up unless someone starts having major problems -- and right now, the only one getting lost is his weakest competition...} {Remember when I said Connie was lucky? I'd like to take that back now.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Double-edged blade: listen to Jeff and you might get some idea of where the others are in the challenge, but you might also hear that you're too far back, get discouraged, slow down, stop fighting... It's easy to give up on the idea of miracles when none ever arrive, and to hear that someone was three stations ahead would put the end to anyone's hopes. Not that we've gotten there yet. It sounds like Gardener's one ahead of me, and based on comments like "Gardener making all the right turns!", he's either sticking to one direction or just lucking his way down the right path every time. It's one of those things where Jeff really needs to add an extra qualifier. Although there are times when he gets everything across in a few words. "Connie at Alex's start point!" How did she...? Actually, she probably has to get close: given that I had a station fairly near the gate and there's a orange rung there with her future scent on it, she would have had to work that way eventually. Everyone would. But to reach the gate itself -- did she overshoot? Find the rung, then somehow get twisted around? There was a way to get to that piece without hitting my path: that's how I got out from the dead end, spotting a question about Phillip's main crop pointing at where I'd just come from. But... Well, however she did it, she has a decision to make. "What kind of city name is Shamrock?" A really, really Irish one? Okay -- now how long has Trooper been on the force? Sixteen years. Down to the right -- -- and there's Gardener, heading the other way. He's got five rungs stacked in his arms. I've got four, the ropes slung around my shoulders. His arms are a little too thick to try the same stunt: he's welcome to move them to his wrists if he wants to, but they'll probably bang against his legs as much as mine are pounding on my back. His eyes narrow as he takes stock of my situation, but that's all he gives himself time for: evaluate, confirm Jeff's last announcement, then continue. The pathways are wide enough to let us pass without scraping against each other. Moving on. Three-way intersection as far as new paths go: straight, right, left and going slightly back. There's no strategy here: I haven't been in any of those directions yet. Left. Down, follow the turn -- dead end. Left goes absolutely nowhere. Apparently Gardener had a hand in designing this maze. Another scream, somewhere in the distance. No, Connie, Corpus Christi was the wrong answer. But I still have to double back... ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Gardener's got all six rungs, but now he's starting to get confused. That last piece took some major twists and turns: after he realized he probably had to go into Gary's rough starting area, he had to get oriented enough to find the thing, and it looks like he's having some trouble getting back.} {Doubt it -- I think this is an editing trick. He's just hesitating because he knows which ones he's supposed to be going down and he's double-checking himself rather than lose time to an impulsive guess. Did you see his lips moving on some of those turns? He's been calling this stuff off to himself -- must have a pretty good audio memory, and he's just about subvoking. The editing wiped out the words, but not the visible shift.} {And Alex just found her sixth rung! Adding it to her collection...} {Well, that's probably about as much weight pulling her back as she has pulling her forward. Happy, Elmore?} {Elmore's not here, man...} {Jeff just made the announcement: Gardener picks up the pace. Now he has to sprint.} {Gary with four, Connie just got her fourth... it's going to take a miracle to bring them back into this, and they both have invoking rights -- that cancels out.} {Overhead shot. Alex is actually a little closer to the center than Gardener, but he's moving faster -- there, he's out! Up to the green side, dropping the rungs -- really basic puzzle here: just match slot shapes to peg shapes. This is where Alex can lose time if it takes longer to drop them off her arms, but Gardener lost that time putting his stuff down at the stations so he could get a new piece...} {Alex out! Puzzle pieces down -- came off halfway easily, but Gardener's already got a rung. Not bothering to look at him: just working as fast as she can.} {Height's not an advantage here: given how elevated the platform is, they both have to climb up to place the higher ones. Gardener can't just stand in one place and reach.} {Height gives Gardener some advantage: look at the rung placement. Gardener has longer legs.} {Jeff moving from side to side, watching...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- I can't look at him. I know he's there. I can hear his breathing, how it's just a little bit labored. He was doing a lot of running in that maze and it cost him something, but it's nothing he can't get back with a night's sleep. I can hear footsteps above me: Jeff, checking on us. I just can't look at him, either. Only at the rungs. Finding the match is instantaneous: climbing up to place them is slower. Jeff is about eighteen feet above us, and with six rungs and one almost flush against the ground, that means big steps. My legs just aren't that long. Mary-Jane could do this with more ease, Angela even faster than that. This is a series of scrambles, and while the rungs take my weight, it's up and over every time, slowing me down... Gardener's ahead of me. I know he is. He was already there when I came in. He can climb more easily, he had a head start to begin with, he has larger hands, more strength, gets more of a push on the shove required to lock a rung in place. It's not a casual effort: I really have to force them onto their pegs. No one thought to ask about that. Maybe someone will learn from us and quiz Jeff in a future season. Learn from us. What could they learn? The game changes with every cast, twists to become unpredictable in new ways. We were waiting for tribal switches: that's why they never happened. The next group may expect to be stable because of us, and Jeff will tell them to drop their buffs three times in three weeks. Or three days. My idol plays won't work if the idol can't move: maybe it can only move to one particular person, whoever was second in the hunt. Maybe there won't be a hunt. Maybe there won't be an idol... ...fourth rung, only two to go and I know which ones have to be placed where, but I can still hear Gardener. I know his breathing so well now. I've heard him angry, resigned, satisfied -- a lot of it comes just from the breath. Is it like this for Audrey? She can walk in on him and tell what's going on with her once (and future) husband just by listening to the flow of air through his body? Footsteps behind me. Gary's. I know what that sounds like too. Live with these people. Eat and sleep with them. Fight besides them, fight against them. Learn things you never thought you were learning. Gary knows he's beaten: it's in his tread. But he's still going to move to his station and start on his ladder. Gary doesn't quit. I can hear Connie coming out, and I know she's going to work on her ladder, too. But it's not about winning, it's about appearances. We're the Final Four and if you can't create the illusion at this point, don't play. I can hear her inhale. I think she must be looking at Gardener. It's very sharp, and there's a little gasp in the middle of it. I think it's delight. Gardener's sounds, I know. This one is triumph. Wood against wood. A creak as it's asked to bear the weight. One sudden exhale, double impacts, palms against the platform's surface, pushing -- "Gardener! Wins Immunity!" The roar is so very familiar... I close my eyes -- then place the last rungs anyway: Jeff may want us all up there for the awarding of the necklace -- and he does: our host tells Gary and Connie to finish and come on up. I get up to the platform after some work, and stand to find Gardener grinning, everything that comes from being safe already settling over him. He knows he'll be walking back from Council tonight. He has Day Thirty-Eight waiting for him, guaranteed. Gary comes up. Connie eventually arrives, although Gardener has to boost her to the platform. And finally, Jeff takes the necklace off the platform's center post, steps behind Gardener. "You are safe from the vote tonight, and you know you're Final Three." Stepping back. "Someone else here isn't. You have a little time to figure out who that's going to be. One more to the jury -- and three to think about what they might say to the person who left. Head on back to camp. I'll see you in a few hours." Back down the ladder, trying not to slip: even with my back to the platform so I can essentially skip-slide down, it's an awkward process. Single file through the maze, following a camera operator out. In a little while, someone will be following another crew member to the mansion. I don't know what I could ever say to that person. I could still be that person, and I don't know what I could say to myself. I don't have Immunity. When we get back to camp, there will be no idol clue, no extra chance to save myself. I have exactly one way into the next stage now. I have to be right... ----------------------------------------------------------------- {And -- commercials. How sick is Alex of finishing this close behind the leader? There's been a few challenges where it's almost been her -- more than a few.} {How happy is Gardener to have that necklace? And will anyone pay me when my ringing ears turn into tinnitus?} {This really is as far as the physical powerhouse has gotten in a while. Tom -- Fire Tom, just to narrow that down -- was a different breed of athlete, and Terry had the immobile idol ready to cover for him.} {How are things at the Hall? Anything happening yet?} {No -- we're all just watching. I can actually talk pretty freely: the volume is loud enough that it's covering a lot of little conversations. Not enough to hide the laughter, though: there were some very open reactions when those traps were hit. And another reaction when the necklace was reached. People have chosen sides.} {And Connie went down twice -- I still want to know how she got all the way to Alex's gate...} {I saw some of that choosing during the arrival. And heard it.} {Dude, I think all five boroughs heard it.} {Is it just me, or did that last commercial cost more than the production values for the whole season?} {That depends. With or without the Picasso?} {Okay. Gardener has the necklace, so at this point, no one can backstab him. Two people are about to get a very rude shock when they walk into camp and discover that Immunity is down to a possible pool of one, and that's filled to the point where water is slopping over the sides. We think we know what's going to happen here. The most likely target seems to have a pretty good idea. (And despite certain people's last-gasp hopes, we are not discussing Alex.) Does he go quietly or does he try to give himself a chance by forcing a tie?} (I don't think Gary's going to go quietly, but I wasn't completely certain Gary was going to go.} {We'll find out soon enough -- we're back.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- I'm pretty sure Gary hasn't thought this through: his moving to the head of the line as we approach camp is the first major sign of it. Gary wants to be first to the shelter and gain whatever advantage he can get from reading the clue a heartbeat or six before the rest of us. Gary either hasn't realized the idols have stopped, or he has and he's just really wishing he's wrong. It may be the former: a deep sigh wafts back to us as we enter the clearing. "So much for that idea." Gardener's second. "What's up?" He knows, but he's going to let someone else say it. Gary steps away from the wall, letting us see -- a tarp-covered wall. "No idol clue. I'm the first one in, I didn't take it down because automatic expulsion just doesn't feel like a good idea this late in the game -- so there's no idol clue. Alex's was the last one." Connie sighs. "So I have company in zeroing out the hunts... I am sorry, Gary. It would have been nice to have one last idol out there, but that's just not the way the game's going to work this time." He nods. "Better luck to the next guys... Gardener, it's me, isn't it?" Gardener blinks hard. Yes, he's been pretty good about telling people -- here and there. But even so, there's a degree of openness that generally doesn't get surpassed, and to ask in front of the group... no one was expecting that this time. Connie is regarding Gary as if he's a particularly rare breed of flower and she's not sure whether to get him into a greenhouse or press him between the pages of a book. Gardener is visibly considering his next words. I'm remembering. "I'd rather know, personally. Preferably in time to try and do something about it..." Gardener finally nods. "It's you, Gary." I've heard this degree of frankness in his voice before: we were both on top of the Cliffs at the time. "You're a good man -- a damn good man, and I know you've got to be a great father and one hell of a husband. But that's what works against you here... and it's nothing you should ever be ashamed of." He offers his hand. "I had a hell of a time with you in this game. I hope you understand that. There's nothing personal here -- it's just the game." Gary smiles and grips Gardener's paw. "Nothing personal." They shake. "Like I said way back when, I had to figure I'd getting a vote, and I made it this far along -- pretty good for a man looking at his fiftieth in a few months." Which gets one of Gardener's still-rare laughs. "Maybe you shouldn't have said the J-word..." They each let go. That just lets Connie get a turn in: she approaches. With a smile, "You're an interesting debating partner." Gary nods, and they shake hands -- -- oh. He's looking at me. I pretty much have to say something here, don't I? The others presumably don't know we were once allies and don't know anything about what happened on the beach, Connie would have never been able to resist gloating -- they may have noticed us avoiding each other around camp, but it wasn't as if we were constant companions before it happened... "Have a good ouster meal -- if Robin left anything behind." I can't tell if this laugh is forced or not. "I'll do my best with whatever's left -- right now, I could pretty much eat whatever they serve it on." Gardener and Connie seem to accept that exchange, and we get down to the business of preparing for lunch. Sure, Gary and I didn't shake hands, but I don't do it that often anyway, so maybe no one picked up on it. After all, he didn't offer his either, right? Gary is making a very open show of accepting his ouster. I don't believe it for a moment. As soon as we're scattered enough, he's probably going to approach Connie: the Bible class convening for one last session. Naturally she'll want me out, and it's not just her normal preference: who else is there? Gary will try to force the tie there, me against him at whatever the instant competition is supposed to be, hoping he can beat me and stay in. Or Gardener can walk up to him later and say 'Nice little playlet. Now this is what's really going to happen...', and I'm gone 3-1. That's still possible. What will not happen is Gardener or Gary approaching me and saying that we've convinced Connie that it's Gary's night, and now she can go in his blindsided place. Connie is not going out tonight. This is where I have to be right... ...so I go out to the beach and play fetch with Azure. When she starts to become more interested in treats than the game, I watch her fly back towards camp and go to work with a fishing pole. Everyone knows where I am: anyone can come and find me. Semi-open forums with Alex are now available at the shoreline: just follow the footprints across the black sand and speak your piece. Eventually, someone does. I listen and then go back to fishing. A while after that, someone else shows up. "We have to talk." I shrug. "What do we have to talk about?" I'm not having any luck today: I've been out here long enough for the sun to very visibly move, and I've gotten a grand total of one fish. One very small, very energetic, very capable of slipping the hook fish, which is presumably now spreading stories of its narrow escape and keeping all the others away. Gary sighs. "You did this to everyone when you thought you were going. You don't have an exclusive license on it." "And I knew they wouldn't say yes." Doesn't anything out there want a free worm? He's coming closer. I hold my ground. "I thought I was potentially saving you once by forcing a tie -- and I know: in this game, that was just about a lifetime ago. You broke the alliance. I know why you did it." More softly, "I'm not sure I even blame you for it. I didn't think..." "No. You didn't." A basic statement of fact. On my right now: we're side by side. "You haven't forgiven me." And the facts just keep on coming -- or so he thinks. "It doesn't matter if I've forgiven you or not." I look over just in time to catch the shock dropping into his face. "How I feel about what you did doesn't matter for my vote tonight." He recovers enough to say "Which doesn't mean you have." His beard covers so much of his face. I wonder how gaunt some of his features are underneath. Gary is among the most physically affected by the island: his weight loss is very visible, he's always had the most problems with insect bites and while he's been very good about not scratching, he still has to keep a vigil on himself every moment of every day... "It doesn't matter." Because I don't know if I've forgiven him. I don't know how I feel about so much that's happened. I want to think I know how I'm supposed to feel. I should still be angry at him. I shouldn't be so confused over Mary-Jane. I should be... ...I don't even know any more. Gary has been touched physically. I'm not going to escape unchanged. I don't know if I can ever change back. What's happened here -- what's still happening -- may mute somewhat after I leave, may recede into the background and only come out to surprise me at unguarded moments -- but it can't be erased. Nothing can. That wish failed to come true a long time ago. "What you did is over," I tell him. "You had your reasons. But it doesn't affect my vote." His eyes close, just for a single breath. "I'll say it directly, Alex. Just so I'll always know I did say it. Will you vote with me to force the tie tonight?" "Did you ask Connie?" Gary wasn't expecting that question, and his entire body shows it: a tiny recoil, eyebrows on the move, hands pulling back. "To force a tie with you? No." "A tie is a tie. You have the same chance to beat me that you do her." Was that a tug on the line? Yes, it was -- and that is an empty hook. I bring it in while Gary thinks about his next lie. Sure he didn't talk to Connie. I tried to talk to everyone and he's imitating me. Eventually, "Connie's not going to vote with me." "She likes you." It feels no less distasteful than it did on Day Ten. "She thinks I'm a potential convert." I glance at him again. "You're both Christians. What are you supposed to be converting to?" I load up the hook. I don't look at the worms any more when I do it. "Her faction," Gary tells me. "Not all Christians are alike, Alex -- you know there's multiple branches. She thinks I'm -- deluded. Sweetly deluded. The right ideas for a lot of things, but the wrong upbringing. Someone who has a chance to fix his mistakes. We have had some absolutely incredible discussions of the Bible, and she is rehearsed. She knows exactly what to say and which cues to bring it out on. I'm Baptist -- mostly. I have some beliefs that don't quite work with my church, but -- Phillip said it to me once: it all goes back to the same source in the end. Trina's beliefs, Trooper's beliefs, Denadi's from what he told me..." Soft words, laced with an odd touch of regret. "What Phillip has, I can only wish for most of the time, or pray to be granted it -- and know that I'll just have to wait it out and learn for myself, prayer or no prayer. I can just pray that I do learn. Phillip has wisdom. He believes that the form of the faith doesn't matter, so long as you do the right thing. That God knows when you're trying, and all that's asked of any of us is that we always do our best if we can. He really believes that, with all his heart -- and Connie doesn't." And if I just had a faith for Phillip to see, I still wouldn't have his vote. But... "Phillip's a good man. Those don't come along very often." I really do believe that. Phillip's wife is lucky, his sister is very lucky, and his own children are -- the word might actually be 'blessed', at least until a better one shows up. Casting the line: no cameras get snagged. "One of the best," Gary agrees. "But we're getting off-track, Alex -- Connie doesn't believe that." Big deal. "Most religions believe they've got the one and only way to the afterlife -- at least the cooler spots of it." Does anyone believe in a frozen place of punishment? Maybe some of the northern regions came up with that one. "I don't think Connie's unique there." He sighs. "I wish you knew more about the Bible. I don't even know how to explain this to you... I debated with Connie because it was something to do, Alex, and because it gave me a window. Not just into what she was thinking about the game, and that never exactly worked out. Not to see what she thought about you: she tried to avoid the subject with me. She just said it was sweet that I believed you were salvageable. The debates let me see how she thought. I still haven't gotten everything -- I'm sure there's one big thing that I'm just not finding my way to..." Gary stops, looks out at the waves. No dolphins. No boats. Just a few small white crests of foam, the lightest of breezes, the touch of salt in the air. "You didn't answer my question. Will you vote with me?" Force the tie. Connie's been bad at just about every challenge where she didn't have help, and not all of that can be a ploy. Twist up the game. Change things. Take some amount of control... ...and that's just one more reason why I can't do it. Sometimes you have to give up control. "No." His eyes stay closed this time. "I see." We stand in place for a while. No fish are interested in the worm. Word travels very fast around here, at least part of the time. I'm not reeling anything in today, and I'm not about to start with the sling spear unless I absolutely have to. I know the fish are faster than me. Finally, Gary looks at me again. "If we'd stayed allies -- if we were in this same situation -- would you have voted with me then?" There are so many questions I'd hoped he wouldn't ask, and he went directly for the front of the list. It's probably my fault for making one. "I can't rewind the game and change things any more than I can make Gardener get eaten by an oversized plant. This is where we are now. How we might have been doesn't make any difference at all." It's a lot longer than what I could have said. And it doesn't hurt any less to say. Plus he's not accepting it: extra sting. "You know that isn't an answer, Alex." Fine. "Turn it around. Let's say I'm going out tonight and I come up to you. We're in the same situation: the alliance is still broken. Nothing else is different. Do you vote with me?" "You know I do," Gary tells me, starting to look frustrated. I've asked him a question with only one answer: why don't I know it already? It's about to get worse. "And at this point, with absolutely nothing else changed for the whole game -- why are you bringing me along?" Gary starts to answer -- then stops, his eyes closing again. Maybe he's looking inward. Or maybe he saw the answer, and he didn't like the way it looked. "All right." Looking down at the sand through closed lids. I wonder if the flashes he's seeing are the same ones I get: silver and copper, but never daylight. "I asked. You gave me an answer. You're sending me to the jury. Fourth place." And I take the blame. I should really be used to this by now. "Then we're done." "For now." Until the Reunion. Until he says anything else he wants to say in a place where I can't just walk away from him. It's not an angry statement. It's just another fact. We are done for now, at least with the talking part. As far as alliances go, we're done forever. Gary leaves. I go back to fishing. Did you see Gardener's footprints in the sand? Maybe you came out to sell your next lie: right besides the one about being an accountant. Maybe he told you that I was going, had you come out just to make me think you were convinced it was you tonight, so I'd feel safe -- and then the blindside. But I don't think you're that good an actor. Gardener told me it was you tonight, wanted to make sure I was steady because Gardener always wants to check on his current step without giving away the next -- and he doesn't always make it. I think it's real. I think you're out, and I'm Final Three. I think that at least for this step, I'm right. I think I'm right. I don't know. And I don't have faith. Or any fish. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {And if you had Gary out in fourth, your chances are starting to look pretty good. And I know some of the PTTE lists had Gary in fourth -- oh, look. That's my list. And guess who's on it in just the right position?} {Just a reminder: she had Alex going out in fourteenth.} {Not much mystery here. Gardener tells him, everyone else agrees, and then Gary can't get back together with his alliance partner.} {Did you read the subtext in Alex's question there?} {I think so -- but she never answered his original one.} {Now I'm annoyed with Gary. He clearly knows more about Connie's faction than any of us, and he's not talking. Go out in fourth: see if I care. Gary Did Not Explain It All To Me. Thanks a lot.} {This should mean a fairly quick Council -- and here we go: right to it.} {Seat configuration, left to right: Alex, Gardener, Connie, Gary. Jury seats, front row: Angela, Phillip, Mary-Jane. Back row: Robin, Tony. Mary-Jane still making an edited point of not looking at Alex when she comes in. I am making a very major point of looking at Mary-Jane, who may be depressed, but is not going with no-makeup drab black for the occasion. And Robin's doing the same thing she did on the Early Show: put those legs away before you hurt somebody!} {Volunteering...} {To put the legs away or get hurt?} {I'm good either way.} {Catch Robin looking at Gardener? Not too thrilled about the location of that necklace.} {Not much to discuss here. Right into the Immunity challenge -- this may wind up being very short.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- After a lot of consideration, Connie's decided to laugh it off. "I still don't know how I got so turned around in there. When I saw Alex's gate, there was a moment when I really thought about just walking out and going for a swim while everyone else finished up. But there was a chance of someone making an equal error, so I kept trying -- and then I hit the second pit." She gives Gary a sympathetic look. "Which was probably still an improvement over one net." Gary groans. It probably isn't faked. "Jeff, you and I have had this discussion..." In fact, they've had it enough times that Jeff is ready for it. "There were a total of six net areas in the maze. Along with pits, rubber-tooth snares, and foot nooses. You got the question wrong, and I am in no way responsible for who trips what. Robin and Angela don't take the same shoe size." Angela has considerably larger feet and knows it: a quick, involuntary glance down. "I'm pretty sure you could have pulled out the same complaint for the other traps, too." This grousing is definitely faked. "It was a picture -- and it's the principle of the thing..." He can't keep it up for long: Gary sighs. "Okay -- it was my own fault. I freely admit that I haven't been paying a lot of attention to everyone's feet. Except mine, because the bugs are always trying to bite them." Gardener grins. "Not much of a leg man, huh?" Gary rolls his eyes. "I also wasn't exactly keeping track of all my twists and turns. " Making him the only secret agent in history who hasn't had to find his way out of a maze. Or maybe he just shot out the walls and walked through the holes. "I had plenty of reasons for not winning that challenge, and I can't take any of them back. You won, I lost." And a smile. "I can call you on my Nextel, and we'll get together at KFC and discuss it. You're buying." Phillip laughs, and it even gets a grin out of Jeff. "Okay -- one less apology I have to give the sponsors. Alex, you were probably about a minute behind -- and this isn't the first challenge where you've just missed out on a win. How does that make you feel?" "Unsafe." Robin gives me a significant look at the same time Angela pulls out a vaguely hopeful one. "Gardener said it last night -- he's the only one with a guaranteed pass." Tony sneezes. Isn't Medical providing decongestants? Jeff isn't quite willing to accept this answer. It seems to be a pattern for the day. "I know -- you never feel safe unless you have the necklace or the idol. But you have to be getting a little frustrated with coming so close." Horseshoes and hand grenades again. "Close doesn't count. I keep trying to win the same way everyone keeps trying to win. Losing by a little doesn't give me any more motivation to get the next one than losing by a lot would. I still want to try and get the last necklace, and winning today wouldn't have cut that down at all. I can't tear apart failures any more than I can bask in winning, at least for challenges -- you accept the results and move on." Is Tony actually nodding at that? Hopefully his batting coaches never see it. Gardener is making a very good show of being completely fed up. "On a night when I personally tell her she's safe, tell the target he's going -- on his request -- right in front of her... the woman is stuck in a paranoid rut." Only one other 'he' left. "So it's Gary tonight." Who nods, vaguely depressing Angela in the process. "You seem to be accepting it." Gary's laugh feels a little bit forced. "I did go fishing for votes -- I wanted to believe I had some chance to force a tie. As it turned out, I didn't." And now Mary-Jane is looking at him, sympathy emerging from her tired gaze -- -- and then, for the first time, she goes to me. No sympathy. No hatred. No anything. Just looking at me. She knows who Gary would have gone to. Gary's still talking. "'Jury threat'. It's something I want to talk about with Phillip later: do you have to make some kind of mistake with people to win this game? Is there a critical limit, where you offend just the right number of people without getting too many mad at you? There's got to be some kind of formula -- but no math ever worked with humans as a variable." Robin's paying very close attention to him. "Ask the line setters in Las Vegas -- that's how they make a living. Because people will insist that humans have to be able to perform to a given level at a defined time, take only those actions that they've taken before, and nothing else can possibly happen. The favorite must win and cover the spread because they're the favorite. Betting with that line of thought in mind is a really good way to file for bankruptcy." Gardener looks amused. "I decline to comment because any time anyone associated with college football discusses anything regarding gambling, the NCAA hits the panic button. In fact, just pretend I'm not here." Tony's turn to laugh. Connie looks like she's really thinking something over. "Phillip once discussed the idea of what he called 'winning pure' with me -- to be an asset to one's tribe until the merge, then win every last Immunity token to reach Final Two. Always going along with whoever the others wanted to vote out that night... It was a wonderful idea, and I wish I was physically capable of trying to do it -- but I don't know if even that would work. You don't know if you're going to sit in front of a jury that resents all those wins. The right amount of jealousy, and they might vote the million to whoever you brought along, just because you did put them out by winning. A little more indirectly than usual -- but they can still see you as responsible if they want to. Purity is hard to manage in an impure setting." Phillip seems to be taking this well, nodding a little as she speaks: he can see the possibility there. Personally, I know all about people seeing someone as being responsible. Jeff looks intrigued. "Believe it or not, this isn't the first time that idea's come up. We had a very lively debate about it a long time ago: whether it was possible or not, and how much jealousy the jury might display to the person who took all those wins. The idea of a 'pure' win always asks about pettiness: how much respect people would have for someone who would do that, as opposed to misplaced anger -- hating themselves for not beating that person, transferred to the one they couldn't beat. Personally, I don't think someone who did that would necessarily win the jury vote seven to nothing -- but I'd like to think they would win." Jeff notices that he doesn't have Tony's full attention, follows his gaze, and winds up looking at Azure, who's currently trying to perch on Denadi's torch with mixed results. "I have no idea what it would do to the ratings. Maybe it would have the same appeal as a champion batter going on a potential record-breaking streak --" and now he has Tony again "-- or they might just get bored with the same person winning all the time. We've actually seen some signs of that last in a few of the fans." We're all curious, jury and players alike, and Gardener decides to be the one who expresses it. "When did this first come up?" Several seasons ago. "Crew or players?" Players. "Which one?" No comment. "Ethan?" No, really: no comment. "This doesn't have to make the air, and you know it -- at least tell me it wasn't Brian..." Jeff's willing to confirm that much, and we move on. Scattershots: if it does happen that Gary's out tonight, does he have any regrets? "Not seeing an idol clue on the shelter today would be a major one..." Connie's really getting a workout on her sympathetic expression tonight. "There are things I wish I'd done and things I wish I hadn't done. Things I said..." He's quiet for a moment. "And things I haven't. I may get to work some of those out from the jury, or save them for the Reunion, or just get them settled from watching the show. I want to be in Phillip's place in a lot of ways: I had a good time, I got some things out of it, I had a great experience and I made some friends. But there's things getting in the way of that." Phillip's eyes are full of empathy. "Because I did have all those things, but there were other aspects, too. I'm not angry about being out in fourth. I didn't win the challenge today: my own fault. I couldn't swing the votes. I tried all the way: never quit, never even sat out, and coming out here, I could have sworn there was going to be a few times when someone was going to tell me where to find the nearest bench." Gardener breaks in for a moment, assures Gary that he was always part of the team. "I don't regret having come here, though. I'm never going to decide that applying for the season was the wrong decision." He'd made it in on his first try. "And besides -- I've got a daughter in college, a teenager, and a son who wants to think he's sixteen. I need free cell minutes. That may wind up being a full year of college saved up right there." Connie is sitting in a potential Final Three with a rival she's pretty much openly admitted to having and a person who once made a long pre-challenge speech which did nothing but trash talk her, for the game's definition of 'trash talk'. Doesn't this group come as a major surprise? "I didn't see it coming," she admits. "We were talking about this on the way back to camp last night -- who we all thought our Final Fours would have been if our tribe had reached the merge with majority and no idol surprises." A glance at the jury. "It was second-day assumptions -- the four we constructed after we first saw the opposing tribe. My other three were Phillip, Angela, and Michelle -- Tony is just so much of a physical threat on multiple fronts." He's not exactly taking that as an insult. "To be with Gardener and Alex in the last three means being in the last three. And Gardener is -- not what I originally believed he was. And not to invoke Cindy, but... did I mention Alex gave me a car?" It's an interesting speech. I pay attention to every last word of it: the ones that were spoken, and the ones that might be lurking behind them. What do I think of my chances? I answer the question with a question. "Do you know what you should offer up at the next auction?" Jeff waits for it. "A pass that says 'Know the exact details of a challenge before having to run it', good just once. I would be turning it in tonight." Robin's nodding means I would have been in a bidding war, and this is the first time in a while where I've said something that hasn't made Angela upset. I wonder who she thinks gave me the idea. "We keep coming back to this: with the idol gone, the person with the necklace is the one controlling their own fate -- one day for each possession. If I knew what the final challenge was, I'd at least have a better idea on my chance of winning it -- and that's the only real form of control this game ever has." Jeff's thinking it over. "It's a subtle thing -- but it's not a bad idea for an auction item. I'm not sure we'd ever do it, but I'd be curious to see how it would play out." With mischief in his eyes, "Which doesn't mean we'd make it good through the last challenge... Connie, you look a little tired there. You don't like that idea?" Well, it came from me, which is a strike against it -- but as it turns out, "It's not a bad one, especially when you know you're going to need an Immunity. Preparation is an edge -- I would have thought about bidding for it, although I would have hoped for an actual Immunity advantage. I just wish we'd had any auction at all. People offering up their luxury items to go along on Rewards doesn't count." Gardener shrugs. "Major hint for anyone thinking of applying: a Pilates ball has no value on the open market. At least Alex could sell services, but she draws in that thing so much that she'd probably get around to doing one of you anyway." For some reason, Connie's amused by the 'sell services' thing. She's probably thinking of some other kind of service. "The Bible instruction was really meant to be free." And judging from Angela's expression, occasionally was. And Gary's found a laugh. "Uh-huh. I can teach you every word you can spell on a calculator, except for the ones you'd have to figure out on your own. Or you could just calculate rice consumption rates -- calories burned -- total insect bites per square inch -- Jeff, tell me this much: do I get any lotion when I get in there?" "As much as you want," Jeff assures him. "Sean practically took a bath in it." Gary flashes a smile. "I think I'll take the 'practically' part out." And one for Gardener: other than missing Audrey -- although that's now just a waiting game for him -- what's been the worst part of the game? His reply is immediate and direct. "No media. Right now, my single biggest regret in the game is not locking the car doors when I got in. I might still be listening to that game broadcast." Another grin from Tony. "It's not just missing the sports stuff, though. There's times when I've just felt disconnected from the world out here. Every day back home, I can get up, turn on the news, get the headlines, go to work, listen to the kids talking about the latest campus gossip, check the Internet for high school sports stories, then I hit the cafeteria for lunch and look at the student paper... There's always information coming in: it's the classic noise that you never hear until it stops. And I'm like everyone else: there's times I've complained about the damn din. I thought absolute quiet would be fine for a while, and it was good for about three days, but after that... I realized I need a little background sound in my life. It's gotten easier since Audrey came, because the thoughts I got stuck alone with didn't have to go over the same moments any more -- but damn it, I still want to know the final score of that game." Jeff doesn't give it to him, and Gardener sinks into a light grumble. He hasn't talked about Audrey much since the visit and subsequent Council, other than a bit of a discussion I overheard: asking Gary how he was supposed to get back into the dating scene without getting his trainees to tutor him. Gary had told him he would be with the woman he loved, and the rest would work out from there. It always feels strange, getting a look at this side of Gardener. And for the jury, it's a very well-timed look... Shortly after that, Connie wraps up a discussion on what she personally misses the most -- climate control -- and Jeff decides to take us somewhere we're not expecting to go, at least not just yet. "Gardener," and his voice has that tone to it. None of us were expecting it this early, and Gardener's eyes actually go to his wrist, looking to check something that isn't there. Jeff finds it amusing. "Remember when I told you that some Councils could be short? Final Four and Final Three are the most likely suspects on that list. In part, that's because we've only got one day to cover -- but also because you might need to save your strength for the last one. This one came in on about the halfway mark for our average. Tomorrow's may be very quick -- there's a degree of precedent." Ian. "Or it could stretch out for a while. No promises -- but right now, we're finishing with this one. Gardener, you have Immunity, and you've had it more than anyone else in the game -- at least for the necklace only." In fact, he's the only person with a streak: two. "I'm guessing this isn't the time when you decide to pass it off." Gardener shakes his head. "Only on the day it splits in half and each part's still good." He glances at Phillip's creation. "That still doesn't count, even when it doesn't need to." Connie is very visibly not caring about that statement. Jeff shrugs. "And another season passes without a Council switch." Well, at least he got the idols. "You can't vote for Gardener, and the idol is out of play." Angela still looks like she wanted to hear that on the night of the merge. "There won't be any bounces -- but there can still be blindsides." Thank you, Voice Of Paranoia. "It is time to vote. Connie, you're up first." She stands, and Gardener shoots her a fast, harsh look which I read as no message votes, damn it. This is not the time for Connie to get cute. It doesn't take very long for her to cast what's presumably one that's in-line for Gardener's desires, and I go second -- shooing Azure to her perch before heading out the door. I want to be alone for this one, or at least as alone as the game will let me be. Out to the voting blind. I look over the parchment for a few seconds before picking up the quill pen. Bright red feather. The only real red in the season after factoring out Robin's hair and my swimsuit. Plus my blood. Write. Hold up the vote. Think... You wanted to know if I would have kept you, knowing you were a jury threat. I wanted to know if you would have taken me back just because you know I'm not one... Pointless. Futile. Everyone listening to the answers in their head. "I don't know what I can say to you, any more than you knew what you could say to me." I place the vote and walk out. Gary, and he doesn't look at me on the way out or back. Gardener, who does: just a quick glance, the same kind he gave Connie when she came back. Is it done? Yes. And that's it. Only four of us. Soon only three. I'm either very right, or very gone. And after that... ...after that is something I don't want to think about yet either way. Jeff looks us over. "Sometimes it's short," he says, "but that doesn't mean it's easy. I'll go tally the votes." And he does, coming back sooner than he ever has. So little to count. "Once the votes are read, the person voted out will be asked to leave the Tribal Council area immediately." If not sooner. "I'll read the votes." Azure flies over to Jeff's throne and perches on the back of it, watching as he opens the cylinder. Jeff takes note of it with a brief, intense curiosity -- then goes back to his job. "First vote." Said before he extracts and unfolds it this time. Always throw a little variety in. "Connie." Who blinks, then gives me a hard look -- and she's got company: Gardener is very visibly wondering if things are about to go vote-wild on him again, although he's being a lot more restrained about it this time. The minority vote generally doesn't emerge first, especially during what's expected to be a three-one situation, and if he's looking at a forced tie, he will not, as he would put it, be a happy man. In fact, this degree of not yelling may be from a combination of shock and the arrival of a very sudden, but very thorough paranoia. Of course, he's overlooking one thing. That's Gary's vote. "Second vote: Gary." That one's mine. "Third vote: Gary." Gardener relaxes so completely as to almost erase the tense moment entirely: he knows his own handwriting and Connie can't go against herself, so the worst that can happen is another stupid message vote and Gary still goes out with the majority. It's not as if he has a bounce of any kind to worry about. It's all over except for the torch snuffing and the near-mandatory accusation towards me. "Fourth vote -- Gary." Who's waiting for Jeff to finish before he stands up, although his bag is already gripped in his right hand. It's been there since before Jeff came back with the cylinder. "The thirteenth person voted out of the Society Islands, and the sixth member of our jury." He doesn't have to ask about the idol any more. "Gary -- you need to bring me your torch." It's quick and quiet: Gary stands up, gets his torch, and brings it over. "Gary -- the tribe has spoken." When we started -- when we first aligned -- I never thought I would see yours go out before mine... It goes out anyway. "It's time for you to go," Jeff tells Gary as he pulls the snuffer back. Azure continues to watch them both. Gary nods, smiles a little. "Can do, Jeff," he tells our host. "See you tomorrow," and he heads for the door, back straight, shoulders even. And I'm waiting. Waiting for him to turn around with his hand on the knob, say something to me. An accusation. A declaration of betrayal. Anger. Hate. Rage. Disgust. All the things that always come. He doesn't. He just walks out, closing the door behind him. We have nothing left to say to each other. Or at least, that's what I want to believe. Jeff looks a little surprised -- a quiet exit just hasn't been in anyone's plans lately -- but it seems to have come. And since Gary has a much lower chance of ducking back in than Robin did, it looks like it's going to stay. After a brief pause, "Gary knew what his chances were coming in -- and he knew what his chances were of going out. That's all it takes sometimes. Four becomes three -- and tomorrow, three will become two. Go back and get some sleep. We have one last challenge to settle -- and at least two things to decide." Who wins the challenge. Who wins the game. Who loses... I also count real good up to three. We stand, head out: Gardener and Connie first, me at the back so I can recover Azure -- and look at the jury as I go. Phillip and Robin aren't surprised by the night's result. Mary-Jane's back to not looking at me. Tony looks like he really needs to lie down for a while. Angela's just a little bit confused: how did this Final Three come into existence? -- and then she's out of sight for one more day. How did we get here? Because I was right, at least to this point. Because I stood back and let it happen when it had to happen. Because... ...'because' may not matter any more than 'if'. Third place. I'm that much of a part of Gardener's plan. Nothing else is a certainty. If the auction had come, with its usual amount of offered currency -- five hundred dollars that you could do anything you wanted with -- I probably would have pocketed it. I could use five hundred dollars a lot more than I could use a hamburger, or a chicken dinner, or anything else that might have come up for bids. But I would have gone for a game advantage: Immunity edge, advance knowledge of a challenge when I needed it most, a jump start on an idol hunt. Anything intangible that could turn into time. I was right. Being right bought me one more day. Potentially one last day. Tomorrow morning, just being right won't mean anything. Everything will start again, the one-day cycle in action. Twenty-four hours where the previous twenty-hour hold no power. On Day Thirty-Eight, I will have to reach beyond what I am... ...and I don't know if there's anything there to find... -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

cahaya 7447 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 01-21-07, 11:04 PM (EST) 7. "RE: I Can't Win: Part IV" Gary - now there's one guy I really liked this season. Wayang Kulit puppet show by Tribe. And, *long whistle*. The only way to catch all of this season is to actually print it and read it again. Still yet, there's more to come. It will be intriguing to find out which Tarot card is the final one.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 22510 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 01-21-07, 11:57 PM (EST) 8. "I Can't Win...: Part V" LAST EDITED ON 01-28-07 AT 08:01 AM (EST) {Pretty standard Council, all things considered. Get rid of the jury threat, proceed.} {Everything that happened this season, and the Final Two feels like there's only one real possibility... is this going to be a major letdown? Just about everyone's picked a winner, so right now, this is probably about how we get there. I'm not expecting a double-barreled jury question session: only one side will really be fired on at nearly any given time. Just like the Super Bowl: all that hype, and then by the end of the first quarter, no one cares about the game any more.} {At least we'll still have the commercials. This has been some outstanding stuff. Gee, I wonder where Coke got the idea for that jungle theme?} {What do you want to liven things up? Another animal attack?} {Connie, the dolphins... how hard could that be to arrange?} {I don't think dolphins have a lot of experience in being attracted to inorganics.} {This is one of the things I hate about watching Alex: I have no idea if her last words to Gary at the vote were from regret or anger.} {And Gary just wrote down Connie's name, looked at the camera, and said "It has to be for someone." Not exactly helpful. His last words weren't much of a boost, either -- he knows he made some mistakes, maybe the primary one wasn't in making more mistakes, but he hopes his family is proud of him, and he intends to clear at least one thing up in a few days. One thing. Out of a field of -- I don't even want to think about it. He may just want to know who's better at picking random numbers. He'll type it on his calculator, let the camera see it, then everyone takes their guesses...} {Or it'll be whoever solves an equation first.} {I don't know -- I think that was edited... Gary may have said more.} {Apologizing to Connie?} {And thus ends the struggles of the small, devoted, and very voluble Gary faction. May they rest in peace. And stop copying each other's entire posts into their quotes. Third rule: edit!} {Can we get a live report check-in?} {It's fairly quiet right now. No real surprise when Gary went -- some disappointment, but I believe everyone felt it was coming. The current murmurs around me are Immunity speculations.} {They'll have some extra time to do it in -- there's definitely one thing we have to get through first.} {The Walk Down DAW Lane. I'm actually kind of curious to hear some of the commentary from both sides. Let's see if we can figure out just when Frank's was recorded.} {Maybe it's actually live from backstage at Carnegie Hall. Just pipe it in!} {They can't afford to take that kind of chance with Desmond.} {And we're back -- and it is early: the sun is just barely starting to rise. Since we can now admit the crew exists, we can watch one of them wake Alex up and direct her towards Tree Mail. Well, now we have some idea on why she might not like being moved in her sleep...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- They could have just whispered at a really high pitch or something. And I have to get the Tree Mail. What a very interesting sign. Completely coincidental. There were only three of us to choose from and I got to be it. Nothing meant by it whatsoever. Yeah, right. The hour doesn't surprise me: I'd been expecting an early start. Everyone had: walk back to camp, brief pause for Gardener to grumble about not getting a Final Three feast either, and just about directly to bed. There's been too many early risings at this stage for anyone to risk a late night. All I did was make sure I ate and drank something, just in case there wasn't even time for breakfast. I washed up before leaving for Council... If it's this early, then the prime suspect just moved to the head of the lineup. And even so, there's something we have to do first. I reach into the quiver, extract the scroll, and pass the tie to Azure, who plays with it while I unroll our message. (Who needs hands when you've got a beak?) One last poem to suffer through -- -- no. Gary may have seen the last of the poems, although someone could hand us one just before we reached the challenge just to see how we'd determine who got the final stabs of pain. "Wake your tribe. You will have ten minutes to prepare yourselves before leaving camp. Follow the trail of torches to your final challenge. Take a moment to remember each of the fallen hunters along the way." And that's it. We all know the drill: we can take it from there. Three fans, three experts: the duties will be fulfilled with no extra instruction needed. A moment to pause, reflect, possibly for someone to think of a last lie or two, and then on to the next. No painting our faces, at least not here. No construction of token pieces, and no one asked me to do any portraits of the ousted. Just travel to each torch and take a moment to think about the person whose flame it used to hold. That's it. Well, at least I got spared one piece of meter-based pain. Probably. Maybe I can hit the bathroom before I wake them, get a little extra time that way -- no: I'm signaled away from the toilet. Go to the shelter, then go on your own time. Figures. I take the tie back from Azure, then start clapping my hands. "Wake up, guys -- we've got ten minutes." What's ten minutes? It's whatever they say it is. "Ten minutes to do everything -- come on." Maybe it starts from the moment I give them the instructions that I was very coincidentally asked to read. I can't call them out from the bathroom, either. "We don't have that much time..." Connie's eyes open first. She looks at me, then closes them again. Prior bathroom times to the contrary, she seems to think she can do it in nine. Gardener nearly manages to stretch his way completely off the pallet. "Damn it... it's what we all thought it was, isn't it?" I shrug. Azure shrugs. I spare a moment for a glance at her: how is that even possible with wings? "No idea -- the scroll didn't say anything about what the challenge was. But we're taking the walk." That gets a little more alertness from Connie, and I read the prose again. Gardener groans as he exits the shelter. "Ten minutes -- just ten minutes -- what the hell is ten minutes?" You'd really think he would have figured this one out: it's a variable. "Okay -- scatter. Everyone do what you have to, and we'll try to get moving on schedule. Time for the walk of ages..." Connie finally manages to sit up. "What have we got for fruit?" Slightly less than we'd had when we got back last night. "There's some stuff in the cooler bag." And in what may be my last personal race of the game, I am going to beat Connie to the bathroom. "We'd better hurry -- this may be one of those things where we need the extra minutes." In, close the door -- -- and take as long as strategically possible within the time limit, keeping the count and hoping it ties into someone's watch. Any edge, right? She's done it to us enough times, and after a few very hard knocks on the door, she gets the message and presumably sulks off into the woods. Gardener's ready when I emerge: fully dressed, freshly watered using some of what was left over from Day Thirty-Seven, and just wiping the last bits of watermelon from his lips. (After his talk to me yesterday, he'd gone on a little hike. His fishing luck upon returning had been just as bad as mine, so dinner was fruit and rice.) I put on (relatively) fresh clothes before going to sleep, so I'm okay there: dressed for another warm day on the island, and I still have enough time left to eat and drink a little. Several camera operators (including Julia) signal when we reach the time limit, and Gardener and I take our places at the entrance to the beach path. After a personal extra count of three hundred and thirty-eight, Connie comes back out of the woods, munching on an apple. "Some things don't operate on a schedule," she complains between bites. "We won't be that late..." And they weren't going to let us leave without her, no matter how badly I wanted to. They didn't give her a head start on the maze, either. The game is fair... Gardener glances back at her. "Good thing we've got you here," he considers, only partially referring to his own goals. "You're the only person who can say that much about three of those torches -- we never got a chance to know them." Not that I can really see him as buddying up to Elmore post-merge, but still. The prospect intrigues Connie a little: suddenly, she's Haraiki's walking history book. "Very true -- all you could really do was talk about the challenges." And the whole reason for bringing her in was to make sure this sequence went smoothly -- there's the signal: we start down the beach path. I wonder where the first torch is going to be: we may wind up going all the way to Challenge Beach before the trail of the fallen starts, or it could be waiting just a few feet away. For that matter, I don't know how long the trail is going to be (other than a total set length of thirteen torches) or where it's headed. No one's said the last challenge was going to be at the most frequent site. Come to think of it, no one's even said if we're supposed to do anything with the torches themselves, and it's probably too late now. If we're just leaving them behind, then they'll probably be auctioned for charity after the season ends. Or maybe they'll be returned to their owners. Their fire, after all -- possibly even after it's out. The first snuffed torch is waiting by the shoreline, near the approach to the challenge path. The sun is beginning the long climb on its arc. There's a few small white clouds high in the atmosphere, a light ocean breeze, and Michelle's name burned into the torch's wood just above the grip point. Gardener and I spend a few heartbeats looking at it -- then mutually turn to Connie. Well? Connie's visibly thoughtful. "I told you she was part of my original Final Four. But -- Michelle was one of those people who makes you wonder what they were thinking when they originally applied for the season. She wasn't the least bit comfortable here for the first two days -- not constantly longing for home, at least not aloud, but you could see it in her eyes. This wasn't what she had expected it would be. But by the third day, she was starting to marshal herself. I want to think that given a little more time, she would have settled in and become a valuable member of the tribe -- but then Elmore struck." And she might have been the person Connie could beat at the challenges. Gardener nods. "She didn't look comfortable. It wasn't just the throwing up -- she just really seemed to be second-guessing herself. Maybe some people need a little more adjustment time, and she could have made it -- but like you said, she got the first bounce. The first bounce ever." A quick bark. "So there's immortality: the answer to a trivia question for some future tiebreaker." We never found out what ours would have been. "Connie --" and I have her attention and surprise in equal measure "-- was she from the south?" All right, fair enough: she may be asking us similar questions. "Yes. Louisiana. Why?" "She talked on the boat." Just once, and the crew had immediately ordered her to be silent. "She never spoke at the challenge that day, not that I heard -- but I never got that accent from anyone else." "'I can't take this...'" We both look at Gardener, who shrugs. "Pretty easy to remember when it's the only thing anyone says the whole time. I think I was sitting pretty close to her. No way to be sure, though." "Those blindfolds..." Connie reflects, openly disgusted. "If anything remains exclusive to our season, let that be it. I don't want to see anyone else dumped into the water the way we were. Once was bad enough." Especially given what came of it. Still, what remains of Turare takes a moment to agree with the lone remnant of Haraiki, and we move up the challenge trail. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Michelle: "Someone always has to be first out. But even being first, I still made it to the island. That's so much more than a lot of people will ever do. I came, I tried, and I learned that I can try if I really have to. And at least I can always say I didn't go with the majority."} {Gee, I guess Elmore really did change up the season. Clearly this was our winner. And heavy pre-season favorite. Narrator. Challenge whore. America's sweetheart -- for heaven's sake, somebody stop me...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- About halfway up the trail: Trina. Gardener starts it off. "I thought this was the weirdest casting choice anyone had made since Peter. Seriously -- a fortune teller? But she didn't make that into the main element of her time: no running around playing with everyone's heads by dealing cards for them. She worked and she fought in the challenges with us. Not the best player in the world there, but -- she didn't shy away from it. Argued that one time to stay in instead of sitting out... Not a bad person to spend six days with." Connie can't say much here. "She seemed interesting, for the little I saw of her." In that 'if Alex goes early, I may have a back-up hate' way. Silence -- and I realize they're looking at me. "Alex?" Gardener, cuing me to say something or move on already. I'm still looking at her torch. Azure is staring at it with me. "I -- had a fight with her, right before she left." Gardener looks curious. "I'm pretty sure it'll make the episode -- you can see it then." Make that 'absolutely one hundred percent dead certain.' "I forgave her, because I thought she was just running the game the best way she knew how, but..." No, there really isn't much I can say here. "I guess she'd say you have to play the cards we're dealt. She didn't shy away from hers. It's not the worst example to set." Gardener's curiosity submerges under the force of the snort. "I'd rather stack my own deck." No kidding. Connie just sighs. "Superstition and preying on the vulnerable... she may had some decency, but to be in that so-called business..." I wonder what Connie's cards would have said. I still don't know what my last two mean. Maybe she would have gotten the Devil out and decided it was me... ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Trina: "I'm still working my way through my future. Everyone is. The game is now part of my past, and it's a past I wouldn't change. In the end, I think I came and did what I had to do. What lies ahead for me, I can wait to verify. What lies ahead for the others, I can't wait to see." Even after she's already seen it?} ----------------------------------------------------------------- At the start of the downslope for the Cliffs: Elmore. It's starting to look like a very long walk if the first three torches are this scattered. I think we're about to do a little island exploring on a day when we wouldn't have the chance for it. The crew isn't rushing us: they don't want us exhausted when we get there. Just a casual, steady walking pace. We started early to give us time for this, and Connie's minor stall didn't put a dent in the timetable. We have as long as we need. I'm actually getting something I wanted out of the game. It has to be coincidence. Connie's regarding this torch with something less than fondness. "Not exactly a hard worker around camp. We saw that from the first day -- he basically just laid around after he got off the raft." And if there's anything Connie's qualified to judge, it's a poor worker. "Physically, he had to know what a challenge liability he was, and we saw that... I think after he learned of the idols, he just planned on bouncing his way to the end. Angela put a stop to that, though." "Had him followed?" Yes, Gardener's called it. "It didn't feel like a first-time move for her. I can still tell you just about word for word what he was yelling when he got stuck -- if he'd gotten to the merge, I would have waited until he was voted out and handed him a plan that would get him his body back in two years, just before he went out the door. He had some bone structure to start building on and time left to change -- it wasn't a lost cause." Those are the kindest words he's ever said regarding Elmore, even if he was trying not to laugh while remembering the sniper course. "He made it here, though. To get into the game, someone has to see something special in you -- something that might make it to the end." He wasn't cast to lose -- if you believe Jeff, no matter how much Jeff believes himself. "Maybe Elmore was ready to go with brains and nothing else, but you know he had to have them just to be out here." Gardener's willing to let that go through. "Yeah -- no one makes it unless they've got something that might work." And Connie is registering her opinion on a given person's perceived primary qualifications with a very disgusted look at my torso. "I bet if we asked Robin, she could build a path for him that would reach the end. Easy to see his: bounce, bounce, bounce..." Which isn't exactly changing Connie's focus. "Come on -- we've got a ways to go." ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Elmore: "Maybe I'm a little more humble now. Maybe I need to be more complete before I think of trying to reach this far again. Sound mind, sound body. I've got a lot to work on, and it all starts with myself."} {Well, we know that wasn't pieced together -- it sounds like him, and we've got the archives to prove it.} {And Elmore? When you see this, check in. I've come up with something worse than the beached whale, and I'd like to get your opinion...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- On Challenge Beach, in what I think was the exact spot where the wheel of gross food fortune once stood: Frank. I close my eyes for a few heartbeats, then open them to find Gardener's are still closed. Connie's the first to speak. "You never said what happened." I nod. "And we're never going to." Except to Phillip, who would never tell. And let the scene play for everyone who watched it happen, so they might always remember. And before she can start to look for the obvious dissenting vote, Gardener turns his attention on Connie. "She called it." No argument will be tolerated, so Connie's just wasting her time in looking for one. "You're Amanu, Connie -- same as we are. But this is a Turare matter -- and you were never Turare. We lost him. He's better now, but -- he went out. There was nothing we could have done to change or stop it." She has no choice but to pretend she accepts that, even if her tone betrays the internal stress. "That's your decision." And this pause may just be to give her a little more time for lining up the knife. "Do you miss him?" It may be lucky for her that Gardener just snorts it off. "He was in my initial Final Four plan. And he was still annoying as hell. Tell you this: if he'd hung around, I think he would have turned into Cesterino with just a little more romantic prowess -- at least as far as he could believe it. Showed up thinking he was the comedian who knew every last thing about the game and could laugh his way through any twist... that could have gotten old really fast. And the worst part is, it could have worked..." I remember Frank's energy, even before he reached the grass. The lame jokes. Flirting with Mary-Jane. Even a little interest in me the first day, another part of the way he was going to play the game. Or just part of who he was. It can be so hard to tell out here. "I still don't get the one about the leprechaun and the penguin." Gardener rolls his eyes. "No one gets the one about the leprechaun and the penguin. Personally, I think we're better off." We walk away from the torch. We're not carrying any of them with us. There's no need to evacuate it. I catch Azure glancing back, and think about how close Frank was to having her on his shoulder instead of mine. Running, trying to keep up, listening to the sounds of pounding footsteps, wondering if one other sound would stop. I will never forget. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Frank: "Guess I turned into a trivia question: name the biggest idiot to ever play the game... Some people come out to clear their heads, and I started fogging mine up. Here's hoping no one else pulls a Frank in any other season: the price is just too high. But I'll be smarter now -- the price paid for something." Pauses. "I've got to stop shopping off the day-old shelves."} {Anyone want to lock in 'pulls a Frank'?} {We're supposed to come up with this stuff on our own. Trying to break into our dictionary? Geez -- what a DAW...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Partway down the trail to Haraiki's beach, and Connie has one last fill-in to give us: Denadi. She's not even going to pretend she cares for this one. "We didn't get along. Fundamental clash on a number of principles... and one where there couldn't be any debate. She wasn't willing to find a middle ground, let alone admit that she was standing in the wrong place. We managed to suppress it enough to have some peace in camp, but we both knew that we'd each eventually be voting for the other." Trina, picking out Denadi as a sister believer... Gardener doesn't seem the least bit surprised by this, but he's not going to pick an instrument for this particular one-note band. "I still can't believe that jump off the beam. That really got Jeff's goat -- he was looking for her to quit pretty much every time after that one. She was in pretty good shape for her age -- how old was she, anyway?" Fifty-eight. "But you've got to use what you have. Mary-Jane might have slipped somewhere." And did, at least twice. "She stayed in the gross food competition." Lost both heats and stopped on the second one after Frank finished ahead of her, but didn't refuse to participate. Denadi wouldn't wait for a miracle, but she didn't step away from every challenge. Still -- Jeff hates quitters, and Gardener didn't want her to take Scout's role to the end. Come to play or don't come at all. Denadi probably did come to play -- but then she saw what play could mean... I still don't understand the decision she made on the beam. "I've had haggis," Connie admits -- and now the crew looks shocked. "Edward and I went on a tour of the Isles one summer. It seemed like the thing to do." The pause stretches out for a while. "I despise being that wrong." ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Denadi, after a well-timed mood shot of her jumping off the beam: "It was an experience. I'll never dismiss or discount it from my life. I just don't care to repeat it."} {Alert the network: one more slot just opened up for A.S.S. II.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Haraiki's beach. Desmond's torch is next to a tidal pool. No fish. Gardener holds up his right hand, silencing us while he puts some hard thought in -- and finally decides to let the words out. "Alex, you don't know this -- but the night after that challenge, I confronted Desmond on his breaking your strategy. Basically asked him if he'd blown it on purpose to get rid of you. Never got a straight answer out of him -- the most he'd give up was that he thought we'd just team up with Phillip and Tony, make it men against women, six to four. And now I know how well that would have worked..." And this actually gets a sigh out of him. "I had to keep him because he didn't know the game that well, and then I wondered what the hell I was letting myself in for, keeping someone who didn't know the game that well. Right now, I think he dumped that challenge to take you out. And if you'd gone out..." This is the one time I'm willing to indulge in a little what-if. "Then you're probably not here right now." Angela still swings Mary-Jane, then Pagongs Turare out of the game. "Connie --" since talking to each other is sort of required on this walk, and I'm curious to see what she'll say here, if anything "-- Angela might have brought you. She would have been afraid to keep Phillip or Robin, she wanted to bring Tony -- you were probably her backup plan for the jury. But she would have brought Tony, and Tony would have brought her..." In Case Of Weird Immunity Streaks, Break Glass And Remove Bitch. If Tony had gone out, Connie might have been waiting. I would have never expected to hear Connie sigh at that statement. She's very good at faking it on short order. "I can see it in retrospect. There are ways in which that could have changed, and she might have let go of me simply because we disagreed so much, but... what matters is that I'm standing here now." And back to her normal state. "The time for defending the route taken is tomorrow -- if it comes at all." Way to play that card, Connie. Gary taught me when to bet. And I'm betting that Gardener brought this up now to begin invoking a certain something -- something which Connie isn't reacting to. "But that's not how it worked out. Desmond left -- but his shelter is still here." And just in case I haven't apologized enough for calling him out, even if the likely-intentional loss negates the need: "It's really a great shelter." He tried to throw me out and I got the benefit of his roof for an extra twenty days. The right side of Gardener's mouth twitches up. "True. I bet your parrot even likes her perch. But I'm still nominating him for the all-time dumb-ass move of the game -- and personally, I hope like hell he wins that vote..." Down the trail. Yes, Desmond wanted me gone, and he might have thrown the challenge to get that. But Gardener was willing to cooperate with it -- more than willing -- and he wouldn't save me... That might have been a lifetime ago, too. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Desmond, and your guess is as good as mine: "Bleep, censored, bleeping censor censoring, bleeper bleep bleeping censored, blur!" Wonder how many takes they gave him before they finally decided to go with that one as the best of the lot? Come to think of it, maybe that one actually was live...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- In Haraiki's camp, next to the fire pit: a very odd placement for Trooper's torch. He should really be closer to our territory. But we're taking a tour, and they're not placing anything based on irony. I decide to lead off this one. "He was a force -- that's the other reason he was Angela's target. Strength, intelligence, speed, and endurance, all in one package. If anyone here was going to win pure, it would have been him." Gardener may have one small problem with that definition. "If you count helping you force that tie as purity..." Well, isn't that an interesting statement: Gardener either still believes Trooper was the third vote or wants me to believe he does. "Yeah -- major challenge threat. If there was anyone I was worried about there, it was him. I can picture him in those grids: he could have blown right through. Enough in every area to have a shot at every necklace." "I'm sure he was very skilled," Connie decides. And very sinful. "Gardener, what did you plan for him?" If he's honest now, he can use up his quota for the rest of the game and not have to worry about later. Besides, Trooper can't call him on anything from the jury. "Solidify majority, hope he didn't have an Immunity streak going, and that he wouldn't hold too much of a grudge after -- probably out before the last Haraiki went. It was just too easy to picture him with that thing around his neck full-time. But I didn't want him out at the tie -- I didn't want any of us out at the tie." Slowly shaking his head. "If I ever almost gave up on this thing, it was right after that last vote came out... Hell of a guy, though." It sounded accurate to me. "He taught me how to fish..." And invited me to dinner. Phillip wants me at the farm. I still think they both meant it, but I don't know how. Or why. There are days when I barely have a grasp on 'if', and yet those two offers want to feel certain... "I can't use that at home. I wouldn't trust anything I could pull out of the closest water. But at least I know now." "No objections to your picking it up, whether I'm the provider here or not," Gardener says. "At least now I know when it's not just my lousy luck..." It was really his role. You got fish pretty much every day. I only brought back meat once. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Trooper, over a nice montage of his challenge efforts: "I got to relax. That's a cop's life: this game can actually come as a break... I don't know where things headed after I left, but I don't think they went where the majority expected them to go. I'm really looking forward to being right." Well, he did call it: in a way, Alex took them down. She opened the gate and Gardener walked through it. Does Trina need an assistant?} {He could probably use the extra money. His check is sort of doomed.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Walking along the river, near the plum tree, the blood long since gone from the ground: Angela. Connie takes this one. "She wants the world to be a certain way, she tries to change the world to get what she wants -- a very intelligent young woman, but it's so -- misdirected. Angela has too much anger in her life. I don't think she can ever truly progress until she lets go of it." I don't even want to consider that source -- too late... Gardener looks like he's just about choking on it, too -- but on the other hand, he's got an axe of his own to grind. "Not exactly the best argument for the far left. Or the right, if she ever worked on that side of the street during a slow week. Or hell, anyone she offered to coordinate. Gary called it: there were times I tried agreeing with her, and she moved away from me just to keep the argument going. There were even a few things I really agreed with her on, and I swear if she'd gotten wind of that, she might have jumped to my side to see if I'd leave..." And now he's grinning. "I really want to call that the best ouster ever. 'He had a spare.'" And chuckling. "Funniest damn thing I heard all game." "She did go just a little bit ballistic..." Connie admits. "But that brought us to the tie again." Which eventually led to her coming her in. "Alex, I suppose you were glad to see her go." Yes, conversation is mandatory on this walk: it's just not exactly edge-free. "Something you can look back on." Because Angela's still looking back on it. I think about Tony more often than I think about Angela. And he still won't listen to me... "Someone had to go on the bounce. She just seemed like the best candidate -- the head of your alliance." I'd thought they might reform around Phillip: it hadn't really happened. Still -- You kept underestimating me -- and see how that worked out for you. No strategical abilities. Uh-huh. Except for whatever someone else was telling me to do. "We did what we had to." Gardener shakes his head in largely faked disbelief. "The idol finally moves -- and everything started to move with it. I think we made Jeff's whole season right there." "And ruined Angela's whole scheme." Connie still has more than enough of a rivalry with her former debating partner to softly laugh at that. "Call it a hunch on my part, but I believe she's going to hold a few grudges. Myself for flipping, Gardener for playing the idol, and Alex for giving it up." In other words, no one has Angela's vote, so who might get it isn't a matter for debate. Abstention, anyone? A few. We agree with the grudge part and move on. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Angela bitter? What do you think? "Of all the possible Final Threes... I know who I'm not voting for, but both alternatives make me want to cringe. This is the time when I really want to support a third-party candidate. I'll go in there, I'll do my job, and I'll vote someone the million. There's just no way I'm going to wind up enjoying it."} {Third-party candidate? What does she want, a Final Three at the last vote so she can be stuck with a trio of people she hates instead of a double act?} {Okay, that is officially the dumbest idea ever. And as such, I'm giving all the credit for it to Angela. What's next, a jury of nine and a three-way tie?} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unexplored territory: clusters of wild roses, light pinks, yellows, and whites. Even Connie can take a moment to enjoy the fragrance before we turn to Tony's torch. Maybe it's because flowers always know their place. Gardener wants to start here. "Way back when, I said Phillip was just a big friendly overgrown kid. I called it wrong. Phillip's a man. Still all of the above on the rest -- but a man. Tony was the kid here. Early teens, probably. You see that in a lot of athletes: it takes some of them a long time to get past that point. They get so much handed to them -- but even with all his struggles in the minors, Tony still had that kid in him. I don't think he'd hold onto malice for long -- it would keep him from looking for something more fun around the corner." Which doesn't matter, because Angela will control his vote, and she can personally hold a grudge until it chokes and dies. It's just a matter of whose throat looks more appealing. Connie nods. "There were times he'd get frustrated -- with Phillip when they were competing for the fun of it, with Elmore when he wasn't up to the physical needs of the camp -- but he'd go into confessional, and he'd always have shaken it off by the time he came back out. Tony wanted to win, and he wanted it badly -- but in the end, I think he wanted something else more." Angela's love. Does Connie believe that's real on Angela's end? Does Connie care? I have no idea what she knows here, and how she might feel about it... "He wasn't a bad person." I do believe that now. "He was just used to one kind of world, and he wasn't quite ready for this one." Which brings out one of Gardener's still-rare sighs. "I really do wish I'd had a chance at him in college. He's got a lot to learn, and I don't know if he ever started to pick up on any of it here. And -- there's areas where we've got some things in common." Definitely not maturity and intelligence. "Tony needs a tutor to give him the heads-up before he gets to find things out the rough way. Life's a hard teacher." And I generally hate teachers. "Do you think he'll ever make the majors?" "Never seen him play," Gardener shrugs. "But if he's been down there for this long, he'll have to learn something new to break through. And if he doesn't..." ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Tony, and the flickering flames of independence meet the angular blonde extinguisher: "It's been worked out. If this happens, the vote goes that way. Something else, then it's someone else. Drilled through every possible combination until I had it fixed. I don't think we'll see some, but I'm ready for any of them. Picking a champion is serious business. I want to make sure the trophy winds up in the right person's hands." Pauses. "They should really give out a trophy with this thing. You don't keep the check." Well, some people get disco balls, and some people get a million dollars. Pick one.} {Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, Tony Tirello?} {In five words: left, left, left, right, left. Oh, his poor partner...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Looking at the waterfall lake that held the flying fox challenge from the upper edge of the cascade, Phillip's torch with a slight lean that makes it feel like it's surveying potential landing points. Nothing wrong with one more dive, right? "He was too good to stay." And too stupid. Never forget the 'stupid' part. "Everyone jokes about the seven-zero vote, and then everyone tries to stop it..." Gardener and I are agreeing a lot this morning. Getting something else closer to a filled quota. "Too good to stay -- but more than good enough to be here in the first place. Of all the characters -- wish we'd started on the same tribe: switch him for Frank, and the challenges would have been sick." "And the votes would have been weird," I remind him. Too many challenge threats to cut out, and only one could go at a time -- if he's seeing minimal losses... and again, there's no point in following this too far. "You think that's weird?" Gardener asks. "I may wind up at a Cornhuskers game. Now that's weird." Connie's oddly silent here, to the point where the camera people start to signal her for a few words. He was Haraiki, she was Haraiki, and they were alliance partners once. Just because Gary and I don't have anything to say doesn't mean Connie can't have a sentence or two about her former teammate. But it takes a lot of silent gestures before she finally lets anything out -- and that's just four words. "A very unique man." It's all she's going to give him. Unique. Phillip has done something Connie can't forgive him for. It was probably not completely hating me. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Phillip: "No matter who's in front of me at the Final Two, I'm gonna call it an amazing game, and the last part of an experience I'm glad I was here for. My vote's gonna factor in everything I've said up until now. I'm taking this seriously, and I've gotta remember what's come before this -- but I'll try not to make it too bad for anybody." Just about what you would have expected from him. It's just a game, right? At least someone still believes that. There should always be one of those somewhere. And they generally do wind up on the jury...} {I think he needs a new post-game career. I'm thinking ambassador. 'No, we don't want a war. How about I tell my side to surrender?'} {Eh. I still like him. Sue me.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- Another willow tree, the branches gently dipping under the weight of their flowers. Mary-Jane's torch sits under the shade and waits for us to start. "Another one where I screwed up on first impressions," Gardener admits. "I took one look at her and thought 'Oh Christ, we got the doorstop.' She'd do exactly that much work and wouldn't be anywhere near that bright. Just another Princess Sarah gliding in, expecting everyone else to carry her forward. But she worked. She ran the challenges and she did a pretty good job in most of them. She took major chances in the game, even if they didn't work out -- Mary-Jane came to play." He was ready to keep her over me when the time came to dump another female. Perceived physical capabilities? Hoped-for loyalty even after her angry statement to Desmond, feeling I was the one more likely to switch? No way to tell. Connie needs to throw Mary-Jane some kind of bone here, and it takes some searching before she comes up with "She was interesting to watch from the other side -- we could tell she was making a real effort. And of course, she was very clean." With a tiny smile, "She might have been the cleanest person I've ever seen in this game. That's almost a heroic accomplishment." It makes me wonder what Connie would have said about me if she'd found herself walking past my torch. Connie didn't like Mary-Jane, and Mary-Jane didn't like Connie. Nothing about that was ever going to change. Mary-Jane might have just walked right past Connie's torch without a word, and it would have been more honest... Plenty of time to think of comments. Plenty of time to place knives, because I haven't made one. Gardener notices, glances at me. "Your first alliance partner, Alex." She hates me. He knows she hates me. Everyone saw it and there's only one way to read it. And he still brought that up. His idea of a prompt, right in line with Azure's fourth headbutt of this stop. "I'm not the one who created a gender war within the tribe. As soon as you guys started, the women had to band together." "Blame Desmond," Gardener suggests. "He's the one who really suggested it." "And you went along with it," I point out. It's a non-point for him. "It ended. And we lost more men than women, so guess how well that worked out." Connie's come up with something else to say, especially since it doesn't have to involve Mary-Jane. "I don't think we'll ever see another season start with a gender division. They tend to do too good a job of trying it themselves." Impossible to argue with on the second part, and no one even makes an attempt. (Still no guarantee on the first.) The others just start towards the next torch and I hang back for a moment, looking at Mary-Jane's as the shadows from the slowly-swaying branches move across it. It does nothing to create the illusion of flame. ---------------------------------------------------------------- {Mary-Jane, and this is just depressing: "One more thing to do and I can go home." A montage of her happy moments and this sad voice drifting over them. "Right now, my only job is to cast that vote. I won't get to ask the questions I want to, and I wouldn't want the answers if I could. Cast the vote and leave. I don't even know why I'm here any more..." All that delight and open joy on the screen, and none of it left in her at all.} {I wonder if she's been seeing a shrink since she got back? This is really deep for a broken crush, or even a perceived friendship that wasn't there on one end.} {M-J feels. Maybe given enough time, she'll feel better. But that time wasn't in her national segment, and it sure isn't right now...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- This river is familiar. The spot is familiar. I never wanted to be here again and Robin's torch has forced me to return. I don't look at the water. I don't listen for the echoes of my scream. Robin's torch: that's enough sensory input for this stop. "She never really gave up," I tell the cameras. "Not when she knew what the real stakes were. Whatever we had to do for Immunity, she was up for it. Even if she believed she couldn't win, she could always tell herself she had a chance long enough to try and put herself back into the game." The difference between Denadi and Robin: Denadi just jumped to save herself a short-term struggle. When Robin quit during the weight pull, she had a long-term reason: protect her career. Robin could keep her priorities for the outside world intact while inside the game. Not the easiest trick at all. Azure nuzzles against my hair for a few seconds, then gazes at the torch. There's some tiny indentation marks around the grip point: Robin had a habit of putting her nails right up into the wood. "Stubborn as hell," Gardener agrees. "One of the only people to quit on a challenge and not get blasted by Jeff afterwards, mostly because of pure attitude." Connie hadn't taken much heat -- and Connie's priorities might have been the same as Denadi's: avoid pain. But Gardener has that one covered. "And maybe because he knew that challenge was a lousy design. Alex, I don't even want to think about what would have happened with you two on the same tribe at the start..." Looking over the torch. "You're right, though -- she was determined, too. She knew what she wanted and she kept trying to get it." Connie's more than willing to be the voice of mischief here. "I suppose you would know." That gets a very heartfelt groan. "You know something? If we'd been the same age, both single, neither one with any previous commitments, and she'd done the exact same things to show she was interested?" Pause. "The boat would have caught up to me about halfway to Hawaii." We're all staring at him: contestants, crew, parrot, possibly even the torch. He shrugs. "Hell, Audrey had to chase me for about fifty blocks." Well, now we know who the aggressor was in that initial connection... He looks, and he isn't ready when someone looks back? This gets Connie's interest. "Edward and I -- orbited each other for a while. Moving in the same circles, but not close to one another. It took some time before I began to see what a fine man he was. But his efforts were constant -- never imposing or offensive: he just kept trying." I have absolutely nothing firsthand to contribute to a discussion on dating techniques. Besides, now that we're this far off the verbal track, the camera people are starting to signal. "One more." Connie looks more than vaguely offended at the interruption: don't I want the world to know she was worth pursuing? "There's still a stop on this tour." Gardener spots the signals and starts on his way, with Connie following after a little more frustrated staring at both me and the no-longer-gesturing crew. Well, it does keep her from having to say something non-offensive about Robin. Who would have had no problem finding something to say about Connie, although non-offensive wouldn't have been the category. If Robin was walking along this trail instead of having her representative waiting for us, it might almost be worth the challenge risk just for the commentary... ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Robin: "I know exactly what I'm doing. If they don't know what I'm doing, they're idiots. And if they want to change it, they'll have to be major idiots. If that doesn't work out -- anyone think I can make them beg?"} {If she trots out that Early Show dress again, begging is guaranteed.} {You don't count.} {Sure I'm counting. Nine hundred and ninety-eight hours in the gym to go.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- A small grove of cherry trees, petals scattered on the ground, fruit not yet ripe. Gary's torch has picked up a few petals of its own, clinging to the wood near his name. Connie approaches it, very slowly. "He had so much promise," she tells us, and it's almost gentle. "I know it was his time to go, but if there was anyone I wish I'd had more days with, it was him. This was the man I wish I'd had on my tribe from the start." A fast, hard look at me -- but she's blaming the wrong person. Gary reached the purple raft before I did, came off it to help bring me in. Maybe she thinks he should have used it as an opportunity to perform the earliest tribe switch in game history. Without giving anything away -- and partially to irritate Connie -- "I got used to having him in camp." I had him longer than you did... "You knew he was always somewhere nearby: working, having a little fun... I don't think anyone enjoyed the island more -- not for the game: just for the setting. They're going to have a hard time getting him out of the mansion for Council -- he must be checking out every room." Gardener's turn. "One of the few first impressions that I got right. I took one look at him and immediately thought about Archimedes. Give me a place to stand and the right lever, and I'll move the world... Gary was a solid place to stand -- and someone solid to stand by." I can't take the illusion from Gardener either. "Alex -- can I have that dagger for a second?" Huh? Well, all the camera people are armed, so he's not going to get to Final Two the fast way... "Why?" His voice is very quiet. "We've got one more." Oh. I take it out and pass it over, handle-first. Gardener takes it, points the blade straight down, steps back, and kneels like a wrecking ball dropping, all his weight descending at once. The dagger winds up jammed halfway into the ground and no more: careful control within the abrupt movement. We all look at it for a little while. Azure seems to have the most intense gaze. Gardener, still kneeling by the dagger, is the first to speak. "I don't know what you did here. I'm starting to accept that I'm probably never going to know. There aren't going to be any servants peeking out of caves where they've been hiding in fear for years, ready to tell the real story as soon as they find someone willing to pay enough for it. Not if nothing's come out after this much time. You stuck us with a mystery -- and all she did was make it worse." This to me. "And all she did was drive me nuts." Azure. And possibly me again. "I don't know how many animals died here and I don't know if any humans were prey in those hunts. But this was your island. We got here, and we took part of it for our own -- but never all of it. Maybe that means it's still your island. I can't call you a murderer and I won't call you a killer, not for anything that didn't have feathers or fur. I guess in the end, you were just our other host -- and you did one interesting job of it." He touches the index finger of his right hand to the dagger's pommel. "For whatever it's worth -- peace." I don't know how much of this is a show for the cameras and how much is what Gardener might feel. Given that it is Gardener, all of it could be a ploy, one more act designed to get a little camera time for his one-man team. I don't personally believe anything's listening to his words that isn't alive, and as far as the mystery goes -- I've accepted that I'll probably never know either. I do wonder what Gardener's faith is, if he even really has any. And I have to think this isn't the lie he wanted to get away with. He's talking to someone -- -- but it could just be the cameras. And even so -- I kneel down across from him, duplicate his motion. Not for me. For Azure, looking at her strangely quiet eyes before I reach out to touch the pommel. "Peace." "Peace." Not Connie. Not Gardener again. No one on the crew. Azure. Gardener's head snaps up as his eyes go wide, staring at her, almost daring her to do that again. She stares right back. Seriously, what's his problem? No one's outlawed free speech here, have they? And even if that's somehow so, the laws that apply to humans still don't cover her... Connie shakes her head, looking completely exasperated. "If you two are quite finished?" Apparently so, although Azure should have really merited her own entry. "We have a challenge to do." Gardener stands up. I withdraw the blade from the ground, clean and sheathe it, then smooth over the small wound in the earth. It's just a gap in the soil, really -- somehow, Gardener managed to miss all the roots. They leave. And I move with them, one more time. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Gary: "I'll be getting my questions ready. I want to work out exactly what I'm going to ask each person. This is where I want the dodging and aversions to stop. I may not get what I want -- and I probably won't get what I want to know, either. I just have to try."} {Does anyone else think that's kind of a weird way to put it?} {You think that's weird? What's Gardener doing here? Good thing he's not a head coach -- I'd hate to hear his pregame speeches.} {And now a brief pause so I can tell people to clean up all the drinks they just knocked over.} {We could not get through the last episode without going Twilight Zone one last time, could we?} {I bet he was talking to Azure at some point, and knew she had that word in her vocabulary. The show filmed Gardener discovering it and asked him to do this.} {Gardener talks to Azure? And if he did, he would use the word 'peace'?} {Maybe he just wanted her to give him some?} {She's not that much of a chatterbox for a parrot...} {Taking Alex's looking at her as the real cue to speak? She's the one Azure pays the most attention to.} {The Hall did not take that well. There were gasps coming from just about every seat, and a few small screams. I believe some of the attendees bought into what Gardener was doing, and Azure's speaking at that point was the last straw.} {Okay -- the moment of weirdness has passed. When they come back from commercial, we'll have a perfectly normal challenge. I really like that theory and I'm going to stick with it.} {I like your theory and I wish to read more of your literature.} {Unbelievable. Just -- look, if Jeff's announcement at the end of the Reunion is for Survivor: The Bermuda Triangle, I just give the hell up...} {A.S.S. II or the Bermuda Triangle. Pick one.} {That's easy. A.S.S. II in the Bermuda Triangle. Let's get the Thailand cast together one more time, send the plane in, and hope...} {What a wonderful concept! I'll take a pamphlet.} -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 3603 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Thong Contest Judge" 01-26-07, 05:44 PM (EST) 9. "RE: I Can't Win...: Part V" {What's next from Azure? Taking over Jeff's part at the challenges? Squawk Richard in the lead Squawk}   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 22510 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 01-26-07, 10:24 PM (EST) 10. "I Can't Win...: Part VI" LAST EDITED ON 02-03-07 AT 06:01 PM (EST) One last clearing. I don't know the species of the trees surrounding it: almost completely smooth trunks with the occasional tiny light brown nodule rising from nearly-black wood, the branches not starting until about twenty feet overhead, leaves verging more towards yellow than green. Huckleberry bushes in the area -- there's a few growing wild in my local woods -- and violets sprinkled among bluegrass. Jeff standing a few feet away from the entrance, quietly waiting for us. And behind him... Is that a heat haze coming off the wood? Could that much be leaking out from between the logs? The freshly-built cabin isn't all that tiny: one door, no windows, enough room inside for us, several camera operators, what's probably some carefully-concealed lighting because of that lack of windows, and what might be a lot of small fires if the air just outside it is starting to shimmer in lazy rising currents. But there's no smokestack, and we have to be able to breathe... Connie isn't exactly dancing with anticipation: she's giving the structure an extremely wary look. Gardener's discontent expression is already starting to settle in, but that may partially be from the absolute knowledge of the immediate next part. "Okay, Gardener," Jeff tells him. "One more time." Gardener slowly removes the necklace, takes two steps forward and hands it over before returning to his place with an equal lack of speed. "Alex, pass over Azure -- she can't be with you for this one." I'd figured that out already, and coax her to the waiting perch. "Immunity -- back up for grabs, one last time. This is your final chance to control your own fate in this game. The winner of the final Immunity not only goes to the Final Two and faces the jury, but casts the final ouster vote -- and by doing so, chooses the person they'll face the jury with." Some projection to his words, but they have an oddly soft feel to them today. Everyone knows how important this is -- anyone who wouldn't realize that should never make a season, let alone get this far -- so he's just speaking to the eventual audience. He's just being strangely gentle with them. Which probably means we're in for a very rough time. If that's heat haze, then... I don't want to think about this. I don't. But... Maybe I'm getting it wrong. Actually, for all I know, I'm hallucinating. I'm in the Final Three? The jaguar knocked me into a coma and my entire non-life is flashing before my eyes. Nice theory. Too much sensation for a dream, way too much pain -- and Jeff's speaking again. "You know what you're playing for. This is how you get it. Follow me." He walks up to the cabin door, opens it, steps inside, we go in behind him, Gardener first and I have to wait until he steps aside so I can see something that isn't his broad back -- -- heat, lots of it, rolling through the air, probably wilting the violets behind us and cooking the huckleberries in their skins. It's a dry heat for the most part, and it comes from small cauldrons and elevated steel dishes full of glowing coals, shining a bright red in the quasi-gloom of the log cabin, scattered around the perimeter of the structure -- not quite at the walls: the camera people have the outermost areas to stand in. I can't tell how everything's being heated: there's no visible fire anywhere. Filaments and battery power? If so, it's well-concealed, or maybe something else just has everyone's primary focus -- including mine. The Immunity Spear is sitting on a small, slightly elevated platform in the center of the cabin, the chipped obsidian head pointing towards the ceiling. Three pairs of small cylindrical stepping posts surround it. (The point of the spear is eight feet above the ground, the smaller platforms top out at a foot and a half.) The steps aren't quite at equal distances from the spear, but the distances between pairs are about the same: a hundred and twenty degrees along the circle. No tribal switches, a minimum of twists beyond the hidden idol itself, and now we're about to put a slightly new spin on an old classic... Well, Robin, you would have partially gotten your wish. The thing she wanted out of the challenges, semi-returned after she was no longer able to play. She would probably call it typical. Or worse. Jeff is already starting to lightly sweat. He's got plenty of company: the camera people in the cabin look miserable. There's going to be a lot of crew rotation during this challenge. "Each of you will balance on your assigned station and place one hand on the spear. At the start of the challenge, you must be gripping it fully. You can move your grip on the spear as long as you don't try to push anyone else, sliding up and down -- but you can't let go. Push someone else off, you're out and they get to take a new position. As soon as you completely lose contact, you're out. If you try to switch hands, you're out. If any part of your body touches the spear's platform, you're out, and if you go off your own posts, it's over. The last person still holding onto the spear wins Immunity -- a place in the Final Two, and the right to take someone with them." Normally he'd mention the one-in-two chance at a million dollars here, but that's really factoring out the jury votes. "You're being assigned platforms because we have height and reach differences in the group: we didn't place them until we knew who was out last night. This way, you'll all start on equal footing." The game is fair... "Are there any questions about the challenge?" Not after he already answered the most likely one, no. "All right." Jeff points out our individual platforms. "You have two minutes from my mark to prepare yourselves and find a position you're comfortable with. After that, the challenge will begin." I can't. I can't. I -- -- have to... Jeff nods to us. "Your two minutes starts now." And I move, as fast as I can, trying to get a head start on my physical actions before every part of my mind completely catches on. Kick off my shoes, is the wood of the stepping posts going to heat up? Am I better off putting them back on?, sit down as fast at top speed and wrench off my socks (because the shoes will be traction and protection enough if I go that way), go for my pants... Someone behind me just made a very strange sound. I think it's one of the camera operators choking on something. Probably disbelief. I'm right there with him. I can't do this, and I have to do this. Heat buildup will be a factor in this challenge, and light fabrics or not, I'm more covered than anyone. If I stay completely dressed, it'll be harder for that heat to escape, it'll cut down my endurance and this is endurance, it's no different than sitting around my apartment in a similar condition during the heart of the summer, cheaper than turning on any fans or air conditioning, just getting down to a point where I can work and if the challenges are anything, they're definitely work inside what's supposed to be a game... Phillip's necklace off: I don't know how much heat the fangs and teeth might collect and conduct. The cross off: if anyone's going to get hot, it'll be the metal. Remove my buff -- -- I can't do this -- -- and I'm out of other options. Blouse off, and someone definitely just swallowed hard. Multiple someones. Get my shoes back on: my feet will sweat inside them, but I like their traction and I'm going to trust them on the stepping posts. I'm going to have to risk keeping my bra: the custom work goes more towards flexible plastics than metals, which is part of the reason it cost so much. Metal hooks and reinforcements would heat up: this stands a chance of being tolerable. Besides, if I absolutely have to, I can get it off with one hand... Did I just even have that thought? Do I have any time left to get in position? Jeff isn't counting us down just yet -- okay, buff around my forehead and tie it at the back: a sweatband to keep the moisture out of my eyes. Is there anything else I can do that'll really help? No. Get up and scramble for my stepping posts, find the position, Jeff just said something about thirty seconds and supposedly-instantaneous decisions apparently still need some time to get going plus the socks took a few heartbeats -- okay, I've got a place picked out. Gardener's hand is already on the spear. A natural grip point will leave equally natural room for Connie: it's the difference in our heights. Do I take something a little higher up and force her into something other than the most basic posture, hoping it'll send her out earlier? It'll be more uncomfortable for me if it keeps up and I won't be able to shift while her hand is under mine, so this could cut down on my endurance too... ...I'm stronger than she is. I know I am. But I can't chance anything that'll reduce my own potential. I take my natural position, the uneven bumps of the wood familiar against my palm, and Connie takes hers above me a few heartbeats later. Jeff nods. "Five, four, three --" Gardener's hand makes a slight adjustment "-- two, one -- and we're under way." I look up at the others for the first time. Connie's decided to take a cue from me on this one. It doesn't matter where the idea comes from as long as it works for her, and she's down to bra and panties too, although she either didn't have time to get her shoes back on or decided to take a chance on going without them. Gardener's down to his boxers, and like me, his buff has gone around his forehead. (Connie's is around her neck -- maybe she just didn't see that part.) However, Gardener seems to have thought of stripping down on his own without paying any attention to my actions, because his gaze comes up to take its own survey of the field -- and stops. It takes a few breaths before it gets moving again. With vague amusement, "If you're trying to distract me, forget it." Because we've seen Audrey and we can all guess that I'm not his type. Plus there may have been other clues along those lines. "It's hot in here." Plain statement of fact. I hate having done it, I hate that the cameras are filming the results, and I'm trying very hard not to think about it or grit my teeth when I talk... "You took yours off, I took mine off, and Connie's right there with us. We all did what we had to." Which gets a snort. "I just didn't think you were going to do it." Plus a one-shoulder shrug. "Well, at least that clears up one of the last mysteries..." Another look, not quite as long this time. "It's an innie. Tony owes me five bucks." Ha. Ha. Shut up and play. I don't like this position. None of us are just reaching straight out: we all have to lean forward in order to reach the spear. I have my most comfortable grip point, but I'm still more than a little tilted, and that could be trouble in the long term. Even the best possible starting place is not a good position for me. I had a choice between using my buff to pad out the straps or having it keep sweat out of my eyes. I went for vision. That could turn out to be a very big mistake. Any extra pain, any additional distraction... Connie takes a long, slow breath. "I wonder how hot it is in here?" The planets align, the sky turns red, the Tigers may still be in first place, and Jeff answers a question. "Currently a hundred and eight Fahrenheit." I glance at him: he's got a small electric thermometer, which he's just slipping back into a pocket. His sleeves have already been rolled back. "It will get hotter." And we wait. I'm good at waiting. This position isn't so bad, right? I just have to keep telling myself that. I like holding the spear. I did everything I could to get the spear in my hands as often as possible before this. I want to keep holding it. There's definitely sweat under the bandage: whatever scars are present just started to itch. I'm not allowed to take the thing off just yet. I could rub the bandage over them with my free hand, but that would probably just make things worse. Pretend it's a closet... Holding my place. Having the lowest grip may actually help: I have more freedom to move. I just don't want to start yet. Sweat is starting to run down my arms, through my hair, down my back, through my bra, it'll probably pool there... It's a mostly-dry heat: isn't that supposed to help? I'm not moving, so there shouldn't be any real exertion here: just the effort required to keep my arm up and my body in place. There definitely shouldn't be this much sweat. Which isn't stopping it from coming: I just want it to know it's out of place. A glance at Gardener. He's sweating too. Jeff steps in, walking behind him, starts moving towards a perspiring Connie. His own sweat is much lighter than ours. He may have some sort of cooling system under his shirt. Or ice beneath the hat. "This is a sweat lodge of sorts," he tells us. "It's traditional for various tribes of hunters: to go into one of these before undertaking something major in their lives, let all the poisons in their body and mind dissipate out in the heat before moving on to a new stage. That's an idea that's spread all over the world in some form or another -- you could argue that saunas came from that. Your walk along the Fallen Comrades trail was to give you a place to bring out your memories. This will help bring out the rest of it. Everything you've built up over the last thirty-eight days that you might be better off without." Connie would normally call that superstition, but she probably uses the sauna at her favorite spa. "Saunas serve refreshments when they're needed..." Gardener takes that as the hint it was meant to be -- then dismisses it before Jeff can. "I don't think we're getting any refreshments here." His voice is no weaker than it was before, but we haven't been here all that long. "Or temptations." Jeff moves back into my arc of vision. "No temptations," he confirms. "If you can be lured down from your station that way, you shouldn't be here." Connie manages a small laugh. "I know. I was just thinking of orange slices." "That was a long time ago," Jeff softly tells her. "In a different place, with very different people." Which might include himself. Connie nods, and Jeff moves on. "You've all seen so many things happen -- and yet, you've never seen it all... Gardener, what's the first thing you would buy if you won the million?" The speed of the answer makes me suspect he's been thinking about this for a while -- possibly starting from the time he received the call. "Pay off my mortgage. I don't have that far to go if I do it as a lump sum. Now that I know Audrey and I are going to be dating, maybe I can take her to Tokyo for some real Japanese food -- she's always wanted to go." Jeff nods, continues to circle. "Connie?" She has to give this one some visible thought. "I'm not sure, really -- I've daydreamed about it, obviously, but I never reached any real decision. I definitely wanted to go to Bethlehem with Edward -- see the Holy Land for ourselves. That's something we've been thinking of doing for a long time, but we've never committed to it." It would take a lot of time to build up tolerance for dealing with all the Jews. Another acceptable answer. "Alex?" "I'm not thinking about it." Because I haven't, not really. A million dollars -- even the percentage of that which would be left after taxes -- is a very small amount of money for some people, but it's hundreds of times more than I've ever had in my hands at once. "I don't want to go on a spending spree. There's some things I need to buy -- a new refrigerator, a monitor, I could really use a new television and a mattress..." Connie's starting to look amused. Yes, I'm poor and you're not. Enjoy it. "But those are all things I could get if I went out today." With a lot left over. "True," Jeff admits. "Even for the absolute best pieces available on all four, you'd have something of a surplus." Was that a grin just before he went behind Gardener again? "But isn't there anything you've really wanted to do or have?" I wonder where the logs for the cabin came from. Flown in, right? There's no way they'd cut down this many trees, or possibly any trees: no damage to the island's ecosystem allowed. As far as I know. We might count. "I decided to go to the San Diego ComicCon if I got to a certain point, but that was going to be as a vendor, not a visitor -- buy my own table space. It's the biggest show of the year, and some other Internet cartoonists attend." Sell a few books, maybe meet creators whose work I admired and exchange art, about a one-in-a-billion chance of an editor wandering by and giving my work a serious glance. Possibly I was making those odds a little too low. Maybe I should consult Jeff on that: he's the oddsmaker around here. "But I got to that point already -- I never thought about spending beyond it." A reserve in my bank account for emergencies. Getting a better apartment without increasing my income would just steadily drain that reserve. Investing is so risky... Gardener snorts. "I think you're asking a little much of her on this one, Jeff. I'm surprised she hasn't said she needs to get to the hundred thousand first before she can start thinking about the million. Or not thinking about it." It's a good point. "Two steps is still a huge distance." And you know... Of course, it's not very hard for Connie to come up with ways to spend money, even if it's not hers. "The amount you have now would be more than enough to pay for the surgery." Guess which kind of surgery 'the' indicates. If only that was the challenge. "No." It's my body. No one is going to tell me what to do with it. Someone already tried that once and got within hours of having it happen. I'm not giving out free second chances. "You need it." Not because she cares about me in any way: it's because she has a perfect figure, I have a parody, and she just wanted to work that in one more time. I look up at her. "More people bleed from people telling them what they should need than from anyone ever making up their own minds." And she can read that however she likes. There's certainly enough options. "My body, my decision -- and that's not going to change." Go ahead, legislate that. Connie takes a deep breath -- and Jeff decides to intercede before this turns into a political debate. Also, he's got news. "We have reached the thirty-minute mark," he tells us. "The temperature in the cabin is now a hundred and thirteen degrees." I wish he hadn't said that last part: I could swear my pores heard him. The spear's wood is definitely more slick under my grip. Plus everyone else's palm sweat is running down on top of mine. "Half an hour, and everyone is still in it. This is going to come down to whoever wants it most." Wants what? The million? The right to choose? To see Day Thirty-Nine dawn over camp? What means the most to the three of us? For Connie, it's not just the money, it's the chance to be an example. Gardener wants the million, but does he want the title just as much? And me... ...what am I doing here? How are those coals being heated? More sweat. Rivers running down. Funny how everyone broke for the bushes once I stepped into them after leaving Gary's torch. I'd wanted to empty out my bladder just in case it did turn out to be endurance. Remembering Trooper, determined not to follow his road out. Gardener and Connie had taken their cue from me. That aspect of biology will not determine the winner here... ...it's so hot, and my arm is starting to feel heavy. Bra straps beginning to dig into my shoulders as the forward tilt continues without mercy. Hair plastered to my head. Probably tangling, too: with all the sweat in here, this isn't as dry a heat as it used to be. Balance hasn't been a consideration so far. Just hold position and hold on. The posts have enough support area to give my feet a place to rest, even if there's some overlap. Keeping the shoes was the better move: a firmer surface under the protruding toes. The door opens, shuts again, very quickly so we won't have too much heat escape. Camera people rotate in and out. I try to catch Jeff in the act of getting fresh ice or cooling packs, but can't seem to. At least he's sweating somewhat. It makes him a little more human. It's not a closet. Sometimes the closet was hot, and sometimes it was cool. There were a few times in the winter when it was very hot, because the space heater had been left going nearby. Never used it that way during the summer. Probably just didn't think of it. Missed out on one. Has Jeff made a time announcement recently? I'm not used to having someone call off the time that's passing while I'm being punished. Punishment takes as long as it takes. Years. A lifetime. I even know what I'm being punished for... ...touch at the top of my hand. Connie's grip has slid down that far. She can't knock me off, but she can slip until we're in contact. Have we ever been in contact when there wasn't a challenge involved? No. We don't touch. Her skin is hot and slick. Looking up: has she noticed? Maybe not. Her eyes are half-closed, and her breathing is ragged. How long have we been here? Long enough that no one wants to talk right now. I think I could: I just don't have anything to talk about. Not even if the subject was getting Connie to move her hand. She can't knock me off: if she does, she's out and I start again. Starting again would let me move my left shoulder for a few seconds. Maybe if I did that, it would hurt less. She can bring down her weight on me if she wants to. She learned that much from Elmore, right? She can go down, but even if I hit first, she'll be the one who goes out -- -- outwit, outplay, outlast-- I'm stronger than she is. I have to be. How much time...? "Seventy-five minutes," Jeff tells us. Oh, there it is. "You may be better off if I don't give you the temperature any more." Arguably. Orange slices... Just for the liquid, or a drink of cold water, that would just be so sweet right now, water and ice, remember ice? I would love some ice right now. Not even to suck on. A huge pile of it to dive in, roll around on. Best Reward ever. Connie and Gardener can offer to trade in their cars for it if they want that and I don't have as much negotiating room. Gardener manages a very low chuckle. "Maybe... I've had two-a-days that felt like this..." His voice is a little weaker, isn't it? Or is that just my hearing? Jeff's still circling, the vulture waiting for the first body to drop. "I believe it," he tells Gardener. "It makes me wonder how Gary would have done at this stage..." A quick smile, and he wipes some sweat away from his chin. "Not our Gary, of course." Gardener nods: sweat drips from his entire face. "Yeah -- kind of curious as to how a quarterback would take this myself. Hogeboom... I'll never know if you guys cast Danni just to have someone who could take out his secret on one glance..." "Sports talk show hosts still don't know every player's face," Jeff replies, and it's as much answer as we'll ever get out of him. "Alex, check in." Because Gardener's speaking rationally and he wants to know who's keeping quiet to save strength and whose mind has conjured up bars across their mouths. "Speaking..." Gardener seems to find that amusing. "How other players would have -- done here? Judd would have been down by now. He would have shouted out his strength -- complaining about the heat..." Jeff looks like he's trying not to smile. "Arguably. Connie?" Her voice is definitely weaker. "Yes, Jeff?" There's a bit of rasp to it, and the sweat is really pouring off her skin. Flowing over my hand. "Just checking in with you," Jeff reminds her. "Got an all-time favorite for this challenge?" Connie's silent for a while -- at least for words: her breathing is audible, uneven. "Not sure... Rudy in his prime... maybe could have beaten anyone..." A quiet nod from Jeff. "Now that would have been a sight," he says, sounding oddly thoughtful and almost reverent at the same time. "Rudy at the height of his powers. He might not have been the strongest challenge force we'd ever had, but I think he would have given anyone a run for their money. But people come out here as they are -- and sometimes, they leave as something else." Maybe the heat's getting to him, too. He still has to have some sort of cooling system under his clothes. "That was always part of the original idea of the sweat lodge --" -- and she's not touching my hand any more. I look up just in time to see Connie's arm drop the rest of the way even as her shoulders sag inwards, her knees start to buckle, body going too far forward -- -- and catches herself, pulling back before going past the point of no return, but she put too much into it and now she's going backwards -- -- off the stepping posts, sitting down hard on the hot ground, well away from the cauldrons and dishes which were placed so far out from us for just that reason. No words, just a small cry of pain at the impact. Her breathing is very ragged. There's a beep, somewhere behind me: someone hitting a button on their radio. The door opens two heartbeats later, and some of the people from Medical come in, Dietrich at their head. Connie is lifted, carried out, and the door closes again. So quickly it might as well not have even happened. So fast it might as well have been a mirage. Silence, stretching out. A radio beeps -- and Jeff finally speaks. "She's okay -- she just came very close to a faint. She's getting liquids and ice now." Because Medical has to have three people in shape to face Council tonight, and unassisted recovery might take too long. "Connie will stay outside for the remainder of the challenge -- we planned on having the first person out leave the cabin all along, but she's in no condition to face the temperatures in here again." Jeff has said it. That means it happened. And he puts the final punctuation mark on that by saying a few more words. The first two count the most. "Connie's out." Very familiar-feeling words, those... "Gardener and Alex remain. One of you is going to choose their partner for the Final Two." Gardener and I look at each other, just for a moment. Lifting my head for very long takes energy I might need later. Back to the challenge. No, I don't want to know how hot it is. Not really. It's a pure morbid curiosity sort of question. Which member of the clique just hit me from behind? Doesn't matter: I was still hit from behind. Besides, I already know what the temperature is. It's too hot. That's a fair answer, isn't it? My hand slides on the spear a little, and now the bumps feel harsher against my skin. The new section of wood is hotter, too. Back up. And -- words. They're strong words. They're stronger than they should be, stronger than they were before, and I wonder how much is going into making them sound strong. Or maybe the tone earlier was the lie... "You never asked what I thought of you. On first impressions." Gardener wants to talk. I don't, and this can be ended quickly. "I already had -- a pretty good idea..." At least for an overall field. Robin's assumption is somewhere in the middle range. It gets much worse from there. I can't wrap the thick straps around the spear and start twirling it to make him lose his grip either, not when they're at least an inch down into my shoulders and still digging. Really not a good position for me. I should have used the buff for padding and just kept my eyes closed. Now, what was Gardener's best assumption about me? Oh, right. "Wonder Girl..." A very small, soft bark. "That reminds me... Always meant to ask you: Cole after Jack Cole?" Blink. How does he...? No, he knew Kubert. Gardener reads a lot, and maybe the Ann Arbor college library has some really good collections. "No... last names were -- randomly assigned. I didn't pick it. But I -- know who you mean." Alex because my mother gave me that name, and I don't know why. Don't care either. Cole because the orphanage picked it out of something. Possibly a giant bag of balls. I never liked my last name until I found the man who shared it lurking in an old comics history book. No relation, just a comfort that someone else out there had once made it under the same naming handicap. I'd wondered how many rhymes he'd had to put up with... He'd killed himself. Maybe one rhyme too many. I guess he nodded at that one. I'm not looking. "Figured you would." More softly, "I thought Mary-Jane was the doorstop. With you, first look -- I figured they'd put you in for all the wrong reasons. Mary-Jane was eye candy for most of the boys and you were going to be one of those really rare chocolate truffles -- more limited for the buyer range, but when those people find what they want, they will not turn down the chance. So I was looking at a challenge drag and someone who had no idea how to play the game, just looking for more public exposure -- hell, I pretty much thought Robin was right..." It's a very popular and long-standing stereotype. "And then you took that cross apart -- and all I knew was that I didn't want you in my tribe any more. Because unless someone had told you to bring that, I was looking at someone who might be able to really play this game. And you were still a challenge drag -- right up until you started running them. And really running them..." A sudden, sharp breath. "I thought you were the first damn boot. Guaranteed. Keep Trina because she wasn't so bad, she could go second, keep Mary-Jane because she looked like she could do a few things physically if she didn't spent the entire time hunting for someone who'd peel grapes for her. You could go as soon as we lost one, because you were the best person to get rid of." And this is almost gentle. "I have never been that damn wrong in my life." Just long enough to let that sink in, and then -- "Let go, Alex. I'll take you." Jeff's out of sight right now, and out of sight he will probably stay. He may not want me to see the expression on his face right now. "You can't..." He could. He really could. But... Amused again. "Why not?" "Because..." No, it won't hurt to say it now. "Because you promised Connie Final Two." And this breath is very sharp. "When did you figure that out?" At least he's not denying it. "A long time ago." A lifetime. I take a few slow breaths myself, trying to clear my head. More sweat coming down. The buff must be saturated or close to it. "When you -- insulted her at that challenge, I didn't think you were just -- defending me. You were reminding her tribe of what an asset she could be -- to keep. Potential jury partner... that they didn't like her, and we didn't like her, and she was someone they could -- bring along for a little while -- maybe look to keep long-term as someone they could bring with them..." I think he's grinning. His voice normally sounds like this in the rare times when he grins. But it also sounds a little forced. "Go on." If he insists. Besides, he's talked more than I have up until now, so he's used more strength. I think I'm still ahead. "Denadi before Connie -- just plant that idea -- and Connie after others, just in case. But -- you were making it look like you'd never work with her. Hated her as much as she thought I did. Never approach, never cooperate. Setting up the stealth, just in case. Thought about that -- on Day --" what day had it been? "-- Fourteen. You didn't want to yet -- you wanted to ride through with Turare, face one of us at the end... Desmond, maybe... but Connie was an idea." Softly, "You play a long-term game sometimes." These words should not be coming out as respectful. "You little bitch..." But they are. "I thought I'd played that so damn well... Not exactly like I loved her and it felt damn good to say, but... Okay, tell me the rest of it." "Pretty easy." Meeting in the woods... "Couldn't get her at the tie... Haraiki was too solid at five-five. Maybe she was weighing offers, but then Robin and Tony brought idols in -- and we went after Tony, Mary-Jane switched... knew she was safe for a while. Majority -- no need to move. But then the tie came back --" Gardener breaks in there. "Because of you. Because you did what no one else would have." Whatever. "-- and she was a lot shakier. You with the idol -- maybe could have talked me into bouncing her, gotten her four-three-one if you couldn't. Leave or join. Easy question. Maybe you told her -- you hated me. Only said those things because I made you. Betraying me in the end -- keeping her all the way -- the thing she'd want most. Connie had to take the chance -- gone that night without it. And the longer she lasted -- the better your promise looked. Started to really trust you. And I had to -- let it happen. Could have stopped the whole thing by going up to her before you did." I know I'm dropping words. It's to save strength. Really. "Any promise from me, or telling her what you might be planning -- instant distrust. Could have wrecked the whole thing in three or four sentences. Let it happen because letting you work was the best way..." I want to see his face for this, force my head up. Do I have it right? He's in shock. Jaw slightly dropped, eyes wide, slowly shaking his head. More energy expended, which makes up for my looking at him -- and back to normal, if the other expression was ever there at all. The words give it a little support, though. "I don't believe this. I had all that working and it partially worked because you let it work. You could have poisoned the damn waters at any time..." Maybe. I don't know what would have happened if I'd confronted Connie after the alliance was made. "She thinks -- you hate me." He nods. "That I'd go out before her, no matter what." And again. "When did you -- promise I'd go?" "Now," he says. "She wanted you out way before this -- Mary-Jane's place, after majority was solidified. But I made her wait. Because you were pissing so many people off... Angela, then Tony because of Angela..." And then he'd helped with Mary-Jane. "Whenever she got loud, I moved her to another target. Reminded her that you thought I was your ally, and the worst thing I could do to you was carry you -- and then backstab you at Final Three. I convinced her we'd been paired since the start, but I did it only because I hated you on sight and wanted to control when you went out. She bought it after a while. She's really good at believing in people's hate." Another small bark. "But you got Immunity, and the idol -- even with everything I told her, she really wanted you out at Final Five. Even with Robin as a challenge threat waiting in the wings... and finally, when she'd screamed herself out, she went with me. That she and I were Final Two. Because it was the best thing she could believe -- and she really wanted to believe I could hate you that much... I said some things about you... damn, I had to be creative... went religious for a while..." Some very interesting conversations in the woods. "She must not like your cursing..." Gardener snorts. "She put up with it." For Final Two, it was probably the least Connie could put up with. "But you promised me Final Four -- her Final Two -- and hers is still good..." And he grins, the predatory touch back on his teeth. "I lied." ...what? Maybe a little of that made it to my face. "Told you -- everyone should get away with one... Alex, do you think I like Connie? She was a tool. A bigoted, arrogant, bitch of a tool -- and the only thing that would fit the job. But you saved my ass. You kept me in this game. And you did something else. You systematically pissed off just about everyone on that jury. I promised Connie Final Two, plus my vote if I somehow went out before that. But I don't like her. I don't want her to have second place." "You -- don't like me -- either..." Just another tool. A pawn. A pawn by personal decision, but still a pawn. Very soft, "This is about the game. I keep telling you, Alex -- you're not stupid. What's your jury position right now?" I know what it is. It feels like I've known for a very long time. "I can't win..." He nods. "Angela because you made that play. Tony because he'll do what Angela wants. Phillip because you rejected your mother. Mary-Jane because of what she's seeing as something you could have stopped. Connie because even if we do this, she'll still take me over you. Probably take about an hour in the voting blind before she can make herself write any name -- but she'll do it. You can't be sure of Gary -- we were allies for a long time -- and maybe you've got Robin, but that's all you've got. But at the same time -- me against Connie. Angela doesn't want to vote for her: they hate each other. Phillip goes Connie there, but Tony still goes with Angela, Mary-Jane would rather die than vote for Connie, same for Robin, I think I've got Gary, and what do you do?" It's barely a question. "Vote for you -- because you did more." He's the better player. He would have earned the million. Another nod. "Maybe I'd be wrong about Angela, and Tony probably can't vote on his own, but -- four-three or six-one, it's still a win. Alex, I'd beat both of you." The jury he's been so careful about setting up... "I want you to have the extra money from finishing in second place." His voice has never been this soft, this gentle. "You've done so damn much in this game... you don't think you've earned second place? I do. Because without you, I'm not here. And if I'm really wrong about the votes against Connie -- what's the Keith rule, Alex?" Easy. "The important thing here -- is that Connie -- doesn't get a million dollars..." It's a minimum-effort paraphrase. Nothing easier at all. "Exactly." Still gentle, still at peace with himself. "You gave me the million, Alex -- everything you did in this game helped set me up for it. The least I can do is give you a hundred thousand -- along with what you want most -- Connie out before you." Smiling, a real smile. "We're both Turare. Hell, Trooper said it: you are Turare. She's Haraiki -- and it's Turare against Haraiki until one's gone, remember?" I remember. His expression -- I don't know it -- could this be what it looks like when someone's proud of me? "Let go. I'll take you." Let go... I'm Turare. He's Turare. He doesn't like Connie. He promised her Final Two. He lied. He... ...if I just let go... ...can beat me, and he can beat her. But he knows he has my vote even if he backstabs me at Council, because it's just the game... ...I let go and he'll take me, it's a hundred thousand dollars, it's second place, I was supposed to go out first and it's second place... ...I can't beat him, and I can't beat Connie... ...the important thing... ...my shoulders hurt, my arm hurts, it's so hot in here, my back is starting to ache and my leg muscles are so very tight... ...the important thing is... ...I could let go if I wanted to... ...and there's a hand gripping mine. Not Gardener. He's not allowed. I didn't just pass out and wake up to find someone examining my left hand: I can feel the wood against my palm -- but I can feel something else: a light pressure over my knuckles, barely there, almost the memory of a grip, and I look up and see large eyes looking back, kind-seeming eyes, that was always his greatest trick, that he could seem so very kind even when he was getting ready to get rid of you... "No!" Richard says, and the phantom grip becomes tighter. "He does not have to take you, Alex! You are not letting go!" I blink. Then I do it again. He's still there. My mind... It's the heat. It's the game. It's my whole life. I've finally lost it. It was always going to happen eventually and it's doing so in front of a dozen cameras. There is no one standing in front of Gardener, no Richard, not as he was on the last day for his island, having lost so much weight, weaker but alive with triumph, a savage joy replacing lost energies. He is not looking at me with those large eyes, not staring at me with determination mixed with a desperate plea, and his hand is not over mine. Richard is older now. Richard is far away and couldn't get here no matter what he did. Richard isn't real. ...but he's right in front of me... I'm insane. I finally went insane... "No, you didn't," Richard says, and there's that smile, the one I know so well, the one a country came to know. "You do not let go, Alex. Don't you dare let go..." The grip seems to tighten, a few extra molecules of air pressing on my hand. Or maybe that's just me. It has to just be me. I'm about to be medivaced for being the first contestant whose mind completely broke. Heat leads to hallucinations: will anyone believe that? I don't believe that. I won't be better once I get out of here. I've finally done it, finally snapped, they all won and I lost... "Easy..." Like Richard is picking up on this. "Come on, Alex. You know how things went the first time. You've read things. Torches going out before the person left..." Lies. Fiction. Spinning the story to make it sound stranger. Make it more interesting. I'm arguing with a hallucination. One more sign of the end. The smile again. "Did you think that island was the only one with spirits?" I don't believe... And Trina couldn't have told me, because she never got shivers around ghosts, she said that... "Spirits." Another grin. "Trust me, that's different." Trust Richard. Sure. Worst idea ever. Richard is in prison. Richard is, the last I heard, alive. Richard isn't here... "This is what you know. This is how you can see things in this place. Somewhere else --" and images flash through my mind, cartoons, characters I know, creations I once tried to have a hand in, going into the city in the hopes of telling their stories, at least just once "-- maybe that. But here and now, this. In this place, you are receptive, for just long enough..." And more sternly, in what's probably supposed to be a paternal way. "You watch. You've always watched. Every island has spirits -- just as every season has a lesson. You are here and this is now. Remember your lessons." I don't understand. If I get to the hallucination's point, maybe it'll go away. Maybe it's just the heat. Please let it just be the heat -- -- and Gardener doesn't even seem to be moving... Richard isn't translucent. He's solid. He's here, every last inch and pound of him, right down to the stubble... ...but even with the pressure he seems to be exerting, the muscles visibly tense in his arm, just the lightest breath for a grip. "Come in prepared to play the game. Come in as the one who really knows how to play. Know what you might have to do before you arrive. You learned the game. You made the cross as a way to prepare. You are me." Smiling -- then stern. "He doesn't have to take you", Richard tells me. "They had to take me, Rudy and Kelly both. There was no choice. Gardener still has one. Don't let go!" -- -- and he's gone. The grip is still there. It's just someone else holding on. Blonde hair that comes across as artificial, a somewhat weathered face, an expression that's probably supposed to be motherly and winds up feeling just a little bit conniving.... "Find people who will carry you along," Tina says. "Even when they might be a little worried about you. Ones who will keep their promises to you no matter what. You did that with Gary. You're me, Alex -- and you don't let go..." It's like watching two things pass through each other, one getting larger in the same space that the other is shrinking, and blonde hair is replaced by a nest of wild black curls. "Don't lie more than you have to," Ethan continues. "Say what you mean, but don't say everything in your head. Have people think they can trust you when they need to. Gardener believed that. You made him think you'd cooperate all the way. This is still your choice, Alex. You're me -- and you have to hang on..." His skin darkens, body slims, facial contours completely changing, twisting... Carefully, "They underestimate you. They don't see you as a danger. No matter what you accomplish in the game just by advancing, they can't possibly see what you could ever do to win..." Vecepia looks directly into my eyes. "Angela believed that of you, Alex: believed you could never be a threat. She dismissed you, and she paid for it. We're one in this -- and you're not letting go." She vanishes -- -- blonde hair, almost a mane in some places, a cocky grin that I instinctively want to put a fist through. "Oh, you little snake," Brian says admiringly, and now I really want to hit him, especially since I'm not sure what he's admiring. "Know what everyone's up to almost before they do. Let them think they're going ahead with their own plans when they're really going ahead with yours... You're my best student, Alex -- and now we're doing Extended Grips 1302. Follow my lead -- and keep your hand on that spear --" "-- for as long as it takes." The change happens in mid-sentence, blonde mane becoming dark locks, eyes that were eventually just a little quiet meeting mine. Misplaced in time: the form that was there in one place, the gaze that only came in the second. If the game changed anyone, it might have been Jenna. "Come out of nowhere, win when people least expect it, ruin all their plans through doing so. All you need to do if you want to finally change up this game is hold on, Alex, and then you'll be me..." And before I can say anything to that, before I can wonder how long it can possibly take Gardener to draw one breath and when Medical will start on the shock treatments, the voice harshens, develops an accent, fights its way through the air. "Be the most important thing of all," Sandra says. "Be a vote in someone's pocket when you need to be. Even a vote towards a bounce. You knew when to be that, Alex -- and when to be tough and stand your own ground. We both did, and now you have to know it one more time..." "...if you want to win." Amber's smile is as bright as I remember, her hair shimmering as her head comes up. "You're not me yet. You're missing something for that. But you could be -- and you're closer to it than you might ever think. Until then, you're still learning -- and for homework, you hold onto this thing until he breaks." "And he will," Chris adds, glancing at Gardener with an expression that suggests he's considering taking the other man on himself. It would be an interesting fight. Gardener is almost guaranteed to win, but Chris would try... "They always break. Stay around long enough, work your way in, and things fall apart around everyone else -- which gives you a crack you can exploit. There's a flaw in his plan, and it can self-destruct, Alex -- all you need to do if you want to crack this diamond is hang on! Think physical, think about us crossing the beam against the way the women did it -- think about what you have that he doesn't... be me..." I don't get a moment to try and answer that before his hair loses color, becomes shorter, a familiar accent strengthening -- and saying words I don't understand. "Be what you've been all your life." Tom softly tells me. "Be a hero." I -- I don't understand... "Don't you?" Tom asks. "Or don't you want to? You've been me for a long time, Alex -- and Ian aside, I was never going to let go..." His limbs thin, lengthen... Danni smiles at me. "Opportunist," she says. "See your chance and go for it. That's what passing the idol was. Know what's important at the right time and make sure nothing keeps you from getting ahold of it. One and the same, Alex -- and hold on tight..." Hair lifting in the middle as the shade mutes to brown, almost a fin -- -- "And you know mine," Aras grins. "Got to have a rival. Got to pick someone early and take them on head-to-head for as long as you can. You've got to keep fighting that one, no matter how hopeless it might look, because all you really need in the end is one win -- and you can get that. You know you can. You've got my lesson, Alex -- you're been following it all along. You've been me every inch of the way" But -- "You finished the hunt," Ethan tells me. "The last hunt. You have Azure. You found the dagger. You think the island doesn't know all that?" The island can't know anything. And I saved myself. It wasn't about finishing any hunt, it never was... "Good one," Tom approvingly says. "Now what's the rest of that?" There isn't any -- Richard shakes his head. "He doesn't have to take you." "He's afraid of you," Sandra adds. Chris nods encouragement to that. "You've had him freaked out on and off since Day One. Mostly on." Brian still looks insufferably smug. "We both know you can take pain." He was a college football player... he's still an athlete... "What kind of athlete?" Aras reminds me. "Know your opponent! Think about his body!" Ethan again. "This isn't waiting for a miracle. This is just waiting. You know how to wait." Back to Tina. "Some lessons are invalid. Which one did he give you? Which one haven't we said?" I thought about it... but... I still can't... The grip becomes stronger -- and they're all there. All twelve, staring up at me, some with smiles, some with determination, a few with concern -- and now there's one more, shadowed, indistinct, a form that just barely has form. Thirteen grips, thirteen hands passing through each other and placed over mine, thirteen bodies that shouldn't be able to fit into that small a space, but still separate and distinct. Gardener hasn't moved since Richard first spoke. The air is -- almost cool. "Don't let go," they chorus. "You know what this takes. You have to hang on." I have lost my mind. I'm hallucinating in the heat. Pieces of my sanity are strewn all over the cabin. There are no spirits. Maybe there can be precognition, but there are no spirits. All I'm doing is arguing with myself, full visuals attendant. The best-case scenario is that I passed out in the middle of the challenge and I'm dreaming all this. What do I need to make a dream end? Give them what they want, and maybe they'll go away... I won't. I won't let go. Okay. I won't let go... They nod. All of the ones whose faces I can make out smile. And one by one, they fade away, Richard first, then Tina... I'm trying to get a better look at the shadowed one. It's no one I know. Male, I think, the basic outline is right for that, but it doesn't connect to any contestant I've ever seen. And now Jenna is gone, there goes Sandra, Amber is fading... Wait. I look directly at the indistinct figure. What happened to you? Because even in a dream, even in insanity, this might be my only chance to ever know -- -- and the voice is male, somewhat elderly but still strong, the age making itself known in an accent from another time, one I've only heard in movies and will probably never hear in life. "What do you think happened?" it asks -- "-- Alex?" I look up. Gardener's still there. "I gave you a minute to think about it -- did you fall asleep on me?" Jeff's roaming has brought him behind me. "She's been awake. Believe me, with this kind of challenge, you learn to tell. She's just been thinking with her eyes closed. And try 'a couple of seconds' -- that was a lot less time than you think." Because he's the only one who's qualified to keep track. What just -- -- did I just see -- -- something about -- it's hard to remember -- -- I look at Gardener. I really look at him. And I see him for what he is. "You put too much into that speech." His eyes widen. "You're a big guy, Gardener. That's -- your strength. And you are strong. But -- you're bigger than me. Your arm is heavier. You build up heat faster. You have more strength -- but you've got more to support. Eventually, that's a losing proposition..." Meeting him head on. "You want to take me? Take me. But you win and take me. I'm not letting go." One of my fellows had his creation say it, didn't he? 'I just don't trust you enough to believe that you lied...' He's lying to Connie or he's lying to me. If he wants to prove which truth he's telling, he can be the one with the decision to make. You don't know if you can win this challenge. And you're absolutely certain of what I'll do -- but you still want the win, even if it's from the opponent giving up. It's just that there's a sweeter option for you, and you might have been saving it for a little longer... "You want me out?" I ask him. Of the challenge, of the game, of everything. "Beat me." And trying not to waste too much on the words, "I can do one more." And Gardener's knees bend, just a little. I can see how heavy his sweat really is, how his right arm vibrates unless he's thinking about stopping it, all those muscles and all that mass, all generating heat with every heartbeat and soaking even more of it in -- "All right." Is his voice is just a little bit weaker? "I knew -- you were stubborn. And paranoid. Guess I underestimated both of those..." The snort is barely audible. "We keep going." I nod. "On death ground --" He finishes it. "-- we fight." And we wait. Jeff announces the ninety-minute mark. A hundred and five. The hidden heating elements have been fused into my back. Both shoulders are on fire. The plastic can, does, and is heating up. Pools of sweat in my bra, which is probably the reason why it feels like there's extra weight there. More liquid in my shoes. Buff well past the point of saturation. Bandage floating on the surface of my skin, the itching getting worse with every fresh bit of salt. I don't even want to think about what I must look like. Not vanity, never vanity, just wondering how much blurring I'm going to need with my minimal covering this soaked. I think about the feel of the wood under my hands. I try to want that feel as much as I've ever wanted anything. It doesn't seem to be helping. Connie's expression when I come out with the necklace... My grip tightens. Jeff moves into my vision again. The vulture is on the prowl again. "Two hours," he says, and some of the water running over his face must be just that, melt from the hat-held ice. "We never thought this would go for so long." Concern in his voice. We must be throwing off the filming schedule. Gardener's voice is very raspy. Dry throat. Swallowing sweat doesn't help. "Medical wants it stopped?" That would be a first. We designed this challenge to go on until two of you dropped, and now they're afraid it's going to be three, so we'll take a couple of hours out and then start quizzing you on the fine details of people's ballot handwriting. Production thinks it'll be extremely dramatic. Our host sighs. "They're not happy. They're never happy with the endurance challenges. But we're still going." Handwriting analysis is taking longer than they thought. "Alex, I need a check-in here." "Other people -- have gone longer." Much, much longer. "It's not like -- we're rewriting the record -- book." Moving behind Gardener, head shaking on the way in and on the way out. It takes long enough that he could have had a break in the middle. "Not under these conditions. As I said, this is about who wants it more -- and Gardener, you're both stubborn." Just barely a snort: who can waste energy on mere propulsion of air? Apparently Gardener can, because point emphasis is always worth his effort. "Yeah -- kind of got that idea..." He uses his free hand to wipe his face: more energy expended. "This is stupid... we both know what's -- going to happen here..." Looking up at me: another fraction of a calorie gone. "You look like hell." And we're back to this. "I'm not -- your type." There's always energy for one more mind game, too. Yes, I look like hell. I look weak. I look like my body is five seconds away from collapsing. I just don't feel that way. Actually, I feel like my body collapsed shortly after Jeff announced the ninety-minute mark and my brain just hasn't caught up on the news yet. He's not going to talk me into letting go because he manages to convince me I've already let go, because that might have already happened and I haven't. That made no sense. Maybe I need to check in with myself a little more. Or with someone else. "Jeff -- you're wearing some kind -- of cooler..." The door opens quickly, closes again before any heat can really escape. More crew rotating in and out. "No comment," Jeff eventually replies, possibly thinking we might use our last reserves to wrestle it away from him. "But this is getting close to a real medical danger zone." Which explains why his sweat rate is finally starting to match our first hour of production. He's not exactly taking off his clothes, though. Or the hat. The hat must have a polar bear cub camped out under it. Good thing Azure isn't in here: they'd probably start an argument with each other. The cub's had hours to think of lines. "People aren't supposed to have extended exposure to these kinds of conditions." No reply from Gardener: maybe he's decided he doesn't have enough left to spare for curiosity. Which is silly, because it's a very low-energy activity. "When were we -- supposed to have dropped?" "A while ago," Jeff admits. The door opens, the door shuts. "I don't know what's holding you two up right now -- beyond pure, unstoppable, incomprehensible mule-headed stubbornness." I wonder who he picked up the expression from. So many contestants over so many seasons... did anyone ever say that on the air? I can't remember right now. "You're both so sure of what's going to happen, but neither one will concede and let it take place. Just for the sake of having that last Immunity." Jeff thinks he knows what's going to happen on both ends? Of course he does. "It's about choice," I tell him. "You remember -- about taking away -- choice." Gardener's bulkier. Heavier. Bigger. He has more to support. At some point, it all starts working against him. It has to. Even if my left arm feels like it weighs fifty pounds, shoulders cut with razors, legs being repeatedly kicked from behind, back with red-hot needles stuck into it, bra with a swimming pool in each cup, they must be there because water's so heavy, the hot plastic might be good for diving boards... Silence for a while. Nothing to say about that? Good. Because it's still his fault and I haven't forgiven him. I'll never forgive him. I can stand here forever with my body breaking down and my mind trying so hard not to follow it, staring at my hand, making sure it's not moving, checking to see that it's still attached because I'm not getting that much feeling from it, everything else is ablaze and that went numb, go figure, there may be so much sweat in my grip that all I'm feeling is liquid, try to hold on tighter and I can't tell if I'm getting anywhere... -- then a dull thud. Something just hit wood. I'm not looking: unnecessary waste of energy. Possibly Jeff got mad about the statement and rammed his fist into a wall. I hope it hurt. Or a camera operator staggered backwards. Doesn't matter. All that matters is keeping my grip. I won't let go. I promised. I promised someone -- "-- Alex." Whatever it is, it's not important. "Let go." See? "No..." I promised... I promised I wouldn't, I could swear I did... "You can't -- ask me to..." Softly, "Alex, look up." Not falling for it. Not wasting the strength. "Nothing -- worth seeing." "Nothing to see," he corrects. "Alex -- Gardener just passed out." The door opens. It's a trick. It's always a trick. It's -- -- and a German accent forces itself through the air. "All right -- get him out of here! Damn it, Probst, I told you this was going to happen someday..." Doctors like to think they outrank everyone. That never changes. "I want him cooled down now! Get him to the ice, someone check his vitals, and will someone get her off this thing already?!?"" The door closes... ...someone always goes out when the door opens and closes... "It's over, Alex," Jeff gently tells me. "You won Immunity. You're Final Two, and you're picking your partner. Just let go so we can get you out of here." Like hell. Gardener just learned to do Jeff's voice. And throw it behind me. He mastered it while he was holding onto the spear. What else was there to do? "I'm not --" Something settles over my burning shoulders. There's a weight, a familiar weight, a weight that makes the world go soft -- -- and cool... Water falling from my hand. Wood against my palm, just for a heartbeat. Pressure against my elbows. Someone lifting me. Carried out. Too tired to fight. The door opens -- -- lying on the ground, in the cool bluegrass. People moving around me. One of them is Jeff, with a cooling pack that just came out from under his hat, now being pressed to my forehead. Thought he had to have something. Possibly multiple somethings. People are calling for more ice. Bring my body temperature down. Look to my right, and I can just barely see Gardener through the forest of Medical trees: he's being worked on too, just starting to move, protesting at the treatment which isn't really necessarily, he'll be fine in a minute, Coach, just let him sit off on the bench for sixty damn seconds and then he can go in and clobber the other guy right back. Within the rules, of course. A nozzle forced between my lips. Take small sips to start or I could throw up. Okay, but this had better not have anything in it or I'm throwing up later anyway. I don't know what they're so worried about. There isn't any heat. There's pain, there's always pain, but it's muted now. The world is cool to the touch, soft against my back -- -- safe -- Footsteps approaching -- stop. A sharp inhalation that somehow continues on for far too long, suddenly ending and reversed into a gasp made up of equal parts disgust, loss, and horror... Try to look up, just a little -- -- it's enough. Connie's staring down at me. At the necklace. Not what the necklace is resting on. Even so, it probably looks stupid. I don't care. Her expression is worth it. Final Two. I close my eyes. No one freaks out over it. I went as far as I could go. Judgment: not me with the gavel, me in front of the bench. Final Two... And another voice, very faint -- no, a chorus of voices, all blending into each other. "Don't forget..." Forget what? What's so important that Medical doesn't want me to forget it? More ice pressed against me. Dietrich doesn't want me moved just yet. Or Gardener. We should be fine, but he'll feel a lot better if he gets a couple of hours to think about that first. And Jeff, somewhere very close. "Okay, okay..." Who's he talking to? Feathers against my hair. Oh. "Hi..." Headbutt. "Cut that out..." Jeff's voice gets even closer. Kneeling down? "Just rest, Alex." Because the hard part is coming. "Okay..." Sound advice. I think I can even follow it... Don't forget... -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 22510 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 01-27-07, 00:39 AM (EST) 11. "I Can't Win...: Part VII" LAST EDITED ON 01-30-07 AT 12:12 PM (EST) {This looks vaguely familiar.} {This looks like a backbreaker. As Jeff will probably say at some point, this is going to come down to desire and willpower.} {I think Connie's got the lock on 'desire'... just don't ask what for.} {Alex's head on a silver platter?} {And in a pinch, you can keep the platter.} {Jeff going over the rules -- pretty standard. Don't interfere with each other, do hang on, do bargain, and do really carefully consider what you're being offered, when, and by who.} {Two-minute warning --} (*faint*} {Dear Lord: I thank you for this blessed bounty I have not only received, but burned onto DVD, my own permanent memory, made a printout for the screen capture, and otherwise made sure I'd keep forever after praying for it over the course of twelve episodes and one recrap. Blessed is thy name, and very blessed do I feel right now. Amen.} {...okay, on top of everything else, I could swear that's a minimizer style...} {Stripping as practical challenge move. Connie followed Alex's lead, and Gardener got there on his own. This is already a sweatbox and they didn't need to make it any harder on themselves.} {Can we make that shot the front-page picture? The one where Gardener jokes about distractions?} {No. Because among other things, that might be the way to find out just how violent Alex is willing to be, and I don't feel like discovering it firsthand.} {It's really a very cute innie...} {And they're off. And it is off. Nearly all of it is off.} {Wow. Connie's just had things done all over, hasn't she?} {Starting into the time-lapse shots... lots of heat haze in here.} {Jeff bringing up the sweat lodge idea -- I know that's not Trooper's exact real tribe, but he could have beaten this one. Robin probably would have been a contender, too.} {Asking about the million. Gardener's got bills and wants to travel. Connie's got a personal savior to drop in on since he never comes to her house any more. Alex wants a refrigerator. Open. Right behind her.} {And with a point of contention finally on nearly-full display at long last -- okay, very full, but -- umm... anyway, Connie takes the opportunity to get one more shot in. Doesn't Alex know she's supposed to conform? Doesn't Connie know Alex doesn't care about her opinion?} {Alex nearly had her body cut up without her consent once. It's hard to see her deciding to do it on her own for personal reasons. And as for peer pressure -- well -- yeah, right. Personally, I'm just glad to hear the virtual 'go to hell' come out on that one for a change. Tell someone's else's standards to shut up: it's my body, too.} {Half an hour. More time-lapse. Jeff giving them time passage notes at the end of every fifteen-minute period.} {Cute one from Gardener there -- guessing he'll have to take Jeff's word on it having been another fifteen minutes, because he can't tell any more...} {Connie doesn't look so good. And I mean after you factor the aura of bigotry out.} {None of them look good at this point. This is a really strenuous one.} {Gardener was shaking just a little bit in that shot. I think we finally found another challenge where his body isn't the greatest asset. Sure, you've got the strength to hold the spear over your head for hours if you had to -- but at the same time, how much do your arms weigh?} {That is not a good position for Alex to be occupying long-term, though. And it's the one the platform placement has put them all in. Gardener has his arms and shoulders to think about, but Alex has her shoulders and back. I know she's in really good shape -- and now we can see just how good all over -- but trust me, when you're built like that, there are things you don't want to do for more than a few seconds at a time. We're at an hour and a quarter. No matter how much she shows it, she's hurting -- and it's bad enough now that we can see some of it on and off. (Admittedly, that's mostly off.) It's there, and it's not going to get better with time.} {Jeff won't give them the temperature, but it's on the screen for us. Official forecast: Too Damn Hot. And climbing.} {And there goes my one agreement with Connie for the season: Rudy in his prime would have been something to see --} {Whoa!} {YES!} {Come on -- everybody, join in! Ding, ding, the bitch is dead!} {Aww... she's going to be okay... until the vote.} {What says the paying audience?} {Depending on how far you are from the Hall, you may be hearing it soon. I believe the echoes may take some time to die away.} {Are we coming full circle with 'Wonder Girl' again?} {We've had rage, done denial and grief, and now, possibly not quite in order, we move into bargaining...} {How honest is Gardener being here? He's flattering her by saying he once had a less-than-flattering opinion of her, but he's changed his mind?} {He owes Alex his presence in this game. I think giving her second place is actually his way of thanking her for it. Well done, teammate: here's a place on the practice squad. Maybe one day you'll make starters. Well, actually never, but hold on to that dream.} {...holy ####.} {Ibid.} {Ibid, extra heavy on the ####...} {And in a new, stunning twist, Alex Will Explain It All To Us -- and then some. Migawd -- what have we been looking at all along here? She's been just about one step ahead of him the whole way! Gardener got as far as he did because she first saved him and then used him -- letting him think he was using her...} {This is -- just -- wow...} {She could have blown this up at any time. With what Connie thinks of her? All Alex would need is a few words to plant the seeds.} {The whole time, he's been working because she's let him work. Angering the jury was unavoidable in a few cases, but -- could she have gone to Connie herself? At that time, when they needed the swing?} {No. Because she couldn't have promised Connie the one biggest factor. She could have threatened her with the idol if she'd had it, and gotten Connie to cooperate short-term -- but in a direct approach, Alex couldn't offer herself.} {Gardener's shaken, and I'm not feeling so good myself. The puppetmaster isn't sure which end the strings are connected to any more...} {The promise to Connie is supposedly a lie, Alex knows her own jury situation, Gardener breaks it down for her anyway and he's just repeating what we've thought all along... this is almost spooky right now. Echoes of things that we didn't know were going to happen.} {Keith is invoked -- an argument Alex can't really go against. She can't beat Connie, she can't beat Gardener -- who does she really want to win?} {Alex looks so tired here. In pain, no resources left, she played it as far as she could and the only way to get here meant not being able to beat it...} {Tired? Completely spent. Eyes closed, pain external and internal -- she knows he's right.} {Slow swing-around shot as Alex thinks about this, eyes moving a little behind the lids, the heat haze rising around her... is she about to faint?} {...presenting the single most stubborn, obstinate, downright insane player this series has ever brought in. She's going to make him work for it? How much does Alex have left? Just let go, take the 100k, answer every question with 'I don't have your vote. Let's move on', and get it over with!} {Because she doesn't know what Gardener really thinks. Because even after all this, I don't know what -- or how -- he thinks. He could take Connie, he could take Alex -- either way, he wins. Alex isn't sure this offer is valid.} {She can't believe she can win! She said that!} {The game, no. The challenge -- Gardener sounded a lot more worn out after she said no. I think she caught him there. He was making himself sound stronger. He slipped in that last speech. This challenge is not an automatic win for Gardener. Alex has decided that he doesn't absolutely have to take her, and she wants second -- that means winning this one.} {More time passing... what the hell is keeping them up?} {They've got to be in agony -- Gardener is trying not to show it if he thinks Alex might be looking at him any time soon, but she doesn't even want to spare that much effort. The temperature just keeps going up -- more and more pain leaking through on Alex's end...} {How is Jeff staying upright in this?} {Recent freon replacement. Plus I saw a bit of tube near his elbow -- he's wearing a portable cooling system like the ones they give actors who are going to be stuck in rubber suits for long periods. Only the Chenbot is invulnerable to mortal concerns. And mildly radioactive.} {Two hours. They have no biological right to be on their feet right now.} {And Jeff knows it. He's right: medically, they've got to be walking a really fine line here.} {Alex's words there... she just got a reaction out of Jeff. Small, but visible. Maybe the heat is getting to him after all.} {Or he realizes he doesn't have her jury vote.} {Gardener trying to breathe more steadily -- arm is really shaking now --} {His eyes just went back!} {Teetering -- knees buckling -- he's got to recover, he's going to --} {I hope there's a commercial break coming up. I need time to recover my hearing. The Hall will not stop.} {Right to the ground. Vertical to horizontal in one easy movement. And within inches of bouncing his chin off either the platform or his own knees. Nice aim. Really.} {Medical's here, and they are not happy. This one almost went too far, and everyone knows it. Gardener being removed. Alex...} {...come on, Alex. Let go. You have to let go eventually...} {Looks like Jeff found the only argument that would work.} {Alex releases the spear, just about all at once, slumps backwards into Jeff's arms. He was ready for it: catches her at the elbows, supports her while Medical comes back for her, and everyone carries her out.} {They're both being worked on -- Connie's nowhere in sight here: maybe she went off to find a friendly bush or something. Gardener's a little bit delirious, but don't worry: he still remembers the playbook and he thinks he knows who's getting the ball next, so let him at them!} {And here comes Connie -- and this, right here, is the worst moment of her game-life. Possibly the worst moment of her life, period. With Gardener, she had a chance that the Final Two promise was valid. Now... well -- Ding. Dong.} {Azure straining at the leash again, trying to get to Alex. Jeff goes over, releases the leash from the perch while hanging onto one end of it, brings Azure over so she can see Alex is okay. Azure immediately goes down to Alex's side and refuses to move.} {Medical keeps working. Connie gets moved out of the way, and she spends some time glaring at Gardener. Frustration and fury: this is who she was counting on, and Alex beat him. Maybe the promise was good and he would have taken her, but -- there he is, flat on the grass with no necklace. All that lack of work for nothing.} {Eventually, Herr Doctor clears them both -- not happy about it -- and tells them he wants them both eating and drinking back in camp. Gardener sitting up, Alex taking a longer time to get there. On her feet now, but having real trouble moving -- getting dressed is a visible torment...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- I'm okay. I can do one more. I've been saying that for weeks now. To the others. To myself. All the time. There's always one more ahead, so I'm okay. It was true for as long as it had to be. There aren't any more. I'm not okay. Areas that were just strained hurt. Places that I thought were healed have decided to join them in the very loud chorus. Regions that have absolutely no right to be speaking up just can't stand to be left out of the action. One lie to get away with before you go, and maybe this was mine. Sure, that's okay now. No, that felt better after a night's sleep. It was a really good lie and I'm sort of impressed by my ability to talk myself into believing it. But the best lies hold up through and past the final day, and this one went to pieces early. I think my spine may be about five minutes from following it. It doesn't matter. Because Jeff is in front of me. "Once more, for the record, now that I know you're hearing it," he says. "Alex -- wins Immunity." Azure preens on my shoulder. I wish she wouldn't. This is a forearm day. A right forearm day, because the scars are really itchy. (Medical changed the bandage again. It didn't help.) I manage a small nod. Gardener follows suit on my right. Just past him, Connie's face is tight: so many things to say, so little time left in which to say them -- and maybe no point at all. Her words can be saved for later. Jeff nods back. "Alex, by taking the final challenge, you have earned the right to choose just who will face the jury with you at Final Two. You have a few hours to consider that choice. Head on back to camp -- I'll see you tonight." And that's all for now. We head out. I quickly slip towards the back, and not voluntarily: I just can't move that fast. My legs don't feel like they're working very well. Neither does my back. Or my arms. Or -- pick a part, really. Gardener drops back. "Stubborn..." he tells me, sounding like he's leaving a word out somewhere. It's still fairly neutral. Or maybe he just doesn't have the strength for more. He's moving more easily than I am, though. Take a hit, get back up... or maybe that's his latest lie, and he'll be awake for hours tonight, paying for it. "It didn't have to go down that way." "Just go ahead... I'll catch up. Azure, here..." Well, at least that got her off my shoulder. Not that it feels like there's any real difference. "It's not like there's a rush to reach the damn idol clue," he points out. Connie's being that far ahead may show just what she thinks of that possibility: hey, maybe there is a free passage to the Final Two waiting for her if she gets there first! Or she just can't stand to be near me right now. I don't think the former is going to happen and I'm fine with the later. "You're a train wreck right now, and you know it." "We don't have a tribal challenge tomorrow." In other words, my physical condition no longer influences anything about your game, so don't pretend you care any more. Gardener snorts. Yes, he's feeling much better. Outwardly, anyway. "Not like I could carry you... Well, I could, but..." Yes, he's strong, we know it, thank you, whatever. "Fine. You got one closer to me on the challenge boards. I still beat you for the season: one Reward and three Immunities to one Reward and two Immunities. Then again, you got me on idols -- maybe that counts in the standings somewhere..." Connie moves out of sight. "There was no need to do that. I already know you're insane. You didn't have to prove it one more time." Something happened in there... No it didn't. "You do what you have to -- when you're on the block..." Pause and trail-off both deliberate. Plus I'm in a lot of pain right now. The groan may be faked. It may not be. It doesn't matter either way. "I would have taken you." And that could just be a moot point. "At least it's an easy Council tonight. You're finally going to get what you wanted, Alex -- bet you can't wait to see her face." Back to the grin which comes with the sharpened ends. "Maybe that's why you hung on. Guess I should have figured in that motivation... made it a little more personal." I nod. To see her face when I came out, absolutely. "I just want to make it to Council." Actually, I want to lie down. Right here. For about six hours. Someone can come and get me when it's time: they can't hold the thing without me, right? So given that, a little trail-to-Council service would be nice. One of those carrying chairs with the long underslung poles. Or a ride in Gardener's car. Is that still around? Doesn't matter: it would never fit down the trail, and the bits of dirt road we found as a group didn't go near the Council set. So maybe an airlift... At least he looks a little tired. "I know the feeling... I'm not going swimming after that, but I'll grab a line so we can eat before we go -- you'll start the fire?" Yes: I can move that much, although it still isn't exactly fun. "We've still got some fruit in camp, too." Frustrated, "You just know we're not going to have anything waiting for us..." Other than Connie, who's quietly moving around the shelter when we finally reach the clearing. No tampering with my clothing or luxury item as her way of saying just what she thinks of her chances tonight: packing. Folding her clothes and putting them away. There's some tree-hung pieces to go. She looks up as we enter, and her eyes quickly move away from me. "Gardener -- a moment, please?" He nods and heads down the Tree Mail path. Might as well use it: there won't be any more Tree Mail. She follows, not even bothering to hit me with an insult, disgusted look, or all-out monologue before moving out of sight. Connie may not speak to me until we reach Council and even then, it may be brief. As Jeff pointed out, this has the potential to be a fast one. In, vote, out. What could she say that would swing me? Nothing she can think of, nothing she feels has any chance of working. And she's not going to beg. I limp into the shelter and lie down on my pallet. Azure settles down near my hips. "Final Two," I tell her, and of course she doesn't have a response ready for that, nothing about only two more hunts to do today and then everyone can go home. "Made it..." Made it back to the shelter, anyway. At least for a few breaths: Julia eases into the shelter behind me. "They may be a while," she tells me. Probably true. "Want to do the confessional right here? I really don't think you feel like taking the hike to the grove." I don't even feel like sighing. Things hurt when I sigh. "Can it wait until tomorrow?" This amuses her. "Especially since you've got a tomorrow? You know they want to hear from you right now." I want to take a shower and get all the sweat off. I want to put on fresher clothes. I want to trade in my body for the Day One model. "They could come out any minute. Let me wash up, and then we'll just go -- somewhere. Maybe just the beach. I think that's about as far as I want to try for right now." It was a very long hike back. Honestly, they couldn't have put those torches a little closer together? Julia's willing to go along with that. "Okay... take your time, then." Her nose wrinkles. "You do need a shower." I do, Gardener does, and Connie's hair was dry, but Gardener and I took so long getting back that she could have snuck off to the mansion for a spa treatment... I force myself to sit up. Force is very much the right word. "I'll try to get out fast." I have a very nasty hunch about what's going to happen next. As it turns out, I'm right: even the water hurts. But the sound of it does help cover some of the shouting outside. It just doesn't cover the fact that there is shouting... ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Connie wants the truth out of Gardener: did he fold and give the win to Alex? Was he lying to her all along? Gardener telling her that he didn't. "I'm over twice her weight, okay? I'm a heat-generating machine: just ask Robin. I wanted her out, and I tried to talk her into letting go so I could get the necklace. You know how paranoid she is, Connie -- you've seen it at every Council. 'I'm not safe.' Well, guess what? She didn't think she was safe. She wouldn't believe me when I said I'd take her. She thought I was taking you. She's known we were Final Two for a couple of weeks -- and why the hell would she let go after that?"} {Son of a -- well, way to go, Alex! He just admitted it -- he was taking Connie! If Alex had let go, then she would be on the jury! Gardener getting delayed revenge for Day One after all!} {Or he's just locking up Connie's jury vote by assuring her that he was going to bring her if he'd won.} {Connie was going to vote for Alex?} {Um... right. Okay, minor flaw in that theory...} {Connie getting louder -- saying that he built a double-blind: she would have had to take him, and Alex has to take him. He was Final Two no matter who won. Gardener's starting to get tired of this, points out that Alex just outlasted him. She came back after the fall, of course she was going to be able to stay in the sweat lodge for a while. He just thought he could talk her down. He's had her convinced he's on her side for all this time, right? All he needed to do was run one last con and get her to turn over Immunity. It didn't happen.} {Just which lie is being told here? Gardener would take Alex, Gardener would take Connie... someone's not getting the full story.} {Connie reaching for the top of her volume scale. After all the things they've discussed, after she took the huge chance on trusting him and making the leap, a no-choice that turned into what felt like the most sincere offer anyone had given her since the start -- more than Phillip? -- he went and backstabbed her by letting Alex win! Gardener still insisting that it was an honest loss: he actually passed out for a few seconds, she did pretty much the same thing, she knows it can happen. Connie not buying it --} {Now that is a good question.} {"Who were you taking?" And it shut Connie up, didn't it -- at least for a few seconds, and then she just says that she didn't have any illusions about winning that challenge, not after she got a look at it. Gardener calls that no answer.} {And he's going with that theory. "You couldn't be sure on me against you. You had to have a pretty good idea on what would happen if it was you against Alex. If you took that last necklace, would you have taken her with you and locked up the win instead of taking a chance on me?"} {Gotta hate Connie's answer here: "It doesn't matter, does it? You made your promise and I made mine. Neither of them applies any more. It's her decision -- and we both know what it is." Gardener tells her that's still no answer. Connie says it's the only one that applies.} {She was thinking about it, wasn't she? If she pulled a win out of out her artificially-sculpted rear, she was going to take Alex...} {It's no certainty for her action -- and as she said, it doesn't apply now -- but I have to believe she at least saw it as an option, and possibly even her best one.} {She's not stupid. We've talked about that. Connie can count votes, and even if Gardener's been trying to sell her a picture of a jury that won't exactly like his game, she had to know she could beat Alex in a walk instead of tossing a coin -- best-case there -- on Gardener. I'll say it: Connie would have taken Alex. But as we've said all along since the theory first appeared, that means Connie had to win -- and we saw how well that went.} {Moving out to Alex, who's freshly washed-up and still looks like several buses were just dropped on top of her, rocking in the hammock...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- After ----------------------------------------------------------------- (From the CBS website, Survivor Gold section: Alex's twenty-ninth confessional, unedited for premium subscribers.) {We're not in the citrus grove this time: we're at Turare's beach, the camera focused on the empty hammock. ALEX enters from the left, with AZURE on her right forearm for a rare once, and starts trying to get into the hammock. Her efforts make it very clear as to why we're not in the grove this time: her movements are slow and painful, with frequent winces and stops as she stretches a little too far. It takes three tries before she can successfully get into the center, assuming a sitting position and beginning to rock, very slowly. AZURE goes along for the ride.} {Off-camera voice prompt, female: 'Why not lie down?'} "Because it could be hours before I make it out." {a slow shrug with a hard wince at the apex} "Ow..." {'Shoulders?'} "Everything." {starts to shrug again -- stops} "But my shoulders are part of that. Right now, it's a major part. But..." {slowly reaches up, touches the Immunity necklace.} "...everything feels better with this on." {'It's been said that Day Thirty-Nine cures everything all by itself.'} {curious} "Who said that?" {'A member of the crew. I don't know who said it originally. But do you agree with that?'} "Physically? No. Mentally..." {sighs, then winces again} "I don't know. But it's like Jeff will probably say tonight. I've come as far as I could go. I have Day Thirty-Nine. That's so hard to believe, even now, but -- I made it. And not because someone's bringing me, if anyone was going to at all. Because I get to make the choice." {more softly} "The no-choice." {'It is an easy one this time, isn't it?'} "Very..." {tired} {used in episode} "I just hung on for as long as I could. In a couple of ways. I held onto the spear and I hung on in the game. I kept my grip for as long as possible -- but after tonight, everything is out of my hands." {end episode-used exert} "I can answer whatever questions the jury comes up with. I can even refuse to answer them, say there's no point with a few people. You know there's votes that won't shift." {'I believe you believe that...'} "Uh-huh. You believe it too. You just can't say anything that agrees with me there." {'Alex -- take a moment and look back.'} "We did that earlier today and I'm too tired to walk it again." {'At yourself. You came in thinking you were the first boot. Snuck in the cross. Twisted up some of the challenges to the point where from now on, in seasons to come, the last examination step before finalizing a design is probably going to be called Alex-proofing. You found three idols, you missed one on bad timing, and you used the ones you got like no one's ever used them. You faked out your own tribe, deceived the opposition -- fought, clawed, and bit your way into the Final Two. And that's taking the jaguar out. And you think none of that is enough to shift a vote?'} {weary} "Yes." {'Because?'} "People vote their hate." {the camera continues to film as no one speaks for several seconds} "It's a good thing no one's recording your face right now. Because you know I'm right -- and you showed it just then. I know how they feel about me on the other side and I can count. When I walk in tonight, there's going to be some shock -- and there's going to be a lot of anger. All the way back, I was stepping on Jeff's territory: tallying the votes. I've added them up a few times before this -- theory only, while there still were more players left. Thinking about everyone's jury, not just one I probably wouldn't see. But now -- now it's real. I'm Final Two. When I think about the jury and how they feel towards me, it stops being hypothetical and starts turning into prediction." {'How many votes do you think you have?'} {closes eyes, very briefly. AZURE headbutts ALEX twice before she starts talking again} "Zero to one." {'Zero to one?'} "Robin could always change her mind." {'It may be a little late for Gardener to offer her a date.'} {wryly} "But it would be a great lie..." {weary again} I can say whatever I want to, but I think all the minds will have been made up coming into Council. The questions will just be there to see what I'm willing to go through in the name of a vote I can't get. That's why making it short is a real option. Just tell them I know it's pointless and move on. Or I could try to answer it honestly because it'll be extra footage. I may do that anyway with a couple of people... there are things I have to say, if any of them even come up." {softly} "The ones I most need to talk to are the ones who won't talk to me. Or listen." {'Mary-Jane and Tony.'} "To name two." {shrugs, winces} "But there's no point in wondering what they'll ask -- it's just the prelude to the vote anyway. I can pretty much guarantee you no random number guesses, though." {closes eyes again} "I should really eat something, and they probably won't let Gardener on the beach to fish until we're done." {'I know they won't. Two more questions, though?'} "You're the one with the camera." {'If you'd lost -- do you think Gardener would have taken you -- and not as an option: a guarantee? And if he hadn't, would you have voted for him?'} {tired, eyes still closed} "No. I was his tool, and then I told him he was one of mine. He's wanted me gone since the first day -- I believed that part word for word. This was his chance to finally do it if he really wanted to, because he could beat Connie as easily as he would have beaten me. Phillip's vote shifts -- that's about it. Connie was still an option for him. And I would have voted for him, because he would have played the game like a champion. He would have earned the million, and I would have cast a vote to give it to him." {'Don't you think he would have taken you out of respect for what you did for him?'} "No. Because -- like a lot of things -- it was a long, long time ago." {softly} "And that's one over the limit. Let's clear out -- he's not very good at waiting." ----------------------------------------------------------------- During ----------------------------------------------------------------- I don't do very much for the rest of the day. I want to draw, but my arm is sore, and my head feels like the temperature hasn't come all the way back down yet. Start the fire for Gardener, make sure I drink, get some food into my system, wait on fish. The empty streak turns out to be short-term: he brings back one for each of us. Eat that, and then back to the shelter. Rest, find whatever recovery can come in the time remaining before we leave for Council. Gardener checks on me every so often, mostly to make sure I'm not about to sleep through the departure signal. At one point, he outright asks me if I'm up to the walk. I tell him I don't have a choice in the matter. He decides he's not carrying me, in part because he's still not feeling all that great himself. Also, while he thinks he can explain it to Audrey, he doesn't want to bother. And there's this little detail of knowing there's no way I'd ever do it. Good points all around. Connie isn't talking to me. Not even last insults. Saving it all up for later. At one point, I write down the names of all seven jurors and look at them for a while, then close the sketchbook. There's nothing I can do to change that list. The list is, in large part, my responsibility. My fault, and I know that's how they're going to see it. I got my seat by forcing them into theirs. I can apologize, I can say it was just the game and they would have done the same in my place, and it won't matter. I can say anything I want to: that's what the opening remarks are for. And the closing ones. And everything in between. But having anyone listen to it... ...I can't make that happen. I never could. Azure wanders out, comes back in, snuggles against me. I pet her for a while, maybe longer than I should. Today and tomorrow. That's all we have. I don't know how to tell her and even after all I've seen, I can't make myself believe she'd understand... Day Thirty-Nine. The very last day. Ever since Trooper went out, I knew I'd be seeing it from one side or the other. But from the player's side? I'd told Robin: I'd thought about it, at least in time. But not too seriously, never as a major possibility, not as something real... and it's tomorrow. A vote tonight, and then I face the jury. Judged. Sentence already decided. Waiting on the nearest available excuse to trigger the pronouncement. A very familiar position -- -- and the words. "Come on, Alex." Gardener. "They just gave the signal -- they know we're not moving fast. It's time." He already has his torch. "Use it as a walking stick -- it'll help." There's just sound advice coming from everyone today. I try it out with my own torch, and find that it works best if I use it as an occasional brace point: it's too tall to be a proper cane, and I can't keep too close to my body, not when it's lit. I probably should have gone into the jungle and found a branch I could use for a real walking stick, but -- no time, and given how slowly we're moving already, I don't think we're going to be allowed any side trips. Then again, I've never used a cane. I'd probably just strain something else. And the torch helps a little, especially since I know it's staying lit... We walk in silence. The myrrh scent. The somber plants. The shadows of sunset: we started in more light than usual, but we're moving slowly. No rush. Connie occasionally gets out of sight, then waits for us. She's moving better than we are, but even she's slower than usual: the challenge cost her something, and the knowledge of what's ahead has taken more. Gardener's ahead of me. I'm just trying to keep any sort of steady pace. I wish Azure would fly on her own for a while. I wish she'd stay... ...and finally, Jeff, watching us approach from the missing wall again. "Take your time," he tells us. "We're right on schedule -- don't push yourselves." Slowly, we limp down into the valley, enter the lodge. One more torch on the display plaques. One more to go. We take our seats: I get the left as usual, Gardener goes besides me, and Connie sits down on his right -- with an empty seat in between. The production staff makes her move next to him. Jeff nods to us once we're all finally settled. "We will now bring in the current six members of our jury. Angela." The door opens, Angela walks in, sees me -- -- stumbles, legs going out of control as her face flashes into fury, the denial never even getting a chance to come, nearly goes into Azure's perch before recovering and trying to move on as if nothing ever happened, but still taking a moment to glare once she's seated... Tony, who may have finally found something he can take: looking a little better. (Still very surprised to see where the necklace is, but better.) Phillip, and his lips twitch. Mary-Jane, who looks at Connie, then at Gardener, realizes there's just one option remaining, and moves on. Robin, who starts laughing as soon as she spots it, only picking up volume when she sees Connie's reaction to that. And Gary -- -- very casually dressed. Secret agent in disguise as man who really needed a vacation and finally got a day without people shooting at him. Casual black slacks, a plain blue T-shirt. He looks like he might have spent six hours in a bath of lotion, and there's some dried patches of anti-itch cream on his arms. Beard trimmed, but still present. I think he may have been born with two days' worth of stubble. He does look at me when he goes past. Notes the necklace, then moves on. Nothing more. Azure decides to check out the latest sampling of perch treats, and Jeff settles into his throne. "And here we are at Final Three," he tells us, "with half of the Final Two set. Alex, I want to hear you say it just one time, because I missed the last chance -- tonight, do you feel safe?" This is not helping Robin to stop laughing, and neither is having her hands over her mouth or all the production glares... "Just for the vote," I reply. "For what comes after it -- not quite." Angela gives me a single hard nod. "Let's talk about today's challenge," Jeff suggests, and then spends some time painting a word picture for the jury, letting them know exactly what we were dealing with. This does put an end to Robin's amusement, replacing it with frustration: yes, she's sure she could have beaten that one. Tony seems to feel the same way. By contrast, Phillip is thoughtful, but worried -- he would have been generating a lot of heat too. "This was one of the most arduous endurance challenges we've ever put together. Now that it's over, I can tell you this: Medical thought it would be over in ninety minutes. We ran a few test heats -- so to speak -- during the design stage, and that's when we generally had the last person drop out and give someone the simulated victory within an hour and a half. Followed by a lot of water, ice, and an extended cooldown period. Gardener, you dropped at two hours, five minutes, thirty-eight seconds. And it took about another minute before I could convince Alex to let go -- she didn't see you fall." Tony looks just a little bit impressed. Gary's frowning -- I don't think he likes the design of this one. Or the winner of it. Gardener snorts. He's back up to full strength on that. "I would have thought she'd hear it, but we were both pretty much focused on our grips at the end there. Looking around got to be too much damn work." Jeff's smile is very quick. "Which is why I kept moving... Connie, you went out at seventy-six minutes, twenty seconds. As I said, ninety minutes was the usual win time in our trial runs, and that's with people who are used to doing these things. It was one of your stronger performances." Being thrown a bone is one thing, but you have to be in the mood for marrow. "It was still a loss," Connie says just a little too fast, her tones much sharper than they usually are when speaking to Jeff. Actually, it's very close to the way she sounds if she has to talk to me. "That challenge was my last chance to control what happened to me in this game. I gave it everything I had and I still came in third. I know exactly what that means for me tonight." And glares at Gardener. "You told me you didn't beat her because she is less than half your size, and body mass could be a consideration here. I still don't know how much of that I believe. I trusted that Final Two promise, and look where it got me..." Connie now has the jury's undivided attention. Jeff was in the log cabin when the Final Two information came out. He got to hear every word of it and stayed quiet so we could speak without interruption. He has all of those details plus whatever was radioed back from the camera operators since then -- and yet, he's still capable of looking surprised, even as Gardener groans. "It's over, okay? I gave it everything I had there. That is the first time in my life I've passed out, at least without having a few people run into me with their helmets down as an excuse. What's the motto of the game? Alex outlasted me. Part of that was physical. There's nothing I can do about that part. No one's ever lost that much weight." Angela is ignoring this in favor of switching her glare to Connie, Phillip is slowly nodding to himself, Mary-Jane is watching Gardener... It's a good time for our host to cut in. "So now we know what brought Connie over." He looks at the brought party. So does everyone else. I think I can just sit back and listen for a while. Connie sighs. "It was half blackmail, half coercion. Gardener had the idol. He told me that if he really wanted to, he could use it to bounce me -- it would be easy to get the votes going in that direction. He was willing to pass it off to whoever he felt would get our votes that night, and if he guessed wrong, then there was still the tiebreaker." Another sigh, deeper and more weary. "And now I really wish I'd found out what that was going to be..." Jeff has no comment. "So I was at risk. But rather than let me sit and wonder whether all of our attempts to dodge the idol would work, he offered me another option: join him. The promise was supposed to be Final Two. I thought I might be able to ride it for a while if it worked at all -- but the other option appeared to be going out at that Council. What choice did I have?" And this directly to Phillip, who's nodding again. "I leave, they have majority and we're Pagonged out. I go over, at least I have some chance to stay. Or bet on a spin of the idol, hoping we could guess where it was --" this to Angela "-- and we'd just been burned so badly there..." And now Angela is starting to nod. "I know what I did. I did it for the reason so many people have done things in this game -- in hopes of staying just a little while longer." A weary, sad look at Tony. "Look how well that worked out." Gardener looks more than a little tired himself, but he had the longer day. "Connie, I could have gotten rid of you as soon as we had majority together. I didn't. Every time another Council went by without your leaving, you had to think my word was a little bit better. But in the end, you were asking me to control Alex -- and that's asking a hell of a lot. I thought I could beat her at the final challenge, even if it was endurance. I was wrong, all right?" No, it isn't. "If you'd just gotten rid of her earlier --" "Yeah, right," Gardener cuts her off. "Get rid of her when she has Immunity. Get rid of her when she has the idol. Get rid of her when even you agreed -- with no argument -- that we had to get rid of Gary." Who isn't exactly going to be surprised by that. "Because you can't convince me that you wouldn't have taken Alex if you'd won. That was the chance I had to take -- and it's kind of pointless now, isn't it? Neither of us has that necklace. She does. It's her vote." These words emerge from between Connie's teeth. "I believe I've realized that." All right, great material, but there's another party to be heard from. "Alex, you pretty much had this worked out." Phillip blinks. Angela just groans, very softly. "I had suspicions," I tell him. "The one promise that would really stand a chance of getting someone to move is Final Two. I'd guessed on how the idol had been used there, and... well, it just made sense." "Yeah," Gardener replies, looking more than a little amused. "From Day Fourteen on, it made sense. Before I even did anything." Tony looks very confused, while Mary-Jane's still quiet. "Jeff, I feel used, abused, and just about any other rhyme you want to throw in..." The sigh is so large, it has to be faked. "Might as well get the rest of this out in the open now that Connie's brought it up, if there's even anything left to get... you know, you could have saved that for one more damn night and no one would have minded..." Jeff leads the way from there: more talk about the challenge, especially the discussion Gardener and I had gone through after Connie left. Angela still isn't happy about any of it. (Apparently whoever's been giving me the strategic hints has to really lay off on the foresight too.) Gary watches me, looking frustrated: I'd never given him this theory, and I don't know what Gardener ever told him about that promise to Connie. Probably not this... Eventually, it comes back to Gardener, as Jeff decides to start calling him on a few things. "Did you ever make any kind of formal promise to Alex?" "Final Four after she gave me the idol," Gardener admits. "Kept, obviously." For whatever number of points that might be worth with the jury. "After that, I played it by ear." And before that: listen to the screams of those leaving Council, realize what a good Final Two partner I might make... "But you promised Connie Final Two," Jeff reminds Gardener. "And you were trying to talk Alex into letting go of the spear because if she did, you'd take her. You were lying to someone, Gardener. Which person was it?" Gardener rolls his eyes. He's not all that bad at it. "See? This is why I didn't want this to come up until tomorrow..." Gary actually grins at that, and Phillip isn't far behind him. "On the one hand, I can say 'I'd take Connie,' and let's think about how well that's going to sit with Alex after I tried to talk her into letting go. On the other, I can say 'Alex -- come on,' and then Connie's going to be looking at us from the jury thinking about just how much damage she can do with a quill pen..." Which gets Robin laughing again. Connie's nowhere near as amused. "It would make for a very hard vote." For Gardener. Who's looking at Jeff. "And now you've put me on the spot like this?" Gardener spreads his hands. "I really wanted this saved for one more day... I was taking Alex. Okay?" The lines of Connie's face go tight. "Two Turare at the end. That's how it was going to be. Like I said, Connie, if you'd won, I had to hope you would take me. If I won, then guess what? I lied. Or -- maybe I was taking Connie. Maybe I could say that because it makes me look better for her vote. Sure, I was going to take you all along, but the breaks didn't work out that way. Guess what? No matter what I say right now, someone can tell me I lied. And I have absolutely no way to convince anyone who I told the truth to." He's getting a major workout on this sigh. "This would have come up tomorrow... up until today, I could always say 'Well, I never promised Alex Final Two' and stick with it. But then I did. So now you're right, Jeff: I lied to someone. And it doesn't matter -- because I don't have the decision tonight. All the power is in Alex's hands." And he looks directly at me. "But I have to feel she knows who I am. I want to believe she knows just who she can trust -- and she made that decision a long time ago. Alex trusted me -- and now I trust Alex." Back to Jeff, jaw locked in defiance. "That's my answer. If anyone here doesn't like it, we'll go over it later. But as far as I'm concerned, the main reason things worked out like this today is because I was an idiot. Because after all the very graphic, goddamned detailed, and occasionally bloody examples I've seen, I still didn't really understand just how stubborn she is..." There clearly won't be any further help from that party -- so Jeff turns to me. "Do you trust Gardener?" "For some things, at some times." Gardener's grinning. It doesn't even remotely surprise me. "It's just hard to trust anything anyone says at the last challenge -- it's too crucial a moment. He wanted it to be his decision, I wanted it to be mine." And nodding now. Yes, we're both that stubborn. I was just that stubborn for a few extra seconds. Jeff nods. "We've seen that from you before --" possibly not the best reference he could have made "-- and now it is your decision. Have you made one?" I nod. "Will you entertain last-minute offers and speeches?" Gardener breaks in. "I know she's not going to consider the Pilates ball." And before I can answer that, Connie sighs. "I don't see any reason to make an effort. Because she is that stubborn -- and I'll have more to say about that tomorrow, believe me -- but I'm not so stubborn or delusional that I feel my own words here could make any difference." Robin could not be happier about the situation. Mary-Jane is listening, but that's all she's doing. "Given that, I'll save my breath for one night." My turn. Finally. "It's what she said, Jeff. I've made a decision. Nothing anyone says tonight is going to change that." His eyes twinkle, just for a moment. "I think I've heard that before, too... All right." And there's the note: it's time. A very short Council. "Here's how it works. Alex has Immunity." Angela will just never be happy about that statement. "Gardener can only vote for Connie, and Connie can only vote for Gardener. Their votes cancel each other out. Alex is the only person who will vote tonight. By doing so, Alex, you send one person to be the final member of the jury -- and select the other to be the person you will face that jury with." I understand. On Day One, I never would have believed I'd be hearing those words from this seat. But I know what every one of them means. "And that means it is time to vote. Alex -- go ahead." I get up. Azure comes with me, transferred to my shoulder before we reach the door. My right shoulder for a change, which takes some work: my writing arm is sore enough without having any extra weight on it. As it is, her talons are resting on top of that strap, and I could really wish to have found someone a lot lighter... Out the door and up the path. This is the last time. I will never cast a vote in this game again, probably not even if Jeff and the rest of the crew get to develop a severe case of the twitches. Would they ask me back? Would I come? It doesn't matter. Here and now, on a clear night with the stars shining down, the air warm with just a touch of breeze, island fragrances mixing into the background scent we all only notice now when we concentrate on it. A little different from place to place, depending on just which immediate plants are adding to it -- but always there. One more constant. One more thing that goes away tomorrow. My very last vote. Trina, angry and willing to cooperate. Frank, because there was no other choice. Desmond: selective deafness could have killed us. Tony, not knowing. Angela, hoping it would work -- and then Tony again, because it did. Phillip, because he wouldn't let me go another way. Mary-Jane, and too many reasons. Robin, because it was time. Gary, because that was the only option left. I'm Final Two. I have done everything I could have done. I haven't done all of it right. It wasn't a mistake-free game by any means, and I'll never be delusional enough to believe otherwise. But it brought me to this point -- a place where I have one thing left to do. 'All the power...' Now there's a lie. Write. Raise the parchment. Speak. "It was a long time coming -- and the time is now. One of us was going to get rid of the other. That was the way it was going to be from the first day: you made that very clear. This doesn't end it, because you'll still have your say from the jury -- and I know you'll have things to say. Maybe it'll never end. But for this stage -- we're done." Cast the vote. Back to the others, Connie not bothering to look at me, Gardener being very patient. I take my seat, Azure staying with me, and Jeff stands up. "I'll go tally the vote." I looked it up once: it's actually the right way to say it. Even when there's only one to count, it's still the word that works... We wait. Tony fidgets in his seat. It's a very long count for a single vote... ...Jeff returns, carrying the cylinder. The parchment weighs so little: how can the container look so heavy in his arms? I've never lifted it: we're not allowed to touch it. What if we knocked it over and the votes fell out? "Once the vote is read, the person voted out will be asked to leave the Tribal Council area immediately." For the last time. "I'll read the vote." No point in counting them tonight. His hand goes into the cylinder. Extracts the parchment. Opens it with my writing facing towards him. No point in changing it: it's not as if anyone else was in that booth -- at least, anyone who could write. Just large enough to be clearly read. Jeff's eyes scan that forced print, left to right, once only. "The fourteenth person voted out of the Society Islands, and the final member of our jury --" -- there's always something left to wait for -- "-- Gardener." The Council explodes. How many rules are being broken right now? We probably don't have one about not going off your seat, because that's the second time Tony's managed to dump himself onto the floor. We do have one about the jury talking loudly enough to reach the player seats, and Angela just broke that one with decibels to spare because screams still count. "What?!?" and it's still familiar. Which might be going through Phillip's head and his face: his jaw has dropped open, enough to see the crooked incisor and all of its friends. Mary-Jane's just been voted out all over again. Gary is staring at me. Robin looks like she wants to walk over and start slapping me until I come to my senses, and the only thing stopping her is -- well, absolutely nothing, but give her a minute and she'll think of something. The camera crew is starting to talk, and that's going to be hard to edit out when it's all of them. Production makes it worse. I'd thought it was bad when the camera operator for the voting booth saw it? Increase by a factor of twenty -- -- and Connie doesn't know what's going on. She knows what she just heard, and she clearly believes she heard it. She just doesn't understand why. Angels may have come down from on high and forced my hand into the necessary motions. That's obviously the second-most logical possibility, so one of her current withheld questions may be if angel visitations are considered to be interference with the game. Rule that one out and this has still happened: she's willing to concede that. Maybe she's waiting for someone to take it back. Okay, this was the joke on her and everyone had a laugh at her expense: let's have the real vote. The primary option can stop teasing her. Any heartbeat now, Jeff is going to put the gag cylinder away and bring out the real one... Gardener's adjusting a lot faster. Shock first. Denial follows: no, he hadn't heard that. He's briefly in the same mental place as Connie: great joke, seriously, best prank anyone's ever pulled in the history of the game, now let's all settle down and get back to business. But that only lasts for a moment -- and then he's on his feet, spinning around as he moves in front of me, face screwed up with what could be pain from shifting his position that fast but probably isn't, not as a main factor, and I'm waiting for the roar of anger -- -- which doesn't come. It's a stage whisper instead, deathly cold, seemingly low but capable of projecting to the entire audience with ease. Words trembling, abruptly-clenched fists beginning to vibrate. "What the hell did you just do?" Azure tenses, seems to be getting ready for the attack, and just who's going to deliver it is a major question... Jeff is starting to decide he may have trouble on the way. Jeff's job is to stop trouble. Jeff may have to put in some actual overtime. "Gardener!" Because there are fists, and now they're shaking... He's bigger. He's stronger. He's angry. None of it matters. I look directly at him. Softly, "What I had to." Eyes locked, his all the way open for once -- -- Jeff again. "Gardener!" Who turns, very slowly, his hands falling open as he moves. "And now that I have someone's attention -- everybody, calm down!" The jury slowly works on getting back into physical position: mental just isn't coming. "And I mean everybody." The staff gradually goes back to their jobs. "Gardener -- you need to bring me your torch." There's a very loud unspoken 'now' at the end of that. Gardener nods, just once, then silently goes to retrieve it. And that's it. Silence. Too-heavy footsteps, seemingly trying to pound his way through the floor. But no words all the way up to Jeff, nothing through planting his torch hard enough to echo, weaker wood and we'd be looking at splinters... "Gardener -- the tribe has spoken." In fact, absolutely everyone except Azure has spoken, and she probably just thought she'd get drowned out. "It's time for you to go." It's the second time he's had the majority. It's the first one where his flame has gone out. Gardener starts to walk away from Jeff -- then turns. I was expecting that. I was even expecting this: with a calm that's far too measured to be real, "Connie -- remember what I promised? If I went first and you made it, you'd get my vote at Final Two?" She just barely starts to get the nod out, and he doesn't wait for her to finish before letting just a touch of the rage come through. "I'm not going to have any problems keeping that one." He slams the door behind him. It vibrates in its frame for what feels like a very long time. And it's still not long enough for Connie to stop waiting for the punchline. Gardener's coming back, isn't he? Any moment now. This is just the cruelest of possible jokes and it's all on her... ...but then Jeff decides it's been long enough to try a few words of his own. With a dryness that shows just how well he can get things out, "Obviously not the decision anyone was expecting." Reality catches up to Connie in a wave: pushes her back, sends her reeling. She doesn't look like she did when Jeff first announced the idols. She looks like she just found out she's had one for the last thirty-eight days and no one bothered to tell her. "A season like none we have ever seen comes down to this: Alex and Connie as the Final Two." I think she may be starting to believe it. "You have come as far as you can in this game. From this point on, the power switches to the jury -- seven people placed in that role because you put yourselves in this one. Tomorrow night, you will be held accountable for your actions in this game. Questions will be asked, answers will be judged -- and ultimately, we will have a winner." He's looking at me. I think he wants me to account for at least one action right now. He's going to have to wait. I can sit here for as long as he can stand there, and we do have a deadline of sorts. Finally, Jeff gives me the very temporary victory. "Head on back to camp. I'll see you tomorrow night -- and everyone will get to see just where they stand." There's a lot of meanings to that. I'm not going to stay here to ask about any of them: stand up, recover my torch, and limp out. Connie gets hers and silently follows me. She could get ahead of me easily, and she's not doing it. She's just following, letting the jury's disbelieving eyes go off her back instead of into mine. No one believes what I just did. Maybe Jeff was out there so long because he needed to read the vote a few times before it could sink in. Or the camera operator for the voting booth fainted. Julia is directly ahead of me, filming us as we walk, and she clearly wants to ram me into confessional right now, or just into a tree... Out of the valley. The Council lights fade behind us. It's going to be a very long, very slow walk back. "Why?" Finally. I turn around. Two torches, more than enough to let us see each other -- but not enough to let me find any hatred in Connie's face. Confusion, yes -- and that's it. The question was fairly quiet, possibly said just to herself and not meant for the open air. But it's out -- and other words follow, just as still, somehow floating placidly on turbulent waters. "You could have taken Gardener. I knew you were going to take Gardener." She sounds very young. "That was so short tonight because Jeff knew you would never take me. There was no point in stretching it out..." And now something else: slowly increasing as awareness continues to sink in... "You just gave me a million dollars. Why?" I listen to her growing joy, give her five heartbeats to bask in it -- then answer. "Because I never would have beaten Gardener. And I can't beat you." And as soon as that starts to sink in, I let the rest go out, some of the pain getting through, making the words even harsher... "But I'm really going to try." Connie stares at me -- then shrugs. "Well -- it was your decision. I'm hardly going to argue it." Back to her usual state. "I believe I'm satisfied with the results." She starts moving again -- stops as she draws even with me. Face to face, looking down. "I can't be as neglectful this time, can I? In case I don't get to say it later -- thank you for the million dollars, Alex. I will think of you when I spend it." I don't answer her. I just wait, and eventually she continues down the path, singing softly to herself. Not a bad voice at all. Onward Christian soldiers, indeed. I couldn't beat Gardener and I can't beat you. There are no words I can say to the jury which will ever change anyone's mind. I may have even lost Robin because of this, presuming I ever really had her in the first place. A move so stupid it has to be punished. But -- Gardener had it wrong. And said it that way on purpose. 'The important thing is that Connie doesn't get a million dollars.' No. The important thing to him was that Gardener got a million dollars. That's what his game was all about: get to the end and win. Give me the no-choice between the person I hated and the one I'd worked with. He'd given me a similar decision before: the person who'd recently given me reasons to be afraid of what she might say or the one I'd been allied with at the time. I'd made what I thought was the right decision -- but it had been a one-option choice. He'd tried to do the same thing today: present himself as the only possibility. But... ...I don't get Phillip's vote. I may have to work to get Robin's back. But if there's anyone Angela didn't want there as much as she didn't want me, it has to be Connie. Maybe Tony will go out of control again. I just gave Mary-Jane a horrible decision and there's no way of telling which way she'll go. Gary's a wild card. And Gardener said he'd go with Connie -- but... 'But': the word of stupid, blind, unreasoning hope. It's pointless. Futile. Waste of time, breath, effort -- name it, and there's no reason to invest it in the jury tomorrow. No one will shift. Everyone's minds are settled and there's not a chance of changing them. But -- -- it's not over. And maybe it's a chance... I don't even bother wishing I could believe that. I will never be that delusional, and even asking insanity to bring that thought through might be a stretch. Because deep down, I know I've just given Connie the win -- -- but there's still one more day, and a jury to face that may be a little more divided than it would have been for Gardener. And even so, they'll still be demanding that I account for my actions -- -- and I have so much to account for... -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Colonel Zoidberg 1435 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Beef Jerky Spokesperson" 01-30-07, 03:12 PM (EST) 12. "RE: I Can't Win...: Part VII" I was floored by the decision Alex made at F3. I couldn't believe it. I had to do a double take. And that's the second time reading through it. You wouldn't write Connie as the winner; I just know it...umm, would you?   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

cahaya 7447 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 01-30-07, 06:02 PM (EST) 13. "RE: I Can't Win...: Part VII" You wouldn't write Connie as the winner; I just know it...umm, would you? Nuh-uh, unless somehow the fundamental laws of the universe change overnight. I don't know how Alex will get enough jury votes (based on the seeming accurate speculation posts that make it seem highly unlikely), but for starters I think Philip will actually vote for Alex after all. Wayang Kulit puppet show by Tribe.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 3603 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Thong Contest Judge" 01-30-07, 06:30 PM (EST) 14. "Jury thoughts redux" LAST EDITED ON 01-30-07 AT 06:34 PM (EST) As I think I discussed on OT (or did I? I'm not sure any more)... I expect Gardener and Angela to remain true to their "promises," the way Tammy, John and the General did in S4. As Alex said, people vote their hate. And Philip is so honorable that he wouldn't even try to save himself because it would mean betraying his principles, so he'll stick with his tribe, no matter what he thinks of Alex. That's 3 votes for Connie. That means Alex would need to pick up Robin (basically a lock), Gary (still likely to side with Alex over Connie, if for no other reason than Alex played a better game), Mary-Jane and Tony. Tony at least has some motivation to switch (Connie traitorously voted him out), plus Alex was a competition threat (an athlete would respect that), and we have seen more voting independence from allies than you'd expect throughout the "real" series (starting in S2 -- think Jerri-Amber and Rodger-Lis). So it's possible that he's not buried in Angela's pocket, especially now that Angela doesn't have a reason to keep leading him on. For Alex to get M-J's vote, while M-J remains so depressed to this day, is the part of this that I need to "see."   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Colonel Zoidberg 1435 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Beef Jerky Spokesperson" 01-31-07, 08:24 AM (EST) 15. "RE: Jury thoughts redux" I hate to speculate while the story is still in progress, lest I affect the outcome, but here goes. Angela: Has said she will never vote for Alex, and even if she doesn't like Connie, couldn't possible vote Alex. Tony: I'm not so convinced he's under Angela's spell that much. I'll still favor this one to Connie, but not for sure. Phillip: I don't see him voting for Alex, but if Gardener has a change of heart, he may try to talk Phillip into it. Mary-Jane: As angry as she is at Alex, I just don't see her voting for Connie. One for Alex. Robin: She promised her vote to Alex, and frankly, I don't think she likes Connie. Two for Alex. Gary: Had a falling out with Alex, and bonded with Connie. I'll actually give this one to Connie. Gardener: He could have just been blowing smoke when he said he wasn't voting for Alex. It could be anger, and a day in Loser Lodge would cool him off. Conclusion: Alex NEEDS Gardener's vote, and she needs Gary to be OK with her. If she has that, she wins. Otherwise, I put it as a 5-2 win for Connie.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 3603 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Thong Contest Judge" 01-31-07, 07:32 PM (EST) 16. "RE: Jury thoughts redux" I hate to speculate while the story is still in progress By the time this cast reaches its reunion, they'll need walkers to get around.   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 22510 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-01-07, 12:47 PM (EST) 17. "I Can't Win...: Part VIII" LAST EDITED ON 02-03-07 AT 09:24 PM (EST) {Should be a nice, fast Council, especially since the clock says we could be looking at a very long jury segment. Even figuring for the Day Thirty-Nine 'Hey, we're the Final Two! So who's on water duty?' bit, the questions may go on for a while.} {And Angela wants to give us just one more indicator for her vote. Sheesh. You'd think she would have figured out the whole 'Alex is not here to make you happy' thing by now, wouldn't you? Robin worked it out, and Angela likes to think she's smarter than Robin, right?} {I think she has, and she's just getting ready to lead a public protest against it...} {Ninety minutes for that challenge, huh? Boy, we're just getting all kinds of insights this year. I bet the testing is a first-year hire sort of thing: welcome to the team, now get on that pole and don't come down until -- well, just don't come down. But yeah -- world-class stubborn. They both should have dropped and neither one wanted to concede to the other.} {Right now, somewhere backstage, Gardener is grousing about the unfair advantage Alex had. 'I got hit by the opposing line every Saturday in the fall and she got hit every day of her entire life. What kind of challenge training do you call that?'} {Abused childhood as challenge warmup. Nice perspective you've got there. Possibly accurate, but -- nice. Want a summary slot for next season?} {Someone just sent the jury up the bomb. 'Um... what Final Two deal now?'} {Some of them must have suspected it -- excepting Tony -- but it's still a little surprising to actually hear it.} {No, Connie is not going completely quietly, and she's giving everyone something to think about on her way out.} {Gardener's not dealing with it all that badly here, but he's not exactly admitting anything one way or the other -- and everyone knows it. Including Tony.} {I'm glad we got Connie's side of this, though. The Haraiki side of the jury is actually giving her a little sympathy there -- yeah, it's a pretty rotten situation to be in if you have any illusions of tribe loyalty, which is the problem I have with this. Even so, Gardener had her backed into a corner and she knew it. She couldn't like her chances on just about any tiebreaker, and if she'd switched back to voting with Haraiki with Gardener targeting Connie as threatened, that actually would have put her there against Alex. Who was still hurting, but if it was something like making fire or memory... Connie could have been out that night, really easily.} {And if Gardener hadn't known, it's Tony against Alex, and -- well, that one's harder, but I'll give Alex the edge just because you can't do anything that physical at Council. Assume Gardener passed it off, keep the votes with him while making his threat serious, and it's either Connie vs. Gardener or the bounce. That's not a corner, that's the pit trap all over again.} {Physical? They've got enough space for an on-the-spot endurance, right?} {Kind of a contradiction there...} {Guess why Gary isn't happy with this conversation? I'm betting Alex kept him in the dark on that little theory. He got double-played on omission: both Gardener and Alex never said the crucial words to him. Maybe Alex couldn't be sure of her idea until the last minute, but Gardener wasn't going to say 'Hey, jury-threat buddy of mine...'} {He was lying to someone -- but he's right. Alex has the necklace, so it really doesn't matter who Gardener was taking to Final Two. Unless we get one of Robin's Rewinds (pat. pending), it's a moot point.} {No point in prolonging the agony, and Connie knows it. So does Jeff -- Alex is up.} {Oh, come on -- there's no reason to hide this vote from sight... shoot a little lower, why don't you? The suspense factor is over.} {I think the quota on slightly lower shots of Alex has now been filled for the season.} {Great speech. Alex is right: at some point, she was going to get rid of Connie -- or her rival was going to do it to her. This doesn't end it forever, but it puts the close on this stage.} {Uh-huh -- telling Connie where to go and keeping it all within broadcast standards. Nice one.} {There goes Jeff -- overly long, way-too-dramatic attempt to focus on Gardener and Connie... no, Burnett, you can't build up the non-suspense here. You can just get us through this and see if Tony winds up working from cue cards or just has Angela run a direct line into his vocal cords.} {Finally. Get the chorus ready: we represent -- the Sick Of You Guild... and we wish to welcome you to Jury-Land!} {...the world doesn't make sense any more...} {He's going to hit her, you can see he's going to hit her --} {Jeff grabbing control back, but -- too late. In time to keep anything from happening, if anything was going to happen there -- and given their respective heights and positions, Alex had one hell of a free shot -- but too late to keep the impossible off the boards. This is real, no matter what Connie's expression says. Alex just took her to the Final Two.} {Did Alex have a side bet we don't know about? Win this many challenges, find that many idols, and perform the maximum possible number of backstabs?} {Stephenie still has the backstab record, but Alex just cornered the market on idiocy.} {I don't think Gardener was going to hit her. He reacts physically, but -- his fists may have just been a place to channel his anger.} {And once again: did you actually read that sentence before you posted it?} {The situation in the Hall: it was very loud. And then it was very quiet. And no one has taken a breath for about half a minute.} {...take that back. I want her to go back and cast another one. Guess what? Alex has a sense of humor and it just came out to play!} {Okay... good news: this puts the end to the Gardener/Alex thread once and for all. The bad news: the Connie/Alex team-up meeting in the water on Day One is now actually starting to look plausible.} {And Connie just said it: Alex just gave her a million dollars. Why? Alex can't really believe she's capable of beating Connie!} {And I bash the C/A idea over the head with a shovel. (It was a very short, but very active resurrection.) Die, idea! Die once and for all!} {I don't know... I don't think Alex can win: Connie's still got an advantage here. But she's definitely just thrown some votes into confusion. Think about it: M-J's in Ballot Hell right now.} {Connie's got several mortal ballot locks -- and I don't think those are exactly confused about where they stand. If Alex picked up any edge, it was short-term: she would have needed to have the jury questions and final vote right after that happened. Give them a night to sleep on it, and they'll be back to calling her an idiot.} {Alex has a better chance against Connie than she would against Gardener. Not arguing that. But given the size of that chance -- our cold-blooded predator just took out her last victim in the name of giving herself what I'm counting as one extra vote. Maybe this was the time for the Keith rule to actually turn valid. Connie's going to win this... this is sick. This makes Vecepia look like she earned the million. I could have dealt with a Gardener win. Gardener fought for it, Gardener did what he'd call his damnedest, and Gardener was set up perfectly for it -- until Alex refuted Colby & Tina in the name of making one stupid try for the title. What was she thinking? Take the rivalry to the final step and then lose?} {I've given up on figuring out what Alex is thinking. Forever.} {Connie's got the million, I have an upset stomach, and we have the most perfectly rotten ending possible to what was turning into an actual watchable season. Sorry, EPMB, I won't be back next year. Won't get fooled again. Nuh-uh. Not me. Not even if you set the thing in my backyard and make it all males with mandatory T-back suits.} {You have an upset stomach? I'm so happy, I could just throw up -- I don't think I should have had that thought...} {*sigh* Season. Is. Suck. There's MB's ultimate irony: Alex brings her worst enemy and gets her rear kicked by Connie in the only challenge that one could ever win: the jury vote-off.} {The Hall is still very quiet. I believe people are in shock.} {Y'think?} {You've got to be loving this. Connie comes out of nowhere to stand triumphant at the end.} {I believe I've said she and I aren't in the same branch.} {You'll only support people who are exactly with you and not just any Christian?} {I'll support just about any Christian. At this point, I'm not sure that means I should support Connie. With Cole -- break is over.} {They've been showing commercials in the Hall?} {No. Clips from the show. Just reran the fall from the boat, with Cole going after Connie in the water.} {I hate irony. I really do. Alex towed Connie in on Day One, and then she did it again on Night Thirty-Eight...} {We're back, and everyone wants to hear from Alex on the most stupid decision in series history... geez, would Gardener with a million have been that bad? Other than the inevitable NCAA 'he has money: it must be a bribe -- what show?' investigation?} ----------------------------------------------------------------- "You know, Gardener had a really good question back there." So Connie is now officially far enough ahead -- but Julia's voice is still close enough to Gardener's for either tribute or mockery: a cold whisper. "What the hell did you just do?" I keep limping along. It's going to be a very long walk. A long, slow, painful, no-longer-silent walk. "Is this a confessional?" Because she's not exactly the only camera operator here, even if she's expressing the question for the still-stunned group. Angry. "You just gave Connie a million dollars. It's not going to make her stop hating you. She's going to laugh all the way to the bank --" "I never thought it would change her mind about me," I shoot back. "I don't care how Connie feels about me. I have a better chance against her than I would have against Gardener. I took the person I thought I might be able to beat. That's what you do at Final Two." Julia stares at me -- then softly says "Don't approach me for a while." And turns away, letting someone else take over the close-up filming duties. Fine: you brought it up. Call that just about a clean sweep: possibly lost Robin just through taking Connie, might not have any of the others no matter what I do, annoyed Jeff lots of times plus there was the whole 'nearly hit him' thing, saying goodbye to Azure tomorrow, and just managed to drive away my confessional filmer. Let's see anyone else match that record, especially without another parrot. Azure's still nuzzling against me. Maybe that's a good sign. Or maybe she's just confused and doesn't want to risk flying because she might hit a tree. I just gave Connie a million dollars. Stacked up on the hood of the car. I could have given it to Gardener. If I'm wrong -- and I'm so very probably wrong... Hate me for thirty-eight days. Do everything you can to get me out of the game, with or without a vote. Collect a seven-figure check. Set an example. And because it's a winning example, lots of people will try to follow it... It's a very long walk back to camp, and it hurts every inch of the way. How long do I have left here? One day, give or take just a little. Probably 'give' if the last Council runs long. I've been able to say this as a certainty since the necklace was placed for the last time: I have Day Thirty-Nine, and nothing can change that. But the necklace has stopped working. There's no buffer zone between myself and the rest of the world any more. No protection. It doesn't stop the jury from asking questions. It doesn't change the way they'll vote. It didn't do anything but put me in a position where I'd have to hear those questions and listen to the words that will, step by step, show the trail leading to Connie's only real victory, the one with no reprisals possible, the last one that paid for all... I did the right thing. I had to take her. I was able to make myself believe that all the way through Council, right up until I cast the vote, and maybe part of that was because the necklace was working. Things seem so clear when you have Immunity. Now... Connie's still up when I finally reach the clearing. In fact, it looks like she may intend to be up for a while: one of our two remaining bottles of champagne is open and she's pouring herself a glass, sitting on her pallet with her torch jammed into the shelter floor. "Well -- finally she gets back." Her posture is listing a little to the right and her words are following suit. Definitely not her first glass. "I took the liberty, but I hardly thought you'd mind, given that you don't drink -- wine is a sacrament, of course, and that's just one more that you don't follow..." Or her second. "You really should have a drink, at least just this once. We can have a toast!" She raises the glass in my general direction and misses by about twenty degrees. "To the game, and the win... and God working in very mysterious ways..." A long sip that manages to take out half the contents, and she refills the glass. "You're going to have a hangover tomorrow." Not that I have a problem with that. Having Connie face the jury with a pounding headache and reduced reasoning capacity? I'll pour the champagne. Besides, if I'm the one who points it out, she's more likely to ignore the possibility... I transfer Azure to her perch: she's very sleepy. She laughs, very lightly. Still extremely merry, more than a little pleased with herself. "I don't get them. Trick metabolism." Hiccups. "Very common on Long Island, from what I hear..." Another long sip. "This is very good, even warm. Do you think they brought it up from the billionaire's wine cellar?" Connie wants to talk. Yet another reason I don't like alcohol. "No -- they can't really tamper with the mansion's contents. The potential heirs would be upset." My towels probably came from a very expensive catalog. One that wasn't made from pasting photos to parchment. That gets an unsteady shrug. "No one would care for just a couple of -- bottles. Sure you're not going to drink?" Positive. "More for me..." Refills the glass. "A million dollars... got to donate some to the church, of course, but that comes off my taxes -- sure of that, Gary could tell you... and you with just a little hundred thousand..." Was that a giggle? "I suppose that pays for two bras, maybe three... Never thought it would happen this way. God was in that voting blind with you, whispering in your ear, and even the soulless can hear that voice when it speaks, even if they'll never know what it was, much less be saved by it..." And that's pretty much all of this I can stand. Maybe I'll just sit in the hammock until she falls asleep. Or get her out there: this is Turare's camp, she's Haraiki -- in fact, given that I'm the last Turare, technically, she's in my shelter. I helped build it, she didn't. The game's version of inheritance law -- come to think of it, that means she doesn't get to use the hammock either. But I can't throw her out physically, and it's hard to reason with someone who's already passed through tipsy on their way to all-out celebratory drunk. Maybe I can just sit on the beach and listen to the ocean, along the sounds of Julia refusing to talk to me. Turn away, and -- -- no. Wait... ...turn back towards Connie. "Can you spare a little Bible instruction?" She blinks. Repeats. Giggles for a few heartbeats. "You -- want Bible instruction?" I shrug. "You said it was free..." More giggles, starting to work up the line into full-fledged laughter. "Well -- this is the night of miracles, isn't it? Sit down -- the student should always be seated..." I make my way into the shelter, painfully settle onto my pallet. "All right. What do you want instruction on?" Connie seems genuinely curious here. Also very much into the drunk phase. An agreeable drunk this time around: I never saw that one coming. A million dollars' worth of happiness has some interesting side effects. Maybe I could talk her out of the shelter after all -- -- but there's something else I want to talk about. "What does 'soulless' mean?" She stares -- then laughs, long and loud. It takes a while before it begins to fade into giggles again. "Oh, dear -- lacking a soul, of course, but you've figured that one out, haven't you? But then you decided Gardener was actually your ally -- I don't know what goes through that head..." "I know what the word means." It's not exactly an idol clue, is it? "I don't know why you see me as not having one." A slow breath. "Ah..." Steadily, excepting the occasional hiccup. "Because it's what the Bible says you are. The Bible is the word of God, and it's always right, so that's what you are... but you haven't read it, so you don't know why it applies... Yes, that is a matter for instruction, isn't it?" Her brow furrows. "This will be very difficult... your background is so lacking, and I don't even have the foundation to build on that Edward had for me..." A long, long silence, during which I can hear every last camera focusing on us. All three of them. "Very well. You do know who Jesus was, of course -- you couldn't possibly have missed that much.." Not if he was real. Definitely not if he was an incarnated divinity. That there might have been a real person to build a myth on, maybe. But... "Yes." "All right -- good enough. The son of God, walking among Man." A slow nod followed by the voice of absolute certainty. "One of the most crucial things to understand here -- is that Jesus did not, in himself, have a soul." I barely know religion. What I do know comes from stories that mostly have it as a side element. The occasional examination of a character's faith, mine or someone else's, the former very rare occasion only after some quick, intense reading. And that still sounds wrong. "All right -- why?" Connie looks momentarily pleased: look, I'm not as stupid as she thought! "Because only humans have the potential for souls. Jesus wasn't human. He was born directly of God, and God certainly isn't human. Mary had no part in that pregnancy other than to serve as the vessel -- and souls don't come from humans anyway. Souls are granted by God. He doesn't have one, but He creates them... Jesus said it. He was in the world, but he was not part of it. He couldn't be human, because humans are imperfect. And he couldn't have a soul, because only humans can. It's in Romans... you can look it up..." She takes a slow look around for her Bible, fails to find it because she's not checking her own bag. "Later, I suppose. But it will always be there, and it will always be true." And for the purposes of this discussion: "All right. But I'm not exactly Jesus." More laughter. "Hardly... Now when Jesus passed from this world, he did not go to Heaven -- not in the sense we think of people doing so. Not as an eternal reward. That part of God's divinity which He had granted onto his creation was reclaimed. Jesus became part of God again, as it was before. An aspect rejoining the whole. You understand? Because he had no soul. He had no true separate existence from God: he was simply an aspect of God on Earth. An --" she yawns "-- avatar. You understand?" I nod. "Not bad, I suppose -- it took some time for Edward to bring me this far..." She's definitely starting to look tired. No hangover, maybe, but at least for tonight, she's an agreeable and sleepy drunk. Vertical to horizontal in eight glasses or less: I've seen that a few times. It means I have to hurry. "So if humans only have the potential for souls -- how do you get one?" "Through faith," she says simply. "Through the acceptance of Jesus as your savior. The instant one makes that commitment, one is ensouled by God. A soul is a divine quality -- no human could ever grant one. They have to be earned..." Sliding down the shelter wall, just enough to see. "Because only souls may truly go to Heaven -- those who accept Jesus may be saved -- and salvation requires a soul. The soul is the gift from God for your new faith, infusing a new thing into you that will let you go on. Those who do not accept the truth of Jesus, or reject it for false beliefs, remain soulless. And without a soul to buoy them up -- they fall into the flames..." Another yawn. "Just a bundle of memories with nothing real behind it, tormented by the knowledge of what they might have been... and for that rejection, they deserve no less..." Her eyes close for a moment, open again as the glass briefly tilts in her hand. Spilled alcohol would not be a sacrament: another sip. Did Gary ever get this far? Did he hear some version of these words? Is that what Christianity is truly about, or just what Connie thinks it is? I have no way of knowing. "And I don't have one because I don't have a religion." "Because you're not a Christian," she corrects. "Not a true one -- and there are so few of those. For example -- Gary and Phillip have souls of sorts, although I have rather more hope for Gary's to reach a true salvation. Phillip has too much compassion for the soulless. It's a benediction to try and install faith, but to actively help those who can't be saved... well, even those who are ensouled can fall..." Her head dips slightly, comes back up. "One of the few sins, to protect those beyond hope. Maybe the only sin concerning the soulless..." ...what? "That we can commit?" And I know that isn't the answer, I think I know what the answer is going to be, but she has to say it... "Trying to help you, after the jaguar..." The voices are coming more slowly now. "Sins are only good against those with souls. Because a sin is that which endangers, harms, or offends another person. You can't murder an animal: they have no soul. You understand that -- otherwise, it would mean no one who ate meat could enter Heaven. So you can't sin through anything you do to one outside the faith. You can help bring them to God, but there's no penalty if you fail -- and of course, some are simply beyond help. Like you..." There are days when it is no comfort at all to be right. "So anything you do to me can't be a sin." She nods. "Because without a soul, I'm not a person. I'm just an animal with opposable thumbs." Another nod -- but now she's starting to slide further down the wall, and she's realizing it: setting the glass down, arranging herself on the pallet, reaching for the blanket without being aware of it... I get up from my pallet, move closer to her. "And Phillip's helping me was a sin, because I'm past the point of being saved?" Another nod. "You -- would never accept Jesus. You think too much -- and too little... you can't believe..." A sleepy whisper. "When the cause is lost, the effort is wasted..." And she's almost fully asleep, a small smile on her face. Perfectly content. A great night with a happy ending. No bad dreams for Connie. I ask her one more question, make one statement to follow it with. The only jury question I will ever get to ask her. She answers them both in five loving words. I can't feel the heat from the torches any more. I can barely feel my own legs as I move out of the shelter, so at least there's one small benefit attached to this deep numbness. Get to the Tree Mail path, trying to signal Julia, and she's willing to respond: over she comes. She doesn't sound like she's in the world's best shape either. "What?" Still some anger, but now I'm not sure what it's directed at. "You got that last part." I need to hear that, right now. "Tell me you got the last one." The confusion isn't a good sign. "From Connie? The last thing I heard was 'the effort is wasted'. Why?" And her face is clearly saying 'isn't that bad enough?' Staring at her. No, not again! "You two!" The other camera operators who'd been filming the talk, close enough to pick up on the urgent hiss. "Did you get it?" There's a moment when they don't know what to do with me, not with a contestant addressing them directly like this, even after everything that's happened -- and then they shake their heads. Back to Julia. "You were all filming it! You had to pick it up! You've got sound enhancers...!" Still whispering, but now trying to match Gardener's pitch. "It has to be on there!" She's still confused, not to mention vaguely ill. "Alex, you were right in front of her for those last words. You know her voice was getting very soft at the end there -- you got close so you could hear her. But you blocked some of the sound and you blocked the view of her lips. If she said anything, you're the only one who got it." Julia takes a slow breath, looking like she's trying to swallow back her nausea. "Alex -- she hates you, and she's drunk. She wanted you out of the game by any means possible, and she probably got angry at Phillip because he tried to help you. We've heard 'soulless' from her before this -- you just finally got the definition out of her. It's a pretty radical interpretation, but fanatics in any religion tend to believe they're the only real people on the planet --" How is she not seeing this? Does she just not want to see it? "I asked her if Edward taught her all this." Because she'd hinted at it: the foundation being there for someone else to build on, they must have recorded that, they must have, I was close to Connie but I never thought I was speaking quietly enough to miss... "And then --" no, not again, please not again "-- I reminded her that Edward was a surgeon." Put it together, Julia, please put it together... "She said five words." Slowly, forcing each one home, "'Edward is a good man.'" I have gotten exactly nothing through. "So she was converted to her current sect by her husband? They're still in love with each other -- Edward's a stiff, but you could see him unbend a little when they were embracing. Of course she's going to think he's a good man. Two bigots together. And what does his job have to do with it?" "'When the cause is lost, the effort is wasted.' Helping the soulless can be a sin. Edward is a heart surgeon." Hissing now. "Do the math." Her visible eye goes wide with shock -- then closes. "Edward works at a private clinic. He picks and chooses his patients. From what he was saying to Gary on the beach, he's got a great record -- virtually no deaths on his watch." So now even Julia gets to see footage in her off-hours. "Alex, you're just finding ways to read into this that'll make Connie look worse. Isn't what she actually said bad enough without putting spin on it? You're tired, you've had a rough day, and you're probably starting to kick yourself about that stupid vote decision..." Yeah, right. People believe what they want to believe. Whatever's easiest. Whatever hurts the least. Oh, and a doctor wouldn't do that, let's not forget that part. "And you didn't get it. You didn't hear the words and you don't want to hear the ones I'm saying now. Sound equipment everywhere, and this is the one time you miss what's going to count. The second damn time..." I can't take this any more. Walk away, walking too fast, the pain amplifying with every step, out to the beach without my torch, following the path by memory and moonlight, still stubbing my right foot on the way... ...not fast enough. Never fast enough. "Alex?" "Don't talk to me." Again! "You didn't want to talk to me. It should be easy to get back to. You can probably swap assignments for the last day." More softly, just as I reach the black sand, "What did you mean by it being the second time? You've never talked to anyone about missing something before this, and we all got 'soulless' in the mansion --" -- and I spin around on my left heel, far too fast, almost send myself into the beach even as my nerves scream in harmony with my memories, as my body shifts into agony and the past comes into full view... "I've always had problems with people saying one thing, meaning another, and having the ability to deny anything they wanted to," I hiss. "No witnesses, or ones who were willing to lie for them. The second's always a problem out here and the first usually isn't. But back in the real world -- both ends, all the time." "Is this Cyndi again?" Because even if she's not willing to think, memory is easy for her. Good for Julia. There are people who can remember without pain. I wonder what that feels like. Part of my life, I never denied it, but I never had to look back on it either, and now -- "Like hell." Everything hurts, everything, the words are coming out and they hurt and I can't make them stop... "So once -- just once -- I thought I had a chance. I found an old microcassette recorder on the side of the road. Beat up as anything, but it had the batteries and a blank tape in it. I figured it was lost after a car accident -- there were some headlight fragments a little further up the road. Still worked fine, though. I tested it a few times, even managed to get new batteries because I didn't want to wind up relying on the old ones. And that was so much trouble just to buy them --" Her confusion is not going to lift any time soon. "Why would you have trouble buying batteries?" Because I had to wait for Mrs. Paglia to have an off-day, then sneak out of the orphanage, get to a store, make the purchase, and get back without being seen by her, any other kids from the orphanage, anyone who might try to beat me up and steal whatever I'd just gotten, and I wound up running three blocks before losing that one group when I went up the fire escape on them and used it as a way to get past that fence. A shopping expedition like any other. "So I got them. Loaded it up. Got it to her. Got her into a place where she had no choice but to say the words. She said them. I walked out and went right for the police." Slowly, "What happened?" "I had to be sure it recorded." Half a hiss. Maybe just a little bit of a shout. "Halfway there, I stopped and played the tape. Couldn't walk in with an accidental blank. Couldn't walk in with a low-volume recording where they'd need hours to enhance the audio, Paglia could have been in another country by the time they finished, had to check on it -- and guess what? The recorder was too old, too beat up. It choose that exact moment for the pickup microphone to die. All I had was static!" Standing at the side of the road, looking at the ancient recorder, hands shaking, wondering what I'd done. Hearing the screams of babies in my head. Turning around, running all the way back, scrambling into the orphanage through one of my secret entrances, the one closest to the infants' rooms. No Paglia. She'd left. Said she was sick, called for a replacement, and left. The babies were all right. Safe. But no definitive proof, nothing I could take to the police, nothing except a few papers gathered by coming through a window that never locked properly and all they said was that my allowance was suspended, over and over and over, she'd been so careful about everything else, no way to make people finally see at last, gone but she could come back at any time, sneaking around the orphanage every day to look for her car, sleeping in the woods so I could watch for lights in the babies' rooms. Always lights, people feeding them, changing them. Barely sleeping at all. Looking for a silhouette that could come at any time. Standing vigil. Ten days later... Julia's staring at me. "Paglia?" Slowly, "You said that name once before, didn't you? At the river..." "It doesn't matter." Turning away from her. "And I'm out of time for doing anything strategic, so you don't have to film me right now. Just -- just go away..." I said it, I said all of it in front of a camera but no one knows what it means, no one will care, it doesn't matter any more... She follows me, gets into position to film again. Softly, "Alex, you hate Connie as much as she hates you. Isn't it just a little bit possible that you're reading things into this which aren't there? All she said was that Edward was a good man. Maybe he just does his job no matter who's in front of him. He has his oath -- a doctor would never violate that." I close my eyes. please, I need to get into the library, I know it's late but I need to look up some words, I want to know what they're going to do to me tomorrow, I'm scared... please listen to me just this once "-- Alex?" She sounds a little scared. "Alex, you're just standing there -- you're shaking..." "I'm not asleep." I open my eyes. "I'd better get some. I'm going to bed." How much does an oath count when it's applied to the soulless? "It's going to be a very long day tomorrow." No strength left. Julia would probably say I wasted it all in jumping to conclusions. I limp back towards the shelter, hoping to avoid the toe-stubbing rock. I get it with my left foot instead. Perfect. And one more time, just because it's the easiest thing to believe and she doesn't understand why I don't believe it too, "Connie is a bigot. You finally got that to come out once and for all. We've all known it for a while now: this just shows what kind of bigot she is. But it doesn't mean -- Alex, you can't just believe or accuse --" "You didn't get it. They didn't get it. It doesn't matter." No one ever believes me. No evidence to believe. Nothing that would be believed even if it was there. Clearing. Shelter in sight. Sleeping in the same structure as the enemy. Again, forever, and always. "And it won't come out in front of the jury, because no one will ask the right questions, she won't be drunk, and she'll just deny everything if it I say it about her. And they'll believe her because I was crazy enough to take her and now I'm just making things up to make myself look a little less worse." Into the shelter, onto the pallet, back to a whisper. "Fine. I was hearing things. The camera didn't get it, so it doesn't exist." Lying down. "Nothing matters..." He picks and chooses his patients. Maybe he chooses who not to operate on at all... I close my eyes, try to find sleep. It takes a very long time in coming, even if the silence returns almost immediately. There's only one more statement, and it comes quickly. The last words that she feels need to be said, the ones that could apply to anything. Everything. "You can't be right about that -- you just can't be..." ----------------------------------------------------------------- {...and now we know.} {In vino veritas. And in my living room, I try not to become sick...} {Romans -- I'm trying to remember Romans...} {I know the passage Connie was alluding to. It might even be possible to read it that way. But I do not know a single person who ever would. We have identified the nature of Connie's sect: it is very close to being a cult. I have no doubt they feel they are the only true Christians, and while others who find the faith in its other aspects have some kind of chance, Connie's group is naturally the only ones who have it right. And that some people are not worth saving -- everyone is worth saving. That is no kind of Christian which I would ever want to associate myself with.} {After rooting her on for most of the season?} {May I take it back now, please?} {Yeah. You didn't know. None of us knew. I doubt like hell her church talks about this in public because they know how it's going to come across. Unless they feel they've got a potential convert... what's the Hall like right now?} {Very, very quiet. I think we all believe what we just heard -- and very few of us want to.} {Every religion is a cult. Every faith thinks they have it right and everyone else is damned. Connie isn't a bigot. Connie is just like everyone else.} {Even for you, that's dark.} {So prove I'm wrong.} {In one magic word? 'Phillip.'} {...*sigh* Okay, fine. Point.} {And Alex trying to take the next step -- but we didn't hear anything...} {Getting very scared here. That is one way to read it, and lord knows Alex's entire life set her up for that conclusion. But it's such a big leap, and Julia isn't making the jump. I don't know if Alex is right or not.} {Why didn't this come out earlier? If Edward had been doing anything...} {He is private practice: we found that out on Connie's thread, remember? And he does have a great record: one fantastic surgeon. He's had some medical papers published, not to mention writeups done on him. Alex's past is just making her go to the wrong places about someone else's present. Just because she had one nightmare doctor in her life, she's going to see them everywhere.} {I don't think it came out earlier because the pickups missed it. If the show had any evidence that something was going on, they would have had to report it. Anyone admits to a crime on camera, it trumps the secrecy code and heads straight for the cops. Even MB isn't that much of an EP. All they have is what Alex said she heard. And even if she said Connie's exact words on the subject, 'Edward is a good man' means exactly nothing for his medical practice.} {Just more of what some people are calling 'the damage' coming out to play. I can't blame Alex for going there, but I can't blame the show for not ruining a man's life either. Alex just went to where her past told her she had to be. I'm not sure she's capable of seeing any other possibility.} {Or you just don't want to believe it.} {That too.} {Okay, just when was this put together? Did they re-edit this morning? The evidence for the damage theory has been escalating from episode to episode, but MB had no reason to include that bit until this morning!} {Maybe they had a couple of versions ready to run... they didn't know what would come out. They sure couldn't know that someone would find those diaries, let alone that they existed at all. But sure -- starting from the street time for the Ledger, you've got just enough time to find the footage and re-edit if you have to. And maybe they did because the story came out. Alex must have thought this would never make the air. Maybe Connie's little drunken Bible class would have, but anything after it? They didn't need it. Until now.} {And now we know. One bad turn of luck after another: that's why Alex never reached the station. Nothing to hand in after all.} {Did Alex just get opened up to a libel suit? She effectively called Edward a murderer in front of what might be a hundred million people.} {No. She let her camera person make the jump: Alex never said it. And any exact words to that effect never reached the air, if they were said at all.} {Even if it's real, there's nothing that can be used. And it just can't be real -- can it?} {If Connie is that level of bigot, and Edward converted her...} {But if someone looks into his records -- except that his records present him as a world-class surgeon...} {We're all jumping to conclusions here, just like Alex. I'm not happy about Connie's upcoming win either, but I'm not about to say that she'll give her husband the money and ask him to use it for a memorial site. 'For all the soulless victims you've sent on to their just reward.'} {Just because she jumped to a conclusion doesn't mean she didn't hit the right target.} {This must have just been added. They took the Ledger story and recut the episode to have it be more dramatic, especially after the diaries information was picked up by the national media. Maybe it was too fast to think about all the consequences. Or maybe EPMB just made the mistake of a lifetime and the Lastings-Adams team will sue him.} {That may be the image of Alex I take with me from this season. Eyes closed, standing in place, shivering. Trying not to say more than what's already slipped out, because it won't matter -- not to her...} {Look -- no matter what happened, Edward or no Edward, Connie can't have been expecting this, right? That her little class would ever make the air? She was too drunk to consider the consequences while she was teaching, but once she woke up...} {We're about to find out -- Day Thirty-Nine.} ----------------------------------------------------------------- "I suppose it's too much to ask that you'll sleep through the Council, too." Connie still sounds merry. And has no audible trace of a hangover. "But I was told to wake you up, so -- wake up, Alex. It's time for your last day." Maybe she's found a way to make it literal and that's why she sounds so obscenely cheery. Or it could just be the million dollars again. I slowly push myself into a sitting position. "Why do you have to wake me up?" Connie shrugs. Yes, she's smiling. Not what I wanted to see first thing in the morning. "Gardener's wish came true after he was no longer there to enjoy the results -- we have food." I look past her. It's a full breakfast spread, just like the one we had in the mansion. A steaming tureen of oatmeal, two baskets of muffins, one pan full of bacon... "Of course, if you want to sleep through it, that's your decision. Perhaps you'd rather get back to that dream." She shrugs. "How long did it take you to come back in? There was a time when I thought you were going to sleep on the trail." Blink. "You -- don't remember?" And now she's frowning. Much better, or at least a lot more standard. "Remember what?" I point at the open champagne bottle. "You were drinking when I came in. We talked for a few minutes, and then you went to sleep." Connie gives the bottle a curious look. "I believe I'll actually take your word for that -- I do remember opening the bottle. It seemed like a time to celebrate..." And laughter. "Edward always told me I have what he calls my amnesia limit. I get to a certain point in my consumption, and the rest of the night becomes a complete mystery. I must have been there if we were having a conversation." She watches me force myself off the pallet. "What were we talking about?" The words feel like acid in my mouth. "The Bible." And now she's really curious. "Oh? Any particular part?" "Not that I'd be able to identify." Out of the shelter, and Azure comes over for an exceptionally painful morning greeting. It's not the squawk in my ear, it's the talons digging into my shoulder. I think I know where my buff is going today. "You know -- you've read it, I haven't." "And probably never will." Too satisfied by that for the next words to be anything other than merry sarcasm. "Such a pity... Well, the food is waiting. Shall we?" We. There had been a 'we' when there were five of us left, with Robin outside it. Another at Final Four, with Gary suddenly outside what had to be the group. And then we reached three -- and there was no 'we' at all. Just three people with their own plans, only one of which got to be used... I dreamed of Edward. Dreamed of him standing at the entrance to a hospital, waving some people in, waving others away. Go left to live. Go right to the graveyard and lie down in the space provided. He'll get to you, or someone will... She doesn't remember. Self-erasing evidence. If she can't recall it, then the event never happened. There are times when I could almost envy her... We sit on opposite sides of the table, eat in silence. Connie's looking very clean this morning: she's clearly already showered and used a good deal of the toiletries to help her prepare for tonight. It wouldn't surprise me if she did it again before leaving for Council. Although she'll have to be careful, because what I can see through the open shower door makes it look like there's very little left to use -- too little, given what we had yesterday. Accidental dumping of bottles, all the less for me so I'd look as bad as possible before Council... It's a good move. I wonder if anyone will pick up on it. Several small corn muffins later, she looks up at me. "There's something we have to do today, you know." There is? Well, she was up first, so she would have gotten the Tree Mail, and the production staff will get angry if she doesn't tell me... "What?" Wait -- right! Yes, there is something we have to do today, and we're the only people who can do it. I won't enjoy doing it with her, but at least she knows it has to be done... She nods. "I don't want to make more than a token effort, mind you." Huh? It's not exactly going to take a lot of energy to finish, and she's in better shape than I am. "We can drag the table in, yes, but taking the shelter and storage shack apart -- that's going to be very difficult. I certainly don't want to do the tarps at all -- the stench would be horrible." I can feel my eyes narrowing. "Pass." This frown is deeper. "We've both been watching for a very long time. You know what gets done on the last day." Right. I do. "Burning down the camp." As neutral and toneless as it should be. "I'm not doing it -- and you're not doing it, because I'll block you. I don't care how traditional it is. We can give the place one more cleaning, but we're not burning anything." Connie's starting to verge into anger now. Not exactly an unfamiliar site. "I hardly want to waste my energy in cleaning something I'll never be back to." And she pretty much never cleaned the camp, period. "I don't want to do this with you, either -- but you're the one who's here. You brought me -- that means we do the traditional duties together. And tradition says that on the last day, we burn the camp, or at least as much of it as we can manage." "It's not your camp." And that is a statement of fact. "You're Haraiki. I'm Turare. Amanu never really existed. This is Turare's camp. You have no right to destroy anything here, because you didn't help create a single thing. And --" steady but forceful, make her understand that if she tries it, there's going to be trouble of some kind, even if there's nothing I can physically do to stop her other than grabbing the other end of whatever she wants to destroy and holding on "-- I'm not burning down my home." She blinks -- then shrugs. "Very well -- I don't exactly agree with you, but I'm not wasting my time trying to take this place apart by myself. And I suppose it'll be all the more things to be auctioned for charity..." Another strip of bacon goes into her mouth: subject closed. We will be doing nothing together except for the final walk to Council. Or so she thinks. "We still have one thing to do." "Really?" Not so much curious as morbidly fascinated: what could I possibly have conceived as being worth her time? "If we're not burning the camp together, then there's nothing left for traditional joint activities that I know of. And I'm not particularly in the mood to be sketched." I shake my head and point into the shelter. Her eyes follow my arm -- then narrow. "I see." Right. "I made that promise to him on Challenge Beach. I'm guessing you made it a lot earlier." "Yes -- he got that from everyone, didn't he?" Open distaste in every syllable. Still staring past me, focused on the urn. "'Take the ashes and scatter them in the ocean.' It's hardly something that takes two of us to do." You cannot break this promise. We all made it. Every last one of us did. You were his ally... "I don't know any prayers. You do." All I can say over the ashes are words, and they won't mean anything. Azure will hear them, the camera operators will, I'll know what I've said -- and nothing else will ever listen. Connie's gaze switches focus, goes back to me. "I presume that anything Phillip needed said for formal prayers came out at the funeral. I don't see any need to say anything else. And anything you could say would be meaningless anyway, even if I taught you the words -- you don't believe them. If you want to dump the contents of the urn, you do so. I have statements and answers to consider for tonight. That's a better use of my time. You should do the same -- but then, you've already lost..." You. Bitch. And that's just for the treatment of the urn. "This is the only thing Phillip wanted from us -- from any of us who made it. I'm not asking you to hold hands all the way to the ocean, Connie -- I'm just asking you to be there." She makes a show of thinking it over for a few breaths -- more than enough of a display than she needs to let me know her final answer in advance. "It's not an activity that requires two people. If you wish to do it, you do it. I'll hardly stop you. After all, it takes you away for a little while..." As threats go, it's a very weak one: Connie can't burn anything that belongs to a specific person, and she's not going to waste her energy without being able to shunt most of the work onto me. "Fine." And she'll lie about it in front of Phillip if he brings it up, say we were together or she went out without me... We finish breakfast, and several production people clear out the leftovers: no more smuggling food or holding it until later. I use the bathroom, then take the urn from its resting place under Phillip's pallet. How far should I go? I can just walk out to our beach, but that doesn't feel right. Too short a trip, and Phillip's father always wanted to travel... I'm in no shape for an extended hike, but I think I can make Challenge Beach. That makes a little more sense: the place where the promise was made, the one Phillip so loved to compete in... Besides, it's not as if we have a challenge today, other than just trying to stand each other's presence until Council starts -- and I intend to keep that one short. Down the path, Connie watching me all the way. It's another slow walk, but I'm stretching out everything today. Whatever I do on Yanini for Day Thirty-Nine, I'm doing it for the last time. There are things I'll want to remember, and I take a few moments to consider some of them as I limp along. Faces. Events. Times to carry with me. Memories... Haraiki's expressions when the memory challenge went bad on them. Running with Phil. Going along on the KFC Reward. The feel of the comforter on the billionaire's bed. Angela's yelling at Council. Making the first fire. Jake's expression when the cross was ruled as being legal. Racing Robin all the way to the cold fire pit. Thirty-nine days. I did a lot, didn't I? Not all of it right, but I want to think I always tried, if not for the best reasons every time. I was part of this game. I didn't coast under the radar, I didn't completely play tag-along. I was active, I was trying, I was always there -- -- all the way to the end. The place I never expected to be. The kick float. Looking at the paintings. Fishing with Trooper. Frank's jokes. Meeting Azure... I switch the urn to my right hand, move her to my left forearm, look at her. She quietly regards me, wondering what's going on. Softly, "It's going to be goodbye today." There is nothing I can win that will give us a tomorrow. "We'll see each other at the Reunion -- I know Jeff will bring you. But after that -- I can't keep you, not where I live. There isn't enough room for you to fly. You'd hate it there. I can't do that to you. I can't be that selfish. I --" Azure looks at me, tilts her head, ruffles her feathers and blinks. She doesn't understand. "I'll miss you..." She flies up to my shoulder again, presses her head against my hair. Not a pet. Never a pet. Something else. And I don't know what... We crest the Cliffs together, and I look out over them one more time. It is beautiful here. It always was. I didn't see that every time, not with everything that happened to make the island into a place of pain and punishment. Gary did. Sixteen of us. How were we chosen? Jeff saying it was my test results, never having seen a combination of traits like that before. I still don't know what he meant. What stood out to the producers for every one of us, made them say 'This is the group we need this time around. This is what can work'? For every person in the original pool, some quality that made people pay attention, words coming out from the page at the open auditions, a moment on the tapes for the more classic applicants that had everyone in the room sit up a little straighter... They brought us here. Sixteen people chosen from tens of thousands. So few ever make it. Fourteen of the ones who did, gone to Sequesterville or the jury. Connie and I remain. What did they see in Connie? What did they see in me? Why am I here...? ...Challenge Beach. Empty. Not even a mat. The sand has been smoothed over: no traces of the maze left. No traces of anything left. We're leaving the island as we found it, minus one jaguar. It doesn't matter if we don't burn the camp: it'll be taken down, broken apart and as Connie said, most likely auctioned off for charity. I just don't want to burn down -- -- my own home... Stop. "I'm home." Said to the warm air, the soft breeze, the ocean, the scents that drift through every moment of every day. "I'm home -- and I have to leave..." I don't want to think about this any more. So naturally I can't stop. I found a place I could call home and mean it. The apartment was never home: it was just a place to stay out of the weather. A small difference, but -- it was there. Watching people leave all the time, going out of the orphanage on adoptions, school after the last bell, everyone and everywhere. Going home. I just went to a place where I slept. Hurt. Waited. And even after that, just a cold room and an underpowered shower, a place to work, take shelter, but not to live... I found a home. And after today, I'll never see it again. Is this what it feels like when I want to cry? When I can't? Down the beach. Into the warm water, barely any waves today, Azure shivering on my shoulder as she somehow forces herself to stay with me. I didn't change into my swimsuit, but that's okay: I was going to take a shower later anyway and put on different clothes. I thought I'd wear the ones I was in when the jaguar attacked. I haven't had them on since that day, so they're actually the freshest pieces once you factor out the bloodstains. Wading in up to my waist, checking the breeze to make sure the ashes won't blow back towards me. No problems there. Opening the urn. There's a fine gray powder inside. All that remains but for memories and legacies -- -- and as Phillip would believe, a soul, one for his father, one for everyone, and all that was asked of it was that it try to do the right thing... What can I say when no one ever hears? When there's nothing that can listen at all? "You must have been an amazing man," I tell that lack of presence, saying the words for Phillip, because he does believe and he would want the words, any words at all, "Because you raised an amazing son." I want to believe there's something there, if only for Phillip's sake. For the first time in years, I want to believe it so badly... ...but just a breeze coming off the island, lofting the ashes from my cupped hands as I scatter them, sending them into the water. Working a little at a time instead of just dumping them out, pouring the powder into my palms so it can be caught by the wind. Being careful. This is his father and upending the thing would be wrong. Slow, deliberate work, until the last of the ashes are gone. Rinsing off my hands in the ocean, cleaning out the urn. 'Let his body travel everywhere'... Azure stays with me the whole time. Back to the beach. The last time I'll be here. Rolling up the mat. Running through the maze. Feeling the weight of the chains. Seeing Haraiki assembled for the first time. Hearing about the idol. Trying to outrun the shots. Closing my eyes... I look at Azure. Today, the Reunion, and then we may never see each other again. Always there when I needed her. Alone for so many years. Calling out in the hopes that someone would hear her, that anyone would hear her. Not just for someone to come and see what she had found. For someone to find her. It was both the whole time. Looking for -- -- and being with me, fighting for me... I don't know where the words come from. I've never said them before, never had a reason. Wouldn't say them no matter how hard I was beaten. Would never give her that victory. I don't know if I even feel it. I just know I feel something, I've never felt it before and I've felt and forced away so much else, pushed down the rest, realized some of it was impossible and never thought about it again. A lot of things in that category, and maybe, just maybe this is one of them, the right one... "I love you." Azure nuzzles against my hair. "I Love You Too." Words I have never heard said to me. ...and I'm on my knees, I don't know how I got there, on my knees in the black sand, hands covering my eyes, Azure pressing herself close. I can feel her warmth, plus the occasional headbutt because she doesn't know what's wrong, and she doesn't understand what she said, she can't understand it, it was just one more thing she was trained to say by rote, these words come in, those words come out, but no one has ever said it before... ...and I still can't cry... -------------------------------------------------------- {Connie's up first, and she takes a moment out for a confessional. "The last day. I always wanted to believe I would see it, but -- well, I certainly never believed I would see it this way." Brace yourselves: "Would I have taken Alex? Yes, because I didn't believe I could beat Gardener. If I had won the final challenge, Alex would have been my best hope. But for Alex to take me?" Looking ruefully amused here. "No, I can't say that was something I ever really considered..."} {Er... cute confessional and all, but isn't this the wrong topic? Shouldn't they be asking her about last night?} {Following Connie around camp for a little bit: she takes a shower, drops a few bottles of shampoo and conditioner, managing to spill most of the contents out -- she took the caps off for some reason, and with the raised wall to let us see people's feet, the camera is giving us the splat.} {Some reason? Try a deliberate view into some small part of Connie's strategy, because she's dropping them on purpose. That is low. She's trying to give herself the appearance edge at Council, just in case it counts for anything. Scraping for an advantage she's not going to need.} {It's low, but it's semi-brilliant. That just about sums Connie up in six words.} {Connie steps out of the shower to find breakfast waiting for her, and presumably gets told that it's waiting for Alex too -- apparently when she's about halfway to it. Brief frustration, then waking Alex up -- doesn't look like she slept well.} {Wait -- Connie really doesn't remember any of it?} {No, I don't believe she does -- and that means that right now, somewhere backstage, is the first time she's been aware that this footage exists. Having it make the air probably isn't a secondary consideration, but given how close they would have been in coming...} {Did you hear the scream?} {No. But I have to think it's a very large backstage with excellent soundproofing.} {Oh, is she ever going to be unhappy when the Reunion starts -- can you imagine the kind of questions Jeff is going to pull out on her? 'How does it feel to win a million dollars and lose the respect of just about everyone in the country -- excepting a few people you might not want to be associated with?' You thought Connie was losing spots on her various boards before this? After this comes out, and people realize what's being taught in her church branch... Alex may have gotten the last victory after all. Connie is going to be a pariah.} {Yeah, right. Connie will be embraced, protected, and defended from a thousand different directions. She just said what a lot of people actually believe. She's just one of the few willing to openly admit it. Faux is going to give her an anchor desk next week. The Lastings-Adams Factor. Motto: Nothing else counts.} {Even if you truly think that -- and I hope you don't, at least for the Faux part -- there are still going to be repercussions just from having said it. She can blame the alcohol if she wishes, and I'm sure she'll try -- but the words came out.} {Yeah -- tomorrow really is going to be fireworks day, isn't it? The Fourth Of July on Christmas. How fast can Connie's favorite alphabet organizations backpedal from her? And how scary will it be if they don't?} {That's part of what I'm worried about. She will have support -- I just don't know how much or from who.} {You think? I think this was the final nail in her coffin, and no one else will want to go near her in case someone decides to turn it into a mass grave. This isn't about belief: this is about appearances. No one else will want to look that bad -- so no one will stand by her. At least in public.} {But what if she just said what a lot of people truly believe in? If she gets enough covert support...} {Dude, tonight's bad enough. Please stop going there.} {No, Alex does not want to burn down the camp. The camp is not Connie's to burn down. If Connie wants flames so badly, she can drop dead and take her chances.} {And Connie is still mad at Phillip. Alex is ready to keep this promise and even wanted Connie to say a few words over the urn, but Connie's decided she doesn't have to be there. Unbelievable. I pretty much completely forgot about this until Alex brought it up, and now that it's back, you just know Connie made that promise to Phillip. Everyone did. And she's refusing to go. The non-believer is going to undertake a semi-religious act and the fanatic is refusing to help?} {Maybe it's because Phillip just isn't the right kind of Christian...} {You mean he's the kind who actually acts like one? You're right: completely outside Connie's personal experience.} {Alex leaves with the urn, and we stay with Connie for a while. Looks like she's practicing her opening remarks to the jury. Pacing back and forth, seeing how the words sound when they're spoken aloud. Not the worst idea in the world: get a feel for what you're going to say. After that, she changes into her swimsuit and heads out to the waterfall, getting one last dip in. Voiceover confessional as she's floating on her back in the lake, and you can see a lot of irony here if you want to: "I have the comfort of my faith, the knowledge that I've done what I set out to do, and tonight to look forward to as the final step in accomplishing it. Have I enjoyed all my time here? No. There's been some -- bumps along the way. But I don't believe I would trade it for anything."} {You can probably imagine how the Hall just reacted to that.} {Following Alex now, and this is another sequence without music. Got to agree with the editing thread here: she's the only one who ever got those, and she got more of them than we really recognized on first glance. Not just major sequences, but little moments -- Alex's typical background sound is the island.} {Trying to say goodbye to Azure with none of it touching her face, maybe saying goodbye to the island...} {This is just sad. A game -- a game that's mentally tortured her, physically injured her, turned her world inside-out -- is home. And given what she had before this, it's still the best one she's ever known.} {And for someone with no way to know what the right words were, she found pretty good ones.} {She's being so careful with the ashes. You could almost believe she cares...} {...oh.} {Look, if anyone needs me, I'm not getting a tissue, all right? No matter what anyone says, I am not getting a tissue.} {Speak for yourself.} {On her knees on the beach, right where the mat used to be, shaking -- but taking her hands away from her eyes, and they're dry...} {She wanted to have cried. I believe Cole just couldn't.} {Back to her feet, limping away from Challenge Beach, stopping at the entrance to take one last look back with Azure looking right along with her -- commercials.} {And in the Hall, they show Cole coming into Turare's camp with Azure for the first time.} {Good timing for a break. I need to hit the bathroom. And not to blow my nose. Let's make that absolutely clear. We're having a party and I have to make a pit stop. Nothing more.} {There are tears here.} {Yours? Yeah, right.} {There are people crying all over the Hall. I can hear them. Crying for her or crying because she isn't able to -- I don't know. But the impact was felt.} {We're back, and we're going to camp for a little while: the last preparations are being made. Alex makes a few final sketches, then steps into the shower, shrugs when she sees the full extent of what's been done to the bottles, and closes the door. When next we see her, she's in the clothing she had on for Jaguar Day, ripped sleeve and all. Hair finger-brushed and she's clean, but Connie's covered up most of the last thirty-eight days with makeup and Alex doesn't know how to use it. I guess she decided that if she had to look like she'd been out there, she'd really look the part. Connie asks her if she's trying for sympathy votes. Alex replies with "What sympathy?" Connie smiles.} {Just one more conflict in camp -- Alex grabs a fishing pole so she can get a last meal, and Connie tells her to be sure she brings back something worth having. Alex glances back and tells her that if she wants to eat, she can catch her own fish. Alex is not the camp provider. Gardener is. Gardener's gone. Connie grumbles, then gets the second pole.} {Out on the beach together, Connie doing very badly on the casting -- Alex a good distance away so she doesn't get hooked -- and Connie finally brings up the 'related to presidents' thing. "Did I ever tell you that..." and goes on from there. No, at least for Alex, she left that out, although Alex does believe her. Connie goes on to say how proud she is of her bloodlines and family history, especially since both presidents were very faithful men. "This is a nation of believers, Alex. I can trace my roots back through over two centuries of faith and advancing the cause, doing what has to be done when the time comes for action. I told you I came here to set an example, and even if mine can't be as dramatic as those of my ancestors, at least I'm assured of wider media coverage." Obviously meaning that last as a joke and laughing it off. "Admittedly, their not having television could be seen as something of a handicap in that regard..." Alex shrugs and notes that the population was smaller too, so the ratings still would have been pretty low. Connie's actually amused by that -- but it's not helping her get any fish.} {'I'm going to win, I have a family and a past that you can never hope to match...' Connie's sticking in every knife she can find. Alex counters by pulling a fish off her hook and heading back up the beach. Connie stays out there for a quick time-lapse shot and can't catch anything -- so her last meal is fruit and rice. Alex adds fish to that and a little bit of jaguar jerky. When you make it right, it keeps.} {And that may have been Connie's way of saying that no matter what she does, she's sure she'll find support in the end. I am willing to bet she never thought about her own edit, much less what she was really giving them to edit in.} {Getting near sunset: the final moments in camp before leaving. Packing. Alex takes the empty urn so she can return it to Phillip. Very quiet now. They finish at almost the same moment, stop and look at each other. Not for very long -- just a second -- but their eyes do meet. Connie looks away first. Walking out. The camera going over the camp one last time: shelter, storage shack, fire pit, table, shower & bathroom, perch. Everything very clean, very orderly, like the place is waiting for them to come back. Very soft music here.} {Voiceovers as they go up the trail, Connie in the lead and getting the first one. "I just have to consider my words carefully. Say not only what I mean when I need to, but also what they wish to hear. Steady, calm, and reasoned -- that's the way to end this."} {Alex: "I don't know what I can say that'll make any difference. I don't think those words even exist -- and if they did, then the minds I need to hear them are closed. All I can do here is make my statements and answer the questions as they come. I have to try. Even when trying never works..."} {Lots of time on the clock. Lots of pain up ahead in just watching this. Sure, maybe Connie will pay a price after the show, but that's somewhere in the future. This is now -- and now, she gets her reward... Tribal Council.} -----------------------------------------------------------------   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 3603 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Thong Contest Judge" 02-01-07, 05:05 PM (EST) 18. "RE: I Can't Win...: Part VIII" {We can but hope that Philip gets "wind" in some fashion of Connie disregarding her promise regarding the ashes.} {We can also hope that CBS notified the medical authorities about Connie's comments re Edward. I hate to think of the damage this guy could have done in just the time from the end of the show to now, especially since he doesn't see his Hippocratic oath as applicable to most of his patients. Does the name Mengele ring a bell?} {Yeah, this could be the first Survivor with permanent legal consequences from the in-show conversations.} {It makes you wonder if this sort of thing has come up before, but Burnett didn't use it because it didn't fit the edit.}   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Estee 22510 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-02-07, 01:22 PM (EST) 19. "I Can't Win...: Conclusion." LAST EDITED ON 02-13-07 AT 11:43 PM (EST) The lodge's design isn't funny any more. Changes: only two elephant legs left in the player area, and we don't place our torches in the waiting zone. Jeff silently points as he watches us come in, and we each slot our torches into the floor next to our seat. Connie's goes on the right, and mine is on the left: we sit down the same way. Standard positioning for us, although Azure is staying with me for a while: her weight is still making my shoulder ache, but it's worth it for a little more time with her. For the company. Conni glances back, looks over the plaques and torches on the wall. I join her. Softly, she says "Michelle..." And I imagine her in Sequesterville, which I'm picturing as some kind of beach resort, laughing in the waves. Okay, no problem. I'll help give Jeff his lead-in. "Trina." Displaying cards for Elmore, telling him he's got to follow this kind of plan if he wants a shot at the thing he wants most. Or maybe that wasn't what she'd intended, but now she's stuck with it. "Elmore," she continues, a little snidely. Who's listening to Trina in disbelief, because that sort of thing just can't be real... "Frank." Whose torch is still in the waiting area. He'd arrive late to the party and still be a little thinner than he should be after just eleven days, but he'd be partying nonetheless, although with somewhat more care than before. And flirting with Michelle. A lot. "Denadi." Almost a sneer, but Denadi wouldn't care because she and Trina would get together in the bar after hours, sister believers with so much in common. "Desmond." Who would be isolating himself from the others, staying in his room most of the time. And then, because it should be mine to say -- "Trooper." Having the time of his life on the vacation he finally got to enjoy. We both look at Jeff. Who's smiling, just a little -- but only until he knows we're both looking at him. "All right," he says. "My turn. We will now bring in the seven members of your jury. Seven people that you had a hand in putting out of this game -- seven people who will now in turn decide your fate. Angela -- " -- the door opens. The businesswoman not on holiday: this is all about the job and even if the clothes are a little casual, the pace and deliberateness of her tread isn't. Dressed to impress, makeup carefully applied, but she didn't come here to have fun and it's her business to make sure no else has any. Lower tier, left-side seat. "Tony." Another tank top, but the first time he's been in a pair of jeans, possibly saved as a just-in-case. No cap tonight. Hair mostly well-brushed, but standing up a little at the back. Sniffles cleared out or medicated to the point of temporary non-concern. Walking casually, a degree of contentment on his face as he takes a seat next to Angela. "Phillip." Homespun plaid on the shirt, cotton pants, bowl cut restored to all its lack of glory, taking a moment to smile at us as he passes. Moving well, already starting to put his weight back on. Center seat, back row. Looking utterly comfortable: this is what he came here to do, it's time to do it, and he's not going to miss a moment of his job. It's too important to miss -- but that doesn't mean it can't be fun. "Mary-Jane." Dove grey as her dominant color: a more somber outfit this time around, although it's still designed to drape, cling, and hint where needed. Still beautiful, makeup and time having erased all the visible weight loss: the illusion crafted to be as strong as reality. Near-white hair shining. Eyes quiet and going nowhere near mine. On Phillip's left, and he gently pats her back as she settles in. "Robin." Not quite going for the knockout punch again because Gardener already got one good long look at what he missed out on: slightly longer cut-offs, a somewhat looser blouse, but not by much on either area. Mostly greens tonight, and wearing her dancing shoes. A small nod at me, a disbelieving look at Connie. Sitting down on Phillip's right. "Gary." Still very casual: the day off at home, relaxing on the couch with the game on. A near-style match for the outfit he'd had on last night, but brighter colors. Still some dried patches of various lotions on his exposed arms. Still needing a shave. Not really looking at either of us. He sits next to Tony, who grins at him: okay, we didn't win, but isn't this going to be cool? Gary smiles back. "Gardener." Black chinos. A blue and yellow shirt: the colors of his college. Hair freshly re-trimmed to the barely-there level. Very deliberately not looking at us as he passes: narrowed eyes focused straight ahead. A single loud snort as he passes our position, and then he sits down hard next to Gary before finally examining us, Connie first, then me, looking as if he's gone back to waiting for the punchline while not being the least bit happy about the joke... The door closes. Jeff takes his seat. Azure gives him a quick glance, then settles back down. "Once again -- this is your jury," he tells us. "You are here because they're not -- and part of what goes into their votes may be based in that. There was no 'pure' game this year, no winning straight through to the end. You have, through your actions and inactions alike, placed them in that position -- a position from which they now have to determine a winner." That's what it always comes down to, doesn't it? You're there and we're here. Why should we care? We stopped caring as soon as we came to this side. We discarded that for hate... Jeff briefly steeples his fingers, separates them again, leans forward slightly. His role in tonight's proceedings may be minimal -- but there are things he still has to say. "Normally, a jury member may ask a question, make a statement, or do both. Because it's been such an unusual game --" and he had to get one last pause in, didn't he? "-- I may allow a degree of follow-up questioning on a case-by-case basis -- simply because after all that's happened, one question and one statement may not be enough." Oh, look. A twist. At least Connie didn't see it coming either, although she doesn't have as much to worry about. "If you have a natural follow-up, you can try to keep going as long as you're continuing along the same general track as your original question. I'll stop you if I feel it's gone too far or if you completely change the topic." The jury nods. They have no problem with this twist: it doesn't hurt them, and anything that might make it easier to hurt us... "Jury: you do not have to ask the same question of both Alex and Connie, and you don't have to ask a question of either or both if you don't want to. You can also make separate statements to each of them." Gardener is giving his full attention to every word. "But before that begins, we will give the Final Two a few moments to make their own opening statements. Alex, as the winner of the final Immunity --" I had to give the necklace to a crew member as I walked in: Phillip's is in its usual place "-- you have the option as to whether you'd rather go first here, or last in closing remarks." "Last to close." As with so many other things in this game, it's no option at all. Jeff nods. "Connie, that gives you the decision as to when you want to make your opening statement. Would you rather begin this portion or close it?" "Begin," Connie immediately replies. Interesting -- she wants to start on both ends. First position all the way. "All right," Jeff tells us. "Connie will open both, Alex will close both. Connie, are you ready?" She's very ready. "Go ahead." Connie stands up -- Jeff allows it -- takes two steps closer to the jury. "Well," she starts, sounding a little amused about the whole thing, "I have to say that I'm rather surprised to be here..." Tony laughs. Gardener rolls his eyes. "I remember the first day, before we were dropped from the boat. Sitting and listening, trying to hear everyone around me, pick up any clues I could find as to what could happen next. But mostly, wondering what would happen next. And I could imagine a future where I would be standing and addressing seven strangers -- but not like this." More gently, "And we're not such strangers now, are we?" Phillip's in full agreement there. Robin just looks irritated. "Not all of us became friends -- I would never make that presumption. I remember the arguments too well, and who was on each side." As does Angela. "But we came to know each other. Those who were in my original tribe --" she pauses, takes a moment to turn around and look at the extinguished torches again "-- and those in the new one." Quiet for a moment, hands locked behind her back, head dipped down. "Some of you can call me traitor tonight," she softly continues. "And you'll have some justification for that. You can say I turned my back on you to save myself, and I won't be able to argue it, will I? I can ask what you would have done in return, being in that horrible situation --" this seems to go directly to Gary "-- but in the end, it comes down to what I did. I wanted to get here with a degree of purity intact -- not Phillip's dream, I knew I could never achieve that bright vision -- but being true to myself and those around me. In the end -- perhaps I wasn't." Looking at Phillip now. "And for that, I am sorry. You say to yourself 'I'm doing what I must in order to stay', and it makes everything clearer at the time. But afterwards, when it's over..." A long sigh. I wonder how much she practiced it. "Not the way I ever thought I'd reach this point," Connie tells them, her eyes closing for a few heartbeats. "Not the way I thought it could ever happen... but I am here, and it is in part because you're not." To all of them, her eyes resting on each in turn. "All I can ask is that you put yourself in my place, consider what you would have done there -- and wonder if you would have made the same choices. I will have apologies to make tonight if the opportunity arises, and yes -- an accounting for my actions. I only hope you give me that opportunity." A long pause. "I'm not sorry to be here tonight. But for the path I took -- I am accountable. I admit that. Please judge me fairly, and without too much hate..." Back to her seat. I almost want to applaud. It was a very good speech and it hit some points I wanted to cover, so now it's going to sound like I'm copying her. There are circumstances where I would have been on the jury awarding points just for making that speech, Final Two situations where Connie's ability to construct and deliver it would have gotten her that much closer to my vote. But she's not in front of me, she's sitting down next to me -- -- and it's my turn. "Alex?" Jeff cues me. Well, if she can stand... I do so, step forward. It's a lot slower, I know it's more painful, and some people's eyes are roaming over my fashion choice for the evening. Yes, it's the freshest thing I had. And I wanted to remind you of what I had to go through to get here, even if it doesn't matter... Angela's eyes are saying it probably doesn't. Gary is -- oddly neutral. Mary-Jane is looking at me now, but that's all she's doing. Just looking. "I said something to Gardener last night that Connie just brought up again," and now I have his full attention. "I told him I did what I had to. I've been saying that to myself all the way through this game. It's the background music for every season, the song that echoes on every island. I'm doing what I have to do. Rationalization: the sound of one mind lying to itself." I may have lost Tony. "Or just looking for a reason to get through. To take action. Find some way out..." I have Robin's complete focus, though. "I was supposed to be the first boot." Azure nuzzles against me and now I have Tony back, at least for the moment. "I really believed that. That everyone would look at me and wonder what I was doing here, what good I could possibly be for the tribe... Gardener said as much during the last challenge." Not exactly nodding agreement, but not looking away from me either. "I came to play for six days: make sure I didn't go through the humiliation of being the first out. And then three more days opened up -- people went, and I stayed. And every time I helped vote someone else out, every challenge I won, every idol I used --" no, I probably still don't have Angela's vote "-- I told myself I was doing what I had to do if I wanted twelfth place. Tenth. Eighth. Fourth..." Phillip is listening. It's all I can ask of him. "Some of you hate me for what I did," I tell them. Mary-Jane looks away, comes back to center. "As with Connie, some of you can call me traitor, and you'll have reasons for that. I can't ask you to put yourselves in my position, because our positions would never be exactly the same, and the decisions wouldn't come out the same way. In the end, every one of us plays this game alone." Robin's nodding -- but Gary's attention feels too strong. "I played the game as well as I could, and I want to think I did something right. I'm here -- and it's not the way I ever thought I'd be here either. I never thought I'd be here at all. But I did what I had to..." More softly, "I kept telling myself that. Maybe that was my greatest skill in the game." Looking them over in turn now: front row left to right, back row coming the other way. "It's not just about accountability. It's about belief. I can answer all your questions, and I will try to answer them. This is the place where I have to be accountable -- but I want it to be the place where you have to listen. Where you not only ask the questions, but pay attention to the answers, and decide whether you really believe them or not -- because no words I can say will matter if they fall on closed ears. Connie gave you the greatest wish of anyone who can be in this position: to be judged fairly, and without too much hate. All I can do is echo that, because they are such good words, and I listened to every one of them. I would have listened to them if I was on your side tonight, and I would have treated them fairly. It would have been my job." And finally, what might be the tiniest of sparks from Mary-Jane: possibly anger, could be denial, but maybe just memory. "I did what I felt I had to do -- and now I'm asking you to do what you must, as jurors. To listen, weigh the answers, and render a judgment that's fair and free of anger. That's all I can ask for tonight --" and my eyes close without my consent "-- open minds, and peaceful hearts." Even if I know it's impossible. I sit down. First round to Connie. She must have found her words early on. I thought about mine a thousand times, realized there might not be anything I could say at all, and then we overlapped in the end... Jeff looks both of us over, his eyes oddly quiet. "All right. Jury, take a moment to consider what you want to say." I always thought that was just for the benefit of the cameras: something to go into the commercial break with. But we all sit quietly for a count of a hundred and twenty, some expressions slowly shifting on the other side as people consider their own words without really thinking about ours... Julia is in the crew tonight. So is Cameron. So many faces I know, some gathered beyond the ring of camera operators. All watching. How many will see this in the end? Twenty million is the number I've thought about most often. More, with Tony's prediction of high ratings coming true? Less? How many to see -- and how few to hear? I screwed up my opening remarks. I know it. And finally, Jeff decides it's been long enough. "Angela." She stands in a single motion, the thrust from her arms pushing her legs straight, strides over to us with virtually no knee movement, comes to a stop two paces away. "Well," she sardonically begins, "welcome to my nightmare." Which may actually be a good sign for me. "Nice speeches, both of you -- it's almost enough to make me wonder just who put those words in your mouths." So Angela doesn't think I blew that one? "I do want to make a statement tonight, and here it is: neither of you deserves to be in the Final Two." Connie blinks: words she might have been expecting, but they came out as poison-tipped needles fired from a blowgun. Angela's anger is on full display, and it's climbing to a higher perch just in case anyone needs a better look... "Connie, I thought about what you said last night, and I thought about what you said today. And it brings up one big question: why didn't you tell anyone? If you'd come up to the others, let them know how you were being pressured and why -- maybe they could have come up with a counter-gambit. You couldn't be sure they would really be voting for you in that situation: Tony was still the most logical person to get out that night. All you needed to do was figure out who was least likely to have the idol and strike in the name of getting the numbers back. Personally, I would have gone for Mary-Jane as the last possible candidate. The tiebreaker would have given all of Haraiki a shot if it came, even if it was you trying to beat it. You gave yourself a chance at the expense of everyone else's -- because it was your way to get away from us. Forget your tribe: just strike out on your own and the hell with everyone else. You didn't trust us enough to let us try and save you -- and after that, you just rode coattails all the way. Tucked into Gardener's pocket as his primary or secondary jury option -- I don't even care which. But you just sat back and went along for the ride. Some player. One huge backstab plus one long glide equals Final Two. So here's my question to you: why didn't you approach us and say what Gardener was planning? Because you didn't trust we could beat it -- or because the chance to dump us had finally come?" Tony actually looks surprised: I don't think he was expecting that much to come out. Phillip's a little taken aback himself. Gary's still listening, Robin's vaguely curious, Mary-Jane is watching Connie closely, and Gardener seems to be enjoying himself for the first time. For me -- well, I knew Angela wouldn't be happy with either of us: that was part of the point in taking Connie. I had to believe Gardener was a much easier vote for Angela. And now I'm seeing just how upset she is with this pairing -- but having her believe neither of us deserve Final Two (mostly because she's not) isn't exactly bringing me closer to her ballot. Not yet. I want to believe I have a chance based on Connie's answer, followed by how I respond to what she asks me -- -- but I'll never be very good at 'hope'. The anger-free judgment is probably out of the question, too. Connie's eyes flash their own signal of rage as they lock onto Angela's: fine, you had your turn, now brace yourself. "Angela, the one thing I have to bring up: you weren't there. Alex had removed you on the bounce." With help from Gardener, but Connie wants the blame on me right now. "Perhaps you could have beaten this. You were the most intelligent of us, and your strategizing powers might have found a way through. But Tony, as much as I may care about him -- I'm sorry, Tony, but you don't have Angela's brains." And naturally Tony isn't offended by this: he's proud about having a girlfriend who's smarter than he is. He just doesn't know... "Phillip has many fine qualities, but I couldn't make myself believe idol-dodging was one of them. And Robin -- well -- perhaps she could have danced past the vote, but I couldn't really see that either." Or she could have just gone with a sarcastic trail-off after Robin's name, because it's hard to see how Connie can believe she's getting Robin's vote. Robin certainly isn't happy with that answer, even if Phillip seems to be accepting it. "We also had no idea what the tiebreaker was -- we still don't. Can you imagine if it was building fire? I'm not very good at the challenges: I admit that freely. If I'd been targeted, I can see myself losing virtually any challenge we could have done at Council. And after I lost -- we would go out, one by one. If they had gone to Tony -- I just couldn't believe that was possible after what Gardener had said..." Yes, some major practice has gone into these sighs. "I didn't go to the others because I didn't believe we could beat it. All I could do, at best, was hope to find an idol and restore the tie -- which didn't happen. For my lack of faith in the others, I apologize -- but you weren't there. You couldn't help save us, and after what Gardener made me see, I couldn't believe the others could save me." Angela listens to all of it, and then firmly says "You dumped us." Mark it down another ninety percent if you want to, but Angela's just never going to buy it. "I tricked Mary-Jane. But I did it so I could bring all of you." How she truly saw all of them will not be a factor in this speech. "I stayed with my tribe, no matter what -- and you cleared out. Nice try at flattering me, by the way -- but no credit for working it in. I know what you really think of me." And before I can even consider whether or not it's a good sign, "Don't think I've forgotten about you, Alex. Here's some flattery coming the other way: you are smarter than I thought. You were smart enough to bring Connie instead of Gardener: that was a really interesting move once I stopped to think about it. Hell of a choice of running mate, trying to divide the party..." Uh-oh. Well, at least she doesn't think Connie and I had a secret alliance that we put together during our first meeting in the water. "But you still don't deserve to be here -- and it's because in any other season, you would be out." Staring at me, eyes angrily going over Phillip's necklace before reaching my face. "You're here because of the idols. A factor that only applied to this game. Without that tool, you don't have Immunity at crucial moments, you can't bounce anyone, and you're just another player who went out early because she just wasn't that much of an asset to her tribe. I'll give you credit for two Immunity wins -- but they came late. Way after I think you would have been out in a more normal game. So here's my question to you: without the idol to play, are you here tonight? Do you have enough gameplay to really believe you could make it this far without a trick someone else stuck up your sleeve?" O-kay... It looks like I'll have try and imitate Robin for a few seconds. "Without the idols? If everything else went the same way, I would have forced a tie with Desmond at that Council. If I'd beaten him in the tiebreaker, then in time, you would have voted me into the first jury seat. Of course, without the idols, Michelle is on your tribe for a few extra challenges, which brings up where she was in your group and how many you'd win with her there, but..." Angela has no immediate answer for that one, at least not of break-in quality. "Make things really variable, and I don't know where I finish. Maybe I'm first out after all. Maybe I'm still here. But for purposes of your question -- ninth place." And before she can say anything, because she is taking just that kind of inhale, "I just don't know if it matters, Angela. We all play the game we're given -- and the game changes with every place it goes to. Take away the idols and give us an early tribal switch: maybe you go. Make it one idol, good all the way through Final Four: someone might have kept it in their pocket the whole time. Who wins Africa if the players don't exchange places? Who wins All-Stars if they start with two tribes, separating Rob and Amber in the process? All we can ever do is work our way through the game as it exists at that time. I used the idols because they were there. If they hadn't been, I would have tried to use something else. I tried to be an asset to my tribe through challenges, through work, through everything I could do -- and if that meant idols this time and no other, if the game changes to something else for the next group -- then this was the time to be here. Last place or anything on up, sure -- but tell me what the whole game was and every last twist in it: then I can tell you where I finish. Because for all I know, with no idols, I wound up with Haraiki and you decided I was your backup jury partner for the Final Three, just in case anything happened to Connie." Angela's the last thing I would ever expect. Quiet. It just doesn't last long. "All right -- I'll give you a tiebreaker win over Desmond. Ninth place. That's what I wanted to hear." And it's probably the exact point where she stopped really listening. Angela heads back to her seat -- turns around at the halfway point. "I can't even imagine you on my tribe to start. Maybe Elmore would have bounced you. And maybe both of you can just sit there and wonder where the hell my vote is going, because right now, I'd rather cast the thing into the ocean..." No, neither Connie or I are going to get our one shared wish. Not exactly a surprise. Angela's done. Jeff gives her a few breaths to compose herself on her seat (with attending comfort from Tony) before deciding that what's needed here is a probable contrast. "Phillip." Who grins as he stands up and keeps smiling all the way up to the speaking point, arms moving freely, posture relaxed. I've never seen anyone so happy just to be on the jury. "Heya, you two..." he easily greets us, visibly having fun with even those words. "Don't know what I've got that can really follow that... Cirie thought she had it rough, I've got a trained public speaker to go after..." Gary laughs, and even Angela's smile feels honest. "Y'know, the way I see it, both of you earned your way here. It was different paths, sure -- but it's hard to argue with the results, because here you are." Gesturing to both of us, one open palm each. "I said it: I understand a little dirt here and there. So I'm not gonna ask you to apologize for what you did. I could, I guess -- Connie, we were together pretty much from the start. You turned your back on me -- but that's how you got here." It's not as if she has much to worry about from this party: Connie's relaxed. "And Alex, you did some things I could question, most of which I heard about from over there -- but you're here, and I can't say I didn't kind of want to see you there, just because I think you did play. Told you -- thirty-seven days, minimum. Called it, right?" I nod. His responding grin would feel reassuring, but -- it's Phillip. "Still -- I know what I said myself in this game. I know what I have to live up to. Which means my question's really only good for clearing a couple of things up. So -- Connie, guess I'll start with you. You've said who your Final Four was gonna be. Of those other three, if you had your choice, who was your partner for Final Two?" Connie was not expecting that one, and it takes her a moment to rally -- plus another to pick her answer. "Michelle. You're asking if I would have taken you -- and I have to be honest with you. I wouldn't have brought you because I would have been afraid you would beat me in front of the jury." Phillip smiles. "Fair enough -- just wanted the honest answer." Which he's not even the least bit upset by. And it's not as if she has to lie to get his vote. "Okay, Alex -- never got your Final Four ideal, and I can believe you didn't really have one because you didn't think you'd be here. So -- you said in the end, you played this game alone. I say you've had one ally the whole time who's pretty much always been there, never backstabbed you, never left your side, and gave you someone you could talk to the whole time without worrying that she'd tell someone else what you were thinking. Aren't you gonna give Azure any credit?" An amazing son... "She helped a lot," I admit. "Because she was someone for whom the game didn't matter -- didn't even exist -- she was stability. If things got too bad, I could just play with her for a while -- she actually fetches: I found that out right after you left." Phillip looks intrigued. "She wasn't much good for strategy input, though." The laugh is hearty, full, and true. Everything I've come to expect from him. I just can't expect his vote. "Can't argue that -- okay if I pet her?" I look at Azure. She looks at me. We both look at Jeff -- -- and he nods. Phillip takes one large step forward, reaches out, and gently strokes Azure's feathers for a few heartbeats. She stays still and lets him. A step back. "There were other things I could have asked," he tells us. "But that's not my place. I think I know some of what's coming from the others -- I just wanted one to be halfway easy." Because that's who he is. He starts to turn away -- "Phillip, wait?" And looks back. I reach down into my bag, take out the empty urn, and hand it to him. He takes it, smiling. "It's just a container now," he says. "Doesn't mean much... but thanks. Did it go okay?" And before I can answer, Connie warmly says "It was very moving, Phillip. I believe he would have appreciated it." Being right hasn't been a comfort for a very long time. You weren't even there! You wouldn't come -- but it's too late, he's content with the answer and he's turned away, going back to his seat, I can't call him back and accuse her of lying, he won't believe me and it wouldn't matter if he did... Two votes Connie... I still think Angela's going to wind up living up to her original last words. "Robin," Jeff cues, and she smoothly makes her way out to the same position Angela and Phillip occupied -- then stands there, looking both of us over, volleying between us, shaking her head hard with a pause at each end -- -- and stopping on me. She is not happy. Okay, I knew I might have lost this one... Quite possibly. "You know something, Alex? I'm actually with Gardener here, and believe me, I hate the irony. I tried to get with Gardener for a good part of the game, and here I am: right in the lap of the man's damn question. Finally got there and the thing makes ice look warm: what were you thinking, taking Connie with you? Of all the stupid choices -- honestly, that should lose you the whole damn game right there. You've got your worst enemy in your sights, she's wanted nothing more from Day One than to get her hands around that cross chain and use it to swing you off the island -- at least when she wasn't trying to just whack you into the ocean with the rulebook. You've got her right where you want her, nothing she can do about it -- and you take her with you? What the hell, Alex? Did you two have some kind of secret alliance I should know about? You know, you did have a few seconds in the water there..." Connie's actually starting to look vaguely hopeful. And nauseated. At the same time. And Robin turns to her. "Hey, look -- she's actually starting to fall for this." Connie freezes. "Don't get me wrong, Connie -- please don't get me wrong. I wouldn't vote for you if the other option was a life of celibacy with a permanent job cleaning under theater seats with my tongue." For some reason, Connie doesn't seem to be taking that very well... "I know why Alex took you: just what Angela said. First time she's been right in -- let me think -- no, forget that, I wanted to keep this short and no one's got that kind of time for looking back --" okay, now I have to hope Angela both breaks her earlier promise and doesn't take Robin's words into consideration "-- but I hope like hell it works. Which means as far as my vote goes, I don't have anything I want to hear from you. Sure, I could prolong the agony a little by making you really think I was voting for you -- but just getting a little hope into that Botox mask you pass off as a face is enough to make my night. Besides, I couldn't really make Alex sweat it out -- it's been too long a game for her." She shrugs. "What did you give me in this game, Connie? Grief. Lots of it. The least I could do was make sure you got a tiny taste of false hope before you went out. Alex -- I told you: it's not a shutout. No matter what happens, Jeff's got to read off at least five before we settle this thing. I'm not Phillip, and I never will be -- I like a little bit of dirt too much to ever be that clean." He's actually laughing at that. Tony's grinning, Angela's still aggravated, Gary's trying not to laugh, Gardener is carefully examining Denadi's torch, and Mary-Jane's focused on Robin's gesturing arms. "But for this one? Make a promise, keep a promise. You gave me grief, Connie. Alex gave me a car -- and you know something? Even if she hadn't, she still gets my vote. Because for my less-than-a-million money, she played this game and you played tag-along-bitch. And tonight, I'm putting my money where my mouth is -- not to mention my quill pen." Grinning. "Sit tight, Alex. That's one." She doesn't wait for a reply from either of us: back to her seat, openly pleased with herself all the way. I believe you. It won't be a shutout. No matter what happens, I won't set the record by being the first person to go down seven-zero. Right now, that feels like the greatest gift in the world -- -- especially since the next one is going to be more than a little bit harder to get through. "Mary-Jane." Who stands, moving not with a dancer's grace, but a model's confidence: every limb just so. And even with that, tapping into what she knows so well, her feet still drag a little, reluctant to come up, and the passage is so very slow... Her voice is soft. "One at a time, I guess." Eyelids low, tones weary. "Connie, I don't really have a question for you. I thought I'd be looking at Gardener here tonight -- I wanted to be... and even after having the whole day to think about it, I didn't find a real one I could bring out. Because you and I really don't have much to say to each other, do we? When you pulled out that prayer at the merge -- that wasn't your way of expressing faith. That was your way of testing everyone else's. And I came up short. I think you're one of those people who goes around pointing at Jews and screaming 'They killed our Lord! It's time for some payback!' You think it isn't just original sin that carries over, and you've found one for every last one of us..." The exclamation points are implied more than spoken: her tone barely changes, and it feels strangely familiar... "You and I were never going to be friends. You came over? Fine. That was the game. But I was waiting to vote you out. I wanted to vote you out. To watch your face as you went out the door." She pauses -- -- and Connie steps into it. "You still believe in the right God," she says, and her own tones should not be this gentle. "Yes, I feel you don't have all the aspects right. A God, but not the messiah you need. At least it's half a step --" -- I almost want to break in, try to repeat some of the things Connie said to me last night. But I can't, my cutting into Connie's response is against the rules -- -- and Mary-Jane doesn't give me the chance. "Oh, bull." Tired, spent, her words falling to the Council floor and almost dragging her with them. "But I have to give you this much: no matter what you might have decided in your opening remarks, I think you were always true to yourself. You were always a bitch. You turned your back on your own tribe because you couldn't stand them. You helped get rid of mine because you couldn't stand us. Maybe you love your husband. I saw you two together -- I think there's something real there. A hate in common, probably. But you hate me, whether you say it or not -- and in a few seconds, you're really going to hate me..." No, Mary-Jane, don't... And to me. Eye contact at long last. The blue of her irises is still intense -- but the energy behind them is muted, almost gone. Looking right at me, and the only thing driving the gaze is necessity: this has to be done, it will be done, I'll do anything if it just brings more pain with it, even if it's for myself... "Did you know I was gay?" Mary-Jane asks me. "Did you get rid of me because you were afraid of me?" This time, Angela nearly goes off her seat. Tony is completely frozen. Gary just winced, Robin is very slowly nodding to herself, I'm not sure Phillip has any idea what to do, and Gardener's foot may have come down hard enough to crack the floor. And from Connie, the slowly rising fire that she has to keep banked... "No." It's the only thing I can say. "I never knew. Gary -- told me after you left." A tiny nod: she knows. Maybe she even asked him to, in case she never did. "I think that maybe he was looking for that same answer. But we never got that far." She's listening, I think she's listening... "I just thought you were very relaxed about your body and you didn't understand why everyone else didn't feel the same way. Comfortable in your own skin." "You don't have that." No change in her voice, and Jeff is letting this go as a follow-up. "I don't know if you're scared of your own body or terrified of how other people might react to it. But I do think you were afraid of me, Alex. Because I was everything you're not. Because I was free, and you keep yourself locked up inside. You can't even stand to be touched. You were so tight in my arms at the river..." ...no, please... "...and it wasn't because of what happened, was it? It was because someone was holding you, and it was the last thing you could take. You couldn't take having someone care..." A tiny tear at the corner of her right eye, a slightly larger one on her left cheek. "You voted to get rid of me because you couldn't have someone around who'd learned that much about you. Who cared about what happened to you. You don't --" and stops as she realizes she's crying. She starts to wipe at her eyes. It's a chance. "I voted for you because --" and this is it, isn't it? "-- Gardener saw both you and Gary as jury threats. He wanted one of you gone at that Council, and he'd promised Robin extra time, maybe just to look better for her vote. He already had three votes: his own, Robin's, and Connie's. That was together before he approached me. But he asked who I wanted gone, trying to make it my choice. Whoever I said it should be would go. I asked who he wanted, he said you, probably thinking I'd go to Gary in order to save you --" was that the tiniest of nods from Gardener, or was he just shaking off a bug? "-- and Gary was the bigger jury threat --" here we go "-- but Gary and I had been aligned since Day Two." How good were we as a stealth alliance? Apparently really good, because Gardener's jaw just dropped open. Angela's next to spot it and the first to start laughing, with Robin right behind her. Connie is not taking this well: she must have been seeing Gary's vote as a sure thing, not to mention his soul as being among those that could be truly saved -- and now I've just thrown two things into doubt at once, with what might even be a lot more emphasis on the second. But Gary's quiet... And just for a moment, Mary-Jane smiles. "So that was your third vote..." I nod. "Gary was it the whole time." And Gardener just executed a power wince, followed by lightly rapping his forehand with his knuckles. "Gardener told me he'd let Gary know and make it a five-one vote -- but he never did, because he was hoping you'd shift most of the blame to me." "I thought it was Trooper," Mary-Jane softly says. "I really did, even after Gary and I started talking... I never thought..." The smile is gone. "But we were allies too, Alex." "You never said it." There. It's out. She never said the words. Which just leaves her free to say these ones: "Because maybe I thought we were friends instead, and that was more important." Losing decibels by the word, but still perfectly audible. "I don't know if you have any friends, Alex." Which gets Robin thoughtful again... "Maybe you're scared of that, too. You can't have anybody close, no matter where they are. You could say that you didn't want to believe me because it was the game, and maybe I was just using you -- but I wasn't. I had a crush on you." And there goes Gardener again. "Because you're smart, and you are exactly my physical type, and I thought that even if you were straight -- and they're always straight when I like them -- that you could be so much fun to be around if you'd just loosen up a little. I thought I could hear it sometimes -- some kind of sense of humor fighting to get out -- but you never let anything out. Maybe there's nothing there that can ever come out at all, and I was just seeing what I wanted to see..." The tears are coming a little faster. "You could have voted with Gary, voted with me. Forced a tie. Given me a chance against Connie or Robin. Why didn't you?" And here we are. Finally, here we are, and there are no words I can ever say to make it right. Because -- -- until now, I could always say you were lying, and Gary was lying, and you just wanted to make it hurt when you went out, punish me for getting rid of you. The lie of lies, because no one cares about me, not that way, and no one ever could. And now here you are in front of me, I feel like I want to believe you because you're hurting, you're bleeding, bleeding water from your eyes but it still counts, and I have no words that can heal. I don't know how I feel about it. I don't know if I can feel about it, and it scares me that you might be right, I could try to reach past what I am and find nothing there at all... "Because I was afraid of you." It's almost a whisper. "But not because you were gay. Because of what you heard. I was afraid you might repeat it to someone else. And you did tell Gary, I found that out the hard way. I couldn't stand everyone knowing. I voted for you because if you were gone, then maybe you wouldn't tell anyone, and it was already too late..." I say it all while looking at her, and it hurts more than the claws ever did. These words are broken. "All you ever had to do -- was ask me not to. I thought that -- Gary might get through -- where I couldn't. If Phillip had still been here -- maybe him. But I never told anyone else -- never..." So much confusion on the jury, all explained in an instant. Something that happened between Phillip's vote and Mary-Jane's -- but what? We're talking about something -- did it happen at the family Reward, when Mary-Jane left the beach? No, she never told anyone else... "You hurt me." All I have are the weakest words in the world. "I'm sorry..." Mary-Jane shakes her head, and the tears run down new trails. "I don't know if I believe you. I don't know if you're capable of it. Sometimes it feels like you're just a shell, Alex, with nothing inside..." Soulless. And what feels like a flare of joy from Connie. Azure nuzzles against me. It's not enough. "I'm done, Jeff," Mary-Jane softly tells him. "The only other questions I could really ask -- would never have answers." I'm sorry... And there's nothing else I'll ever be able to say. Jeff gives us several breaths, letting Mary-Jane wipe her eyes again, allowing Phillip time to lean over and say a few whispered words which she doesn't respond to -- then goes to the most likely candidate for an emotional shift. "Tony." Who springs up -- then takes a worried glance back at Mary-Jane, making sure she's okay. A nod releases him, and he jauntily strides out to his mark. "Okay," Tony shrugs. "I've been over there a while, and yeah -- I wasn't happy to be sent there. I couldn't save Angela, and then I couldn't win for her. And I've gotten to listen the whole time. Heard a lot." Angela's starting to look tense. I think Tony was briefed on the speech he was supposed to make, and this isn't it. Tony is about to go off the board again... "I wasn't expecting to hear that last bit," Tony quietly adds. "Never expected it at all." He turns again, looks at Mary-Jane. "I really wish Alex wasn't your type. I've got a sister -- lousy luck in love, and my hometown's too small to have much of a choice..." Mary-Jane blinks, and Tony responds with a cocky grin. "Nah, I didn't just out her -- everyone knows." Except Connie, who may be starting to realize that there's just damnation all over. Not to mention the rest of the country, but that's not exactly a consideration for Tony right now. "And she's really foxy -- but..." A shrug. "Alex, I said I'd swap you for Connie once -- and now I'm looking at both of you." And guess what: Connie just learned about that one, too. So Tony was on his own during that approach, but I have to think he would have dropped me after they got majority back... "Kind of makes Robin's idea about that water talk sound pretty good, especially since Angela and me hooked up that way -- but hey, even I can't go that far. Maybe I'm not the brightest bulb, but no one can shine bright enough to take that one out of the dark. Still -- Connie, never happened, right?" That's his question? He went away from whatever Angela wanted and he wound up there? Come on, that was just one of Robin's many ideas of a joke... Connie's just relieved to get an easy one. "Alex came to help me when I was floundering. She told me to stop moving so she could tow me. That was the full extent of our conversation." A glance at me -- and I nod hard: if we do nothing else together, let's make sure this particular issue is settled. "And you hated her anyway," Tony muses. "From the first second you could have. Never figured that out -- I thought she did the right thing..." Connie sighs. "I -- don't deal with assistance well all the time. Or orders. I think Angela knows that." Certainly does, and for Angela to know it is for Tony to know it. "And then when the cross came out... well, as it turned out, I just jumped the official starting gun by a few steps. Alex and I can cooperate when we really need to, and have -- but we are not, and have never been, allies." And I nod again. Preach it. Tony can accept that. Over to me. "Alex -- I guess I can see some of what Mary-Jane saw, at least a little of the time. Maybe there's something in you that could be a lot of fun to be with. Maybe there isn't. You were always hard to read -- I'd rather try to figure out a knuckeball's path." Oh, ow. "The question I was supposed to have for both of you tonight was asking about the challenges." Angela is getting angrier by the minute. "Connie, I never figured you were lying low so you wouldn't look like a threat -- just that you weren't that good." She manages to smile at that, but it feels forced. "And Alex, you were better there -- really better if you count the idols as an extra challenge. You just beat me there." Three to two. No other factors considered in those numbers. "Sounded like you came close a lot of times, too. But I knew how I was voting tonight when I walked in. I said how I'd go, so -- that's where I'm going. It's like Alex keeps saying -- nothing anyone says tonight can change my mind. And if that's the case, then it doesn't feel right to ask any question at all, not when it won't really touch my vote." And there it is: Tony finally gave someone's game away. Make his question center around the challenges, give me a chance to shine by pointing out how much better I was than Connie, even in the ones I hadn't won. Start tilting his vote towards me -- and then vote for Connie anyway. Because that was what Angela wanted him to do, and it was what she was going to do herself. The look of deep disgust on her face is there because she pulled the string and her puppet's knife-planting action broke. Tony refused to give me false hope. He's voting for Connie, he let me know it -- and he and Angela will vote as a pair. I almost want to thank him. Take away the vote that won't come, and his innocent honesty might be the best gift he could ever give me. "So that's it," Tony tells us. "I'm locked in -- no point pretending otherwise, right? So I'll see you both at the Reunion -- be good until then, okay?" Angela's expression reaches a sort of weary pride before he gets her in his sights again, and Tony can accept that. But -- he never asked me anything. I never got to speak to him. I never got a chance, and even now, I can't yell out after him... Mary-Jane is bleeding, and it's my fault. Soon enough, Tony will feel that knife. Action and inaction, both equal crimes... Three to two or four to one. Probably the second. I don't have Angela or Tony. No chance at Phillip. Mary-Jane will forgive me right after I forgive Jeff. Tony sits down. Angela briefly rubs his left shoulder. Jeff just says "Gary." Who looks vaguely amused as he heads for his place. "Well," he starts, and his voice reflects his expression. "I honestly wasn't expecting that to come out -- not the alliance. I really wanted everyone to get home, turn on the television, and get the story that way. Not that it matters now, but..." Gardener's starting to come around to amusement again, possibly because this means he gets to take the last shot. "Connie, you're probably wondering -- I approached her. Because I thought that anyone who could come up with that cross stunt might be capable of getting a lot more done in the game, and let's face it: I'm not a challenge threat. I needed someone with serious brains if I wanted any chance of being carried." Connie's putting on a very good show of accepting that. "And then Alex dumped me because I said some things that I should have reconsidered. I was confrontational at a time when I should have been a little slower. I tried to get her back at Final Four, but -- hey, jury threat, welcome to the jury. So I don't even know how good my alliance was the whole time... and it's not what I wanted to ask, anyway." Gardener's amusement is now at towering proportions, much like its owner. "I've got one question for each of you -- and I'm telling you now, before you hear it: if you want my vote, you're going to have to give me a completely honest answer. If I think there's even a hint of a lie -- forget it." Smiling. "Of course, if you both lie... well, we'll see. Connie, this one is yours." She's listening. "There were a couple of times in this game when you approached me with a swing attempt -- bring me into the Haraiki alliance as a tiebreaker vote. I believe you were serious about that -- we all needed votes. But if I'd come over, what would have happened to me each time? And would you have brought me to Final Two?" Oh, for... Of all the questions he could have asked! She just about settled this one with Phillip, and we all saw what happened to Mary-Jane...! Connie just got Tony's dream: no speed, no rotation, pull that bat back and give it everything you've got! As a test of her honesty, this means nothing, he's basically giving her his vote because I wouldn't take him back... ...and Connie knows it. "If you'd come over on the first attempt, you would have been out as soon as we'd solidified majority," she tells him. "That was the plan for anyone who came over. On the second one, with Angela gone -- I personally wanted to swap you for Robin." Which not only sounds true, but doesn't exactly cost her Robin's vote. "Remove a potential challenge threat -- although we all saw how well that worked out --" no, it doesn't cost Connie a thing, although it just bought Robin a few extra points on her blood pressure reading "-- and then take you to Final Four. But that felt very risky, because I would then be in a group with two major jury threats: Phillip and yourself. So I think I would have brought you that far, because convincing Turare people to vote with us would have its own hazards, and with so few left, we couldn't risk giving anyone too many opportunities -- but in that scenario, I really wanted to be at the end with Tony." Gary nods. "I believe you." Of course he does, and Tony's flattered. Gary may also believe he'll be writing down her name and Connie looks very satisfied with that possibility, especially since it's starting to approach a total lock. Sure, he did the wrong thing by going to me for an alliance, but he's still more than salvageable himself, right? "Alex -- there's a little irony here, because this isn't even my question. It's Trooper's. He and I were discussing it right after the stilts, and he said he'd never be able to ask you out here, no matter how much he wanted to know the answer. Not when it would be in front of the cameras, and eventually in front of the world." Huh? Where is he going with this? "And the funny thing is, it's Mary-Jane's question, too." She just went rigid: spine locked, eyes wide... "She came up with it on her own, with no help from Trooper or me -- and I almost expected her to ask it tonight. But she decided to spare you." Whatever's coming, it isn't even remotely as weak as Connie's question, not with Mary-Jane starting to shiver like that... "I made the mistake of coming after you too hard once. It was the wrong time and the place for it. I did that the wrong way: I admit it. I blame my job -- oh, that reminds me..." Grinning, very sheepishly. "As long as I'm up here, I've got to apologize to everyone. Gardener said everyone should get away with one lie, and I -- kind of put mine out there on the first day." Okay, forget about his upcoming ultra-mysterious question for a few breaths: I cannot wait to hear this. Secret Agent Gary is about to reveal his exact agency, and the expressions in the room are making it very clear that I'm the only one who ever suspected anything... "I'm only -- sort of an accountant." Or not. Okay, so maybe he adds up all the expense reports for the main spies, or -- embarrassed pause over. "It's part of what I do, but it's not the whole of it -- okay, okay --" A deep breath. "I'm an IRS agent." Well, close enough -- and that got Gardener and Phillip together: they're both laughing. Angela is staring at Gary in total shock, Tony's not far behind her, Mary-Jane's still frozen by whatever's coming, Jeff allows himself the smile of a man who's been in on the joke the whole time and Robin's dropping into an all-out hysterical fit -- -- because she's looking right at Connie, and those words may have been the last ones Connie ever wanted to hear. All that talk about minimizing the taxes through tricks may have been going on for longer than I knew... Gary shrugs, still looking sheepish. "Can you blame me?" he asks the group. "Come on -- of all the professions that could get you voted out first..." Phillip just laughs harder. "'Hi! What do I do? I take your money away! But I'm still a nice guy -- oh. Bye!' I just didn't think that was going to go over too well..." And the only change in Mary-Jane is what might feel like a tiny bit of pleading in her eyes... "It's an interesting job and it's necessary, but guess what it does to my social life? I can't even go out with my wife for most of her circle: she's a lawyer and they're afraid to associate with her at parties because of me. I was better off starting without two strikes on the board..." And there goes Tony. "So -- sorry. My bad on the lie. The other option just felt really risky." He gives the jury a little time to settle down. Isn't anyone else seeing what Mary-Jane is going through? I think Phillip's starting to pick up on it: he's leaning towards her again... "Okay. Back to the main subject." Which doesn't get Connie off her suddenly-induced worry fit. "This was Trooper's question, and then it was Mary-Jane's -- and now it's mine. And this is the place where I have to be confrontational. No dodging, Alex. No walking out on me. I want your answer and I want it to be honest. I'll know if it's not." Fine: Connie still has his vote. Lots of people probably try to avoid their full taxes. I've never tried it because my income is so low that I don't pay any taxes on it. I waste a stamp on a full report every year, the government wastes some paper telling me I shouldn't have bothered. What could he possibly be working up to, anyway? This. "When was the rape?" Shockwave, starting from Mary-Jane's tiny gasp, radiating through the jury, skipping over Gardener, hitting the camera crew -- -- and this is what it sounds like when Phillip finally gets really and truly angry. "That's over the line!" It feels like the torches are shaking, like the ground is shaking. Gary couldn't have just asked that, not that, and it's about to be taken back, Phillip's right and Jeff will never -- -- my night to be one hundred percent dead wrong. In the tone that will take no contradiction, "Gary can ask whatever he wants to. That's his question." And now Connie is staring at Jeff, then at Gary, visibly wondering if this was a setup, my former alliance partner casting for sympathy votes that won't come, there was no other possible point to that question... Phillip's not exactly happy about this. He thought he knew what the others were going to ask, and guess what? He finally joined the one hundred percent dead wrong club. "A question about the game, Jeff! How does that relate to what's happened here? And even if Alex went through that, Gary has no right to drag that out and make her go through it again!" This is starting to sound like the end of a beautiful friendship. "Tell him to ask something else!" "There has never been a rule about what the question has to be," Jeff calmly tells Phillip. "The question doesn't have to relate to the game, and neither does the statement. Anyone could stand in front of the Final Two and present a treatise on the best way to make a mint julep if they wanted to, or look for a prediction on the football season. Some people just ask for random number choices. That was Gary's question -- and whatever isn't forbidden is allowed." It makes me wonder if he'll close that loophole for the next group... "It relates to the game," Gary quietly says. "It may relate more than anything." Enough! In the coldest tones I've ever found, a depth I only went to when speaking to one other person, "I was never raped." There. It's the honest answer and he can choke on it. "And there's the lie," Gary decides. No, it's not! I don't have his vote and this isn't an attempt to swing anyone else's: why is he doing this to me? Did I make him hate me that much? "Alex, you know what that question explains? Just about everything. No one can get close to you because anyone who does might attack. No one can touch you because it might lead to pain. You said that everyone plays this game alone in the end? You decided to be alone because the idea of anyone being with you was the most terrifying thing of all --" "I wasn't raped!" I wasn't! "It doesn't matter if you think it's a lie -- it's still the truth!" "Gardener picks you up and you react like it takes everything you've got to not start hitting him on the spot," Gary retorts. "Mary-Jane hugs you on Day Two, you react the same way and tell her you're not good with unexpected contact. You shake my hand and you visibly brace yourself before you do it. Trooper's been a police officer for a long time: he knows what the signs look like. Once all the evidence added up, he decided to get closer to you because he figured you needed some kind of male presence in your life that wasn't a threat. Starting by teaching you how to fish --" Why, why won't Jeff stop this? How could I ever have hurt Gary this much? Jeff's revenge for my almost hitting him, that's what this is! "I told you -- it never happened!" Phillip hasn't exactly calmed down any. "Gary -- she answered it! Back off!" And Azure's wings are spreading, she's getting ready to make her own statement about this... "She's lying," Gary says, and his voice is so cold, he doesn't care about what he's hearing, he's heard all sorts of excuses before, he's got the tax return and he can see what was written down, don't lie to him and say that's not what's on the paper, he doesn't care at all, that was his greatest lie, he just doesn't care... ...and he won't believe the truth... "I wasn't --" "One more shot, Alex." Ice crystals forming in the air, closing around my heart. "You get one more. You want my vote? You tell me the truth." But -- but I've lost anyway... no one will change their minds... you won't vote for me no matter what I say, I've been telling you the truth all along and you're just ignoring it, Jeff won't stop this because it's his revenge... ...I'm so tired... What's the point? Why am I going through this? Nothing ever changes, nothing ever shifts. It's always the same, forever and ever. You think you can trust someone, you want so badly to feel you've found someone who'll stand by you, and in the end, all they did was try to get close so they could hit you at point-blank range when you couldn't get away. Thirty-two days when he was close to me counting from the start of the alliance, and all Gary was doing was positioning himself for the stab... No one ever believes me... Especially when I'm telling the truth. A truth no one ever wants to hear. Please, if I give you what you want, you'll go away, you'll stop hitting me, take the pennies back, maybe I can find more... "He didn't get that far." The words are almost sleepy-sounding. It barely feels like my voice. "Okay? He didn't get that far..." Satisfied, but still so very cold. "Now we're closer. But we're not there. How old, Alex?" "Fourteen." Let it be enough, please... It's never enough. No amount of pain is ever enough for a bully, and no one will ever stop them. It's just me and Gary here. The others might as well not even exist. "How?" "I was being fostered." I haven't been to this place in a very long time. It's still very so easy to remember what I was thinking then... what I believed... and so very hard to realize I actually could have seen it that way... "It was only the third time. The first two had been bad places -- places where I'd always be back within a week, because I'd break a rule just to go back. Because it was better -- to have what I knew..." Is this my voice at all? Who's speaking right now? Someone nearly nine years younger than me. "His name was Terrence Massee. He was -- kind of wealthy, I think. By himself in a really big house, but he had live-in help, and he'd foster as many as three children at once. I was the only one there at the time. He was one of the only single people in the circuit -- widowed, he said... they thought highly enough of him to let a single man in..." Please stop... And I don't know if I'm talking to Gary or myself. I don't seem to know anything anymore. "What was it like there?" No increase in temperature. The warm breeze blowing through the Council is gone. Maybe the Council is gone. "It was -- nice..." I'd started to think she'd made a mistake. Started to hope. "He let me do a lot. More than anyone ever had. I could read whatever I wanted, and watch television, and he would buy me cookies..." No one had ever bought me cookies. "I got into a fight and he believed I didn't start it... I got an allowance, he took me shopping and --" "And what, Alex?" Harsh. Angry. He doesn't care about this, he wants the results. "And he did what?" "He -- bought me a dress." Pure white. A fake pearl trim around the cuffs and neckline. So beautiful, the most beautiful thing I'd ever worn... "He was talking about -- how maybe I could stay..." No heat from the torches. Nothing from the fireplace. I can't feel Azure on my shoulder any more. Just a soft fabric against my skin. "Maybe -- he'd adopt me. He was so happy to see me in that dress... said I looked very pretty..." Words that had felt real, hadn't hurt... ...and then the touch that had. "He tried to take it off." Just because Gary wants to hear me say it. "I -- I ran downstairs. He chased me. There was no one else in the house: maid's day off..." He'd looked so surprised when I'd run... "Cornered me in the living room... tried to explain... said he just had to establish what our relationship was if I was going to stay... I had to know what my place was... he --" had come at me again, reaching, clutching... "And?" No, Gary won't stop, no one will stop him, I don't know if I can stop... "He -- had a fireplace." Scrambling backwards, reaching behind me, scraping my knuckles on the brick, bleeding -- and then the feel of metal in my hands, even now... "I -- grabbed the poker..." The impact. Vibration in my fingers, running up my arms, grounding itself into a deep terror. A trickle of blood soaking into the carpet. Tiny splatters on my dress, raised arms and bleeding knuckles sending their flow back onto the sleeves. Tears. The last tears that would come for a very long time. I hit him too hard and he's dying... "I had to call the ambulance... his skull was fractured..." Is there anyone here at all? Am I even here? I can't feel the seat now. There's nothing but the air and Gary's voice. "What happened to him?" "The -- ambulance came. We both went to the emergency room... they treated my hands, asked what happened, but no one would ever believe me..." No real evidence of a rape attempt. No witnesses. I'd hit him. Mrs. Paglia had arrived so very quickly, taken custody back, gone to the hospital several times to talk to Mr. Massee after he'd woken up, talked to a lot of people. Pulling every string she had. "He fell down the stairs first, that's what they finally said, and I scraped my hands trying to grab him." What they'd said after she'd told it to them. That was for the bruises that came when I'd forced him away. "Got up, staggered and went down by the fireplace. He hit the poker on the last fall..." She'd sold so many stories to people who wanted to believe, and she couldn't let me go into juvee where I'd be out of her control. Saying and doing whatever was needed to make me look innocent, a huge change of pace for her but still something she could do, preserving both of her tools. Only half of it had worked. "They called it an accident. But he went off the fostering program... and he died nine months later." Overhearing Mrs. Paglia on the phone, figuring out the other end of the conversation. "They had to do a scan on the fracture, they found the other thing... he changed hospitals to get better treatment, left the area, but then he never left that one..." In the end, they'd believed everything she'd told them. Judged that I'd been in mental shock at the hospital, because that was her theory and she knew me best. Out of Haledon when it happened, deep on the other side of the hill, away from her most immediate influence. Maybe harder to use her usual tricks without the background already in place. Needing every detail. My fingerprints on the poker because I'd tried to move him, grabbed it and flung it aside, and I had. I'd had to move him: I had to get him on his back, feel if he was breathing. Taking everything she'd gotten out of me and building a story from it. One that would work. And I would cooperate, help her make people believe it, or someone would hurt more than I ever had. Several someones. Making up stories. She was always so good at that... ...Azure's weight is back on my aching shoulder, her head pressed against my hair. The elephant leg holding me up. Connie staring at me, clearly not believing a word of it: Gary and I worked this out in advance, the ultimate try for sympathy votes, I found the loophole in the jury rules and he's exploiting it -- -- and she has company in that state. "Interesting story," Gary decides. "I'm betting that's the first time you've ever told anyone that. I just don't know if I believe it." What?!? "I -- I told you! I told you what happened!" They're not looking at me. None of them will look at me. No one ever believes me, Gary did this to me, made me talk, I want to get out of this seat, go after him, scream about why he would do all this just to call me a liar at the end, but that was the whole point... ...and I'm so very tired now... Gary shakes his head. "There's something I picked up on a while back," he says, and his voice is back to normal. I just can't get rid of the memory of cold. "When you lie, you do it by not saying anything at all. Falsehoods through omission: mental reservations, holding things back. That's not the whole story -- but it's all I'm going to get out of you without Jeff calling me on violating follow-up. And because it's not the whole story, it's not the truth." I don't have his vote. I never had it, he did all that just to punish me, Mrs. Paglia was an amateur... ...please let me go home, I'll go back to camp right now, I'll just give up, let me go... "I'm done, Jeff," he tells our host, the judge who refuses to let anyone cry objection, much less bring the gavel down himself. And Gary goes back to his seat. Tony isn't moving. Angela's eyes are averted. Phillip is holding a sobbing Mary-Jane, and the last place Gary should want to be is anywhere near him. Connie still doesn't believe any of it: I told a lie to get sympathy votes, and hopefully no one fell for it, but at least Gary knows I lied -- even if the tax thing might still be a problem. Robin's eyes are closed. I don't want to look at the crew and I can't stand the thought of seeing Jeff. And Gardener -- -- doesn't care. "Cute," he snorts. "Jeff -- my turn?" Presumably Jeff nods. "Gardener, you're up." "About damn time," he decides, and easily pushes free from his stool. "Nice one there, Gary. Really. Believe me, right now, I don't have a whole lot against seeing Alex squirm. The problem is, I'm more about the game. That's what this is always about. The game. And Alex is pretty good at this game, isn't she? She's got to be: she's Final Two. She's Final Two and I'm not." Finally at his mark -- and away from it, pacing back and forth in front of it: closer to the jury, farther away, repeat. "Plus what does she do for a living? She makes up stories. Which she's also got to be pretty good at, because she's not homeless. So maybe something happened and maybe it didn't. I'm not exactly one to judge -- and I don't give a damn either way. Maybe Trooper read it wrong. Look, Mary-Jane's got a crush and Alex didn't return it: let's find any excuse why that happened -- and Gary might have fallen for it. Any reason that wasn't the one I've got." Still pacing, only five steps in each direction, learning forward a little more, moving faster. "You know, I'm really not such a bad guy. I'm a pretty good teammate, right? Just ask any guy I've ever been on a team with. I take hits for people: that's my job. They come at you, I get in front of them. Pat me on the back once in a while and I'm pretty happy. And then one day I took a really big one. Hurt like absolute hell for about three years. And by the time it stopped hurting, I wasn't exactly on anyone's draft pick list any more. But hell, the coach liked me, and he knew I understood more about training than anyone else, so he got me into the department. Eventually, I'm running the strength training division for the whole thing. Not where I wanted to be, but not bad, right? At least I'm in the business. But I never got to play in a big game." Slowing down a little. "Not in a really big one. Not for a major championship. High school, division but not state. College -- well, if you look up the Wolverines, you'll know. And no pros. So that's why I applied. Because I was at a point in my life where things weren't going so well any more, I hit the old mid-life a little early, and I said 'You know, it's not the big game I wanted, but it's still a big game, and you can't beat the audience.' So I apply. And guess what? I made the team! Hey, I knew I was good. I make a plan, I start running through contingencies, variations, I know Final Two isn't a guarantee but I've got about sixty ways to get there so I have to think I've got some kind of shot, I get put on the boat, I get dropped off the boat, and what do I wind up with?" Stops, exactly on his mark. Looks directly at me. "An over-endowed, under-emotional, borderline-genius, semi-psychotic robot programmed for exactly one thing: stopping me!" Discount Connie's sudden giggle fit, and no one is saying a word. There isn't much they can say -- and Gardener isn't going to give them the chance anyway. "Oh, look, she's going to be useless: I've got to get rid of her first. Oh, look: she made fire: now I've really got to get rid of her, but the others won't go along with it because we promised and I can't go back on my word this early, especially not when I don't have the votes behind me. Hey, she's not bad at the challenges, so now I've really got to get rid of her, especially after she tore the memory game a new one with something I personally never saw coming, and you know how many books I've read on game theory? Too damn many, that's how many. Hey, we finally lost one, even if Desmond had to put in his application for Moron Of The Century to do it! Now's my chance! But no, I get backstabbed by Gary. Hell, never saw that one coming until about five minutes ago. It's a tie! Maybe Desmond can beat it -- no, wait, maybe she's quitting -- wait, that's the goddamn idol, and now I can't get rid of her because I need every damn vote I can get..." Connie is still giggling, and I can't blame her. In fact, I don't understand why more people aren't laughing. This is some truly inspired material. He must have been working on it all night. It's Gardener's Society Islands Season In Review, and the longer he goes on, the better I'm starting to feel: not because this means I have his vote -- it doesn't -- but because it's a distraction. It's something to think about that isn't what Gary just brought out. Comic relief after the dramatic moment: good story tactic. Give the audience a chance to recover, let them forget about what just happened... All things considered, go, Gardener! And fortunately, he's got a fair distance left to cover. "Okay, maybe she's useful. She sees things. She can see stuff over at Haraiki that'll get us a sixth vote. Or an idol. Or anything we can use at all. But no -- two idols to the opposition, one defection which just has to be her because clearly the bitch came here to kill me, the first smile we'll see from her is when she's standing over my dead body... Oh, wait -- my bad. I've got female problems, but I should have been looking a little higher. Well, screw it: doesn't matter, I'm doomed anyway. In fact, my main problem is being doomed second, thanks to the world's most handy jaguar -- and that doesn't even work. In fact, this emotionless little gearbox responds to nearly dying by -- anyone remember?" Angela does. "Getting the idol. So now I'm extra-doomed. Until she gives it to me, because I forgot about the borderline-genius part, aren't I dumb? She figures a new tie is better than minority. Well, hell, who can argue that? In fact, I'm so damn grateful, I make the mistake of my life. I give her Final Four on Audrey's name. Can't take that back..." Pacing again. "Well, time for me to make that move no one expects, especially not the sparking circuitboard. Hey, give me some credit: I don't know I'm wrong yet." And there we go: Phillip just started laughing again, and Tony's right behind him. The Council is starting to loosen up. "Hi, Connie! See my idol? Nice idol. Pretty idol. Damn it, now I'm doing Azure -- just come over so I don't have to bounce you out, okay? Because I think that's the robot's secondary subroutine and boy, does it ever want to execute. With the machete for preference. And my move works! So now we've got majority, and they're blaming the metal thing. Over they go, blame the metal thing. Goodbye to my taller problem, and cue to the metal thing! This is one damn handy robot to have around. Good thing I kept it, huh? In fact, I think I've got the whole game programmed just the way I need it to play. So long to my real woman problem, and she doesn't blame the robot, but you can't have everything. Won't save what turned out to be her secret ally a second time, and I'm golden, because I'm up against a fine-tuned machine that'll probably break down in the heat and a challenge drag that can break down just from hearing Jeff call off the description. In fact, my only concerns at this point are the challenge drag coming out of nowhere and going with the robot, the robot blowing a gasket, and as it turns out, Gary going over my taxes, which I was going to be honest as hell with anyway, but I helped put him on the jury and someone's due to blame me any vote now." A pause that's just barely present long enough to register as one. "Called that one right, didn't I? I get blamed for something or other, maybe it was the whole 'I wanted you out first' thing, and the machine fulfills its prime directive by sticking me on the jury! Hello, jury! Guess what? I'm going to be really in line with the rest of you, because I'm blaming the metal thing too!" And there goes Angela -- even Mary-Jane looks like she might smile again any year now... "Which means Connie gets to relax, because I don't have a question for her," he tells us. Connie is getting off very easily in this Council. As if I needed more motivation to hate her. "She knows what I said on my way out. The echoes probably carried about six seasons back. And a couple forward. Somewhere on this planet, a few months from now, some poor slob about to go into a challenge is going to look up and say 'Wait, is he still complaining?' But it doesn't mean I don't have a question for the Alex unit over there. Because there is something I want to know, and if you think Gary was determined with his little potential delusion? Gary is nothing. I am not leaving this field until I get an answer I'm happy with. And I think everyone's figured out that happy and I aren't on speaking terms any more, which finally gives me something in common with the metal thing." Stopping again, right in front of me. "Of course, she's not going to answer it, because she knows she can't get my vote. So indulge me in a little lie for a second or two. Not on Gary's level, but I'm just a decent guy at heart and I can't come up with that kind of stuff on short notice." The laughter is starting to fade... "Let's pretend that Alex can still get my vote," Gardener continues. "Just for the hell of it. Now, I told you a lot about my game just now, but I said something else. I said why I came. To have one big game where the whole damn world could see how well I could play. That's why I applied and that's why I tried my damnedest to win. It wasn't the pros, but I'm thirty-eight: that means it's good enough. Connie's here to set an example for how her religion can play: she told me that and I believe her." Looking back at the jury. "Tony's closer to me: prove himself in front of the planet. Angela wanted to show off just how smart she really was. Robin, I've got to figure was here for the fame. Gary and Phillip are pretty close here: the experience. Mary-Jane got to be pretty for a lot of people in one shot." And to me. "Why the hell are you here?" This is what he was leading up to? I still don't feel that well, I want to scream in Gary's ear until he goes deaf and even after all the comedy, a very large part of me would rather die than be here right now -- in fact, that's the majority vote -- but this is his question? Plus I can't get his vote no matter what the answer is? Fine. Then honesty costs me nothing which I hadn't lost already. I even have a little strength to put back into my voice. "I was in Manhattan on the day of the open auditions. Robin can tell you -- she was actually a few people behind me in line. She saw me, but I never saw her..." No more accusations of secret alliances, please. "I actually came into the city to try for a job, but it didn't work out." Spectacularly. "I left, got a newspaper, saw the ad -- and that's it. You know the process from there." Gardener does just what I thought he'd do. He snorts. "You know, I actually believe that. But you're answering the wrong damn question. That's how you got here. Not why." Maybe I'm still trying to recover from Gary's torture. And I'm usually so good at coming back from pain. "I don't know what you mean..." "Count it off," he tells me. Starts ticking them off on his fingers. "Tony's proving himself. You don't give a damn what people think of you. I wanted a big game. You're stronger, faster, and tougher than I ever thought you'd be, but you're no athlete and you don't have that mindset. Mary-Jane wanted to show off a little and get her job prospects up. I only see your body when it's being exposed for an injury or a challenge, and you don't even know how to put on makeup. Connie's setting a religious example: you don't have a religion. Robin wanted fame. Based on what I saw here, I've got you down for being private as hell back home, and the last thing you'd ever want is a dozen cameras in your face for up to thirty-nine days and a few million people knowing every displayed action you took in that time: don't even try to argue that. If you walked out of here and everyone forgot you existed five seconds later -- that's probably your damn dream right now. Angela's showing off her brains, but you don't bring anything out unless you absolutely have to. Gary and Phillip -- maybe you're with them a little because you sure as hell got a new sketching experience, but you're not here just to have a good time -- not when you say you're going to be out first, and not when you aren't capable of enjoying yourself. Put it together, Alex." Down to his thumbs, which he skipped. "Not for the win: you don't think you can. Not for money: even on your income, three days isn't going to mean a long-term ton, and that's all you think you've got. Not for anything else I said for anyone else. You're private, you're shy, you're screwed up beyond all recognition, and you'd probably be happy just sitting in a room by yourself, submitting your work through an Internet link and having no one see you for the rest of your life -- if you could ever be happy at all, because you didn't even smile when you had my body to stand over. You don't want the attention or anything that comes with it. You are the last person who should think about being in this kind of place -- so why did you even apply?" All right: I'm definitely still in the recovery phase for Gary's question. Azure is very heavy on my shoulder. I should ask her to move. "I --" Oh, there's the breeze. "I thought I might see a contestant months beforehand..." "And post on the Internet? Yeah, right," Gardener retorts. "More people who might talk to you. Not going to happen. Try again." The plants are rustling a little outside... "I didn't know what the application process was like -- I might be able to use some of it in the strip..." "May not even have reality shows in whatever alternate universe you stuck it in." His voice is getting harsher too. "Keep going. I want an answer, Alex, and if you thought Gary was bad..." I never said what the strip was about! No, he's guessing... why did they ever do these elephant-leg stools in the first place, they're so stupid... "I don't have your vote -- I don't have to answer --" "We're pretending," and every word is forced out from between clenched teeth. "There is no reason in the world you should be here, and you know it -- or maybe you know it and you don't want to know it, you're so screwed up you can't even admit it to yourself --" I -- I can't... "You'd better." He gestures to Jeff. "He's not interrupting and I can keep this up until we hit Day Forty." "No --" I just thought that, I couldn't have said it "-- I..." -- the colors of the set, think about the contrast with the outfits in a sketch, I should have brought more pencils... "Come on, Alex -- either you want it or you don't..." But you won't give it to me... and I've lost already... "I could be lying..." I -- I -- anything, think of anything, I -- "All right, damn you: I wanted a family!" I don't remember getting to my feet. I don't remember clenching my fists and pushing them straight down by my sides. All I know is that I'm there now, the echoes are still traveling, and I can't stop, even with the look of shock on Gardener's face saying I've finally, finally shut him up, even with Jeff's jaw dropped for the very first time, not even with the jury staring in equal shock and what's starting to feel like horror... "Look at the seasons! Look at all of them! No atheists in a foxhole -- no orphans in a cast! No matter how much people hate each other, no matter what happens at the challenges and votes, what happens afterwards? Most of them stay in touch, every time! Connections between the seasons too, jumping from island to island! Some of them appear at shows together, and they call each other, and they make sure they don't lose track, because they all went through that experience together, and it bonds them! Different types, no matter where they came from originally or what they did before they got there, it doesn't matter! Because they're one more thing. They're survivors, all of them together, and they'll be that forever..." I want to stop. There's a tiny part of me screaming for a stop. And now I've reached the ultimate indignity: I won't even listen to me. "Why was Lex so mad at Rob? Because he wasn't betrayed by a friend, but by a brother. Why do Chris and Ami show up at the same functions? It's not just for the money: they're practically siblings! Why do all those connections form? Shared stress, shared experiences, the trauma of the environment and the foxhole mentality -- families, made on the spot, every time! And not everyone's in it, some people just never form the connections -- but it keeps happening, over and over... This was my only chance! To get somewhere far away from where anyone knew me, people with no prior contact, never heard anything about me at all, starting over with a group I didn't know either, together in that situation, gathered by the same randomness any big family gets formed by -- and guess what, Gardener? It worked!" Force a hand open, start pointing at the jury. "Because that's the uncle who loves everyone in the clan, but gets blinded to what's really going on because he can't see things in a way that isn't love! There's the teenage little brother who's so damn sure of himself, he can't even conceive of being wrong! Right next to the big sister who likes to push you around in the name of what she thinks is teaching you, and then we've got the other big sister, can't forget her, or maybe she's just the cousin from out of town who's a little more world-wise than me and can't wait to fill me in... Oh, and there's the other cousin, the one who has the feelings around you that she won't admit to because it's taboo, then we've got the one who's going along with this theory because he actually seems to think he's my father, we can't forget the bitch of a mother I never asked for and wound up getting three times, and the only place this falls apart is that I don't know what the hell you are!" And it's over. They're all staring at me, jury, crew, and host united for one last time. Brought together in shock. Horror. Disbelief. Because I've gone insane. Because I was insane before I ever got here. Only someone with no sanity left would ever believe that, ever see it that way, and I can barely believe that I saw it that way. But the words came, every one of them came out, I couldn't stop them and there's nothing I can do to ever take them back. I have lost every vote. I deserve to lose every vote. No one who could ever truly believe that should ever be in this game, let alone standing at the Final Two with fists clenched and a parrot rearing into an attack position, waiting for a cue. Too dangerous to be around people. If I believe that, then who knows what I'm capable of? Anything at all. I could snap at any moment because I already have snapped, someone should just haul me out of here, just give Connie the million and apologize for putting her on an island with a known lunatic, just let me go... ...because that's why I came. That's what I could never admit to myself, because if I ever saw how crazy that really was, I'd know there was nothing left of me after all. Nothing except an orphan crying... My hands fall open, and I slump back onto my seat. Azure's wings gradually settle back into position, but I only know it on feel. I can't look at her. I can't look at anyone. Gardener's the first to find his voice, even if what he comes up with isn't all that steady. "You actually -- you actually believe that." He can't even manage a snort. "You are the most screwed-up -- I'm done, Jeff. I'm more than done." I don't watch him go back to his seat. I'm guessing he makes it. It feels like a very long time passes before Jeff speaks again. "Closing statements," he tells everyone, his way of getting control back, the one that's always worked -- at least up until now, because there's a new note in his words. I don't think he wants to risk being this close to me either. "Connie?" I get my head up long enough to watch her stand. "I had some remarks prepared," she slowly begins, "but I don't believe I should use them now. I did a great deal of preparation for tonight, and some of it was wasted. I kept waiting for the classic question: why should someone vote for Alex? I spent a lot of time getting ready for that one..." The first sign of defrosting from the jury: it sounds like Tony just forced a chuckle. "I even reached the point of wondering about people's favorite numbers, in case that came back to haunt us." Which makes two of us on both potential questions: I think you should vote for Connie because she played the game the best way she knew how and no matter what you can say about that game, it did bring her to the end. I never got anywhere on favorite numbers: Tony's just had too many uniforms. "Instead, I want to revisit something Gardener said: Alex makes up stories. And she's very good at it -- she would have to be, to make a living in her profession. Everything she's said tonight, everything that has come out, no matter what the intention might have been in drawing it forth, has pointed towards one of two conclusions." She looks nothing like Mrs. Paglia. She sounds nothing like her. They could still be twins. The tones are always so steady, controlled, prepared... "Alex may have been playing a role this whole time. It wouldn't be very hard to fake, now would it? A little reluctance for contact -- a mask where others would show emotion -- show all the signs of one thing and wait for it to come out. Easy enough to do, especially with a trained police officer in her tribe, someone who would know what the indicators were supposed to mean. The ultimate sympathy card, far beyond what could be gained from a deceased relative. Hoping someone would ask her the question in public. Were you raped, or almost so? Yes. And who could refuse her then? Certainly Trooper began to approach her more closely once he decided that was the case. Bring her along: perhaps the Final Four is what she truly needs to heal. The play of a lifetime, beyond what anyone else would ever think about bringing into this game. A very unique mind is required to find that play, and I'm sure it could have worked -- in this view, she would be upset that it took so long to come out -- but I don't feel that should be rewarded. Some lies are far too dark to have a place inside this game, no matter how effective they might be. It would be an insult to all the real victims in the world." She's really very good. No audible reaction from the jury. I can't make myself look. "This makes her cold and calculating -- traits we have seen from her many times. But the other option," Connie carefully proposes, "is that she is disturbed. That what Alex truly needs most is extensive psychiatric care. That she makes herself believe things, or truly cares so little about others as to make them deal with the false realities of what she brings forth... In one view, I can have nothing but anger towards her for attempting that tactic. In the other, sympathy. And in neither case would she have my vote. I have done things that I am not proud of. But those actions have been taken out of sanity. I played the game as a person, not a whirlwind looking for something to destroy -- whether it be trust, faith, or the stability of those around her. Do not reward lies -- and if you have sympathy towards the ill, show it by guiding her to the help she needs. Not with votes, and certainly not with a win. To do so would send the wrong message: that twisted beliefs, whether deliberate or beyond her control, are acceptable in this world -- and from what I've seen from all of you tonight, I believe you know they are not." Gently, "I ask for your votes not just for myself, but to let people know that there are standards we will not go beyond -- and that while we have sympathy for those who cannot control when they do so, we will not give them our approval." And there is nothing I can say to any of that. Because they believe her. Because I might believe her. I came looking for a family: that's not the actions of a sane person. I didn't just lose it: I never had it to begin with... "Alex?" Oh, sure: now Jeff has to say something to me. "You're up." End it. Just tell him I don't have a closing statement and let the Council go to the vote. That much closer to leaving. Just let it end, because they will never listen to what I have to say. No one ever has. No one ever will. I don't even listen to myself any more. And given all that, I don't know why I stand up anyway. Maybe because in the end, all I ever did was take over the responsibility for punishing myself... I just can't look at the jury. I know what they're thinking. I know how they're voting. Nothing I can say will matter, and I won't blame them at all. I just look at a point a few feet beyond them, where Julia's lens is filming me, and speak directly to the air. No one will ever listen to these words. For once, it'll be the right decision. "I won't try to refute that," and my ears are still working: Connie's inhalation was a little too fast. "Because there's no point in trying. I came here tonight thinking that by taking Connie, I'd given myself some kind of chance. Thrown a vote or two into confusion. That maybe if I just got the right questions, and answered them the best way -- I could do it. But I also came here thinking that everyone had probably made up their minds already. Every vote was locked long before the juror walked in -- sometimes, as soon as the moment just before they first walked out. I wanted to believe there was hope -- and in the end, that's something I've never been able to believe in. You've heard my words, and you've heard Connie's. You knew who you were going to believe when you came here. All we did was reinforce that. I can never say anything that can make Connie's words into a definitive lie, much less mine into any kind of truth -- no matter where that truth might come from." The heart of insanity. Not looking. Just listening in spite of myself. And there's nothing to hear. Not even my own words. "I want to talk about the game," I tell no one at all. "Not just our version of it -- the game itself. There was a time when I wondered why this one had gone on for so long -- survived, if you want to put it that way -- when so many others had faded and gone. I thought it was because we'd tapped into something primal, if only by accident. Every time around, Jeff talks about creating a new society. It's a little more ironic this time -- we're in the Society Islands, which felt like he was really laboring the point... but there are ways in which he's right. Because when I thought about it, I realized that every time around, we recreate a bit of history. People find each other, mostly at random. They combine forces to survive in a hostile environment. Each one has to show what they contribute that makes them worthy of protection from the others, because in that hostile world, you can't afford to just carry anyone. Brains, strength, stealth, skills -- all the elements come together again, and pledge to keep each other intact. We were always tribes because that was what tribes did: united in the face of a common threat -- everything else around them." No one is talking. It doesn't mean anything. They didn't talk for Connie either. "If someone stops contributing, you see if their inaction creates a danger to the others. Maybe you're better off without them. But -- this one is strong. He's stronger than you. He's keeping other people from seeing how strong you really are. Maybe if you made him look bad, someone would want him to leave the tribe -- and then you could be the strong one... They did that over and over in the beginning, didn't they? We're doing it now -- not just here, but in every part of our lives. The game is about survival, but it's more than that. The game is also about jealousy. It always has been. The game is about hate." Just a little more softly, "And there isn't much that's more primal than that." It doesn't sound like anyone's moving. I'm not: just holding position, speaking to nothing which can hear me. Saying words that have to be insane because everything else is. "Maybe that's why we keep making the same mistakes over and over. Why we don't listen at crucial moments. Why we keep getting angry, why we react. We've tapped into something primal, and it reaches into us. Jeff has said that people change in the game. I don't know if that's true. I think most of us become a little less than what we are, because we should be more than survival instincts combined with rage and envy -- but maybe we're not. Maybe we can't change at all. The next group will repeat our mistakes, and people will watch, laugh, and wonder why no one learned from what we did -- until a very few of them come here, and fall into our rut..." I close my eyes, just for one breath. "The game is about jealousy, and the game is about hate. Sometimes it's about fear, too, because fear disguises itself as jealousy and hate: they're easier to deal with, a lot easier to forgive yourself for feeling. Jealousy, hate, and fear: the cycle of civilization. We see the other -- the tribe, the individual, the nation -- and we're jealous for what they have, we hate who they are, and we fear what they might be. Every time around, we tap into that, and if the wars are smaller -- they're still wars." Foxholes. Families. Why see a shrink? I'm way past help. "It's hard to believe any of you would ever be jealous of me. I know I've made you hate me. And maybe after tonight..." No. I won't say that part. "I could ask you to vote based on the game. But you've already decided how you're voting -- and maybe now, you might see a little more about why." None of them will. "And what goes into those votes in the first place." Ever. "Jealousy. Hate. Fear." So tired... "Some people say we're about more than that as a species, that we're looking for ways to rise above all of them -- and then, every day, they play their own version of the game..." No one's listening. I sit down. My whole life, trying to find someone who would hear me, for just long enough. Seven more failures in a very long series. Maybe eight. I'm not counting off the silences any more. I know this one is long. "All right," Jeff says, and I know what's coming. "We are at the vote. Jury, remember this: tonight, you are voting for a person. You are going to write down the name of the person you want to see receive the million-dollar prize." Not even Tony would ever get that wrong. "It takes four votes to win." I don't have any. "It is time to vote." Gardener gets to go first: he doesn't take that much time. Robin, even less. Angela has a very long one. Tony contrasts her: the shortest so far. Mary-Jane easily triples his time. Gary cuts that back by a small amount. Phillip is the quickest of all. I don't know if any of them look at me. I don't look at them. There's no point. I won't win. Apparently I never wanted to in the first place. Jeff. Going to tally the votes. It won't take very long. Just verify the shutout and seal the cylinder. A season like no other. The one that set the record. The first seven-zero. The first contestant who was completely and utterly out of her mind. And he's back. I finally look up. His face is very composed. Completely neutral. It could almost be Day One all over again. I wish it was, wish I could make all this not have happened -- -- there's no point in wishing, either. His expression is neutral. His words are strange. "There are times when I miss Borneo," he tells us, one more set of words that may never make the air. "It's hard to say there was an innocence to it, with everything that happened -- but there was definitely a freshness. It wasn't as serious at the start -- and yes, there was a time when they voted for me." He smiles just a little at the memory. "But what I really miss is not being able to open this on the spot." The cylinder is tucked under his right arm: he pats it with his left hand. "After all that's happened this season, I want to open it right now and let you know what these results are." More softly, "To release you -- because until these votes are read, the game will go on. And even so, for this group, the game may never end..." A tiny head shake -- and then the ones I was expecting, with a few new ones thrown in. "After thirty-nine days, you all want to know what's in here. But you also all know it'll have to wait. I'll see you in a few months -- or a few seconds..." Jeff walks out. And then the part we never saw: Production moves in, circles the jury so that I can't see them, escorts them out. Their bags are waiting just outside the Council set: they'll get a very quick debriefing because they already had their main one after they were voted out. After that, they'll be freed. We will all be on separate boats and helicopters: they're not taking any chances on our having any contact with each other. Not even any sharing of planes on the way back, which shouldn't hold us up for too long because we're being routed through Hawaii and there's always lots of flights. Connie and I have more production people move between us. I have to go with this one. His name is Emil. He's one of the staff shrinks. He's going to debrief me, although other people will listen in on it. Mandatory examination after the end of the game, whenever it came for any of us. They have to make sure we're okay before we can go home. They don't want anything happening. Of course they don't. It would make the show look bad. Connie will be talking to someone named Victor. We won't be anywhere near each other. Connie leaves. They make me wait five minutes before I can go, and I know it's five minutes because Emil gives me my watch back. We walk through the clear island night. The crew carries flashlights. I'm not allowed to have my torch with me: it has to stay behind at Council. I'm following a trail of bright LED beams while crew members talk to me. It feels very strange. Am I okay? Yes, I'm fine. Am I sure? Because I don't look or sound okay. I don't look or sound like anything: that's what Gardener basically said a few times. I'm not sure why they're surprised. They don't seem to see it as sarcasm. Into the mansion. Sit down in what turns out to be the main dining room. Still lots of camera equipment and editing computers scattered around it. They're not sure I'm all right. They are very reluctant to let me go. I have to go: the game is over. I have to get back to my computer so I can get some new strips up: the buffer will run out soon. I also need to start filling orders again. What about the things I said at Council, Emil asks me. How are those supposed to indicate that it's safe to send me back? I tell him that Gary just read the signs wrong, saw what he wanted to see, and when I realized that he was actually serious and not just trying for some major camera time with lots of close-ups, I went for the ultimate in sympathy votes. Same thing with Gardener's question. My only hope was an all-out emotional onslaught. Some trick, right? Pity it didn't work. I guess Connie had my number all along. They don't believe me. Emil says I'm lying. I'll say anything if it means they'll let me go. Well, they can't keep me. What do they intend to do, let me live at camp? I don't want to go back. Even after all this, I'm home. I'd rather live in camp on my own than go back and face the world after the episodes start airing. I don't say that, not anything after telling them they can't keep me. I was the ultimate cold-blooded uncaring player. I would use any lie if I thought it would work. They thought Jon was bad? Jon was my role model and a target to surpass. Sorry, I'm the real villain here: live with it. And still no one believes me. Still they tell me I'm lying, that what came out at Council was the truth, that they're worried about me... So apparently no one listens unless it's the wrong people. And then when you actually need them to hear you, they don't listen. Figures. Still, they can't keep me, and as the hours wear on, they start to realize it. All they really want to know is if I'm going to hurt myself or anyone else. Or break my contract. No, I'm not going to hurt myself, mostly because I did that already and I'm not sure it can ever be topped, although that part has to stay silent. And why would I ever hurt someone else? I remind them of what I said to Jeff after the jaguar, and maybe they believe me, maybe they don't, but they are running out of time, and they know I can't afford to break the contract. Eventually, they decide I'm safe to release. No danger to myself, others, or the secrecy of the show. Emil tells me I'm down, quite possibly depressed, but he's frustrated and says he's not even sure about that much. And since it's not exactly the most uncommon reaction to the end of a game, he can't keep me here for it. Not that he could keep me at all. I'm given a big meal, and they cooked a lobster for me. I'm allowed to use a bathtub one more time, although I don't get the one in the master bathroom. No one films me while I clean up. They decide they want my clothing, take it for the Reunion, take Phillip's necklace, the towels, the dagger, anything I'd gained on the island, give me one of my jury outfits to wear. I get the bug bracelet back. Medical removes the bandage and tells me I'm more than healed enough not to need one any more. I offer to wear long sleeves in public until the jaguar footage airs, which makes the production people very happy. It's the first time I've really gotten to look at the scars. They're sort of itchy. Ten minutes to say goodbye to Azure. I pet her for most of them. Thank her for being there for me. Hope she's happy with Jeff, and wherever she winds up in the end. Apologize for sending her in against the jaguar, one last time. She listens to all of it, understands none. I tell her I love her. She says she loves me too. Leave her on the perch, close the door behind me. Try not to look back. Try not to go back. Sounds of a helicopter landing outside. Connie's about to leave. I wander through the mansion, look at the paintings in the areas I wasn't allowed in before. No one follows me with a camera for that, either. Think about the coming months... ...no. If I think about what happened today, what happened over the last thirty-nine days, every day until the show airs, I might not make it through the coming months. Once I walk back into the apartment, the game has to end. I have a respite coming, a short time when no one will know anything about me that they didn't already decide for themselves, and no one will care. After that, I can deal with things as they come. Remember in three-day increments every week if I have to: otherwise, as little as possible. I can do that, right? It'll be a lot easier to go through once it's broken down into a series of sixty-minute heavily-edited chunks. Or even ninety minutes. They could edit a lot out. Connie can be the hero and they'll take whole questions out of the last Council. Editing can do just about anything. And it's a hundred thousand dollars, isn't it? Even after taxes, it's enough to run with. Get away from anyone who's ever seen the show, just keep working online and never have to talk about Yanini again. I'm an Internet cartoonist: most of the people who come to my site have probably never even heard of the show. Not a lot of crossover between those groups as I'm seeing them. Another helicopter. Do I have all my things? Yes. Emil's flying with me. He has more questions. He wants me in his sight as long as possible. I'm pretty sure I have the answers he needs, most of which come from a ticking clock. Besides, I won't hurt myself, I won't hurt anyone else, and I don't have five million dollars. When the time comes, I'll go to the Reunion, go on the media circuit, take the last part of my punishment, and then -- go away. Maybe even another country. Anywhere at all that there might be peace. And who knows? Maybe the ratings will suck. The show could be canceled before it reaches the end. There's still time to hold out for a miracle, isn't there? Even if it'll never come. We go out to the helicopter. Get on. It's my first ride in one. The lights of the mansion shine below us, the water from the fountain hits the bottom of the helicopter, and then the mansion is gone. The island is gone -- -- and I will never return. I will never come home. So people will hate me. People have always hated me: nothing will really change. Everyone around me always believed I was crazy, and guess what? They were right. I have to live with the knowledge that I never really escaped, not as something that was whole in any way, but I can live with that. I live with so much else. Being hated is easy. Not even remotely a challenge. In the end, they were always going to hate me. Everyone here did. I finally figured out why I came here, and I didn't get it. I have no reason to be here any more. For now, I can go back, step into my life as if I never left, try to feel that respite -- and then wait for the closet door to open, so the real punishment can finally begin... ----------------------------------------------------------------- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (End of Episode #13.)   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 3603 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Thong Contest Judge" 02-02-07, 04:11 PM (EST) 20. "RE: I Can't Win...: Conclusion." LAST EDITED ON 02-02-07 AT 04:43 PM (EST) {Wow. Could Angela be the swing vote? The votes still line up 4-3 at best, with Connie winning, unless someone changes sides.} {That's assuming anyone votes for Cole at all after they saw how deranged she was.} {Oh, I don't care what she said, I still think she's got three votes. Gary was right; she was holding back something -- the whole Mrs. Paglia story. But I don't think Gary would have asked that question if he was really dead-set against Alex; he doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would deliberately want to embarrass his former ally.} {Imagine Gary and Gardener's reaction after making those comments and then reading about Alex's childhood in the paper over the last week -- and especially today. Alex probably wasn't the only one who was dreading coming to the finale.} {Gardener especially, since he came off like a sore loser. Kinda like Michigan against USC.} {Think it's unique to Ann Arbor, do you?} {I don't know about any of you, but that was one of the saddest things I've ever seen on TV. I've posted before about Lex's reaction -- he really did act like he got betrayed by his brother when Rob booted him -- but to go on the show looking for an ersatz family? Ouch. I had to tell my kids that I really needed a bathroom break, because I didn't want them to see me cry over a reality TV show.} {When you're talking about folks who don't want to be on national TV right now, don't forget Connie. She probably thought she was waltzing in to pick up her million and then go back home and brag about it. Instead, the entire nation has found out that she's a hardened liar (right, Philip?) and perhaps a demon from hell, and her husband is quite possibly a killer. Right now, she'd probably lose a popularity contest to Osama bin Laden. If she gets the million, she and Edward'll need to buy tickets to someplace without an extradition treaty with the US -- fast -- and take their money with them, so that the malpractice suits don't take it all.}   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

michel 2370 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Seventeen Magazine Model" 02-02-07, 05:02 PM (EST) 21. "I Can't Win..." {'Wrong'} {Do you think he was right?}   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

cahaya 7447 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold" 02-02-07, 06:51 PM (EST) 22. "RE: I Can't Win..." {Any guesses how many minutes after this episode's airing a cold case file got reopened?}   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

AyaK 3603 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Thong Contest Judge" 02-02-07, 07:09 PM (EST) 23. "RE: I Can't Win..." LAST EDITED ON 02-02-07 AT 09:20 PM (EST) {If he didn't actually remove Alex's clothes, the statute of limitations has probably run out. New Jersey doesn't have a statute of limitations on sexual assault (which includes sexual contact and sexual penetration), but if "all" he did was attempt to pull her dress off ... and thus not make sexual contact before getting walloped ... this wouldn't appear to be a sexual assault under the statute, just an assault.} {And he's dead. If you're dead, your crimes get erased unless your appeal process has run out. Ask Ken Lay.} {Maybe he's talking about another cold case. But I don't know of any more that were discussed in the finale, unless Edward killed one or more of his patients, and we haven't been told anything about that. Though I presume the medical society in his home state will be looking.}   Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Lock | Archive | Remove

Lobby | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic

Select another forum Lobby Private Forums (Conference)   |--Modville (Private)   |--Staffboro (Private)   |--The Newsroom2 (Private)   |--The Pressroom (Private)   |--UPI Pressroom (Private)   |--Minimodville (Private) The Amazing Race Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--The Amazing Race Fanatics Forum (Protected)   |--The Amazing Race Basher Forum (Protected)   |--The Amazing Race Spoiler/Speculation Forum (Protected) American Idol Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--American Idol General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--American Idol Individual Contestant and Judge Discussion Forum (Protected) The Apprentice Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--The Apprentice General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--The Apprentice Spoilers/Speculation Forum (Protected)   |--The Apprentice: Martha Stewart General Discussion Forum (Protected) Big Brother Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Big Brother Fanatic Forum (Protected)   |--Big Brother Bashers Forum (Protected)   |--Big Brother Live Feed Updates And Spoilers (Protected) SurvivorBlows.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Survivor Fanatic Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor Basher Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor Spoilers Forum (Protected)   |--Survivor Games Forum (Protected)   |--Spoiler Island Fantasy Game Forum (Protected) Other Television Shows (Conference)   |--America's Got Talent Forum (Protected)   |--America's Next Top Model Forum (Protected)   |--The Bachelor / The Bachelorette Forum (Protected)   |--Beauty and the Geek Forum (Protected)   |--The Biggest Loser Forum (Protected)   |--Dancing with the Stars Forum (Protected)   |--Flavor of Love / I Love New York Forum (Protected)   |--Hell's Kitchen Forum (Protected)   |--Laguna Beach / The Hills Forum (Protected)   |--Last Comic Standing Forum (Protected)   |--Nashville Star Forum (Protected)   |--The Real World / Road Rules Forum (Protected)   |--The Simple Life (Protected)   |--So You Think You Can Dance Forum (Protected)   |--The Surreal Life Forum (Protected)   |--Top Chef Forum (Protected)   |--Trading Spouses / Wife Swap Forum (Protected)   |--Other Reality TV Shows Forum (Protected)   |--24 Forum (Protected)   |--Desperate Housewives Forum (Protected)   |--Grey's Anatomy Forum (Protected)   |--Heroes Forum (Protected)   |--Lost Forum (Protected)   |--Non-Reality Television Shows Forum (Protected)   |--Non-Reality Daytime Soap Shows Forum (Protected)   |--Pirate Master Forum (Protected)   |--On The Lot Forum (Protected)   |--Age Of Love Forum (Protected)   |--HGTV Design Star Forum (Protected)   |--Kid Nation Forum (Protected) Off Topic (Conference)   |--The Help Forum (Protected)   |--Off-Topic Forum (Protected)   |--Off-Topic Sports Forum (Protected)   |--Story Competitions Forum (Protected) FindTheMole.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--The Mole General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--The Mole Clues & Spoilers Forum (Protected) Starting Over Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Starting Over General Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--Starting Over Individual Houseguest Discussion Forum (Protected)   |--Starting Over Spoilers Forum (Protected) TheOsbournesSucks.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--The Osbournes Everything Forum (Protected) TemptationIslandSucks.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Temptation Island Everything (Protected) Other Inactive Shows (Conference)   |--Average Joe Forum (Protected)   |--Beg, Borrow, & Deal (Protected)   |--The Benefactor Forum (Protected)   |--Boy Meets Boy Forum (Protected)   |--The Casino Forum (Protected)   |--The Contender Forum (Protected)   |--Cupid Forum (Protected)   |--Fame Forum (Protected)   |--For Love Or Money Forum (Protected)   |--Forever Eden Forum (Protected)   |--Joe Millionaire Forum (Protected)   |--Joe Schmo Forum (Protected)   |--Grease: You're the One That I Want Forum (Protected)   |--Mad Mad House Forum (Protected)   |--My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance Forum (Protected)   |--Next Action Star Forum (Protected)   |--Outback Jack Forum (Protected)   |--Paradise Hotel Forum (Protected)   |--Playing It Straight Forum (Protected)   |--Project Runway Forum (Protected)   |--The Rebel Billionaire Forum (Protected)   |--Skating With Celebrities Forum (Protected)   |--The Real Gilligan's Island (Protected)   |--Rock Star (Protected)   |--Todd TV Forum (Protected)   |--Treasure Hunters Forum (Protected)   |--Wickedly Perfect Forum (Protected) RealityTVWorld Blowie Awards (Conference)   |--2003 RealityTVWorld Blowie Awards Nomination Forum (Protected)   |--RealityTVWorld Blowie Awards Committee Forum (Private)   |--RealityTVWorld Blowie Awards Discussion Forum (Protected) BootCampBites.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Boot Camp Rant/Rave Forum (Protected)   |--Boot Camp Spoiler/Speculation Forum (Protected) LoveCruiseSinks.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Love Cruise Everything (Protected) Push-Nevada.net.com Message Board Forums (Conference)   |--Push, Nevada Clue & Hint Forum (Protected)   |--Push, Nevada General Discussion Forum (Protected) Inactive Forums (Conference)   |--BlowsVivor Forum (Protected)   |--2002 RealityTVWorld Blowie Award Nomination Forum (Protected)   |--September Eleven Forum (Protected)   |--Cornertime Forum (Public) Acme (Conference)   |--Acme General Discussion (Private)   |--Survivor Spoiler News Clippings (Private)