"Survivor: The Society Islands: Reunion: Does The Game Ever Really End?" - Reality TV World Message Board Forums - "Survivor: The Society Islands: Reunion: Does The Game Ever Really End?"

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"Survivor: The Society Islands: Reunion: Does The Game Ever Really End?"

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Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"	02-06-07, 09:10 PM (EST)
"Survivor: The Society Islands: Reunion: Does The Game Ever Really End?"
LAST EDITED ON 02-07-07 AT 08:23 AM (EST) ----------------------------------------------------------------- During ----------------------------------------------------------------- The last hours. The real last hours. I may spend most of them petting Azure, who isn't exactly unhappy about my playing catch-up. Somewhere around ten tonight, she'll be the only person in the world who can stand to be anywhere near me, and a few hours after that, I'll have to say goodbye to her again... Will every last person watching wind up hating me? Will there be a little pity for the insane? I didn't see pity coming the first time, not in the amounts it eventually arrived in, and it was harder to deal with than the hate. There may be some people who see tonight's footage and decide that more pity is what I need in my life, along with extensive psychiatric sessions. But it still feels like it's going to be hate. Some fear mixed in. Definitely not jealousy. I can live with hate. I can probably live with fear, too. I just have to hope I can work with them. If everyone abandons the strip at once, if clicks and orders drop to zero... A high-school graduate -- with an equivalency diploma -- who has no training in any other field and a nationwide reputation which would make it hard for any employer to find a real reason to justify taking a chance on me. Minimum wage may be too much to hope for. I sigh. Azure headbutts me. I'm not sure I've missed that part. "Are you all right back there, Miss Cole?" The driver hasn't been trying to get information out of me during the ride: he's been very polite that way -- but he's shown visible concern a few times. One more side effect of the newspaper story, not to mention something else that should wear off in a few hours. Yes, I have an excuse of sorts for being dangerously insane, but there's still the whole 'dangerously insane' issue lurking in the middle of that. "I'm okay." It's a good lie, suitable for any number of occasions. "Just thinking about some things." What will it be like at the cast party? Me with Azure, standing in a corner, maybe playing fetch with cocktail straws for whatever amount of time we have until the A-list gets let in and starts circulating around the room while trying not to get anywhere near me either? No one talking to me the whole time. The invitations from Trooper and Phillip invalidated by my outburst, and no blame for either of them: canceling would be the only sane thing to do. But during the cast party -- definitely fifteen people chatting plus one outcast. (Possibly fourteen if Desmond's in a bad mood.) That particular mini-tribe is never getting back into the game again. But once the guests are admitted -- well, there's a chance some of them will try to come far too close. It'll probably depend on whether we get any celebrity shrinks in the mix. With the other players, it'll just be as far away as possible at all times. Out of striking range. I might do something crazy, after all. I already did. And then after I got back, I did some more things. I may have killed a man... Jake could have just waited a few days. He would have gotten what he wanted. Going back to the game just long enough to finish losing. Not only the million: everything I've gained may be about to go away. No more increased site traffic, orders dropping to zero, Coleman finding a way out of the contract -- -- and no family. Remembering the trip back. Lots of effort made to keep us all separated. Staff members coming along, herding me through certain areas. Never so much as a glimpse of the others. Careful arrangement of connecting flights. Getting stuck in the airport. Making futile attempts to clean some of my island clothing in the bathroom there: I just hadn't felt like putting on another jury outfit. The long flight. Getting delayed again in San Francisco, but it was just all the more time to push things down into the dark. Coming up the hill at last, going through the door into my apartment and telling myself that when that door closed behind me, it would mean I'd left the game, at least for a while. It meant everything was going to be normal for a time. I could pretend... I think I did a good job. Most of the time, anyway. Another headbutt. I stroke Azure's feathers. I want to think I'm ready for the last loss, the one that may keep echoing for the rest of my life. Pain? Of course there's going to be pain. There's always pain. But I can get through it. Just listen to the vote count -- it'll only take four -- get through the Reunion, outlast the party, face the firing squad the media will bring out without my contract to use as a shield, and then -- -- what? Go away? Go where? Is my virtual Jeff right? Is there a place on Earth I could still run to, somewhere so far off the beaten track as to never have heard of the show, but still connected enough to civilization that they'd need someone to stock shelves? Especially with the ratings as high as they are? Where could I possibly go from here if things went as bad as they could ever go? It would have to be a nation where the dominant language was English if I was going to have any chance of finding work at all, and those are the ones most likely to be on the show's broadcast circuit... Not New Zealand. Phil probably has friends in the area. I'll think of something. I'll have to. Potential job skills: can draw. Pretty good at counting. Starts fires. Could potentially kill someone if the need really arises. Loses mind on cue. So maybe politics... Heh. Tomorrow, after I get the check: that's the time to really think about this. I'll have to figure out just how much of the hundred thousand I'll get to keep after taxes: what can be used to run with, how much I'd need to get me through a period of unemployment. Potentially a very long period of unemployment. If I manage to find near-matches for my current expenses, don't increase my spending any, and take advantage of free international shipping from Amazon, I could keep going for a few years. And that's not even figuring in potential penny finds, or whatever currency they use in the place I finally wind up in. I probably can't sneak back to Yanini and start over again in the same clearing. The heirs would object. It's just one night and one day. Wait for the check to clear. See what comes. And if I have to leave, I leave... Too early to think about this, and it's my first shot at hearing the wonders of satellite radio. A hundred or more specialty channels has to mean someone isn't playing Christmas music. Turn it on, start flipping through the stations. Comedy. Christmas jokes. Not in the mood. NFL updates, speculation on upcoming college bowl games. I'd rather not be on Gardener's kind of station tonight and no one's talking about spring training yet anyway. Religious discussion: definitely pass. Christmas country. Christmas rock. A punk version of Rudolph that probably ends with the other reindeer driving him away from their games and him coming back with a red nose and a machine gun -- -- okay, there we go. Moderately hard rock. As long as it's not Christmas music. I'm just not in the mood. The driver is speaking softly into a headset. It doesn't take long to find out what the subject of discussion is. "Okay -- Miss Cole? We're going to just drive around Manhattan for a while when we get in. They're going to start bringing the contestants through in about twenty minutes. It'll be a bit of a wait -- they really don't want any contact. About five minutes between each arrival." Which makes sense, although they could let the Sequesterville group go in with linked arms if they wanted to. (Which brings in a cartoon image of Desmond high-kicking his way down a red carpet from the middle of an early-boot chorus line. It goes away quickly.) "Is it really a red carpet?" We're not stars. Then again, most of the people who'll be sitting in Carnegie Hall will be, and they might feel neglected if they didn't get all of the perks... He chuckles. "With gold trim at the edges, probably -- they're really going all-out. I heard there were some big conflicts about the tickets -- the Hall seats less than three thousand in the main space, you know." Actually, I don't. "There's actually three recital spaces in the building, but the other two hold less than a thousand put together. You'll be in the Isaac Stern Auditorium -- the big one. Anyway, with that few seats and so many people trying for them, the A-list infighting got fierce. About a dozen tickets went out early, radio stations with promotional deals, and the rumors say there was a big scramble to get them back -- but it was too late. So it's the movers and shakers of Manhattan, some people from La-La land plus a few more from the contestants' families, and about a dozen of the luckiest stiffs on the planet -- at least, the ones who didn't sell their tickets for big bucks. There might be only one or two of those." Wait a minute... "That small a capacity? How many people does the draft room at the Garden hold?" "The theater?" He thinks for a moment. "Depends on how they set it up. Two thousand at the low end, closer to six on the high." An absolute font of Manhattan trivia. "But they're saying they went with the Hall because of the ambiance. Everyone's calling this a huge event -- so they're going to play it like a huge event. Ever been to the Hall?" No. "You'll see..." Another chuckle. "But yeah, they had some serious ticket problems. Most of the former contestants who insisted on coming wound up in Zankel and Wiell: all they can do is watch on closed-circuit. But twenty-eight hundred's still a pretty big number, Miss Cole -- and with all the power gathered in that room..." A slow head shake. "Someone takes out the Hall tonight and there won't be any Oscars: no one good left to nominate. It's become a status symbol just to say you got a ticket. Even on Christmas Eve, the top priority for a lot of those people is the power to show off..." Great. The absolute peak of celebrity society will be watching the absolute bottom fall apart. Circus on the center stage, gourmet popcorn in the seats. "It sounds like you don't like them very much." The shrug is perfectly visible, even from the back. "Oh, there's good ones, and more than the tabloids want you to think about. I've driven around some of the best. But there's a lot of jerks, too, and I've had them in the back complaining about the lack of personal massages. Be careful in there, Miss Cole -- plenty of users in that building, every one of which will be at the party. And they're going to want to use you, one way or another." So apparently there's going to be advantages in being a pariah, starting with no one wanting to get that close. "I know the type." The radio changes songs. Instrumental. I can live with that. "It's just hard to think of this as being a real event." "Events are what people say they are," the driver points out. "The media thinks this is an event, so -- it's an event. And with the ratings on the last episode..." Yeah. The ratings. I watch the road go by through the one-way glass, headlights coming on as the sun goes down. Thinking about the other cars, watching the limo pass them. I can see some of the drivers and passengers glancing at us as we go by: who is that? Who merits that kind of ride? Today, that would be 'absolutely nobody'. Not anyone who counts... Another song change. Slower lyrics, softer, but still something of a hard rock beat. Listening to that instead of thinking about tonight. Not really having it work very well... no life's so short it can't turn around you can't spend your life living underground Better than any poem we ever got, even if it's a lie. Some lives never change. As for not going underground -- watch me try. for from above you don't hear a sound Okay, interesting contrast, but not much real relation. And no one hears anything from anywhere. and i'm out here waiting i don't understand what you want me to be it's the dark you're hating it's not who i am but i know that it's all that you see... What...? What is this song? Only a few hundred choices at any given moment for over-the-air, every one of which starts to sound like the others after a while, and this is what they get on satellite? Mary-Jane's father must be on the verge of losing his mind every day from trying to keep track of it all. Maybe this is his channel. Or maybe I'm just hearing things -- no life's so short that it never learns no flame's so small that it never burns no page so sure that it never turns -- hearing lies, at least for the first and third -- and i'm out here waiting i don't understand what you want me to be it's the dark you're hating it's not who i am but i know that it's all that you see... But -- what I am is what they see, because what really might be there doesn't matter in the face of their own perceptions... what's important is what they convince themselves is there, or isn't there -- a shell... can you live your life in a day putting every moment in play never hear a word that they say as the wheels go around tell me if you win would it show in a thousand years who would know as a million lives come and go on this same piece of ground It's just words. It's just a coincidence. And it's actually coming from the radio, because while I can write poems for the strip and make them sound like lyrics, I can't compose music. This is a real song, and it's just a one-in-a-million chance that it would be playing right now. A million lives coming and going, or just sixteen, and Connie's win will show, my loss will, but in time, maybe it won't matter... Is that what the song is saying? Or just what I want it to say? Chorus, people singing on top of each other, and it's hard to pick out words. A round made out of the lyrics, with some new things thrown in. An instrumental bridge. And then -- I swear on tomorrow if you take this chance our lives are this moment the music the dance and here in this labyrinth of lost mysteries i close my eyes on this night and you're all that i see... Repeat last line. More music. End of song -- and too fast a cut-off. Resumption of satellite programming in the middle of a verse. The driver turns in his seat for a second, glances back at me, sees Azure pressed tight against my left leg. "Savatage, back before some of them split off and became the Trans-Siberian Orchestra," he tells me. "Pretty good band -- most people only know one thing they did, and that only gets played this time of year. The Sarajevo Christmas instrumental." "That was a recording." Wait for the end of the last song, start playing this one from a control panel in the front. "Either you decided to punch that one up or someone asked you to play that on the way in." No reaction except for a pause -- and the pause is always the giveaway, even if you haven't practiced it through hundreds of cycles. "Wish more of their stuff would make the air -- you don't even hear that much of it on satellite." And that wasn't satellite. "Who asked you?" No response. Not that he has to. I have exactly one guess, and I'm pretty sure it's the right one. "Wasn't me." I keep this sigh internal. No, Wasn't you. Technically. Okay -- maybe it was the satellite: error at the control panel. Or something else. There's always time for one more punishment: does it matter who it comes from...? And it's just about time to start facing the biggest one. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {Topic title: Live from Carnegie Hall: pre-show update thread.} {You do not want to know what I have been offered for this ticket in the last few days. I can barely believe I'm still holding this ticket after the last few days. Apparently someone at the radio station gave up my name and phone number -- several times. Since then, I have been receiving calls. Lots and lots of phone calls. I have spoken to people I did not think I would ever speak to. Amazingly, none of them seem to understand the word 'no'. And after a hard trip just to get into the airport, a very long ride from the airport, considerable difficulty convincing my cab driver that there is a place called Carnegie Hall and it exists in this world because with the way he was driving, I believe he was trying to give me an early passage to the next -- and finally, some time spent having the ticket verified because no one as ordinary as myself could possibly be holding it -- I am here. I am already completely certain that I never want to do this again.} {Meanwhile, the rest of us will just be turning on E!... where are you, exactly?} {In the viewing stands they placed outside the Hall. I'm rather squeezed at the moment. There is not a lot of room between the building and the road. They were able to extend a short distance into the street, but no one truly wishes to be in that area because it doesn't seem as if the local drivers are paying much attention to swerving around the extension: the road is not closed to traffic. They are trying to make up for the lack of sidewalk room with elevation and extensions going parallel to the road, but all that will really let people do is see vehicles approach. Even so, there are people lining the sidewalks for a distance beyond that. A large distance. As a ticket holder who has elected to suffer through this, I'm one of the lucky ones -- about six feet up and eight from the door. The contestants will be walking in the Seventh Avenue entrance. As it was explained to me, they will arrive first, entering in boot order until we reach Robin. After that, the Final Four will appear in randomly-designated order. Most of the celebrities will likely come in some time after that.} {Makes sense, I guess -- they need time to get the contestants prepared backstage, and if they're using the main entrance, they have to show up before the stars do because the biggest shots will want the carpet to themselves.} {Also because at this point, some of the celebs might wind up being upstaged, even if it's only on this night, and their egos won't be able to handle even the most short-term light blow...} {Arguable. There are a few here right now -- in the viewing stands. First rows, of course. No one particularly major -- perhaps just people looking for more exposure themselves, or lower-tier ones who weren't able to get into the building tonight. Those who called me personally rather than having their agents do it for them. Then again, I can't see everyone... so there may be one or two major stars in this crush. I just can't really see them as submitting themselves to these conditions.} {They're watching on E! -- they won't subject themselves to those conditions. And the biggest ones will arrive as close to eight as possible -- maybe even as close to ten as possible. Watch it in the limo, make a token appearance just so you can say you were there on the night of Gardener's triumph and then tomorrow, we're back to 'who's Gardener?'} {You would be wrong -- and that's the plural 'you', which includes myself. Here come the first of the more major presences now, exiting their limo. There is a pre-show party for selected attendees in the Rose Museum -- I suppose some of them decided to make an all-day affair of this.} {Who just showed up that unfashionably early? E! hasn't even started their coverage yet!} {You wouldn't believe me if I told you.} {Try me.} {...okay, I'm going to believe you for now, but I'd better see some televised proof later.} {How's the media presence?} {Multiple cameras, various networks, reporters on the red carpet. It's still a short walk, though -- they won't have much time to work.} {Okay, E! just went live and threw in a few 'earlier today' shots -- so I apologize completely and unreservedly. Wow. Apparently they did talk themselves into thinking this was actually something, didn't they? And yet, they couldn't figure out when to show up...} {The broadcast just said the contestants are on their way via limo? The applications for next season are going to come from the biggest attention whores in history.} {Next season's already filmed. The ones for the season after that -- God help us, every one.} {They just made the announcement -- and here's the first contestant.} {Michelle looks pretty good. I think she's actually put on a little weight since she was on the island. Now she looks like it would take a moderate breeze to snap her in half.} {She's talking about her float design commission -- very glad to have been on the show, especially in this season. Even if she only got three days, at least they were three days everyone can associate with what she sees as the big one.} {I really could have gotten used to that accent...} {Some cheering, but I feel it was fairly generic. The 'she was on the show' welcome.} {Hey -- there went Cameron! Guess he's working tonight.} {And the cheer for him was actually louder than the one for Michelle. He was intercepted, and now he's being questioned by someone in the media -- I can't hear what they're saying.} {Just asking him if he's working tonight -- yes -- and how it feels to be recognized. Really, really surprising.} {Wonder what would happen if they wheeled Jake's stretcher down the carpet?} {That depends. How many people in the stands have bottles, and how good is their aim?} {Trina! She's really lost weight, hasn't she? And look at that outfit -- if the lights go off all that silver thread in just the right way, half of Manhattan is going to be blind...} {Nice hair. Isn't there a buff that comes in that color?} {That's more emerald than forest. And more dye than Nakomis.} {Very loud cheer, but she's from the city. There's a hometown element in play here.} {That and she may be the best-known second boot ever.} {They're asking her for predictions, and she's just smiling and quoting her contract...} {No, the eighth card will have to wait. You'd think they would have known better than to ask.} {Dude, asking stupid questions everyone knows the answer to is how half of them got this job. Just ask the Chenbot.} {If they can ever get her rebooted -- the CBS promos said to tune in on Monday when Harry would talk to the Final Four...} {Hey, Elmore! I see you've downgraded to elephant!} {Yeah, as promised, he's lost a few pounds too. Even so -- NBC, line two. Want another show? Because if I have to look at you in that island outfit ever again, I know I want you on another show first. Why did he have to wear a rough equivalent to his Yanini clothes? It's too cold -- it's too bulgy...} {Mixed reaction from the stands. Some sympathy. Some cheering. Some people yelling at him not to get stuck in the door. He just turned, smiled, waved, and went inside.} {Frank looks good.} {Frank did look good. Frank is now covered in grass.} {It's New York. Of course someone was going to throw it.} {Well, I now have a little more room in the stands -- that one was in my row before being removed. It's not as if any metal detector could have picked it up. Frank is just laughing it off, though. Saying a few words to various reporters, egging the crowd on, asking if anyone is going to throw money because he's somewhat short of the million... He seems much more personable as a whole than he did on the show.} {In two words: 'small dose'. And no, I'm not apologizing for that. He'd laugh.} {Denadi isn't getting a great reception -- who started the Os-ten, Os-ten chant?} {Two rows behind me. It caught on quickly, although I'm sure not everyone knows what it means. I believe Denadi does -- she's moving inside fairly quickly. A couple of stops with reporters, and no more. I saw her actively avoid two.} {I just heard one of the bits she did -- she's just glad this is the last night, not just for her sake, but for everyone's.} {...and that answers Major Question #1.} {He actually showed up. Let's hear it for the power of contracts!} {Desmond would have spared me by staying home. That is the most booing anyone has received, and it continued for a time after he stormed inside.} {He did not speak to a single reporter on the way in. Ignored everyone, brushed them off, almost elbowed one, did shove past a celebrity who was just in the wrong place at the right time and what that did to her dress is going to make the news -- vanished.} {He wasn't the worst player ever, you know. And it was a pretty kick-ass shelter.} {I think the last impression he left behind is the one everyone's going with.} {Do you think he had any foil under that hat? Obviously he was getting out of the area before the conspiracy could try to control his thoughts!} {Yes, they like Trooper.} {Another waver. Well, I can't really blame him... how often does a statie get to be on the receiving end of public adulation? Just about never, that's how often. 'You put four points on my license? I want to give you a parade!'} {sigh His lucky wife. His lucky, lucky wife...} {His prediction for tonight, as he's the last person from the cast who can give one? Alex.} {His lucky, broke wife...} {Goes with that sighting report we got -- the delusion is still intact and currently headed for backstage. Let him dream for a while. After he uses his check to cover the losing bets, it'll be all he's got -- wait. He'll lose that too, won't he? Never mind.} {Not much too interaction between celebrities and contestants so far, but that's partially due to the relatively low number of early celebrity arrivals. Also because given that five-minute window, the show is trying to get the contestants inside with some speed: Desmond pretty much outran his own time. So now we have two challenges he could have dominated...} {I'd say it's mostly because the majority of the celebs are coming in later. The Rose Museum can't hold that many people, no one wants to sit in their seats that long, and even if they spill it over to the Citigroup Cafe...} {How about the smaller halls?} {They're being used for lower-priority guests, who will watch on closed circuit. At least, that's the rumor in the stands.} {Probably started by a few of the ones in the stands...} {And there's our first other-season contestant! Of course, this is the one who thinks she can show up with some of the stars and have everyone fall for it...} {National talk show. She hasn't earned it?} {Um... do you watch that thing?} {...oh, my aching ears....} {Try standing directly in the middle of it.} {I just barely got to the volume button in time. Sounds like Angela's constituency has just decided to cast a few ballots of its own, and that was a vote of no-confidence, no-likee, no-want-you-to-be-here.} {No-commenting her way down the carpet, although I'm getting most of that on lip-reading, even with the closeups. The crowd just isn't stopping.} {The Evil Overlord has met her subjects and found them in open revolt. Ow. No wonder she got inside quickly.} {It's so much fun to be the villain! But it's a lot more fun for us when you're the deposed villain.} {I like that outfit she's got on and would like to try one myself. Do you think she's got a spare?} {And now, the flipside of that particular coin.} {Feel the love. Feel the sympathy. Feel someone's panties land on your head.} {Amazingly, no one escorted her out.} {Tony's doing the half-wave -- you know: elbow in front of the stomach, arm going back and forth a little -- and he's smiling. Looks a little better than he did in his TES segment, possibly because there was a phone number written on the silk.} {He's being very consistent in his answers, too. He can't talk about it, he can't talk about it, he has to get inside. Very polite, but he's not taking anyone's bait.} {He had a hard lesson on that one and a bitch of a teacher. Although he still pocketed the panties.} {Well, what was he supposed to do? The first garbage can is somewhere inside...} {If this keeps up, I will be deaf long before I ever reach the interior.} {Phillip's enjoying it, but he's not exactly stopping to really drink it in, either. Waving, smiling, and laughing at the 'Get a real haircut!' signs, but he's keeping up a steady pace down the carpet. Not like Frank, who was pretty much taking bows every other step.} {Polite to the reporters, but he can't really talk about anything and he hopes they understand that. It's not personal or nothing -- he just has to go by his contract for a little while longer.} {Plaid. Why did he have to wear plaid?} {Mary-Jane. Is. Gorgeous.} {You're just now figuring that out?} {It wasn't all that long ago that I found out I had a chance at her. A post-major-surgery chance, but it's a chance...} {I want to call this a sympathy cheer. People seem to be treating her very gently. Even the reporters are coming up to her more slowly than they have for the others.} {No one from the last nine is going to answer a thing, are they?} {At least she's like Tony: looking a little better emotionally now than she did during her TES segment. She couldn't look much better physically.} {Yeah, and do you know what I call that? Makeup. I think M-J's facing a rough one tonight -- God only knows what questions Jeff is going to pull out of his blue shirt once that part of the thing gets going. Her face is there, but her movements still need some work.} {And if you thought Trina was getting the hometown edge...} {Oh, come on. At least half of that is for the outfit.} {Yeah, but she went with an island outfit. Who wears short-shorts? Robin wears short-shorts! Who cares about the weather: there's single guys watching this!} {They may have to carry her off the carpet. She's dreamed of this her whole life, and now she's got it. Even if it's just for one night, Robin finally gets to be one of the stars. And to the media, on any question relating to the show, "I'll get you on the way out, okay?" So she's already got the attitude down pat.} {How do you get to Carnegie Hall? DAW, DAW, DAW!} {And she's going up to every star of any caliber she can spot, saying hello, introducing herself -- no, wait: she's shaking everyone's hand: she doesn't care whose it is.} {A fan is a fan. And one chance -- is just one chance.} {Ah... let her enjoy herself. Like the lady said, it's only for one night.} {Another crew member -- I don't know this one: he was one of the production people blocking Jake's exit from camp -- has just come out. He is carrying a small leather bag. Joking that because everyone takes everything as a clue, he is going to draw out the arrival order for the Final Four right in front of us. Gardener will arrive first. Cole second. Gary third. Connie last. The crowd is chanting for him to toss them the balls, but he said they're the originals: destined for auction.} {Wow. It got quiet all of a sudden, didn't it?} {Anticipation. I've got more than a little myself. I want to see what these reactions look like.} {This limo is a lot bigger...} {Gardener is considerably larger in person than he is on my screen. Yes, I know how that sounds. It's just that you become used to seeing people of his proportions on television, particularly during football season. It's easy to tell oneself that his build is a common, everyday thing. I did not have a true sense of how large the man is until he made his way out of the limo. He is very large.} {Back to the ultra-short haircut, I see...} {Personally, I'd call this crowd reaction favorable, but with some deep-lurking doubt. Gardener's been a character -- in fact, he's gotten off some of the all-time lines this season -- but I'm not sure the local audience quite knows what he's about or how to take it. Looking at our jury vote speculation, I know we don't. Even though just about everyone believes this is the winner, I think they're going to hold off on the applause for that win until the votes come out. The winner -- but not the star.} {He probably doesn't care: Gardener is more about the win. And ironically enough, Gardener is about to win. Go figure.} {Not much of a waver, but in a way, he's been there before... acknowledging the crowd, echoing nearly everyone else in brushing off the reporters and he's got a lot of experience with that, even if it's out of date -- heading inside.} {Where's Audrey?} {Probably going in the stage door on West 56th. We haven't seen anyone else's families, either: they could be in the limos and just ducking in the side.} {That limo was not big enough for Phillip's family.} {Neither is Carnegie Hall, and Shea was just too cold to book.} {Quiet again. People are waiting.} {What are you going to do?} {Watch.} {Kind of curious about this one -- the story has jumped the river, New York will adopt New Jersey if they think there's any chance of getting a cheer out of it -- seriously: ask Gardener about Rutgers -- but the response may still be a question mark...} ----------------------------------------------------------------- And so (just about) ends the Great West Side Tour: the call just came in. "You're second." Yeah, I kind of knew that already. "Mr. Gardener, then you, Miss Cole." I'm mostly asking just to hear how he says it. "And what's the order after me?" "Mr. Watson and Mrs. Lastings-Adams." As predicted, at least for the way it came out. "The crowd's a lot bigger than they thought it would be -- there's people lined up for a few blocks away from the Hall. You'll be seeing them fairly soon." I wonder what security is like. How far it extends. If anyone's going to try and shoot out the window. Shoot through the windows... No, they've probably got things covered. Besides, my death threats are getting really* pathetic. No one's even the least bit original any more.* Which doesn't rule out the possibility of one lunatic with a gun trying to get to one lunatic inside the car. And Azure could get hit by a stray bullet. (There's no way they'll aim for the front, so the driver should be okay.) I give the glass an experimental rap. Seems solid enough. I think. It's not as if I have a lot of experience with bulletproof glass. Some more driving around. Watching Manhattan go by. I never get to do it this way. I'm seldom in the city -- a couple of research trips when books and Internet just won't do the job, taken only when there's no other option available -- and while I try to get as much exploration done as I can while I'm there, I usually don't wind up with a lot of spare time, mostly because the least expensive possible round-trip adds hours to the travel required. That's not lost time by any means: I can draw on the way there and back if the trains and buses don't hit too many bumps. But it doesn't leave me with a lot of extra hours for side trips, and I usually expend a lot of minutes just in getting to my primary destinations on foot. Using the subway system means having an immediate and dire need to get some sketches of the subway system... Strange, just being a passenger. Marissa would drive me between the school, doctor's office, and orphanage, with frequent stops at the police station. Mrs. Paglia had me in the back seat a few times and in the trunk exactly once before deciding it was too risky for her: the closet was more reliable. Riding along like this just doesn't happen all that often. In a limo -- the first and only time. And as a driver -- I won't be buying a car from my winnings unless I have no other choice for getting to my new job along the back roads of What's A Television? Plus it would have to be cheap. Very cheap. Four wheels and an engine. Steering possibly optional. Is there any good part coming tonight, especially given that the check will be only be presented tomorrow? Having the world watch make me a decision that won't work: no. Fail: definitely not. The display of complete insanity in front of most of my potential future minimum wage hiring bosses -- doesn't exactly qualify. On the other hand, I do get my sketchbook back, which is full of images I mostly don't want to see any more... I must be tired, because another sigh gets out: the driver glances back again. "Everything okay, Miss Cole?" It's official: I'm really* in a mood tonight.* "Just worried about Azure," I tell him. I am, but that was a thought from earlier. "If it's a big crowd, and they're loud -- I'm sure she's not afraid of gunfire, but I don't know about crowds. She could freak out really easily." "Have a little faith in her -- I think she'll do okay." Plus no one provided a wrist leash, so faith, hope, and the other things I'm no good at are all we have. "It's been loud for you before and she's stayed with you." Probably not this loud. And I don't know what the reaction is going to be. Sympathy and pity at the street fair, but I was the local girl and virtually everyone had read the article. This time... Gardener's in. We start our approach: turn onto Seventh Avenue, head down the street. Nothing visible yet, but we're still quite a few blocks away and the sun set some time ago: seeing by headlights, streetlights, and the perpetual glow of Manhattan. Not much traffic for most of the waiting drive: unusual for the city, but it's still Christmas Eve. There seem to be a few more cars going this way. A little sidewalk traffic -- okay, we were just passed by another limo -- and there's people on the sidewalk heading that way -- -- and that would be a lot* more people on the sidewalk...* What did that sign say? Something about a Mary-Jane fan club, right? Interesting outfits in that group... and these people are from the District, they're here to support Gary -- that is a lot of blue and yellow: didn't anyone from Ann Arbor go home for Christmas, or are there just that many students in this area? That last sign said something about me, didn't it? And -- wait: those are portable bleachers, and there's a lot of people crammed into them -- do I know that face? No, that couldn't have been Rodger, could it? Just someone who looked like him. With so many people, there's going to be a few of them who look like other people. Sound like them too, and right now, they sound very, very loud, and they're getting louder... I glance at Azure: how's she taking this? Well so far, but once we get outside... The limo pulls up to the curb. The crowd takes this as a cue to increase the volume by a lot. No choice but to chance it. "Okay... Azure, here." Onto my left shoulder she goes. "Thank you for the ride." "My pleasure," the driver tells me. "Good luck tonight, Miss Cole!" It's too late... "Thank you," I tell him again, because there aren't any other words that really work. There definitely aren't any which would bring me actual luck. It already happened. The results are in and they aren't exactly in favor of me. I've known it for months, tried not to think about it too much. All this does is get me this much closer to finishing the last stage, at least for the current part of the punishment. A breath used for the words is one closer to the end of the game. Unfortunately, it's also one closer to getting out of this limo. And they probably know I'm coming. I don't even want to look out the window any more. Just take a deep breath -- "Azure, stay with me... stay..." -- open the door, try to get out in one smooth, fast motion -- I try to avoid cliches in the strip when I can, but I still find myself using them every so often. Someone once said they're the shortcuts of language: terms that we all know and recognize, even if we've never personally experienced them. They may sound silly, and some of them have been overused to the point where they should be losing meaning, but they keep trying to push their way in, time after time. A wall of noise. Sound like a fist. I step out of the limo, and I find out what both of them really mean. It starts as being almost deafeningly loud, and it's gaining decibels by the second. Someone has to inhale soon, there has to be a break in this, but maybe they're coordinated so that anyone exhaling is covering for those needing a fresh breath. Constant, non-stop noise, slamming into my eardrums, driving into my skull, making Phillip's necklace vibrate, it won't slow down, it won't get any softer, it can't be broken down into words, it just keeps gaining strength -- -- and Azure's perfectly content with it. Not going anywhere. Just perching on my shoulder, wondering if we're just going to stay here in this or go somewhere else. She's fine either way -- -- maybe because it's cheering. Looking around at people's faces. A little distaste here and there, but mostly -- sympathy is a notable category. Some pity. The start of a few tears. Those tears may have begun flowing while the limo was still on the approach. But -- I think that may actually be adoration a few rows up. Definitely support over there. And other things, things I have never seen being directed towards me, things that are going to go away forever in a few hours and I don't want to see them now, to know I had them once, even for a few seconds, at a cost of never being able to see them again... I have to walk. I have to go inside. And they're not stopping. Take a step. There are reporters on the carpet, plus a few people. I know some of them, don't I? Familiar faces, and one of them comes up to me, someone who would never, ever speak to me, someone who makes more money than I do in a year just by taking a breath, tells me she's rooting for me, wishes me luck. I just barely manage to thank her without explaining about the tense problem on top of it. Another step. Signs in the crowd. They want me to go. For the moment, that means win. Later, it'll mean 'to the nearest asylum'. Where is Bellevue in relation to the Hall? Keep moving. Someone else wishes me luck. I thank him and tell him I really like his series, especially when the writers send him on an extended rant because he's so good at those. He laughs at that. Azure laughs too, which doesn't seem to unnerve him too badly. I think about sending him to Gardener, who could give him a few cues on extended rants... The exterior of the Hall is -- stately. Ochre bricks, and they have to be over a century old, don't they? Terracotta touches here, brownstone there. One tall stack of rooms off to one side, which should unbalance the structure and somehow doesn't. A rich red carpet shows the way to the door. All I have to do is get down that carpet and it'll be one more thing done. Keep going. The crowd is still picking up volume. It makes it hard to hear the reporter, or at least that's the most convenient excuse available. Another one. Sorry, I can't be interviewed yet. No, while you can try to interview Azure, I don't think you're going to really get anywhere with it, and she has to come with me. I have to get inside. People waving at me from the stands. I look up. No one I know. I guess I should wave back a little, maybe try to give something in the last hours before everyone hates me or runs away from the crazy girl. Yes, hello. We're here. We're all here and I have to get inside because Gary isn't that far behind me. A poorly-made paper airplane lands a few feet in front of me and falls open. It looks like there's a phone number on it. It also looks like security is moving through the stands to see who threw it. A little further down. No, I'm sorry, I don't get to many movies. Any movies, really, except for the time I spotted a readmittance pass blowing along the side of the road and managed to grab it before it went into the sewer, although I'm not telling you that part. But I still know who you are and maybe I can see it when it comes out for home viewing, because Amazon can't back out of the Reward. What went into my fashion choice for the night? The temperature. Yes, this is really Phillip's necklace. Yes, those are real jaguar claws. Yes, this is really Azure. Okay, so apparently I have to prove it's Azure and not some kind of stunt parrot because this reporter is exactly that stupid. Fine. Not a problem. Azure? Beg. End of discussion, although some people are now chanting Azure's name in between chanting mine, and she actually has a few support signs of her own. Lots of bird-lovers in this group. This is one of the longest short walks in history, although Azure seems to have spared me from any more reporters because now they know I can make her do that again. No, wait -- one more. Do I have a what pick? Sorry, ask Trina. What exactly is the total lung capacity of this crowd? Someone holding something out -- the Ledger section. No, I will not sign the article. Fine, recoil back into the stands, see if anyone there can fake my handwriting. More signs. More chanting. I try a little more waving to see if it'll settle them down any. It doesn't seem to be working. Actually, no, I don't buy any CDs, I don't own an MP3 player of any kind, and the radio stations I listen to don't play your kind of music. But I'm sure you're very good. Thank you. Yes, I'm a Mets fan too. The door is getting very close and the time required to reach it is ridiculous. It's a very nice sign. It's a very nice button. I have no idea what you thought you were going to accomplish by lifting your sweater just then. That's the door, that's just one more step, and -- "-- what a nightmare." A slow exhale followed by an equally-timed reversal, gathering in strength that he probably doesn't need. "I knew this was going to be intense today, but... wow." Cameron manages a half-smile, followed by a shrug. "At least you were actively trying to get in -- we practically had to lasso Robin." I can believe it. "Has it been that loud for everyone?" My ears aren't ringing, but give them a minute to catch on to what actually just happened... A quick head shake. "You've got the volume record so far -- come on: I've got to take you backstage." I follow him through the arches of the lobby. "But it has been loud." Someone tries to intercept: Cameron politely tells them we're on a schedule and they can see me at the party afterwards. I don't have one minute? Not according to Cameron. Okay, fine, but this one isn't used to 'no' and will be pouting for the rest of the evening or until someone takes a picture of it for the record, whichever comes first. "We're keeping people out of the Hall until you all get in -- should have used the stage door for easier access, but everyone wanted the big production..." Through the doors -- -- white. Gold. Still more red on the carpets. Warm lighting passing across soft curves rendered in seeming-stone, the Hall arching up and out and then up some more, private boxes on the first tier above ground level, huge TV screens mounted in front of them to give everyone extra viewing angles, of course people are going to be watching the show while they wait -- how far up does this thing go? Perfect symmetry in the design, but this thing has literal nosebleed seating... It's not a huge event. It's barely any kind of event. But putting it here helps make the illusion a little stronger. Cameron's amused. "It takes just about everyone that way the first time: they all stop and look. It really slowed down the reconstruct for the first few hours... It's a hundred and five steps just to reach the top of the balcony level, and you can't even get to the bottom of that by elevator. But we barely needed sound enhancement -- the acoustics for this place are unbelievable. You can practically drop a pin on the stage and count the bounces from anywhere in the building." Let's not talk about needs for sound enhancement, all right? But as long as he just mentioned the stage -- my first look went up and around. Every part of the Hall itself points towards one place, and that's -- -- very, very strange... Cameron glances at me. "Come on -- we have to go up and through -- something wrong?" The question mark is probably visible. And stopping cold might have something to do with it. "Just surprised that there's no orchestra pit." I'd never seen the interior before this and wasn't expecting the seats to come all the way up to the stage. "And that the stage is so small." Relatively small, anyway -- and it may just look that way because it has Tribal Council taking virtually all of it up. The fireplace is here, the jury seats, positions for Connie and myself, they even built a false floor on top of the real one, Jeff's throne is in just the right place and the plaques are lined up along the wall... Frank's torch is right where it should be. Connie's and mine aren't yet. "And -- I've never seen Council like this. Not in exterior lighting that wasn't moonlight." Or sunlight, just once. He nods. "It's a little weird to see it this way." It's probably just as unnerving to be this close to me, but he's covering it up well. I wonder if he drew the short straw, having to be the crew member who dealt with me. Actually... ...that brings up a question. "Is Julia here?" Just curious. She won't want to see me after that last Council any more than the rest of the crew does. A long pause -- and then "No. She left the camera crew and went back to her original job." I wonder if bringing Phil in had anything to do with that. At least she had an original job to go back to... All I've got is my current one, and I may be about to lose that. Following Cameron down the aisle. "It doesn't look finished." And that's when you factor things like the missing Council roof out. Possibly because it isn't. "We still have to place a few things -- your torch is one of them." Up onto the stage, walk past the empty jury seats. Very strange, and I think that's because it's so empty. It's not the missing pieces -- not the inanimate ones. There's always been someone at Council waiting for us, the detail that let us know it was real on some kind of level. Without Jeff, this is just a set. Off into the wings, going backstage. Lots of computers here, monitoring equipment, waiting to decree nearly-instant camera switches. People, all too busy making sure the electronics are ready to spare any time in glancing at me. We're going to be live: either they're on their game or there is no game. Deeper into the structure. Photographs of musicians line the walls, past performers. They're all autographed, and they're all made out to the Hall itself. I don't think my picture will be joining theirs any time soon. "Are there any changes in the schedule?" I got the revised timetable, but there was still time to switch things around. "We're on schedule so far," he assures me. "Right now, we're heading into Carnegie Tower -- the building next door. The Hall connects with it, and they use it as an extra backstage area. There's also banquet halls there: that's where the party's going to be. And it's how we got everyone their own dressing room." Keep us all separate no matter what it takes, until the moment we have to be forced together again. "Once you're in there, you'll get changed into your Council clothes, someone will do your makeup, and after that, you stay in your room until we call you." A few flat-screen televisions have been placed on the walls: no part of the episode will be missed if anyone can help it. "This is serious, Alex -- you do not leave your dressing room for anything short of fire, flood, or full-scale assault. You've been back under show rules since the moment you walked in: right now, that means no contact with the others, and no talking to anyone when you reach the stage. We need silence until the live portion starts. You'll be one of the last two on -- we'll flip a coin to see if you or Connie go first." Probably not a gold eagle, although I'm due to get mine back later. "The stage will be shadowed throughout the show. We bring the jury in one at a time as it airs, starting about halfway through. In the last few minutes, we bring you and Connie out. Jeff's entrance segment gives us a little extra leeway there if we need it. But as soon as the lights come up, we're live. Understood?" I nod. "Okay." Which comes out a lot lighter than everything before it did. "I know it's going to be a long night, Alex -- we're just trying to get you through it as smoothly as possible." I wonder how long he had to practice that line before it came out with that much reassurance. Probably just about as much time as it took him to stop arguing that the draw was rigged. "They're still looking at a long party?" And a sigh. "A very long party. Coke loaded the banquet hall up, but it's not like that's going to matter for you... down this way." I follow him a little further, and we eventually wind up in a corridor with lots of doors on both sides. Each door has a name on it, and every name has a little two-dimensional torch beneath it. There will be eight of us in this section, equally divided between Haraiki and Turare. Connie will be in another area. Gary will be two doors down from me: his flat torch is the only other one that's lit, as far as an extra bit of red paper can be considered as 'lit'. Cute. Cameron nods to me. Azure nods back. "Okay -- right through there, Alex. Your Council clothes are waiting -- someone will be in to do your makeup in a little while." I join the nodding party, move for the door, start to open it -- and, very softly, as if he doesn't want anyone else to hear the words, "I guess I should have kept hitting him." Turning, looking at him. Weary now, worn down by something he had no control over, wondering what he could have done differently and if it would have changed anything in the end. Very familiar to see. "Neither of us wound up facing any charges for it. And even if he gets out of the hospital --" read: lives "-- he'll be in prison for a long time." If he ever wakes up at all... The self-inflicted exhaustion is momentarily replaced by frustration. "I know, but --" and dead stop. "I'm not supposed to talk to you about this." So we're really back under show rules. "Go inside, Alex -- they're waiting on my cue to bring Gary back." No problem: getting out of Gary's sight range for a while is definitely on my goal list for the evening. I go inside and close the door behind me. It's not a bad dressing room, I guess: I really don't have much to compare it to. A long makeup counter with a huge mirror behind it, currently reflecting a large array of cosmetics. One variable-elevation rotating chair with my Council clothes folded on top of it. A mini-fridge next to the perch for Azure: she's got her own treats. One television so I can watch the show while I wait. And that's pretty much it. I was half-expecting my sketchbook to be waiting for me, but -- nothing. Maybe during the Reunion: congratulations, Alex, you made the entire country be afraid of you forever -- but as a consolation prize, here's your sketchbook back. You'll note all the little arrows I made which indicate the times when you were being the biggest idiot the series has ever seen. Confiscated in the mansion long before I reached the helicopter, no time to draw anything which had happened at Council. No desire to draw any of that -- and it's still vivid. The expression on Gary's face when he'd been asking about the rape that never was... I know that in his eyes, I betrayed him. Betrayals happen in the game. You could argue that I backstabbed every last Turare on the jury. But I would have never believed I'd done anything that could make him hate me that much -- -- and then his question had come out. Just another monster who was too good at wearing his mask. I still have a lot to learn about spotting them. Another good argument in favor of isolation: it's not a skill I want to have excessive chances at practicing, because the penalty for getting it wrong is too high. I get Azure to her perch -- this takes some effort: she doesn't want to go much of anywhere tonight -- and lock the door before changing. The outfit has been cleaned, but strategically so: no odor, no mildew or mold -- and still just as dirty as it was on the last night, plus the bloodstains haven't exactly gotten any smaller. Slip on the blouse -- -- okay, I have a problem: that sleeve is still missing, and the bandage wasn't anywhere in the clothing stack. The scars are on full display. Maybe that's what Production wants for drama, but it's not exactly a match for what I had on during the Council: shouldn't there be some kind of covering here? I don't care about the appearance of my arm: it still works, after all. I just wish they'd be completely consistent. I brought the right shoes: they can supply the right bandage. This probably means my hair won't be trimmed. Sitting down in the chair, looking at the makeup which I have no idea how to use. Examining the scars while wondering if they'll have some kind of highlights applied, then turning my arm to see how they reflect in the mirror -- but they don't matter. They just say I had a bad minute with a jaguar once, and if you think this looks bad, you should see the other party. But it's not as if many other people have seen them before. Selected ones in Medical. Mr. Brooks, but he forgot. Rosanne, a little shaken, but other things had happened to induce that state. And Matt, who hadn't really taken anything well. An audience full of what frequently gets called 'the beautiful people', looking at the scars... ...well, they were going to hate me anyway. The scars will probably just add to the fear. A knock at the door. This had better not be a player. "Makeup!" And it isn't. I open the door and get an older woman of medium height and perfectly-crafted appearance. Not a wrinkle, line, or hair out of place. And yet no one ever really works on their hands, which are very visible because she's holding up a tray full of last-minute additions to the cosmetics counter -- and one bandage, which was probably added less for authenticity and more to keep the weaker people in the Hall from fainting. "Good, you're already changed -- just take a seat and we'll get to work." I nod and head for it: she sets the tray down and locks the door behind her. "This shouldn't take too long -- just a few light touches for that no-cosmetics look. This is mostly to take off any shine we might get under the lights..." The trail-off may have come because she's just gotten her first good look at the scars. She's still looking at them. Yes, let's protect the delicate constitutions. Particularly Desmond's. We just don't want to let a man near that kind of thing. "You can do the bandage first," I offer, and she immediately moves for it. Not the medical model I'd used after the attack: this one closes with velcro. It looks like Jeff will be asking me for a reveal sometime during the Reunion: we advise those with weak stomachs to leave the Hall at this time. The covering only takes a few seconds. The removal of my watch requires a few more, but there's a clock in the dressing room. Powders come out, get applied to brushes which are softly rubbed across my skin. I try very hard to sit still until it's over. Azure watches with light fascination: more attempts to change feathers. Humans make no sense. A long night ahead of me -- but the time is passing. It has to pass. Eventually, the most direct part of the pain will come to an end, and then I'll be free to try and find whatever life I can make after destroying myself in front of what the newspaper was predicting as a potential all-time record viewing audience for a non-sporting event. I'd already planned a story arc that could wrap up the strip in a matter of three months, just in case. The person who falls off the cliff isn't the one who lands... The one who came back to the dressing room to change back into street clothes wouldn't be the one who'd suffered through the final events on stage. I can't believe they'd have very much to say to each other. And if they did -- -- I don't listen to myself very well. "Wait, Alex. Just wait..." He should go away the second the real one appears. There are no miracles. I'm just waiting for pain. I'll stick to what I'm good at. Connie's cheers are going to raise the balcony by three steps. ----------------------------------------------------------------- {That. Was. Loud.} {Yes, it was. I can say that because I'm at work right now, four blocks away, and I still heard it.} {Four? Seven and one over.} {You're both working on Christmas Eve?} {Yep. Life happens. Fortunately, so does overtime. But I'm counting on the update thread tonight if I don't get out of here in time.} {I don't think that reporter took Alex's little piece of parrot proof very well...} {Jumping about six feet straight up might have been a mild hint in that direction, yeah. Too bad: it was a stupid question and it got a definitive answer. The crowd got a major kick out of it, though -- at least the ones who didn't have minor heart attacks on the spot.} {Any personal impressions here now that you've been that close to your mortal enemy?} {I'm guessing that you're speaking to me... As Gardener was larger than I'd thought, Cole seems slightly shorter. She is very subdued in her movements, and always slightly wary of what's happening around her. The waving to the crowd felt like something she was doing because she felt it was expected of her, not because she was particularly enjoying it. At one point, she looked over my row. It was very brief, and all I truly saw were three things. That I need a new television because her eyes are a deeper grey than I'd thought, and her expression was what we have seen on the show since the start. Quiet and neutral. But there was something else there, I believe -- just the lightest touch of patience. She's waiting for something.} {The official end of the show, I'd bet. She's had one of the hardest runs ever, and most of us have her going out in second place -- just let her in there, hear the votes, and call it over.} {Says you. I still have her in fourth.} {If it means anything at all, Azure is an absolutely beautiful bird.} {You will never hear this kind of cheering for an IRS agent again.} {Gary's definitely got his own fan club here, doesn't he? Well, I wondered what all those people in suits were doing in the stands...} {There is something -- tense about him. He's smiling and responding to the crowd, but his walk doesn't match his expression.} {Not really seeing it.} {I'm somewhat closer. It's subtle, but I believe it's there. There is something on Gary's mind right now.} {Huh. Okay, now that we just got a closeup -- yeah, something about his eyes in that shot. Is he Final Two and he's stressed out over whether or not he won?} {Or maybe he just knows everyone's about to confront him on the whole 'IRS agent' thing. We've gotten that as an ID below his name in confessionals, so any contestants watching at home would have found out about his little deception on Day One. We just don't know if it ever came out on the show -- tonight is pretty much his last chance to confess, and if he was Final Two, it would not have been in his best interests to reveal it on that spot.} {Shaking hands with a few people, quick exchanges with a couple of the celebrities on the mat -- we're seeing more of a flow into the party now -- and in he goes. Polite with the reporters, but you'd really think they'd stop trying already. Except for the one Alex got, who may be in recovery for a while.} {All right -- the last of the contestant limos is on the approach. The crowd is getting kind of quiet.} {Strangely quiet on my end. It's like there's been a group decision made and no one's let me in on it.} {Even for Connie, that's a pretty expensive ride.} {I'm still shocked Robin didn't pull up in her Sunfire and ask where the valet was.} {...if Medical is waiting backstage, I would like Dietrich to look at my ears now.} {Look! Down on the carpet! It's a bitch! It's a blur! It's Connie Lastings-Adams! Yes, it's Connie Lastings-Adams, strange visitor from another mindset, who using her powers of mental distortion, selected blindness, and outright bitchery leads a never-ending battle for Her Truth, Her Justice, and nothing but Her Way!} {As a mental image, the cape beats out the rosary bead shooters. No matter where they were coming from.} {I want to call that reaction 'mixed'. There were a few people trying to cheer for her -- a section several rows above me. Possibly a hometown contingent. But they were by and large completely drowned out by everything else. I have to wonder just how many of the signs actually made the broadcast, or if they were able to blur what they were shooting.} {I saw one. 'Connie's Going To Heaven -- So Why Can't She Start Now?' I'd call that pretty direct without having to call for broadcast censorship.} {Any impressions of your heroine?} {She was moving rather quickly -- marching more than walking or running. Her main intention was to get into the Hall and away from the sound as fast as she could possibly manage. Ignored every reporter and celebrity in favor of the most direct path. Visibly angry about the reaction, but she was angry from the moment she exited the limousine. I think this may actually add to the theory of her going out in third after Gardener removes her from the game -- she hardly looks like someone who's coming in to pick up a million-dollar check.} {The actual check is tomorrow, but I can see what you mean. Not happy -- and not expecting a reaction on that scale. Doesn't she know she's the villain?} {Connie's kind of isolated, isn't she? Even in the non-ultra-rich parts, the Hamptons are like their own little world -- and she never exactly struck me as the sort of person who'd log on and lurk here to see what we were thinking. Gardener, yes, even if his actions were just about invisible there -- unless you think our UMich guy vanished on his own. Elmore, we have confirmation on. I can even see Alex taking the occasional peek, although that's kind of remote and mostly based on how well she seemed to know the show all the way through. But Connie? I don't think we're her kind of people. And we've gotten so little in sightings from her area -- I know we don't exactly have potential eyewitnesses out there, but the media's been quiet on her end, too. Maybe she's just been moving between her committees and church since this thing began, staying in her own circles and nothing else -- if anyone's that type, she is. She hasn't seen what her edit -- and let's face it, her actions -- have been tilting people towards, and I don't think she's capable of seeing herself in that light. That might have been her first really big clue as to what people have decided to think of her 'example'.} {Except that she exited angry, and they didn't really begin until she came out. Perhaps an argument in the limousine?} {She definitely dressed up for this -- made out to the nineteens more than the nines. Connie came to show off a little -- but then the crowd cast a very loud vote, and she decided it wasn't worth it. Getting out of the storm instead of shouting at the clouds. Kind of surprised she didn't yell back, but I'm not exactly complaining either.} {You know, if she'd just moved that fast during the game, she would have won a few individual challenges...} {Okay -- that's it for contestants. And since listening to a thousand inane celebrities give their predictions was really more suited to that recrap masquerading as a pregame, I may just turn this off for a while. Unless anyone else shows up wearing that kind of dress, in which case, I may stay tuned.} {Is it just me, or is there a lot of purple on display tonight?} {You think this is purple? Wait until you see the media's prose tomorrow after Gardener wins. Sports metaphors from people who have no idea how to use them. And that's just in the sports pages.} {I believe I'll stay and watch for a while. It's the first time I've been this close to a major fashion parade.} {Just brace yourself for an equally big DAW one. And I'm talking about the people wearing the fashions.} {How isolated do you think they are backstage?} {I'm guessing sixteen players, sixteen dressing rooms. They could really cram the Sequesterville Six (plus Frank) into one room and not worry about it, but everyone else has to stay out of contact. I'm almost surprised we haven't heard anything coming from Tony's attempts to call Angela -- but then, he never got through.} {I bet I know one thing -- right now, for whoever the Final Two are, this can't end soon enough. It's been a hell of a ride -- but you reach the point where you have to get off.} {While we've got time: any predictions on how Jeff makes his entrance this year?} {Rises through a trapdoor in the floor.} {Swoops in from the ceiling on replicas of Azure's wings.} {Teleport. Someone's got to do it eventually. 'Jeff to MB: we have found intelligent players, and they're scaring me...'} -----------------------------------------------------------------
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Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
02-07-07, 00:05 AM (EST)

1. "Does The Game Ever Really End?: Part II"

LAST EDITED ON 02-13-07 AT 05:46 PM (EST)
The television will only show CBS.
It's a long wait and for the most part, it's a quiet one. I play with Azure for a while: unused eyebrow pencils are good for fetch. Talking to her, trying to see if I can find any new commands in the time we've got. I can't, and I'm still not getting anything out of her regarding her time with Jeff. Mostly it's just play, petting, and watching her have fun with the treats and immediate environment. She seems to be having some trouble figuring out the brushes. Lightly-powdered feathers, anyone?
No noise from the other rooms. I'm between Trooper's and Angela's, and I keep trying to hear something -- but nothing comes. The only sounds I ever get are from outside: people moving up and down the hallways. More makeup delivery, possibly, or the crew making sure no one's escaped. At one point, I try my door and find out that it also locks very well from the outside: none of us are going anywhere until the word is given. It doesn't bother me too much: the dressing room is considerably larger and better-lit than a closet, plus it comes with company.
There's probably no chance they'll just leave me here for the rest of the night. 'Oops, we forgot one. We'll just read the votes without her.' I'm not going to hold out for that kind of miracle and barricading the door isn't a realistic option. I wouldn't be able to prop the perch the right way.
Waiting. Waiting for the moment when no one will ever want to look at me again. Isolation is one thing. Privacy another. But to have everyone afraid of the insanity I could pull out at any time...
I think I know how much that's going to hurt. I want to think that. It's just not something I've ever experienced before, at least not for this level of intensity.
I wonder if it'll be worse than the jaguar. Or Council.
I wonder how I'm getting through this...
Time passes -- and the show starts. I bring Azure over and we watch it together, although she doesn't seem very interested. By the end of the recap, she's ruffling her feathers with active boredom, and I let her go back to wandering around the room again, checking in whenever she feels like it. Why would she want to watch the show? She got to see most of it firsthand. The maze challenge really doesn't interest her: let's discuss those perch treats! But she does come over to look during my talk with Gary on Turare's beach, far too much of which seems to have made the show. Not as attentive during the following Council. Vaguely curious about the Fallen Comrades walk, but only on and off. I'd thought they'd use the footage of Gardener with the dagger, believed he might have done it just to get a little more television time, and sure enough, there it is. Gardener was always good at getting the camera to go in his direction, and I was never sure just how much of it was done with exactly that goal in mind.
The final Immunity challenge, and Azure comes over to me for this one. I'm on a national broadcast in bra and panties: she probably thinks I need all the feathery comfort I can get. Yes, I do look like hell after a while, but so does he. Connie goes out, Gardener tries to talk me into following her. And --
-- something -- strange. There's something going on in that swingaround shot that I don't remember. Or maybe I just don't want to.
People are walking down the hallway. They may be starting to bring us out. Leading people to their seats in the jury section one at a time: no contact with their fellow voters until the Reunion starts. Thousands of miles away, months removed, but you still have to sit in the same position. Angela's next door, she would probably go first -- which would end with her sitting next to Tony, and that's going to be so hard for him... The others waiting somewhere backstage until the results are read, holding on the 'they all crowd in and pretend they care' shot. None of them will come close to me. No need for Trina to show the eighth card, not on a loss, but Jeff will probably ask her to bring it out anyway...
I'd never seen Gardener fall. It seems to take a very long time.
Connie taking him down the Tree Mail path, and now I finally know exactly what they were saying, or at least the 'exactly' that exists after editing. He was going to take her. Or he wasn't going to take her. Lying to someone, and it didn't matter in the end, at least for his presence at the Final Two. Because I had the necklace and I took Connie because at the time, I thought it was the only chance I had. A minuscule chance, one too small to see and barely present enough to imagine, but if I'd had any chance at all, it had to be through bringing Connie. So that was my vote, and the editing hides it until the last possible second. There's some very good shots of the subsequent detonation, especially given how much they had to cover in a short time.
Commercials. Very expensive commercials. Some really good commercials. It makes me wonder if there's going to be anything decent left over for the Super Bowl. Coke going with a 'I've never had one before' theme for one ad, followed by a job-finding company using a jungle background. I'm still pretty sure they won't be able to locate anything for me that isn't minimum wage.
The walk back to camp. Julia's confronting me, and where in the world is she now? Not here tonight. I don't know if I wanted to see her. I didn't want to see anyone, not for any longer than I had to, but -- Julia filmed my confessionals. Even if I don't know how many of those words she ever really listened to, she was still there for them, in what were supposed to be my unguarded moments even if they never really worked out that way...
...but she hadn't laughed at me. Questioned, probed, tried to get anything that could be used against me later -- but never laughed. Even if she'd never truly heard them, she'd at least pretended to take my words seriously. I want to think she's happy back at her old job, even if she doesn't get to interact as much as she used to. Or maybe she does: Racers have confessionals, and they talk to the camera anywhere and everywhere, although you never see that camera unless things go extremely weird. Even so, it's probably not an interview style...
...back in camp. Connie's still up. Connie's drunk and in the mood to talk. Teach. Up until this point, Connie's edit hadn't exactly been hiding who she was. 'Soulless' had made the broadcast after the jaguar attack and from that point on, we'd been building up towards this. Angela had said it: this wasn't Big Brother and the audience didn't have to like the winner. Connie was the winner, but she could be the winning villain too. Some people might see her that way. Others would support her. I didn't want to think about how many of each, mostly because whenever I did, I got back to wondering whether she had found what her religion was really about, and everyone else had moved away from her basic truth. Assuming they didn't secretly follow it themselves. A nation of believers: that might be an extra reason to get out of the country. Openly identified as soulless and treated as such everywhere I could go in this one -- but the English-speaking lands I could retreat to were the ones most likely to be heavily Christian.
I'd wanted to believe Connie held a minority opinion. I hadn't been very good at that, either. The Bibles I'd tried to read had ultimately told me nothing that confirmed or denied what she'd said, a billion ways to think through the words, all of which depended on what you'd wanted to see there in the first place --
-- when did they decide to air this?
You can't talk about anything that might make the air until that particular episode clears -- and sometimes not even then. I hadn't been able to tell Marissa about the fate of the recorder because I'd known what I'd said on the island. It would never make the episode, there was no chance of it reaching the air -- but since the footage existed, I couldn't discuss anything in it until they'd failed to display it. Another night for being one hundred percent dead wrong, because there it was...
They must have gotten an early edition of the newspaper. Or someone at the Ledger called them, let them know what was going on -- whatever it was, there was enough time for them to find this and splice it in. They couldn't have been planning on bringing it out originally... and to have that with practically all the footage of Julia and I talking about what no one ever heard...
That they would show Connie talking about her specific beliefs, yes: in time, I'd decided they would wind up using it. But to go this far? I'd done everything short of calling Edward a murderer (through action or neglect, take your pick, but the house will probably accept a double bet) on national television with an additional worldwide feed -- and they'd aired it. Yes, it was all wrapped up with my bringing up the plan's failure, but there must have been some way they could have edited the footage to leave my near-accusation out...
Another reason to get out of the country: I might wind up fleeing a lawsuit I had no way of paying for.
Softly, "If that door wasn't locked and most of the country didn't know my face, I'd give some serious thought to running for it right now." Azure takes this as the cue for a nuzzle. "But without my check, I wouldn't be able to get that far... and I don't get that without going through this..."
A strange morning. A very weird afternoon. And what might turn out to be the single worst night of my life. Is there a lawyer in the audience? Connie could sue me before I even get off the stage. Mrs. Paglia would be laughing...
Too early. Gary had made me talk about Mr. Massee. I'd thought the press would dig into things after it came out, unless the Council was edited so drastically as to erase both question and answer altogether. Not a very intensive dig, of course: a reality contestant was nearly the victim of sexual assault once, so that's good for about six paragraphs and then we'll forget it. And Mrs. Paglia's name had come out twice, the second in footage that I'd never thought would be used, it could have been edited out of the first -- but even so, there was a small chance of someone looking into the name. I hadn't really believed that would happen -- but if it did, it would happen late, and in a very minor way. There just wouldn't be much to find anyway. I'd never found anything in the way of definitive paperwork, documents that would let me prove what she had been beyond anyone's ability to doubt. A quick investigation at best, vague hopes of a Sunday filler for some small local paper -- then nothing.
But I'd found myself on the lowest tier of celebrity -- and nothing says celebrity like a good scandal. Someone had looked, and there had been something to find.
She left her husband right in front of me... I had to hold on to that. Something good had come from all this, even if it was only short-term. Even if he would just hit her all the harder when she inevitably went back...
Punishing myself before Jeff got the chance. No point in it. Back to watching the show.
The ashes. I'd gone, Connie hadn't. Yes, I'd tried to get her out there. More footsteps outside, and Phillip isn't in this part of the backstage area. Wherever he is, he knows now. I wonder what he'll say to her on stage. If he'll say anything. He took her breaking the alliance without anger: he'll probably just shrug this one off too. Connie rehearsing her words, and they'd been good words. My weaker ones over the urn. The Azure on the screen says she loves me. The one in the dressing room has responded to nothing my counterpart on television has said. She knows that's not really me there.
I'll say it to her one last time before I go. It doesn't matter if it brings out the response or not.
The last hours. Fishing. Related to presidents, yes, of course she is, I'd believed that immediately. It might have been strange to put that much faith in something Connie was saying, but she'd really had no reason to lie. Boast, yes -- but not lie.
Someone else in the corridor, but just one person coming down this time. Two heading back.
Tribal Council.
I don't have Angela. I don't have Phillip. I had Robin until I lost it at the end. I never had a chance to get Mary-Jane, and she still hasn't forgiven me, she never will. Tony at least let me know, and I'm still grateful for that. Gary...
Looking at myself from the outside, one of the strangest things about watching the show. The camera is focused on me. Mostly shots of my face, the occasional small rotation as a camera operator moves for different angles. My voice does come across as almost being sleepy at the start. More hesitant. Forced neutrality. The ghosts of expressions: almost getting there, almost reacting -- but then forced back into the dark, even as the words keep coming. Gary pulling out all of it and then not believing any of it.
I'd hated him. For months, I'd hated him. Gary without a clue out there, my virtual Jeff had said. No, he'd had one. Several. He'd been able to pick them out and hold onto them until the moment they would hurt the most. What would he have done if he'd somehow been next to me at Final Two? Made me look unbalanced, disturbed, presented his theories in closing remarks the way Connie had expertly given hers? I'd wanted to believe he was my ally. To think that he wouldn't hurt me, if only for just long enough. I'd been wrong about him. I'd been wrong about Mr. Massee, too.
I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about Gary since I'd gotten back. Looking back at the person I'd been, the one who had started to believe he could actually be trusted just because he'd cast a vote once -- that person had been an idiot. Gary had probably just been afraid of getting stuck with Desmond too. He wouldn't have been able to pull out the same arguments for Desmond. Too much extra work to get them.
What was his wife thinking, somewhere in the audience? How did she see her husband? How would his children look at this?
A lawyer and lawyers in training. They'd probably given him hints on cross-examination before he'd started and applauded when he'd used them like an expert. Gardener's question --
-- another knock. "Alex? It's time."
It's finally time. I get Azure on my shoulder, take one glance in the mirror. I don't look exactly like I did on Day Thirty-Nine. The weight loss was reversed, my hair is longer and has more shine to it, plus the injuries have healed. But the pain is still there, just under the surface -- and it makes things close enough.
It feels like there's something strange about my eyes. Maybe it's just from not wanting to look at myself.
The door opens. I know the face: Chris, the once-and-future challenge test-drive dummy. Just about my age. "Come on -- you're the last one." Gardener is into his rant now. "Are you ready?" He looks very nervous. Also a little tired. It probably was a very water-intensive season and he's still recovering from it.
I nod. "Let's get this over with." Out the door. He doesn't really have to lead me back: I was paying close attention to the path all the way down. But he stays close. No last opportunity to run, at least not one that can go without witnesses. They want to keep an eye on me up through the final seconds, which is why there's someone else behind me. Someone new, someone big.
I would never kill myself... I still won't. But Gardener's rant is playing on the television screens, he'll be at his question in a few breaths --
-- and as soon as the person who existed in the past gives her answer, torn from the core of an insanity that went deeper than I ever wanted to believe, a part of the person in the present will die.
I found out why I came. I realized what I wanted. I never got it. And as soon as those words are heard -- I start to lose everything else.
It's Night Thirty-Nine. It's time for everything to end.
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Before
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{And here comes the jury. Angela's about as unhappy to be here as you'd expect, Tony may have actually adjusted, Phillip's more than fine with this, Mary-Jane will probably not have a complete emotional collapse but hold your bets until we get more evidence, Robin would like at least one of her fans to live through the night, Gary is still very much off-duty, and Gardener would like us to know who he works for, who he roots for, and how little he probably likes long hair, at least on himself. So who won the overall Jury Fashion Plate award, or was that question a total waste of electrons?}
{Mary-Jane in a model walk, but Robin placed a decent second. I can't give much credit to Angela because she never really varied her look, and let's just not discuss Phillip or Tony, okay? I declare mercy rule. And I hate plaid, so I wish Phillip would declare it for me...}
{Follow-ups? Okay... this is actually something I've been wanting to see introduced for a while, but I'm not sure how much it's going to impact this particular vote. Here's hoping they hold it over.}
{And to hope it'll happen... yeah, I'm kind of curious to see this too, but I'm not sure anyone on the jury has a line of questioning ready to go. It does help someone declare that bull is being fluently spoken here and then try to look for the truth -- but once the bull starts flowing, the stampede doesn't stop.}
{Think Trina checked off the seventh card before she left home tonight? It's judgment time.}
{Not a bad speech from Connie. I didn't think it would go that well from the fragments she was trying out back at camp -- she really found something there. Personally, I think it loses a little just because it's coming from her, but overall, definitely not a bad job -- how's the Hall taking that?}
{I believe the best term might be 'with marked indifference'. Her words were not particularly heavily booed, but they were hardly applauded, either. There won't be much Connie could do which would bring out the cheers from this point on.}
{So when you say 'not particularly heavily booed'...}
{Some and scattered, but brief. For the moment, no one wants to risk drowning anything out.}
{Alex pretty much going for the same points: everyone in this position had to do something: please be fair with me. But asking the jury to act without bias is a lost cause in any season, and I know she's figured that out.}
{'In the end, every one of us plays this game alone.' Interesting reaction from Gary there -- he's really paying attention to all this.}
{Now: did Alex just plagiarize Connie?}
{No: I believe Cole simply had the same concerns. They're both aware that there are people here with great reason to dislike them -- it had to have been on both their minds. She simply didn't want to change her speech after hearing the first one, except to give Connie acknowledgment. The Hall seems to have come to the same conclusion.}
{I have to think Alex would have been a very rational, unbiased juror -- maybe the single most unbiased juror we've ever seen. I can really picture situations where she would give Connie an honest vote based on the game and not because Connie's better at pulling a random number out of her virtual designer purse. But hoping to be treated that way -- forget it.}
{Moderately better wording from Connie, based on formality of language. Alex actually may have been extremely close, but she wasn't as emotional, even if we were seeing the light touches that mean she's reaching as far as she can normally go. In the long run, that can hurt her. Connie can make an emotional appeal: Alex can't.}
{Which clip are they showing now?}
{Connie talking to the rest of Haraiki after spotting Gardener with the idol, convincing them to vote for Alex. Part of this was a Secret Scene originally, correct?}
{Yes -- and I think you guys are getting some instant foreshadowing: someone's about to bring this up.}
{There are movements on stage, very deep in the shadows. This is the first time I've spotted it. They must be doing some last-minute preparations.}
{Or they could be starting to position the jury -- can you see anyone in that general area?}
{No. The stage has been dark since I arrived. It was darker shadows moving through night: the contrast was visible. But it gave the impression of people moving.}
{And what's Angela been doing all this time in the mansion? Studying footage of other people's bitterness! Neither of them should be Final Two, and why is that so? Because Angela isn't Final Two! How dare they!}
{You called it: Connie, why didn't you try to squirm out of this? You were so much of a bitch, we would have had to carry you too...}
{No guarantees there: I think Robin would have dumped her for Tony and then tried to talk rings around him. Not much chance of coming in second for that challenge.}
{Connie trying to get out of that one and flatter Angela at the same time, but Angela's seeing through the second part and the first -- yep, Connie dumped them. Angela's vote may be up in the air here.}
{Or not. That's a pretty good question for Alex: without the idols, she would have been toast.}
{On the other hand, that was one damn good answer. Alex is right: all she can do is play the game as it's presented to them. Here's a picture for you: they have an Exile Island, the idol is there and good for the whole game, Connie talks them into sending Alex after Haraiki wins the first challenge, Alex finds the thing and sits on it all the way to Final Three. Every season is different, every game is different -- and this was Alex's time to be here.}
{For all the good it did her.}
{*sigh* And all the bad, because along with everything else, Angela just heard that as 'ninth place'. I'm not completely sure where this vote is going -- but I have to think it'll be for Connie in the end. Angela hasn't forgiven Alex for what she's seeing as the ultimate sin: actually playing the game.}
{We have invoked Africa, we have invoked A.S.S, and now Phillip has invoked Cirie and Courtney in one shot -- but luckily, he's not going to do an imitation of the later in his speech. Outfit mercy, no: statement mercy, definitely.}
{'Hi, I'm voting for Connie, can I pet the parrot?' No mysteries here.}
{####!}
{I know I'm repeating myself here, but it still applies: Connie. You. #####. She just made it look like she went with Alex, and Alex never had a chance to protest...}
{She could have yelled after Phillip!}
{Not sure -- it looked like Jeff went to Robin pretty fast. Not enough time?}
{And here comes Robin, and -- uh-oh...}
{Well, here we go. She was going to flip on something before this ended, and this is what she picked. So much for one car=one vote: Robin's so angry at Alex for bringing Connie, she's going to punish her by voting for Connie. This has to got to feel really familiar for Alex: no matter what she does, someone's going to get her for it --}
{-- or not.}
{Not quite up to the caliber of what she did to the Chenbot, but she didn't have the same kind of time to work with. Still a pretty classic Robin speech all around, and she got to Connie a few times during it. Cleaning under seats with her tongue -- yeah, there's just a little bit of a grudge here. Just like she said: that's one for Alex.}
{No one's really taking advantage of that follow-up offer so far.}
{Oh, here we go...}
{Note that M-J is saying all this to Connie without the benefit of knowing what we all know. And I have no doubt that she's right.}
{*sigh* Learner has called this one. It would go in perfect line with the rest of Connie's belief system. Are we looking at a second vote for Cole?}
{...and there she really goes. Right out of the closet...}
{In front of the whole country. And even harder: right in front of Alex. It was opened before this, she knew it -- but that had to rip her up inside.}
{And apparently Gary stayed the only other person who knew that, although Robin was definitely well on her way there. Confirms what was said on M-J's TES segment. Personally, it's just nice to see Angela take the tumble for a change.}
{Connie's urge to kill: rising... Not much on her face, but I can also see the tension in her hands and all along her arms.}
{Mary-Jane looking at the damage and not knowing what she could have done about it. Do you think any of them read the article today?}
{Some of them probably got the news on the way in -- that was picked up by pretty much everyone. A copy of the newspaper in the dressing room would be a longshot. But given how much the earlier parts of Alex's past were put on display by the media -- assisted by one of our own -- something probably got through to most of them.}
{I didn't exactly change any votes. }
{And Alex pulls out the only defense she has: the punchline. Gardener has no idea how to deal with this: he never got so much as a hint that this alliance existed, and now he knows one of his best alliance buddies was going behind his broad back the whole time. And Connie's not so sure about the Knights Templar vote factor any more -- if Gary aligned with Alex, he could do anything.}
{Mary-Jane sticking with the follow-ups here after that brief reversion to her old self -- which just brings us all the way back down. I don't know if this is the one she wanted to hear the answer to most, but this is where she decided to go in the end.}
{...I think that was the most honest answer Alex could have given. That actually cost her something to get out -- you can hear it in her voice. So quiet...}
{The jury doesn't know what they're talking about, and Mary-Jane doesn't know if she believes this. Alex hurt her, and she doesn't know if Alex can feel sorry, along with all the other things Alex may not be able to feel...}
{I believe Cole was telling the truth there in all parts. She was sorry -- but Mary-Jane couldn't bring herself to believe it. And I despise Connie's expression there. She has to feel she's that much closer to Mary-Jane's vote.}
{...did you just call her Mary-Jane?}
{A shell with nothing inside. Cheering up Connie and impacting Alex visibly enough that those of us who got a B+ or higher in Alex 101 managed to spot it. There is something there -- but it's been pushed down too deep.}
{Oh, damn it... can't I get any DAW crushes this year? Even siblings of DAWs? There went my major hottie, right to the other side of the playing field!}
{Yeah, so sorry -- mine!}
{Surprising compassion from Tony there -- after you look past Connie, he's the one I would have expected to pull out the gay-bashing. But no, he's got a sister and he's not going to judge M-J based on this. He'd rather fix her up -- I am picturing that couple and I'm going to have major trouble stopping...}
{*blink* Did he just bring up the C/A theory?}
{Well, we nearly all believed it was exactly that stupid...}
{Tony actually just got Connie and Alex together: they both want him to understand this is impossible. And there's Connie's best excuse for the rivalry -- or at least one where she didn't have to tap into Alex's words: in the end, she just needed someone to hate, and Alex was right there. Getting the extra reasons later was just a bonus.}
{Angela's trying not to go livid, and guess why. She wound him up, and her little boytoy's spring broke with the recoil sending him away from her prepared question. This was supposed to be a fakeout from Angela -- make Alex look good, then make Tony vote for Connie. And she's doing the same thing. Looks like it's time for the revival of that slightly dusty classic tune, Angela. You. Bitch -- and I'm completely sure Alex just figured that out.}
{You had to figure this as a Connie win right after Alex made that choice, but this is starting to look really bad for her. There was the tiniest chance that Angela would be fed up enough with Connie for that vote to switch, or that Tony might respect Alex's physical capabilities instead of just having idle daydreams about her physical composition. That's off the boards now -- and the numbers are starting to get sickening.}
{Selected portions of the Hall are catching on to that. From the murmurs around me, some of them have worked out what Tony's statement truly means -- and as this is an pro-Alex crowd, they are not happy about the possibilities. We had worked out that this unlikely combination meant a win for Connie long ago: few of them tried to pursue it so far. The realization is coming now -- and it's not a pleasant one.}
{For you?}
{I am no longer on Connie's side.}
{Which doesn't put you on Alex's...}
{Gary's doing a world-class job of soothing Connie here: 'I went with her because there are times when you want the sinner to do all the work.' And then he rubs a little more massage oil in by giving her an absolute softball of a question. She just about answered that one with Phillip!}
{'Yes, you were going to be the victim, yes, I would have wanted Tony.' And Gary's fine with that. How offended was he by Alex not taking him back? I had this as one of Alex's two real 'maybe' possibilities, but he's slanting Connie so heavily right now, you'd swear Gardener's about to get company in the affair department!}
{Well, that's it for me with the snacks tonight.}
{Personally, I lost my appetite once I started counting the votes. Let's see them do that for the next celebrity diet. 'The Connie Lastings-Adam Program -- One Look At Her Triumphant Botox Mask, And You'll Never Eat Again.'}
{Trooper? And what's up with Mary-Jane here? She looks sick. Terrified-sick. What the hell is Gary about to pull out here?}
{And once again, welcome to Revelation Day!}
{I seriously doubt their question was 'What do you really do for a living?' M-J still looks sick.}
{Connie's having a pretty bad moment herself, though... gee, wonder what her last return looked like?}
{Maybe Edward was applying for a bereavement discount. 'I had to comfort fifteen non-people after killing their relatives -- it's a very unique form of dependent.'}
{Well, he's got a point. If anyone ever had an excuse for lying about his job, it's Gary. And he even managed to work in a lawyer joke -- now, where is he going with this?}
{Oh. My. God.}
{...no!}
{Gary, you ****!}
{Come on, Phillip! Put him right up there next to his damn torch!}
{Welcome to the Randal Club For Reality Show Contestants: We Can Blow Your Entire Edit In Two Seconds.}
{Trooper would have seen signs because police officers are trained for it -- M-J spots it because -- I don't know, she's just got great empathy and maybe she knows other people who've been through it -- and Gary brings it out? And Jeff is going to allow this?}
{We know it's true: it was in the Ledger article! Not a rape, but as close as it could come without being one! And now Gary's going to make Alex go through this all over again, and Jeff's going to cooperate, and -- I'm out of words. I'm actually out of words. Everything I could say from here violates the guidelines in sixty thousand different directions. Just like Gary violated every unwritten and unspoken rule of the game there's ever been.}
{Jon? Come back. All is forgiven. We have a new all-time jerk -- and then some.}
{I would now like to add to my earlier statement: Gary and Jeff, you ****s!}
{And Alex is giving him the no-frills answer that we know is right, but we also know she's holding back...}
{Why would Gary do this? Why? So she didn't take him back -- it's the game! He has no right to do this! And Jeff has every duty to stop it -- but he won't!}
{I respect Trooper more than ever. He refused to ask Alex this because he knew it would make the air and tear her apart in the process. He didn't know what would come after he left -- but he did his best to not make it happen while he was there. That is a man. Gary is something I can't say without invoking asterisks or pound signs.}
{This is my last season. There is no going back after this. All Jeff had to do was step in and declare Host's Authority, but he's just letting Gary badger her...}
{He won't vote for her! Not if he's doing this to her in the first place! This is torture, nothing else!}
{...and yet, she told him.}
{And it wasn't enough. He wants the details. Guess who was playing a character the whole season? Gary: nice guy, glide-along jury threat -- bull! He lied about his job and he lied about his whole personality! Can you imagine him in the Final Two, walking off with the million and then ripping off the mask? Sick, sick, sick...}
{She's so quiet here. Just talking, not really looking at anything. Azure is as tight against Alex as she can possibly be, and Connie doesn't believe a word of this... what does she think is going on here? A pre-arranged ploy for sympathy votes?}
{Alex wouldn't do it, not even for a million dollars. The last thing she ever wanted was for any of this to ever come out. There are a lot of lines Alex won't cross and this one's right in front of her. No way she would arrange this with Gary beforehand, and if I have to read a conspiracy post on that tomorrow, we are talking auto-ban.}
{No argument. Alex would never do this to herself, not even for a billion dollars. She may not look like it, and she barely sounds like it, but she's in agony right now.}
{No -- no arguing here, either. Gary is punishing her. It looks like Alex really has a knack for finding those.}
{Time for a new one. Gary. You. Bastard.}
{And -- after all that -- he tells her she's lying. And I'm out of tissues.}
{You know something? I bet he heard about the medical reports. I'll even bet he read the article today. And I know he doesn't care.}
{She didn't give him the whole story. We know that from the article -- Paglia got every last detail out of her so she could come up with something that would keep Alex out of juvee and the investigation away from her doorstep. Massee's cooperation thrown in, and they got away with it. Alex didn't mention anything about Paglia's very ugly part in this. But Gary can't know that -- and all that came because we just found the biggest asshole in the history of the game. He's going to vote Connie. Maybe he's not completely in line with her faction, but guess who hated Alex as much as she did the whole time?}
{I could hit him right now. And I'd have a lot of trouble stopping.}
{You might have to fight for a space. The crowd is turning very ugly here. Who was Randal? I haven't seen that name in the archives.}
{Other show. Tell you later. But right now, Gary makes him look like a prince.}
{Gardener's starting... and he just effectively called Alex a liar, too. Mary-Jane's still crying... this is the worst Council ever. Connie's going to win and Alex just got eviscerated for no real reason because it was going to happen anyway. Are there two Nine Of Swords in that damn deck?}
{Normally this would be pretty funny stuff, but I'm pissed off.}
{I still smiled a little at the robot line. It doesn't mean I'm a horrible person. It just means I needed the relief.}
{Connie doesn't see anything wrong with giggling, and this even seems to be bringing Alex out of it a little. Let's face it: he's really working his skills right now. Gardener came up with some great lines this season, and now he's trotting out a few more.}
{Says you. 'Metal thing' is not making me happy.}
{Connie probably still wants him to say 'saline thing', but she'll take what she's getting.}
{'I don't know I'm wrong yet.' Okay, I laughed. I'll feel bad about it later.}
{That's a pretty good Azure... but where is he going with this? Is there a question at the end of all these lines, or did he just decide to apply for LCS?}
{No question for Connie -- and I'm starting to think he's got a really bad one for Alex. But what could be worse than having to talk about that near-rape?}
{...well, not this. That's kind of a softball, isn't it? He did all that, lowered his head for the hit, and went into the goalposts by mistake.}
{Doing pretty well on calling off the motivations of the others, though -- and he's right: Alex just answered the wrong question.}
{What the hell does this have to do with his vote?}
{Nothing. He's voting for Connie. He's just curious about the one person he couldn't get the same kind of read on.}
{Well, he's wrong about Gary, unless he means 'the experience of torturing people'.}
{Gary fan club membership: at negative twelve and dropping...}
{This is actually something I'm curious about, after all the reasons he listed for the others -- Alex doesn't fit any of them. Why would she apply?}
{She's giving answers, but Gardener's swatting them aside -- and I think she's actually more stressed here than she was talking about the assault. What's going on?}
{Bad end to a long night?}
{No -- Gardener's pressuring her, but that question shouldn't be doing this. She's visibly stressing, and that's just making him push more.}
{Alternating shots. The jury might as well not even be there. God knows that with all the good Jeff's been tonight, he didn't have to be.}
{She's shivering again -- this can't be good...}
{We're about to get a nervous breakdown, aren't we? Too much, the whole season was too much for her, and then this for a last straw.}
{Just accept an answer and stop it -- if you're going to reject everything she says, then you're no better than anyone else in her life --}
{*crying*}
{...ibid.}
{We talked about Lex & Rob acting like brothers fighting once. I know we did...}
{I won't be in the post-show live chat room for a while tonight. I have to call my father.}
{Oh, Alex...}
{You know the worst part of this? The absolute worst part? Even more than having just heard someone effectively say she was so desperate for any kind of human contact that she'd put herself through this hell? That the kind of connections that could be formed from the show are the most she could ever dream of for herself? I now have to say this of top of it. Congratulations. You had it all along. You and that damn thread... that was it the whole time. Alex came on the show because she was lonely. Nice work.}
{I --}
{Hit the wrong button?}
{I forgive her. I forgive her for the cross. I will need some time before I can forgive myself for thinking so badly of someone in so much pain. But as for myself and Alex -- I will take that back now, too. I am sorry. I just hope that you all believe me.}
{*sigh* Hey, newbie. It's nice to have another poster on the board. Read the guidelines yet?}
{I guess I'll have to take that as a yes.}
{How's the Hall?}
{We all believe her. Every last word, with that belief expressed through every last tear.}
{And Gardener just thinks it's the sickest thing he's ever heard. After being that close to Gary. Jerks 1 and 1a. He wanted to make his speech and target Alex no matter what happened: he wouldn't change that game plan at all after Gary effectively knifed Alex right in front of him, he didn't care about that -- and now look what he did. She can't even look up. That was just about everything Alex had to give, all coming out in one shot -- and now he's right: it's very clearly her dream that everyone forget she ever said it, or was ever here...}
{Back to Connie... and we just surpassed both of them, didn't we? Connie sees her chance and she's running with it. The jury is getting to hear her view of this: either Alex is the ultimate cold-blooded liar or Alex is mentally ill. Pick one. That's the only ways she's capable of seeing this, because she will never believe anything ever happened to Alex -- and even if she did, she refuses to let anyone else consider the possibility. A liar or a psycho. Those are Connie's options for the jury. Don't vote for me, vote against her. Gee, she's so smart, she started this play right after she heard the name 'Trooper' -- we can't reward that, now can we?}
{If Connie truly believed anything about the assault? She'd party. And thank her god for sending her revenge for the cross back in time.}
{They seem to be listening -- but I also think they're still in shock right now. Mary-Jane is forcing herself to keep her eyes up no matter how many tears are coming out...}
{Alex -- and she's not going to try and refute Connie, because she knows the truth about this jury -- and I agree with her. They all decided who they would believe when they came in here tonight, and some long before that. She can't convince anyone of anything, especially after the bitch made what was just about the perfect speech to follow up those last two questions...}
{You really believe that? You think this can't change anything? After everything's that happened?}
{No. Listen closely to the rest of Alex's words here. Because she's right. Jealousy, hate, and fear: that's the core of this damn game. She just put it out there for the whole world to see. And the world will see it -- except for the seven people in front of her. They see what they want to see.}
{She couldn't look at them. The whole time, looking past them, because she knew there was nothing there for her...}
{And back to her seat, completely spent. Everything she had -- to get nothing she ever wanted.}
{This is going to be the worst season ever, isn't it? Those votes won't shift. I count, at most, two for Alex: Mary-Jane and Robin -- and that's assuming they weren't freaked out to the rafters by what Gardener brought out. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised by the shutout...}
{We may get one. They're showing everyone going in and out -- but no words. Not a single vote is being shown. They enter, they write, they leave. If that's not a sign of the seven-zero for Connie, I don't know what is.}
{Alex has to have at least one vote. I can't see Robin shifting, and that felt as weird to type as it did to read. This is EPMB prolonging the torture as long as possible -- because he doesn't care who gets hurt either.}
{And that's it. Alex just barely gets her head up long enough to listen to Jeff's little set speech. We're about to go live -- and what's about to make Thailand look like an emotional joyride will finally crash into the ground. One fatality.}
{She wanted a family. She got five to seven knives in her heart. I hate this show. I've always hated this show. I just finally realized it was for real.}
{It's almost unbearably silent now. The crying has stopped -- that happened during the vote. We're all waiting for the lights to come up on the stage.}
{You may have to wait a while longer. Jeff is just leaving by helicopter on the screen -- so his entrance is next.}
{Hey -- you're near the aisle, right? If Jeff walks by your seat? Trip him.}
-----------------------------------------------------------------
During
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Walking along. No one else in the hallways: just myself, Azure, Chris, the unknown rear guard, and Gardener. Talking to me. Getting my answer. That's all there is to hear, and I'm ignoring most of it: I know what I said, and I know how people are going to react to it. I'm trying to hear ahead, pick up any of the results that might leak this far back -- but nothing. They may have a sound wall they drop into place for just such an occasion, keeping the Hall from constantly bombarding the Tower with noise. Twenty-eight hundred gasps of horror, shock, and disbelief aren't what you want coming into your building, especially when they arrive with an underlying fear.
It feels like a longer walk. It gives Azure enough time for a dozen headbutts. I hope she stays quiet: having her squawk on stage in the dark would probably make Production very unhappy.
Off in the wings. Backstage. I get rigged for sound. I can't really see the audience from here -- just the screens, which are showing the vote in progress, with no actual ballots displayed or words given because they don't want to verify the shutout just yet, forgetting that this style of presentation already told people it was coming -- and the Council is completely dark. No one working the computers and panels can be bothered to look at me. Someone hands Chris a set of night-vision goggles: he puts them on -- then glances back at me. Oh, great... I slowly reach forward, grip his sleeve. We move out into the dark.
People breathing out in the audience. Some of it is fairly ragged: they may have just finished the jeer of a lifetime. Are there special lights above the stage? Ultra-dark purples, creating deeper shadows... Step up. More breathing patterns, and these are familiar ones: near the jury. Move forward. There's a strange surface under my feet. Turn around. Very soft instructions: I can just barely hear them. Sit down slowly. Wait. Chris leaves.
I know this sound, too: Connie is on my right. Her breathing is very tense. I guess she's not used to sitting in the dark. One last challenge edge for me when it won't count for anything.
On the screens, Jeff is leaving the island. Stepping into a helicopter that's waiting for him on the mansion's pad. A switch -- and the helicopter comes in through the New York night. Gliding over the West Side, landing on a skyscraper-top pad. Jeff gets into an elevator, carrying the cylinder with him. The path was obviously cleared: no one else in it, express ride straight down. Catching a taxi outside. Carnegie Hall, please -- it's the only place to be tonight. The taxi stopping outside. Jeff gives him a tip, heads up the red carpet -- wait, there's no bleachers, just when was this filmed --
-- the lights come on over the audience. We're still in shadow: special lighting for certain. But they need normal lights now --
-- and more than just the house ones. Someone moves behind me -- and my torch is lit. Another movement behind Connie: hers goes aflame. We have fire. We have life. And we have Jeff, who's entering the strangely quiet Hall down the left-side aisle, the screens now showing his approach, the first major indicator that we've just gone live. I get my first good look at the audience as I watch him come towards us with the cylinder, ready to do the job he's been waiting months for, the last piece of punishment, and I don't understand why they're not applauding him. These are mostly show business people in my sights: they live for applause. Don't they want to give it to one of their own? And it starts when he's about a third of the way in, maybe it was just that enough people hadn't seen him yet, but it's very weak --
-- the lights above the Council switch on.
And we are here. Connie on my right, the jury in front of me, Azure staying quiet on my shoulder. All in the clothes we were wearing so many months ago, which are all covering slightly different bodies. We've gotten our weight back. Tony may have put on a little more: his arms are slightly larger than they used to be. Lots of blinking, trying to adjust to the sudden change --
-- including the one to Council, because there's something new here, a few feet in front of the seats for the Final Two. Something I've seen before -- just never in this form. A jaguar-skin rug.
'You'll be seeing it again, and that's all I'm going to say about it.' It must have taken more time to make the skin into this than we had left on the island. It even looks like someone enhanced the fur, possibly before they added just one glass eye --
-- the applause really starts, and people are rising to their feet. It's a storm, thunderclaps in rhythm, they're up and slamming their hands together, some of them: most with the steady motions of people who've done this at various award shows for years and know the exact drill, but for others, it's louder, harder, and others are cheering...
Not everyone, though. They're all clapping -- but I can hear some boos in the audience as well. I can hear pretty much everything: the acoustics are incredible. From Council to the seats and all the way back again. Booing me, of course. Who can blame them? Cheering Jeff, or cheering the show. Maybe they're cheering the inevitable result. It's a very pro-Connie crowd.
Then again, a few of the boos seem to be coming from the seats Jeff is passing, going down the exact center of the aisle so the cylinder can be kept from curious hands. Not that anyone would try to grab it without having a major sense of entitlement working. Then again, given some of the people in the seats...
Donald's probably somewhere around here. I should have brought the dress and made him refuse to take it back in person. Of course, after what had just aired, there was a good chance he would have accepted it, immediately followed by presenting me with the bill for having it made.
It's very loud in here. It's a jet engine taking off from ten feet away. It's standing next to a rocket launch. But it can't last, and the audience starts to sink back into their seats as Jeff climbs up to the stage.
I look at the jury. It took months to find the strength for doing that. Angela refuses to meet my eyes. Tony has a weariness about him, and part of that may just be from having to sit next to Angela. Gary is very quiet. Gardener is watching Jeff. Robin has her gaze fixed on the audience, and Phillip is another one who wants to see if Jeff can make it all the way on his own. Mary-Jane's eyes close as soon as mine reach her.
Jeff passes us, takes his position near the throne, waits for the last of the applause to die away -- then puts the cylinder down in its usual spot. "And here we are," he tells us. There's no other noise in the Hall. Twenty-eight hundred people waiting on him here -- and millions upon millions around the world. The place he was meant to be. "After everything that's happened, after all that's gone on this time -- we finally get to settle the last thing." No applause at that, and I've heard it coming for other seasons after similar words. Everyone waiting...
I glance at Connie. The trophy is gleaming tonight, freshly polished with every placed highlight designed for just this lighting. But she's tense, and I can see it in her face, in the tendons starting to stand out against the back of her hands. Connie's been waiting a long time, too, and she's actually had something worth waiting for...
It's still an odd tension, really. So her beliefs went out to the world. Doesn't she think everyone worth knowing would agree with her? There's only so many people who truly count to Connie, and all of them are going to approve. Maybe her church will pick up more converts now. Maybe more people feel the way she did than she ever could have hoped to dream, and maybe most of Christianity really is about matching her beliefs. Not all of it -- not from Phillip. Not from Pastor Roberts, at least not that I want to believe, and I'm probably wrong there too, the same way I was wrong about Gary. But she set the example, true to herself all the way through, true to her religion as well. She should be triumphant --
-- and there it is. She sees me looking at her, and there's that glint in her eyes, the one which says she's won, she knows she's won, and in a few minutes, she will take a very great pleasure in celebrating right in front of me --
-- but it's been a very long wait for that. The delay has made her tense. Incredibly tense.
I don't understand...
Maybe she's thinking about all the Final Two pairings who held each other's hands while the votes were read. If so, she can stop worrying about it right now: not going to happen.
I wonder where Edward is in the audience. I'm not going to search for him, and they'll probably show him on the screens in a minute or two. This is Jeff's time. Back to him.
And now that he has everyone's attention... "Once again, a reminder: these are votes for a person. The name on the parchment is the player that jury member wanted to see win the million-dollar prize, the title of Sole Survivor -- and a GM Sunfire." Oh, great -- and this means one more thing to get through. "Connie, should you win, you will have to immediately designate another person to receive your car, as no one can win two within the game." She nods. The audience is still quiet. I wonder who's going to get her extra car. Phillip? Michelle?
Phillip saw her not go with me...
Maybe that's why he's so quiet. But everyone's quiet. We're waiting...
"It takes four votes to win," Jeff reminds us. And it'll take four votes to confirm the winner. About an hour for the Reunion, and then I never have to see him again. I think I made a virtual Jeff so I could stop hating the real one. It worked after a while: I understood that Gary had found his own loophole in the rules, and Jeff had opted not to close it in the name of the same thing that had kept mine open: good television. Jeff has his own priorities and he ran the show according to those standards. Time passed, and I stopped hating him for that.
I still haven't forgiven him for bringing out my mother. Same standard, different case.
Jeff opens the cylinder, sets the lid down on the cushion of his throne. "Here we go..." Reaching in. "First vote -- you know, I knew coming in that I was going to have to do this one more time, there was no possible way an A could ever look like a C -- and then I get to see this." He turns it. "Connie."
Tony's vote. One down --
-- and that's when the audience goes off again, nearly three thousand people speaking as one, a opinion without words, the sound washing over us, rising, crashing through the Council...
They're -- booing.
Not Jeff. They could have booed Jeff at any time. They are booing the fact that the vote came out with Connie's name on it, and that means they're angry she's received it. They're booing her, and it doesn't make sense...
Maybe it's a really non-Christian audience?
Her fingers start to curl towards her palms, and now the tendons are really standing out. There's some more tension leaking into her face, the lines going tight. She wasn't expecting this, or maybe not this much of it -- she had to think there would be at least a few soulless out there, just not majority -- and she doesn't know how to deal with it...
Okay, fine. Connie got booed. I can definitely live with that. But if that's how they're reacting to her after seeing her actions in the final episode, I'm glad I won't get to hear how they feel about seeing a vote for me. At least Connie did sane things. All these people now know exactly how crazy I am, just like everyone in the Council does. Another good reason for all the silence during the initial wait.
Jeff watches the Hall. I count. It takes forty heartbeats before the audience starts to settle down, five extra breaths before they stop. "We may not get out of here by eleven," he wryly notes. Oh, wonderful. "In case anyone lost track -- that's one vote Connie." That gets a brief, widely scattered expression of continuing disapproval: it dies out quickly. "Second vote --"
--a longer pause this time, and what feels like like a slower turn --
"-- Alex."
Robin's handwriting.
And --
-- it's so loud, there's so much of it, some of them are chanting on top of it...
...they're cheering. They're cheering me. They saw all that and they're cheering me...
Is there a sign flashing applause orders that I can't see? And even if there was, why would it ever do so for me? No, they would have had to hang it long before we came in, high enough up to be out of sight from the main cameras, and I saw above the Council when I arrived... everyone says the rich aren't like everyone else, so maybe we're just all insane together, except that they have enough money to be eccentric...
...or maybe they're just cheering me. After everything they saw -- after watching me practically go insane right in front of everyone -- they're cheering me.
I -- I don't understand...
...Robin, thank you. For keeping your promise, for having it not be a shutout, for making sure Jeff had to read at least five. For voting for me, because even after all that, you still couldn't stand to cast one for Connie, and the underside of the Hall's seats still wouldn't taste good. Thank you for being you...
She's grinning now.
One.
The applause stops, people saving their palms for the remote chance of a second vote, their lungs for whatever might come next. "Third vote -- Connie." Something like that, because the booing starts again, and it's even louder this time. We're starting to approach being right next to a field of rockets taking off, and I think the sound is getting to Angela: she just pulled back slightly on her elephant leg. Her vote, of course: she never changed her handwriting from what she used to sign Amanu's flag. Jeff waits it out until the audience finally picks up on the fact that he is waiting it out: they start gathering strength for the next round. "Fourth vote --"
-- there are going to be people here with very sore lungs when this is over --
"-- Alex."
...what? I know the handwriting, I know it by heart because I saw it so many times, but this can't be right, it just can't be --
-- but Jeff wouldn't read it if it wasn't real. Mary-Jane's vote. Mary-Jane voted for me, and she's looking at me now, the corners of her mouth going up just a little as the tears start again...
You voted for me? After all that -- you still went in there and cast that ballot? Why? Why would you do something that hurt you so much? You couldn't have --
-- forgiven me...
The audience is starting to reach for a place beyond approval, and it almost feels like they're trying for something beyond sound -- but they can't keep it up. There's more votes coming: they have to pace themselves, especially since I know what the next one will be. Mary-Jane gave me a gift; she made Jeff have to read six before it's settled. I'll thank her if she'll only talk to me, maybe Connie was just too odious an option for her to take and nothing's changed, but she looks like she's trying to smile, she really does...
Maybe she will talk to me, at least long enough for that. Maybe that's my greatest hope tonight, my strongest wish --
-- and Connie is just slowly nodding to herself. Apparently she decided she'd lost that one too, and she's still far too stressed when she knows what the results are going to be. The fifth vote will turn the tide: it almost always does, and it will this time. I had Robin and somehow, I had Mary-Jane, both probably more from spite for Connie than support for me. She currently has Angela and Tony. The remaining three are locked.
Jeff's reaching towards the cylinder again: the audience takes it as a signal and shuts up. "We're tied: two votes Connie, two votes Alex." A mixed widely scattered opinion as people try to figure out whether it's a good time to cheer or boo, move into conflict with those who made a different decision, and subsequently give up as a group. "Fifth vote." He gives it a long look, and this is another one of those times when he starts to turn it as he speaks --
-- no. No, that's impossible, this isn't right --
-- and Connie knows it.
She's on her feet in a single thrust, spinning as she comes up, a trembling arm moving to point at Jeff, the audience falling into shocked silence long enough for her to say the words I'm just about ready to agree with.
"This game is rigged!"
Gasps all over the Hall. The jury immediately swerving into confusion, and who can blame them? This isn't right, and we all know it: Connie was just the first one to articulate it. Jeff may need some time before he can personally articulate anything: the double-take has settled in for a long stay, and it would have to time the blinks right in order to leave anyway.
Connie doesn't even want to give him that much of a chance. "Those aren't the votes! Everyone here knows those aren't the votes! That one was the giveaway!" She's shaking... "We all know that's wrong, everyone in this building knows that couldn't possibly be the right vote -- you set the game up to have the winner you wanted and somehow, you decided I wasn't it! Soulless, all of you soulless, supporting one of your own -- but that was too blatant, wasn't it? Even she knows it!" The other arm swivels to point at me. Right. I know it. She's right on target, at least for the vote: I'm having some trouble believing everyone here is soulless after she gave credit for two earlier.
Jeff's managed to find a word. Good for Jeff: he's ahead of me. "Connie --"
Which is still more than she's willing to listen to. "You -- you rigged the whole thing. Such convenient idol clues..." And switches focus, staring down at me. "What did you do to him that made him change his mind? Snuck into the mansion at night, used sex to get what you wanted?" More gasps in the audience, pure disbelief this time. Connie's paradigm has just left the bounds of reality as we know it: please have your passports ready. "Or did you just meet with him on the beach? I suppose he was simply tired of one particular body type and skin tone, so he decided he'd try slut for a time..."
I also don't know what's going on in with this fundamental overturn of the universe, and I'm still dealing with it a lot better than she is. "Connie, I don't understand that one either --"
Her right arm goes back.
Her right arm comes forward.
The result is the only sound in the Hall, and her left arm comes in before it can fully die away.
Pushed backwards, Azure flying up from my shoulder as the mobile perch changes position too fast, she does have some strength, maybe she picked up on the actual workouts in the last few months, the pain already radiating out from my left breast and right cheek, slapped in the face and hit in the chest, what an idiot, doesn't she know how to get a fast takedown? And she doesn't even know how to follow it up: she's trying to come at me with her hands extended even as I go backwards, going with both arms forward, probably targeting my throat --
-- but I'm moving with the momentum on purpose. It makes it that much easier to get my legs up.
Double kick right to the stomach.
It didn't do enough the last time, and my aim is off here: I get her ribs more than her abdomen. But her momentum is still canceled, redirected, and she's staggering backwards, I'm recovering, leaning forward and getting to my feet as fast as I can, but I didn't connect solidly enough and she may reorient quickly, the rage will mute her pain, it's certainly doing that for me and I need a weapon, any weapon, a predator is going to charge and it wants nothing but my death, people are moving, maybe one of them will get to her, I can just barely see the jury starting to shift, presumably the audience may be thinking about getting a better view and Security is somewhere in the wings --
-- insight, an explosion of possibility driving the pain away --
-- I don't want Security out here. I need to finish this before they arrive, I have to get this to a certain place before they reach us and keep it there --
-- I can't count on someone else to save me, because the only way through this is to do it myself --
-- on my feet. Reaching out. I get the distance wrong: my arm scrapes against the wood, and I hear the distinct sound of a velcro panel being forced open. The bandage falls off. Gasps in the audience, some shrieks, shouting...
It doesn't matter. I grab my torch.
I swing it at her, the wooden end going out first, and that hits her in the stomach, drives her back a little more. Step forward, get it closer, hold it like the quarterstaff I saw in so many pictures, bring it down, still working with the cool part --
-- swing it so that it comes in behind her legs, takes out her calves and her feet come out from under her, she's falling, people are screaming, I can't tell who or where or what, Connie's going down, falling backwards onto the jaguar skin, just barely catches herself on her elbows, but I've moved again, I'm standing very close to her, more to the jury side than the stage because it's easier, it might even help the camera angles --
-- and the torch has been reversed in my grip.
Wooden end towards me. Flame towards Connie, held a foot above her face. Azure lands on my shoulder, wings partially spread, angry because I'm angry and there's no better reason in the world. I now have a backup weapon.
She's not moving. No one is moving any more, and the world is silent but for the sound of the flame.
"I know I didn't hit you with it," I tell her, the low hiss carrying perfectly through the Hall. "I can't smell burning plastic..."
I'm not looking at the jury, the audience, anyone else. Just Connie, just so I can see what's in her face right now. And it's exactly what I thought it would be. A lot of hate. Nothing I can really see as jealousy. And finally, after thirty-nine days --
-- fear.
Naturally, Jeff's decided this is something that requires a few words. "Alex..." It's almost a plea. Very interesting, hearing that from Jeff. "Alex, you have to step away from her..."
"No." I don't bother looking back at him. "No one is going to stop this. No one's coming any closer, and no one talks unless I'm talking to them." And I can't hear any footsteps, and I would hear them in here. They can't risk it. Try to wrestle the torch from me, and I might be able to drive it into Connie's face before they ever got close. Shoot me with a tranquilizer dart or anything more fatal, I'll fall forward. Plus they can't keep me from speaking -- and if I say the right two words, Connie's going to lose her eyes. "And you don't move." Connie's rage surges, makes the fear retreat a little -- but not completely. "I have a question, Jeff -- more than one, so I'm calling follow-up. You tell me if I go too far off the original line."
Breathing and heartbeats. A distant heat from my torch's flame. Looking at Connie, her looking at me. Dark blue eyes, narrowed to a point Gardener might have trouble reaching. Rage and fear -- but nowhere near enough to keep her from talking. "You can't do it." Not pleading: stating the facts as she's decided to see them. "You can't do it in front of everyone..."
"Jake might have a different opinion." The shockwave is everywhere. "I didn't do it to him on purpose, Connie. I didn't lure him to my apartment building and ask him to attack me. I defended myself with the only thing I had left to work with. But he said some things while he was trying to kill me -- and you know something? I'm the stupidest person in this room. He gave me a puzzle to solve: that's what he told me. Then he gave me extra clues on top of it -- and I never worked it out. Not until just now. Want to hear the questions? Because they're going to be based in what I think the answers are." No, she doesn't, she wants to get her teeth into my skull, but I'm not giving her any choice.... "Actually, I'm going to start with a statement: you and Jake are members of the same church."
Connie's face pulls back into a snarl -- and her words hit just in time to drive the audience's reaction back. "You soulless little bitch -- doing that to a man like him..." Everyone watching goes quiet at that. They can't speak. If they talk over something, there's no way to rewind this. The price of being live.
"I'm so stupid," I tell her, which doesn't cheer her up. "He said it, you said it..." And that's just for 'soulless.' The real clue came from Jeff. 'Apparently they're members of the same church. They've been doing a lot of talking.' "And I don't mean the same branch, Connie: the same church. The exact same congregation." Maybe it's even part of how she got on: a crew member dropping hints couldn't have hurt, right? Not even if it was Jake, not if he made them see what she could give them. "And you stayed in contact with him after the show. Yes or no, Connie -- confirm or deny."
A hiss. "You gave him the flames that were waiting for you -- he'll have his reward eventually, and you know it. I never thought he'd try to kill you, but I wasn't exactly going to complain..."
I let the torch drop one inch. "Yes or no." That many people swallowing at once makes for a very interesting sound.
"Yes!" Pure rage now. "Do you know what my life has been like since I came back? Of course you don't -- it took everything my fellows had to keep most of it out of the papers. As soon as I returned, poor Edward finding himself second-guessed at every turn, no one trusting his diagnosis any more, those he turned away being taken in by the other doctors in his clinic -- the investigation started -- so many rumors, and where did they come from, I wonder? Digging through his records, looking for any excuse... Jake returning to the flock after so many years away from our community was a benediction, even if he was afraid to show his face around the city. He was someone to talk to, someone who understood what we were going through -- his partners recommending that Edward take a vacation, I knew it was a mistake when he went into a private practice with those who weren't completely in line with our faith..."
The slow nod I give her may hurt more than any words. "Follow-up question -- and Jeff, this one's for you." It's about time he had to answer one. "This is something I've suspected before this, just because it made so much sense, and I'd understand if you're reluctant to confirm it -- but I really need an answer here." This time, I get to do the pause. "There's a decoy cylinder, isn't there?"
A group sharp inhale that big also has a note all its own.
Softly, carefully. "There are three." Connie's eyes go wide... "We get computer scans of your handwriting early on, then print the fake votes on a slightly different type of parchment. The real votes have a special mark that comes out under the right kind of light. We have to film the process of putting out the real ones every year and our doing the fakes, just in case there's any questions. There's also a hidden camera and light in the voting blind. Between them, they record that the votes being placed are the real ones. Because of where they're positioned, no one ever sees the little flare, and we take it off the film later. The votes I've been taking out are from the real cylinder. But the others..."
I nod again. "Decoys. In case anyone gets into a storage area and decides to get a peek at who won. I bet you switched camera operators in the blind a few times that night, too. Made sure no one had the full picture. Including Jake -- because he left me a message. I think he still had a few associates at the show -- maybe no friends, but at least people who thought along the same lines. He wasn't the only one mad about that cross, was he? Or it could have just been people he had something on, something they didn't want him to talk about." One drunken night in the Survivor Bar... "It doesn't matter, really -- he called, and maybe he pulled strings or maybe someone just offered it up, but there it was. He told me he'd given me a message, a puzzle to work on. Jake was leaving graffiti all over my neighborhood, and it was always the same sigil: two S marks, very stylized, one facing right, one facing left."
Another pause. I'm starting to understand why Jeff likes doing this. "Wrong. Not letters. Numbers. Five-two -- in Connie's favor. The vote count his contact told him about. My local police were going nuts looking for a new gang in the area and it was a tally the whole time..." Azure glares at Connie. It's pretty intense for her. Probably not something she picked up from Jeff.
Connie's words are still more hiss than speech. "It was the only comfort I had -- the rumors spreading, just barely keeping the media out of things, using up so much on bribes, Edward on a forced leave of absence, so many questions, prying too deep, Edward said, he was so stressed, having so many troubles that he just couldn't tell me about, and asking so many for help to keep it all hidden... to know I'd won, that no matter how many of the soulless supported your sickness, I would be here tonight to win..."
I have to keep going. I have to make it sound like I want to keep going, no matter how sick this is making me feel. "Jeff, I need another confirmation. One of the decoy cylinders has a five-two vote for Connie in there, right?"
"Yes." His voice isn't hollow, but it wouldn't mind stopping by there for a few hours. "The second one."
It took me long enough to solve it, didn't it? So stupid sometimes... "So when that last vote came out, it had to be cheating." And I'm still having trouble understanding it, I don't want to believe it because it's impossible -- but just for purposes of this discussion, let's say it happened and Jeff didn't get the wrong cylinder by mistake.
Actually... "Jeff, you've got the right cylinder?"
Shuffling sounds behind me, but not getting closer. It sounds like he's reaching under the throne's cushion. "I never thought I'd actually have to do this..." A small click. "There. It's on the screen."
I can't afford to look away, but the sound the audience just made tells me it's the right one. Apparently the show was very well-prepared: Jeff probably just pulled out a mini-light and fluoresced the mark. "Okay." The world doesn't make a lot of sense right now... I have to stick with what does. "So Connie, you were having a pretty bad time. I started on the downhill slope and slowly got pushed up. You got to move in the other direction -- and it just kept getting worse. But here comes Jake, and he tells you it'll be worth it in the end. You won. And you can run away from everything if you have to with plenty of money to do it with, start over somewhere else. Just hold tight, and you'll get your reward. And maybe he even tells you he'll make my life a little more miserable while you wait. Throwing the bottle for starters, just to get my attention, and then slowly escalating through the graffiti, trying to run me over with the car when he thought I'd spotted him..."
No answer at first. She just stares at me -- and we have finally reached our limit. She can't possibly hate me any more than this. "Jeff's lying -- that one is the fake, it has to be -- they set this up..."
"Believe anything you want," I softly tell her. It still carries throughout the Hall. "It doesn't change what's real. Jeff has the evidence, the original footage exists, and the jury can be polled. I don't care what you believe, Connie. I never did." And actively going for the voice projection now, "Jeff?"
The steadiness in his voice feels forced. "Yes, Alex?"
And the words I've been wishing for a chance to say since Day Two: "I want Connie removed from the game for a rules violation."
A little more softly, "Which rule, Alex?"
Fair question: I'll try to give him a good answer. "Unwanted physical contact with another player outside the bounds of a challenge." I have a torch near her face and everything else might be classified as having been forced out under duress. If duress law even applies here. For all I know, the stage is currently a diplomatically-assigned extension of Yanini.
It's very quiet in here...
"Done." There's a new note in Jeff's voice. "Connie -- you have spoken, and you have violated the rules of this game. It's time for you to go."
I lift the torch away from her face and take two steps backwards, heading for my seat.
Connie stares at me, frozen in horror -- then screams, something wordless, something without any sanity behind it, nothing left but the animal springing to its feet, getting ready to pounce, I'm going to have to hit her again and I don't want to do it with the flaming end, I never want to be there for that moment again if I don't absolutely have to, I'm bringing the wooden one forward so it can connect with her face --
-- and it doesn't.
Because someone else gets there first. Someone who started moving as soon as she saw Connie was going to do.
A tremendous effort on the push-off, longer legs and, as it turns out, one hell of a right hook.
Connie goes off-course, pitching forward, and that lets me bring the wood down into her back, finishing the process of driving her into the floor. She's not out cold, she's still trying to get to me -- but now someone else is here, adding his weight to the pressure I'm driving into her shoulder blades with the torch's cold end, holding her down for just long enough --
-- and she's still screaming as Security takes custody, wrenches her arms behind her back, drags her away. None of the screams have words in them. Connie may not have any words for me for a very long time.
Angela is still frozen in place on her follow-through, staring at her right fist and the scars running across the exposed part of her palm. Tony slowly shifts out of the position he'd moved to after Security made him get off Connie's back. They both stare at me -- then look at each other as the last echoes of Connie's screams ring across the Hall --
-- only to be drowned out as the crowd rises to its feet, cheering, screaming with words, without them, hands slamming together, feet stomping, so much noise and it's all coming towards me, it's my name and they won't stop this time, nothing can stop them --
-- actually, someone's going to try to make someone else pause. Nearly three thousand someone else's. And that's just in this Hall. "Connie has forfeited her standing in this game," Jeff tells us. He has to repeat it twice before the crowd gets the cue. "She has also forfeited her prize. As Alex only responded in self-defense, she will keep her position and still receive her check." And of course that was going to set the Hall off again, but Jeff has more to say... "Angela and Tony only acted to defend Alex, so they also stayed within the bounds of the rules and will both receive their own checks." Just in case anyone was wondering.
It's an interesting definition of self-defense...
"It's over..." I think the last thirty-nine days just caught up to me. Possibly including a few intervening months. They were doing about ninety miles per hour at the time. "It's finally over..." Connie's out. My knees are starting to feel a little shaky, Angela's looking at me with what just can't be concern and the only thing really holding me up right now is my torch, but it's over...
"Aren't you forgetting something?" I manage to turn, still relying on my torch for most of the support. Maybe if I can just get back to my seat and rest for a few seconds --
-- but Jeff's eyes are twinkling. "Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by the recently departed -- fifth vote: Alex." Reaching into the cylinder. "Sixth vote --"
-- I shouldn't be able to hear them. Not with the loudest noise of all, a sound like none I've ever heard before or ever will hear again, an explosion of emotion that shakes the building to its foundation, sends a primal cry of presence into the night. We were here, we saw it, and we'll always remember, we promise, because if you're crazy, then maybe everyone is, and it's not the worst kind of crazy to be --
-- but I can still hear those on the stage with me. I'll always be able to hear them. Angela's soft statement that it's okay, Tony whooping, Phillip's merriment, Mary-Jane's tiny laugh, Robin having the time of her life, Gary's near-whisper, words I can't believe, but I have to believe them now --
-- and Gardener. More than anyone else, Gardener. Hands balled into fists again, but those fists turned to have his thumbs facing the distant ceiling, elbows jabbing slightly back as he screams at the top of his lungs, louder than anyone else in the Hall.
"You did it, you beautiful bitch! You did it!"
My knees start to give out, and he moves so quickly, catches me by the elbows --
-- is it just Gardener? For a moment, it feels like there's multiple grips supporting me, maybe as many as fourteen, one solid and thirteen with the pressure of a faint breath --
-- but then it's just him again.
Tony is steading my torch. Be careful with that -- it's not your fire... I glance back and Jeff is doing the last thing he has to do: moving to Connie's torch...
The flame goes out. All that does is make things louder.
Phillip's here now. They're all coming up. Gardener is starting to look a little worried. That's new. "Look, I had to catch you, it was that or let you go into the floor..."
"It's all right." It really is. "I'm okay."
Gary laughs. "That sounds about right..." But his expression is still a little quiet. He's carrying my bandage. I'm not going to put it on. They're only scars. Everyone's seen them, and that means they don't have to matter any more. And he repeats his whisper. "I'm sorry..."
The weakest words in the world. Or they would be anywhere else. Here and now, they just might have a chance.
Gardener eases me back to a fully standing position as Phillip watches. I look up at him, meet warm hazel eyes. "The fifth vote -- that was yours..."
Phillip smiles. "Sometimes," he quietly tells me, "if you want to be a man -- you have to break your word."
He -- he flipped. He flipped for me... I can just barely believe it. Barely. But there's still a mystery. The seventh vote, the one we didn't see, that was Gary's because it was five-two for me, was all along, that vote never emerged because four others came out first. But it still leaves --
-- and back to Gardener. The torch is providing a lot of support. "The sixth -- why?"
He groans. "Okay, fine..." An exact Jeff-pause -- and the snort is in perfect time with the shrug. "I lied."

Phillip starts laughing first, booming and hearty. Mary-Jane's second: weaker, but there. Gardener's barks join that chorus, then Angela's higher notes, Tony's lower ones, Robin trying to outdo Gardener and Gary just coming into the middle of all of it, the crowd doing its best to drown them out and only buoying them up, the others coming out now, Trooper first, I can just barely see Desmond because he's at the very back and doesn't want to get any closer, but Frank is rushing up and he looks so good, Trina's laughing, I never got to hear Denadi and Elmore enjoy themselves like this, much less Michelle --
-- and then there's one more.
It doesn't last very long. Just a few breaths. It pretty much stops as soon as I realize it's happening. But it was there.
I think I have a good laugh. I must, because everyone seems so happy to hear it...
...and the tears which follow it don't go away as easily....
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Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser"
01-18-09, 07:23 PM (EST)

16. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Part II"

YIIPPPEEEE!!!!!
Alex won! She won the whole thing! And Connie actually got disqualified! Couldn't have happened to a nicer woman! See ya later, Connie! I hope the door hits you on the way out!
Belle Book

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Estee 44384 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
02-07-07, 02:24 AM (EST)

2. "Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

LAST EDITED ON 02-13-07 AT 07:53 PM (EST)
{I think it's going to take one very long commercial break to get everyone into their seats.}
{I think it's going to take a longer one before everyone stops crying. Don't even think about denying it. Five-two. They're showing them now: Angela and Tony voted Connie. Phillip, Robin, Gary, Mary-Jane, and Gardener voting for Alex. It happened. It really happened...}
{I'm glad I kept the ticket. I may never do this again, simply because I wish to keep the remaining percentage of my hearing -- but to be here for this was worth it.}
{Don't ever go to a finale again. Hang onto this -- because we'll never see another one like it. How can they top it? They can't. MB will spend the rest of this series' existence in making the attempt and failing every time.}
{And Jeff might know it. Fighting to make himself heard: "A season like no other and a cast like no other -- gives us the only ending that could possibly fit. How did this vote happen? What was going on during that Council? The questions will start as soon as we come back -- if I can even break up this party before we go completely off the air..." And now he's laughing... commercials.}
{Don't worry, Jeff. I have a hunch the network's going to give you all the time you need.}
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Sixteen seats in Council now, arranged now into three rows: six, five, and five. Gardener helped me onto the one closest to Jeff. My legs are not working very well. It's been a very long thirty-nine days and something was going to really show it eventually...
Jeff looks at us as the others settle into their places. "Everyone, move over one -- Phillip, come down to the front row. We've got to close that empty space." People shuffle. "Alex, are you physically up to this?"
"She didn't hit me that hard." My cheek is probably a little red and I'm not looking forward to getting the bra off, but that's it. "Besides, it wouldn't be the game if I wasn't aching somewhere." Gardener chuckles.
"All right," Jeff says. "We're going live in three, two -- welcome to the Society Islands Reunion, and if you're waiting for your local news, you may have to wait a while, because we've got a lot to resolve." Shaking his head in disbelief. "I'm not even sure where to start -- so let's begin in a slightly unusual place: fourth. Gary?" Who looks over, eyes quiet. "You asked the strangest question in the history of Tribal Council. I allowed that question because..." He hesitates -- then sighs. "I'm giving up show secrets left and right today. The footage where Trooper originally brought his idea up with you never reached the show, but it did reach the mansion. Our staff psychiatrists weren't sure what to make of the concept --" typical, really "-- but they did let me know, because it was that potentially major. Whatever chance existed that Trooper was right obviously didn't merit Alex's removal from the game -- but no one wanted to question her on it, we kept it away from the rest of the staff because we didn't want things influenced in any way, and we had no way of verifying anything -- but I did know someone had thought of the possibility. When you dropped that particular bomb, I let it land because I had that theory in front of me, even if I didn't know whether it fit or not -- and I thought Alex might verbally rip you apart for going there. But I still don't know why you asked it in front of the world. It went against everything you'd shown about yourself."
Or maybe Jeff knows, and he just want to hear Gary say it: a magician's force of sorts. There's a few more leading questions to go...
Gary takes a slow breath, adjusts his position on his seat and tries to straighten his posture before speaking. He's still in something of a slump. "When Trooper originally approached me with his idea -- shortly after the stilts challenge -- I thought it fit pretty much everything I'd seen about Alex. It fit too well. Mary-Jane came up with it independently. They've both had some experience with rape victims: Trooper because of his job, Mary-Jane because a few of them enter her industry as a means of getting control back. And I..." Stops, looks out at the audience, sees what he needs to. "...did some volunteer work at one of the early crisis centers when I was in college." A long, slow sigh that sends his posture even more forward: he's about halfway to being doubled over. So how did you meet your Michelle, Gary? "But it had been decades... and the more I came to know Alex -- I think I got as close as it was possible to get at that time -- the less sure I was. Until Mary-Jane told me what happened at the river when Alex sent her mother back." They've all seen that now, or at least the portions that reached the air. My threatening to break the contract didn't make the cut. "That's when I started to think I was looking at multiple effects, stacked on top of each other. Abandonment mixed with violation and what was starting to feel like abuse. We all found out about that in the last couple of weeks..." He looks very tired. "I kept wondering why no one had seen it before -- but Alex doesn't spend a lot of time with people away from us. We were her first long-term exposure for anyone who was willing to see her. I just had the right background to get a good look, and so did a couple of other people."
Jeff nods. Okay, that's the hat. He still wants to see the rabbit. Almost gently, "But you still brought out the question, knowing it was going to hurt her. You're not a psychiatrist, Gary, even if your job involves some training in seeing how people think and react. Crisis centers should just teach you what not to do."
He's very tired. "Confrontation therapy was big at the time... but that's not what this was about. It was all about the game -- and that meant my question was really about one thing: Phillip." Who's slowly nodding -- and the Hall just spotted the fuzzy ears. "I'd added up Alex's votes after Gardener went out. The way I saw it, she had, at the absolute maximum, three: myself, Robin, and Mary-Jane. I personally believed every word Gardener said when he went out -- he was exactly that angry. I thought I knew what Alex was doing in that last choice, and I couldn't blame her for it. I just didn't see any of those other four votes as shifting -- but Phillip was the most vulnerable to an emotional onslaught. All I had to do was make myself look like the biggest jerk that ever set foot on this planet, keep pushing and pushing, hope something came out -- and if it didn't, that I would just look like the biggest jerk on the planet. Like I wasn't voting for Alex under any circumstances, even after doing that to her. I was trying to push Phillip to the point where he had to act. It worked, obviously -- but..." Closing his eyes. "It wasn't necessary. Gardener voted for Alex. That meant she had four all along -- and I didn't have to do that to her..." And now he is doubled over, and the tears are starting to come...
Gardener reaches out, carefully pats his back. "Jeff, can I cut in here for a minute?" Yes, he can. "You know the sick part about this? We were playing the same damn game." You can hear the Hall collectively blink. Gary just manages to look up. "Look, was I pissed off when I went out? Absolutely. Hell, I just watched a million dollars being ripped from my hands: I think I had the right to be a little upset. But when I stopped and thought about it, I knew what Alex was doing. She was playing the game. That's what I'm all about: playing the game. So I thought about Alex, and then I thought about Connie, and guess what? Exactly one of them really played it. So I went in ready to vote for Alex, and I figured that unless Mary-Jane went weird on us, that was four. But then Gary pulled out his question -- and by the end of it, I was right where Alex was: convinced he wasn't going to vote for her." He quietly looks at me. "You came in here tonight thinking it was the shutout, didn't you?"
"Yes." There's no point in denying it now. "After what came out in your question -- I couldn't see anyone voting for me. Not after that."
Gardener sighs. "Ladies and gentlemen, the ever-optimistic Alex Cole." Laughter in the Hall. "You were so damn shocked when Robin's vote came out, even if we're the only ones who can tell what the hell that means with you... But with Gary's vote out, we were back to three. I didn't know what the hell he was doing or why. No idea what Alex could have ever done to him which would get him to treat her like that. Hell, she did pretty much all of it to me. But -- Phillip was the one thing I never wanted to see out of the man close-up: pissed off. He'd promised he was going to vote for Connie -- we all knew that. And we knew what a promise meant to Phillip. But I could just see how mad he was at Gary, how much he wanted to do anything that would make things better somehow... So I got up there and I pushed. I wanted to make it absolutely clear that I wasn't voting for Alex, I didn't give a damn about her, and the only reason I wasn't laughing about what she'd gone through was because it would take time away from feeling sorry for myself. Basically accusing her of making the whole thing up to start the ball rolling, and then I just chased it wherever it went. Nearly ran over Ethan with the damn thing." More laughter in the audience, but also confusion: Ethan who? A lot of them just got here, and they're not going to know all the names... "It didn't even matter what my question was, as long as it was something where I could badger her. So I asked something I'd actually been curious about, because she didn't fit anything for anyone else. Just reject her answer no matter what it was, keep pushing no matter what happened until Phillip went off the cliff. And then..."
His eyes are completely open now, his voice quieter. "And then that came out. Most honest damn answer I'd ever heard for a Council question, and the last thing I was ever expecting... You asked me one, Alex, and you know something? I'm the other uncle, the tough-love son of a bitch who keeps pushing you until you reach past yourself to a place you never thought you could be..."
One tear, a small one, at the corner of his right eye. Just one, tiny enough for him to deny it was ever there. It's enough.
Phillip sighs. "Gary, I came about as close to hitting you as I've ever come to hitting any man. Came in here tonight ready to tear into you with every word I could find. And I find out you were using me -- that's your reason for everything you put Alex through. And then Gardener, you went for that too? Because neither of you could see where the other one stood -- and you decided that getting me to swing was the only way Alex was gonna win. You know what? It worked. I got in there, I looked at the camera, and I said 'I can't do any more to her than what's already been done.' I changed my vote -- broke my word for the first time in my life, and I didn't care if it didn't help her win, because I couldn't cast one for Connie without going against everything I am. I didn't think either of you was voting for Alex, and it was gonna be four-three for Connie. A protest vote that wasn't gonna mean anything. And instead..." He stops. Gary's hands are over his eyes, and the sounds of soft weeping fill the Hall.
"Gary?" He looks up at me, eyes wet. "It's okay." Because it's not a lie. It has to be so he can be. "It all came out in the end anyway. You -- did what you thought you had to. You didn't know it wasn't necessary... you had no way of knowing that. You were just trying to do your last job as my alliance partner -- getting me to the win..." Is there any word that can make the pain recede for him? Anything at all?
Maybe this one: "Absolved."
He blinks -- then smiles, just for a few heartbeats. "I know you never would have asked me to do that -- and for the record: she never did." Gardener nods his own confirmation. "Alex would have never gone for the emotional win. She came in prepared to try and reason with the jury -- and reason doesn't always work. In that situation, it hardly ever works. Someone had to go for the heart -- and two of us tried for the same target."
Angela just can't go this long without saying something. "I feel like the world's biggest idiot. I actually fell for that speech Connie made at the end. Sure, Alex is smart, Alex is creative, Alex could have made up the all-time sympathy ploy and run it every inch of the way through. I'd already decided to vote for Connie before I walked in -- you called that one, Alex -- and when Connie took everything that had happened and found a way to make it work where I could still vote for her and feel like I was doing the right thing? I went for it. And because I gave Tony the right signal, he followed me -- five-two, right there."
Tony's voice is very soft. "I almost didn't. Thought about going against you all the way out there -- but the way I had it added up, I didn't think my vote would mean a thing either."
Jeff will get to them later. "So now we know. Two people decided to try and influence Phillip, no matter what it took -- neither one knowing that it ultimately wasn't necessary, except to bring Phillip to a place where he would be at peace for changing his vote. And we actually came that close to the shutout for Alex's side... Alex, I watched you go through that Council. You went through more pain than anyone ever has -- and those who've watched the news know it didn't exactly stop when you got back. You may have done more than any contestant before you, both on and off the show -- and here you are at the end, the winner of the million-dollar prize, owner of a GM Sunfire -- and Sole Survivor." Jeff has said it, so it has to be true. It takes a while before the applause dies down enough for him to reach the next part. "And it's not even why you came."
Azure nuzzles against my hair. My turn... "Gardener was right -- I never even wanted to admit it to myself."
And naturally Gardener snorts. "Never really thought you just woke up one morning and said 'Reality show, family ties, it's all good in the end...'"
Staying focused on Jeff. "I came out to play -- I wanted to play. Once I knew I'd made the cast, I focused on getting six days, doing whatever I had to make it look like I was worth keeping for that long. And then, as the game started to open up one stage at a time -- I just kept playing. But ultimately, deep down -- I wanted a family where I had the option of choosing them, and they could decide if they were taking me or not. No bonds of blood forced on us, a tie that only connected because people thought it was supposed to. A free choice. I know some people think that's sick..."
Jeff's eyes twinkle. "Sick? Alex, that's what happens. You were just the first person to put a name on it and use it as a primary motivation." I don't think he'll have universal agreement -- but most of the group on stage doesn't seem to have any problem with it. Except for Desmond, who just wants to get off the stage as quickly as possible.
Gary's back in a place where he can laugh. "If you want to get right down to it, that description works pretty well for marriage..."
Frank decides to cut in. "Can I be the wise-ass little brother? I think I'm a natural for that." Most of Turare laughs: Haraiki's a little bit behind. "Hey, Jeff, I've got something to say here. I have no doubt that if I'd been in the stilts challenge for your regularly-scheduled Immunity, we still would have lost. Get the same idol clue, Alex goes off to Tree Mail and grabs the thing, Desmond's toast that night." And now Desmond looks like he's going to get up and leave right now. "But then we kick the memory challenge's ass on Alex's skills, I listen to her going down that beam..." Desmond's starting to stand up. It's just amusing Frank. "I told you, dude -- not trying something new was going to cost you --"
Desmond walks out.
Frank watches him go -- then shrugs. "No great loss... Anyway, I've got to figure we would have hit the merge six-four. But if we didn't win both of them -- what was our third idol clue for a tribal loss?"
Jeff's frown isn't anger at Frank going out of turn: it's deep concentration. "Let me think -- it's been a while since I saw the list... got it. 'Don't avoid the rush.'"
Silence...
...and I'm the one who gets to break it. "The cascade at the top of our waterfall."
Frank groans. "And I'd still be out..." Virtually everyone laughs, and Azure joins in on this one.
Back to me. "Alex, you went through physical and emotional pain on a scale we've never seen before. Everything that could have happened did. But at the end, you're here as the Sole Survivor, and it brings up one very major question." The pause. "Was it worth it?"
I think about it for a few heartbeats. There's plenty of time -- and the answer to the question is a question, one that needs its own answer. I turn on my seat, slowly look over the others, force myself to ask the only thing that matters. "What are we to each other?"
Gardener decides to go first. "Uncle sounds pretty good to me. No idea how I'm going to explain this to my real nieces and nephews -- probably have to wait until they're old enough to speak English..."
Gary sighs. "I wasn't the best island father. I want to be your friend, Alex -- if you'll let me."
Robin just grins. "I can definitely do cousin. You've just got to be Scottish."
Mary-Jane, very softly. "I don't know. I want to believe there's a chance to find out."
Phillip's turn -- but he holds back, looking to Tony, who seems a little less tired now. "I know you wanted to tell me -- and I know I wouldn't have believed you..."
Angela can't look at him or me. "I don't hate you any more. For whatever that's worth."
Trooper. "Alex, when I told Gary what I was thinking, I never thought it would lead to this. I hope you can forgive me -- and that dinner invitation still stands."
Frank just verifies what he said before. Those who were never Amanu really can't comment -- and it brings us to Trina. "Aunt. Definitely the aunt." I really like the green of her hair in these lights: it has an emerald sheen to it.
And finally, Phillip. "You're family, Alex. Don't ever doubt it."
I turn back to Jeff. "Yes."
And eventually, he has to go to commercial just so the crying and cheering in the Hall can both have a chance to stop.
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{Angela asks to speak, finally apologizes to Tony. He gets her back with this one: "I thought you'd try and say something tonight -- I just didn't know if you'd mean it or try to say it because you were sick of being the villain and you wanted people to think you did. But you went for Connie when you were the closest one, and I want to believe you didn't plan it out first. Maybe you did, but -- I guess someone's got to get the benefit of the doubt sometime." Extends his hand. "Hi. I'm Tony. How you doin'? Oh, and before you get any ideas about dating -- you're not my type..." Angela forces a laugh, says Tony really isn't hers either.}
{Jeff being very careful on the directing here -- Jake isn't coming up, and as for the source of those rumors about Edward? We are not going to go over that in front of a live camera.}
{Umm... breaking news on CNN: Edward's just been arrested. He was waiting at La Guardia, watching the show in a bar. When Connie went ballistic, he followed suit. He has been, to put it mildly, detained.}
{He didn't even come to the Reunion? Getting ready to run -- with or without Connie?}
{Good question. Here's hoping it comes up at the trial.}
{Here's a good answer: Connie was about to go into the media rotation. She wouldn't have been able to get to the airport for at least a day. Unless Edward was really thinking about sleeping by the gate, he was running. Maybe getting a jump and waiting for her at the other end -- but he wasn't going to be there for her in the Hall. There's a word for that, too.}
{Robin's up for a speaking part in an upcoming play, says she's going to see if she makes it and if not, consider television -- movies -- whatever anyone's desperate enough to offer her...}
{Elmore wants to get those weight-loss tips from Gardener. Gardener thinks Elmore's off to a good start, but sure: talk to him later, he'll see what he can put together.}
{Show of hands: put Connie on the jury and assume she votes for Gardener in a Final Two with Alex. Say the Council doesn't go weird: what's the tally? Gardener gets votes from Angela, Tony, and (you have to believe) Connie. Gary, Mary-Jane, Robin, and Phillip vote for Alex, because Phillip sees her as the stronger in that pairing. Son of a bitch... maybe that's knowing now what they didn't know then, but... Alex is stunned.}
{Gardener taking that with moderately bad grace. "And thank you so much for my double screwing." Because guess what? He was taking Alex. He can finally say it now, and he has absolutely no consolation from that whatsoever.}
{Gardener and Audrey are doing well -- there she is in the audience -- and they're wondering if it's worth getting married all over again. Gardener just wants to do it in front of a judge, because he'd sort of like to keep some of his check and the big wedding thing would kill him.}
{Gary with a good one. "Fastest edit destruction ever -- hopefully followed by the fastest redemption." There's been some talk at work about making him the new public face of the IRS. He's not sure they'll keep that up, but...}
{Trooper's just happy he got to be there and have people complain a lot less when he pulls them over now. Offered some small commercial parts -- people like his look. He's up for trying it, and he can always go back. This new way probably means a little less gunfire.}
{Trina's moving to Hollywood in a few months. Of course she is. Go to where her clients are now coming in from. "Everyone knows my accuracy rating isn't a hundred percent -- but maybe now they'll trust me when I say this is the one that's going to work..."}
{And that's the cue: Jeff just has to get this mystery resolved. What is the last card?}
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Trina slowly comes down, her long skirt grazing the steps behind her. "I saved this," she tells us. "The exact card. When I got back, I had a special case made for it." It's coming out of her pocket now: thin teak with brass hinges. "People kept asking if I could use what they keep calling Alex's deck for them, but I haven't dealt it since coming home -- it was always one card short." Denadi's smiling a little: I'm guessing the cards came out at least once in Sequesterville. "So --" She stops in front of me, opens the case --
-- a young woman in a grass field, standing inside a ring of flowers. Her eyes are open, arms outstretched, and she's been caught in motion -- dancing. Her right hand holds what could be a wand of some sort if you want it to be -- or it could even be a torch. The left one is palm-up, and a globe floats a few inches above it, miniature clouds slowly drifting across the continents. 21: The World.
"Fulfillment," Trina quietly tells me. "The counterpoint to the Fool -- the end of a journey in satisfaction and accomplishment. Sometimes -- even happiness. I saw this, Alex, and I didn't know if it meant you would win. There were a lot of ways to have the card work out which wouldn't have had you winning the game -- but combined with Judgment, I had to think it would be you at the end. A hard journey, and I know there were times you hated me for showing you any part of the path -- but this is where you would come to."
I look at the card. I never would have believed -- never... Softly, "And sometimes -- it means the world?"
Which just makes Trina laugh. "Come on, Alex -- now how could it ever mean the world?"
It cracks the rest of the group up, and we talk about the Tarot reading for a while. (Elmore had a very strong reaction when the Moon came out, and Denadi believed in the cards all along.) From there, it goes scattershot: everyone has to get a few words in. There are things we're not discussing -- but they can wait for a little while, even if they have to stare at Jeff breaking the usual order while they do. For now, Michelle hopes Turare talks to her backstage because she'd like some kind of chance to meet us that wasn't just from watching the show. Denadi's looking forward to going back home and just opening the health food store -- but she's glad she was here for this. Frank is working again: someone took a chance on him, and he's back behind the counter. Not dating, though. He wants everyone to know that. Not dating. Anyone who wants to change that is welcome to apply.
Phillip wants to see me in the early spring. Gardener wants me in the fall: get me into the locker room for a real motivational speech. I have to learn how to drive. I have to find a new place to live, too. Some joking attempts to promote hometowns, with Frank really pushing for Shamrock. I don't know where I'll go in the end. I'd like it to be someplace warm.
The original artwork from the TV Guide issue is presented to us -- or rather, shown: we'll get it for good when we leave the Hall tonight. I get to see the Wagner creation close-up. He's an amazing artist, and I can't believe we use the same kind of paper. Robin wants to know what Kieth meant to do with her chin.
We talk about the game, and what's happened to us since. We're not talking about Jake: his name hangs over the stage, but never quite descends. We don't discuss the rumors that entered Connie's life. That's for later. We just talk about everything we can talk about --
-- until none of us could ever hate each other any more.
Finally, Jeff runs the preview clip for the next season, and I get to watch Tony's eyes as he realizes that he just got to have a bigger influence on the history of the show than he ever thought. The rest of us who were there that night also react to varying degrees: Gary's having major trouble with this one, and I think he may try to talk to Jeff later... No one's surprised to hear that Exile Island is back, and it feels like the idol is about to return to its prior state. Maybe there was just a little too much chaos with ours for the show to risk it again immediately. Or maybe they switched it back because ours is what the new players will expect. The game always changes.
The clip ends -- and Jeff stands up, looks us over, one by one, moving last to first. "The strangest game we've ever had," he tells us. "A cast like no other, a season like none we will ever see again -- and it was an honor to be a part of it." Stopping on me. "Thank you." And turning to the Hall. "I'm Jeff Probst, and I'll see you next season for Survivor: Cook Islands. Good night!"
The Hall goes off one more time, and Jeff gets that look in his eyes again, walks up to the edge of the stage, takes a bow and it only drives the noise higher... "Michelle, get up here!" She does, scrambling to be at his side, and he quickly tells her what he wants. No problems with it: she knows how to curtsy. One perfect one, and then she goes off to the left, where someone will lead her to the cast party. Trina. Elmore. A curtsy, a bow. Elmore really has lost weight. One by one, in vote order, a final goodbye to the world at the end of our game...
"Does the game ever really end?" I quietly ask Gardener. Frank. Denadi.
He knows what I mean. Not just our game. The game. The one we tapped into on our smaller scale. Just as softly, "We play every day. And sometimes -- we win..."
Desmond isn't here for his. Trooper's turn. Angela, and there are cheers this time. Tony. Phillip. Mary-Jane. Robin. Gary, with the Hall having forgiven him. Gardener stands, takes his bow, goes very low on it and adds a theatrical arm sweep. I wait for him to leave the stage, and then Jeff gestures me forward -- walks away. Giving me the last moment.
I curtsy. Azure spreads her wings and ruffles her feathers. She's a lot better at doing those things than I am at curtsying, but I only saw how it was done a few minutes ago. I've read about it, but...
The Hall doesn't seem to mind. They cheer, they clap, they reach the level they found when the sixth vote came out, and when I walk away, they try to call me back one for one last curtsy, even a bow if I feel like trying one, anything where there's just one more moment...
...but this part of the game is over. Some people in that audience will be back there with us soon enough. This is our time coming up, and I don't want to miss any of it. I get my torch, still burning after everything, still lit, because fire is life and I have a new one to start. Jeff can try to auction it later if he wants to, but if he does, I'm bidding for it. It's my torch.
Exit, stage left.
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{More off the CNN scroll: Connie's under arrest for assault in front of what you could call a few witnesses...}
{What I want to know is how you could watch CNN during all this.}
{So you've never heard of picture in picture?}
{I can only hope the airport has calmed since that arrest: I have a plane to catch. Believe me, I intend to be home for Christmas morning.}
{Have a safe flight. And if you happen to get any pictures of Edward being dragged out of airport custody and into a police van? Upload 'em.}
{Can you believe that preview? Whose stupid idea was that? This is how MB is going to try and top this season? Come on. This is going to be the worst season ever, I just know it...}
{Can I take my name off the summary draw list?}
{Nah. I'm in the mood to punish you. }
{Stupid Riddlemaster clue... you know who was wrong? The media. The popular opinion. Us. We couldn't call it for Alex because Alex couldn't win -- and then she did. I swear, that guy had better never show up here. Ever. And if he comes back next season on Sucks, do you think he could start posting a little closer to the show? I love having no time to work things out, really I do...}
{Was it the best ending we could have asked for?}
{Oh, I don't know... I'm still not sure on Angela's full motivations, Jeff didn't mention a lot of stuff that I wanted to hear about because the show's probably still thinking about potential lawsuits, and there's the whole 'Connie left the stage alive' thing to deal with. But just this once, I'm willing to settle.}
{Dudes -- thanks for being here. It was one hell of a season, and one hell of a place to spend it in.}
{And to all -- for once, and probably only once -- a good night.}
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Backstage. And now they're talking to me, congratulations from the crew, laughs and yells, gesturing me down the path I have to follow. First, my assigned live hookup room, and I spend a few minutes with the entire network, live on satellite, and no one has anything even remotely resembling an interesting question. Yes, I'm happy to have won. Yes, I'm glad to be here. In fact, this is my actual torch. Do any of these people actually watch the show?
After that, directions: just go down the hall and someone will take me the rest of the way from the turn. No changing: they want us at the party in the outfits everyone knows, which will make the celebrities feel a lot better about their choice of dress. (I've never had so much sympathy towards Lil.) We'll have about twenty-five minutes to ourselves, starting from my arrival, before they begin letting the A-list in. No problem: I plan on spending a lot of time talking to the others after they let the A-list in. It's our party, really: they're just intruders in the camp. They're not family or anything. Maybe I can function in that world after all -- but for now, I'd rather be in this one.
A million dollars. I can't even think about that. How much will it be after taxes? At my current rate of spending, not figuring in for extra Amazon purchases, I could live for over fifty years on what I think I'll have left over. Gary would know with more certainty.
The cast party -- and then, in time, Sybil's parents. I think I may know what to say to them. I hope.
Down the hall, reach the intersection, look for a guide --
-- the eyes are almost right, but the shade is a little lighter. Her hair is closer to true brown than mine, two inches taller, fuller lips. Exactly the same nose and chin. Breasts a little smaller, shoulders somewhat wider. And so close to my age, too close...
"And now," she tells me, and the voice is almost exactly like mine, at least for the voice that emerged from the television's speakers, unheard since I first tested the recorder -- but there's too much tone in it, far more rise and fall than I can ever manage, "now we are going to talk."
Look back, around, nowhere to go but back to the stage for explored territory and the crew may have that blocked, she's in the right-side hallway and I could probably just get past her...
"No," she tells me. "Nowhere to go. Not this time." Right arm braced against the wall. Gesturing with the other one. Left-handed. "Hey, big sister..."
Nowhere to go... I have my torch. I have Azure. And I have no escape at all.
She's almost relaxed. "You want to hear the smaller punchline? It's a pretty good one." The accent has a lot of the Southwest in it, a little bit of California. "I figured it out before she told me. I only started watching the thing a little while ago -- Aras is hot. But I decided I'd try it this year, just to see if they could get another guy that good-looking. So here I am in the dorm, it's the premiere night, and here comes the boat. And there you are, and you've got the blindfold over your face, I can't get a full look, but the deja vu bells, they are a-ringing. There's something really familiar about you. Too familiar. And after the drop, when you stopped moving long enough to get a good long view -- well. It's the Templeton eyes, and the Templeton nose, and definitely the Templeton curves. It wasn't a mirror, but it was too close for any coincidence I was willing to buy. Add in Mom going off on a business trip, coming back depressed as hell and staying that way for a while... sure it was a business trip. Long-lost cousin? I don't have any: Mom's an only child and so was Dad. If this is a fruit from the family tree, it dropped off my branch. I played the hunch and called Mom about five seconds after the show ended. She broke down one question in." Sticking out her left hand. "Hi. I'm Andrea. I know who you are."
The one I use for handshakes is holding a torch. I just look at her palm for a few heartbeats before going back to her face. She's right: we're very close in appearance. Too close... "I don't want to talk to you." I want to get to the party, find Jeff in the room, and hold his face in the punchbowl.
"I don't care about talking," she immediately retorts. Well, there's a contradiction. "I want you to listen. Probst said he couldn't do this to you on stage, but he'd make sure we got a few minutes. Of course he did: he got me here." The big punchbowl. "Flew me out, smuggled me backstage, and told me that you weren't going anywhere. And you're not, not until I get your ears open. I saw those papers and I read the articles. I saw the news coverage, too. Guess what? You had a hell of a life, and you had the life from hell. I know why you hate Mom, and I don't even blame you for it. From the place they stuck you in, there's nothing else you can do. But there's another side to this story, and it's about time you heard it."
She's a very emotional speaker: spitfire and barely-muted rage -- and Andrea's not willing to stop long enough to let me get a word in, no matter what the verbal cues are. "Let me know if you've heard this one before: pretty woman in a field they don't normally wind up in. Lots of brains to go with a body that makes people think she doesn't have any. All she wants to do is find a cure for something one day. But people don't always take her seriously and when she does come up with something, other people swoop in and grab the credit for her work. She's not making a bad salary out in Arizona, she's got a boyfriend and that took a while because she was always shy. They're doing pretty well in the relationship, at least he wants to think so, but she's not sure. Maybe he just loves her for the body, doesn't respect her as a person. She's second-guessing herself, partially because she's really good at it, and the rest is because work is crap and it's starting to hit her personal life. They question everything she does, question whether she did it at all, and it's making her shaky about everything. So when the offer comes, she takes it like a shot. Breaks up with her boyfriend, gets out of the state, go to the East Coast and work for Merck, start all over somewhere new where they went after her, so that means they've got to have some respect for her, right? And she moves, she settles in, the first couple of days pass and sure, she's still getting some catty treatment, especially from the other women in the lab. But she's also got some respect. She thinks she's making friends with a few of the men. Goes out for drinks with her whole department, getting to know everyone better. And that night, someone gets too friendly..." Looking right at my face. "Don't. Don't say a word. You get to comment when you've got the whole thing. Not before." Because that reaction wasn't going to stay all the way inside no matter what I did, even Azure started to shift... "Just wait for it. You're going to love the finish."
Andrea takes a deep breath. Her posture is still very casual. Her words aren't. "So she wakes up, and she doesn't know what to do. She was always shy, she went out that night because she was hoping a few drinks would make her less shy and she could open up at last. But not that way. She knows she didn't give consent. But she also doesn't know if anyone's going to believe her. For someone so smart, she could be really stupid when she was in an emotional corner. She started doing what a lot of women do: this is my fault, I brought this on myself somehow, and even if I didn't, no one's going to believe I didn't want him to... Because they left together, and he brought her back to her apartment -- but she didn't let him in. He let himself in. Is anyone going to believe it wasn't consensual? She decides no one will be on her side. She's used to having people think of her as some sort of slut, no matter what she ever actually does -- or doesn't do. So everyone will believe him, and he's the head of her department, that makes it worse... Smart enough to talk herself into all that and believe it. Goes right back to work on Monday. Gets through every day, even if she's not going drinking with the boys any more because it would keep her from her favorite nighttime activity: crying to herself. And then her period doesn't show up, and the depression starts to really spiral down..."
There's nothing I can say. Nothing at all.
"Every day, she makes herself go in to work," Andrea tells me. "Every day, she makes herself not die. She won't press charges and she won't go for counseling. She thinks about having an abortion, but even though she's pro-choice, she can't bring herself to do it. It's not your fault you're in there -- or that's what she tells herself most of the time. Sometimes she starts to think about driving to a clinic, every time she pulls back. She's trying to hide the pregnancy, though. Not eating much, trying to keep from showing for as long as possible: she doesn't want the questions at work. Can't bring herself to tell anyone, can't confide in a single person because she's still blaming herself. At work, she can cover it all up, but as soon as she's out the door, it all comes back -- and it's getting worse and worse. And she can't hide it forever, no one can hide it forever. Sure, she's gaining some weight no matter how much she tries to hold back, and it just looks like weight gain for now, but eventually, it's only going to look like one thing. She can't stand the thought of anyone knowing, not even her own parents. She is terrified, sick, depressed, not in her right mind, and every day she checks into hell and says hello to the man who did it to her because he's in charge of her and she can't afford to lose this job. I bet you know something about that kind of pain."
I still don't get to talk. I barely get to nod.
"All right, here come the whispers," Andrea continues. "She is showing in all those classic ways, and it's just about at the point where it won't be anything else: people are picking up on it, and it's amazing that she got as far as she did. Let's hear it for bulky lab coats and a projecting upper shelf! Too late for an abortion. Too late for anything. But they've been working on a pretty new drug, trying to refine some things. Always room for improvement, right? She knows what the side effects are, she's supposed to be getting rid of them if she can. And then one night she's working alone in the lab, and she's about five seconds from people asking when the shower is in spite of everything she's done to hide it, and she's been raped, she's carrying a child she never wanted, she hates her whole life, and she talks herself into the only thing that makes sense any more. But she can't take you with her. She can't. It's not your fault. So the first thing she has to do is give you some kind of chance. It's far enough along -- maybe you'll make it. Gets the drug... and you know a little about what came after that, don't you? Made herself throw up because she was afraid she'd taken too much and she'd never reach a delivery center, but the contractions were on the way, she got to the most distant hospital she could reach before they got too strong and pushed you out there. This baby is for adoption, I have to go. Named you Alex because between the stuff she took and what they gave her, she wasn't even sure if they'd said you were a boy or a girl. Got the hell out of there and went home to kill herself."
But she didn't...
"Absolute rock bottom." And now Andrea looks tired. "Sometimes you've got to go as low as you can before you find the way out in the deepest part of the pit... She called her old boyfriend because she was so sorry she'd left him, wanted to say goodbye. The sick kind of logic that comes out when you're that far down: it'll hurt less if she tells him she's going than if someone just forwards a note. He keeps her on the line for hours, even when she threatens to do it immediately if he calls in the police. All through the night, until she promises she won't do it and falls asleep. He gets the first flight out, shows up as soon as any airline would allow, and what wakes her up the next morning is him knocking on her door. He gets her the hell out of New Jersey, brings her back to Arizona and spends a year putting her back together. It must have worked because eventually, they wind up getting married and she's visibly pregnant in the dress, but she can live with it. They have three kids. Get one good decade together, and then he dies. Mourns for months, does something else stupid because that's what she does when she's down, getting herself sliced because she tells herself the only reason she could ever stand her body was because he loved her figure as part of who she was and now he's gone -- but then she does get counseling. She comes back to us, and gets the rest of the way as a single mom. And sometimes she thinks about you, wonders what happened to you, if you even lived at all, but she never tells us because she can't go back to that part of her life again. Three children, not four. She never said a word and while Dad was alive, he never would have hurt her by bringing it up in front of us. It's a good life, and all she can do is hope you have one too, because to think about anything else hurts too damn much. She abandoned you: she doesn't have any right to step into your life, wherever you are now -- if they'd even tell her..."
And then...
"Until someone calls her. It's this guy she's seen on television, and he wants her to know they have someone coming on their show next season. They've been doing some legwork, running down the possibilities, and would she like to meet her daughter? Even if the kid doesn't reach the family Reward, he guarantees they'll see each other at the Reunion. All he needs is some bloodwork so he can verify the last part of the trail. And this is her chance. If they found the right person on both ends, then you're alive, she didn't hurt you with the drugs -- you've got to be in pretty good shape to go on that show, right? You're alive, you're whole, and she'll finally see you. She sends in the bloodwork, they compare it to yours, and guess what? Bingo, Alex: four daughters. And she's happy, stays happy the whole time, Rebecca and Crystal are starting to wonder if she's seeing someone they don't know about, the phone call comes in, you made it all the way to the last six, and now it's time for that business trip, she's never been happier and more nervous all at the same time -- and then she comes back. You know what happened in between."
I know. I will never forget.
"Months where we're trying to find out what's wrong, pick her up, there's basically a full watch on her -- and then I have to go back to college. The sibs can pick up my slack. Get to a Thursday night -- and then I make a phone call. Did you know she got out of the country, Alex? She couldn't face having Becky and Crys go through what the media was going to do to us. I didn't get off scott-free. Somebody released all our names and I look something like you, hell, I had a couple of people almost mistake me for you until they got close. Robin's sisters probably went through it and worse -- but after that came out, there was just one Andrea Templeton who fits all the bills and just about gets into the bras. They knew it was me. The college did their best to give me some privacy, but I spent the last couple of weeks running duck-and-cover. Getting phone calls from the other two, they're keeping her together without me. She didn't want me to drop out of classes, but I would have and I thought about it every night, all the way to break. And then I came here, because someone had to tell you this and give you the best punchline of all."
And she stops.
So apparently now I get to talk. "I didn't know. I had no way of knowing. We both went through things, but when I told Jeff to send her away at the river, I couldn't have --"
No, now I get to be cut off. "No, you couldn't. And I told you: I'm not blaming you. I can't. I just wanted you to hear the full joke, and get a look at it..." Reaching into a jacket pocket: she doesn't carry a purse. Neither do I. "This is Rebecca. This is Crystal. What do you see?"
The words are a challenge: she's giving me a puzzle to work on. I look at the pictures --
-- hair, eyes, shape of the face, lines of the body adjusted for age, finger length to palm size, ratios, configurations --
-- look up at Andrea. Who's starting to cry, even if the tears aren't touching her words. "Too close, right?" I can't even nod. "Too close for half-sisters. Mom had one last night with Dad before she left, Alex -- and it must have been right at the start of her cycle, with the rape coming just when the window was closing. But she was already pregnant..."
We stand in the hallway together, my sister crying without words, the wall supporting her now. Nearly all her strength was used in reaching the end of the story. There's just enough left to watch my face, and I don't know what I can say that will make her tears stop. Nothing will make it right. It's a very good punchline, isn't it? After all that, one last cosmic joke. A mother and father who had four children together -- and only knew about three.
"What was his name?"
"Dad?" Yes: I just can't call him that. "Steven. I should have brought pictures..."
"It's okay." It's not. It's my whole life in that joke: every punishment, every moment of pain, everything I lost. I'm looking at the lucky one. Two parents, sisters, a home and a family, people who love her...
...but it wasn't under her control. It's not her fault. And it was a long time ago.
A lifetime.
"Andrea -- what do you want from me?"
Almost a whisper. "To let Mom, Becky, and Crys come home. They know I'm here tonight trying to tell you this. All I'm asking, for them, is that you say all this in your segment tomorrow. Let them know what really happened, so she won't be a pariah any more. And when you're ready -- come and see us. Because we've seen a lot of you -- and we're still waiting to find out the rest of who you are."
There are only two words that will work here. "I will."
"Will what?" Yes, that's very familiar. "There were a couple of options on that list."
"I'll tell the world -- and when I'm ready -- I'll come." When the time is right. When I know I can do it. And maybe see Trooper on the way back. "Do you want to come on the segment with me? I can ask Jeff -- I'm sure he'll arrange it." After the ratings that probably came tonight, the network may stand ready to give us anything, especially if they don't have to pay for it.
She blinks. "I -- yeah. I'd like that. I'm staying in a city hotel -- he can call me, or just tell me at the big party, he said I could come in if I wanted to. Here..." Fumbling in her pocket, bringing out a piece of paper. "This is all the contact stuff -- phone, cell, E-mail. When you're ready, okay?"
I nod. Azure nods. "When I'm ready."
"Okay." She pushes away from the wall. "I can't go in the party just yet. This is cast-only, and they're waiting on you -- I kept you long enough." Starts to walk away -- glances back. "If we don't get to the same places in there, I'll see you tomorrow, sis... and for family, it's Andi..."
I watch her go until she's out of sight, watching how casually she moves, how she doesn't check for shadows and threats, wonder if I have to talk to her about that -- then follow the crew member who just decided to make an appearance down to the party. Through the Hall, into the Tower, up to one of the banquet halls...
It's a very large room, far too large for fifteen people -- and that includes Desmond, who's sulking in a corner with a drink in each hand. (Self-acquired: there's no drink servers in sight. They'll probably show up when the A-list does. We're just not worth it.) The place is big enough to hold Council, a camp or two, and still have room to run a few challenges. Today's Reward is enough food to feed every player there ever was, and most of the group is spread out along the incredibly long table. Gardener's the first to spot me. "Well," he snorts, "took you long enough. Just how many damn curtseys did you take, oh star of the show?"
"Just one." Is that starfruit? "I ran into someone on the way in." Those almost have to be truffles, if only because I recognize everything around that plate...
Another snort. "Here's hoping they don't sue... anyone we know?"
"No -- not yet, anyway..." This is a lot of food. "It's okay -- they said they'd start timing from when I came in." After that, the celebrities will start to arrive, along with our families. Our other families. I can introduce Andi then. Who says I don't get to pull out a twist?
"Maybe you can convince them you showed up twenty minutes later," Gardener suggests. "Typical -- I get my feast, and it's after the damn vote which I would have lost anyway... Oh -- Alex? Something you should know. The Adams were very religious presidents. In fact, one of them was so damn religious that he refused to take his oath of office on the Bible. He took it on the Constitution instead -- because government was far too important to mix with something as risky as faith..." Back to his food. At least for now, he feels he's said all he feels he needs to. It's Gardener: what else was I expecting?
Maybe this: Gary comes up. "Alex?" Azure has her own treats to investigate: she heads off to do so.
I sigh. "So this is it, isn't it? This is where we talk."
It's funny how the makeup people couldn't do anything about the stubble either. "A little." This pause is very awkward. "I know what I did -- and now I know I didn't need to do it." A deep, slow sigh. "I thought it was the only chance you had, Alex. The only way I could help get you to the win. I said all that, and I had my reason -- but I know what it did." Eyes closing a little more with each word. "Can you ever forgive me?"
We went over this -- but maybe he needs a little more help before he can make himself believe it. Something I know a lot about. "Yes." I concentrate, just for a heartbeat, briefly put my left hand on his arm. "It'll take a while, and I'll probably have relapses -- but I'll get there. I promise." I may even completely forgive Jeff. Eventually.
Warm brown eyes looking at mine. No flinching. "Finally, she makes a promise..." Grinning a little, too -- but there's something else coming. "Alex, this is important, and I need you to listen to me about this." All right. "You're not okay. Don't mistake 'healing' for 'healed'. You took a giant step tonight, and you took a few more before that -- but there's still a long way to go. You're going to need help to bring you the rest of the way. Some of that may mean shrinks, and for some reason, I've got the idea you're going to be reluctant to do that -- but you've got to consider it. Just avoid the television ones, okay?"
Not even remotely a problem. "I think I can do that." Shrinks. Ugh. "It'll be hard -- but I'll try."
"As long as you do," Gary replies, and looks around the room. "We've got to work out a schedule -- Phillip wants you for the spring, but I personally want to get you down to D.C. for Easter, Gardener's trying to claim some fall time, and Tony was openly thinking about next Christmas." He's currently having a merry chat with Denadi. Angela's about twenty feet away, in a very soft conversation with Robin. Soft on Angela's end, anyway: Robin may forgive her any season now.
"And work out the taxes," I tell him. "I don't know how much I'm supposed to pay, and if I ask an accountant, he'll just make me pay him a lot..."
That gets a grin. "I think I can give you some hints."
Phillip overhears it and stops working his way through the heated dishes. "And me some right after. You owe me, Gary -- making me think you were scum for months, first grey hair I get, I'm naming it after you..." Gary laughs. "Alex, what are you gonna do with all that money?"
"I don't know." I don't. "I really do have to move -- I was going to try for someplace warm. But I don't know what's going to happen to my long-term income, so I'm not sure how much I can spend, and --" I look at Azure, who's checking out the table: wandering everywhere, but with her beak only going towards her dishes. Very well-trained. " -- I don't think I can get enough space."
"To keep her?" Phillip easily guesses. "You'll work something out, Alex. A zoo nearby where you visit and she gets to talk to lots of people in between, or a nice big hunk of land somewhere -- it'll come through somehow." And there's that faith again, except that a big hunk of land costs a big hunk of money. "Oh, no -- Michelle! Elmore! I thought we settled this on Day Two!" Off he goes, inadvertently recruiting a curious Trooper on the way --
-- and in someone else comes. "Alex?" From behind me. Oh, great... "Can I have a minute?"
I sigh. "It's going to be more than one, Jeff, and we both know it." This was supposed to be cast-only... when did he get here, anyway? "Can it wait until the main party?"
"No," he firmly insists. "And the sooner we start, the sooner we finish. I just need you in that corner -- a little privacy."
And that's Jeff all over: forever getting people into corners when they least expect it. "All right, fine..." The game's over and the man still thinks he runs everything. I turn around -- and he's carrying boxes. What's going on here?
Wait -- my sketchbook! But that's only one box, and Jeff has three...
Okay... "Could someone hold my torch?" Frank's only too happy to take temporary custody. "And if you could find a place to put it..." Amazing that no fire systems have gone off yet: maybe the flame's just too small. He scrambles off and I follow Jeff to his chosen corner, which needs to have Desmond evicted from it first. Guess how happy that makes Desmond. "All right -- what's going on?" Actually, while he's still in the middle of setting the boxes on a table. "Can Andi come on the segment with me tomorrow?"
"Absolutely." And he probably told them to expect both of us before that ever happened. "Okay -- I've got some things to do here. First off, just so you know you're getting it back -- this has your sketchbook inside." He pats a box. "But there's an issue with it."
Oh, no -- what now? "Jeff, the season is over. I get that back." If he thinks I'm putting up with any more twists...
"It's not complete," he insists. Someone took a sketch out? And before the anger can really start to rise, "The publishers want the final Council. And maybe some scenes from your life after the show." Looking disgusted. "I told them you probably wouldn't want to draw Jake's attack, but try getting some of those people to listen..."
"...publishers?" He did not just say --
-- no, he did. In fact, he'll say it again. "Publishers. Alex, the world knows you were making sketches the whole time. There are people ready to fight over who gets to release the results, and they came to us because I had the book and you weren't allowed to talk. They all want you to finish it off, add some commentary and extras -- but they want to publish it, and fast. Of course, you may need a research trip to get some of the last details, and the publishers will pay for that. I've been talking to the heirs, and they're fine with you spending some time on Yanini, even checking out the rest of the island. Of course, they don't have much choice -- we filed that under the post-production part of the contract, so they're not getting any extra money out of it. Which is really going to hurt them when they find out what the publishers are willing to pay..."
"What -- what were the publishers willing to pay?" This isn't happening...
Jeff gives me a number. It's a very large number. And then he casually says "Of course, that was the lowball, and I'm pretty sure you can get them bidding against each other. You're going to need an agent to help you work out the details, an honest one -- I'll give you some names later. That should get you in the door for taking your own books mass-market -- you can't keep printing and mailing them yourself after this, and you should really put the commissions on hold for a while."
Because I won't have the time to work on them, plus a lifetime of filling those orders would never equal that number... I seem to be blinking a little more than usual. "Jeff, this is --"
"-- a lot to hit you with right now," he interrupts me. "I know. But I had to tell you so it could start as soon as possible -- the quicker the release, the more they'll pay. Ideally, the negotiations should start the day after tomorrow. And you need the agent before that, just so you'll have someone who can tell people to get in line and take a number. Right now, the world wants to hear from you -- and it's not all going to be short-term. I hear all the rumors, Alex, because people tell them to me hoping I'll let something slip on the way back. Commercials if you want them, although I'm having a hard time seeing that. Guest appearances, and that's even harder to picture. ABC actually wants you for a show..."
Oh, no... "Forget it." He should know that tone: it's his. No contradiction brooked here. "I am not having anyone pick out twenty-five people they think I'll want to date." At least this is something to think about other than the impossible amount of money, something I can believe in because of course another network would want to get in on this any way they could...
And he's laughing. "Not that! Robin might get that if she really wants it, but they'd rather have her as one of the new celebrity trainers for their dance competition. Tony's just about a lock for the first one, but he doesn't know it yet... Alex, they want you to host."
Re-blink. I'm going to wake up any second now... "Host -- what?"
"Oh, something old, something new..." A very big grin. "Alex, you're a little bit dark, more than a little mysterious, you fascinate people, and there's times when you make them just a tiny bit nervous. Which show do you think they want you for?" And before I can even begin to get my brain around the most likely (and completely impossible) answer, "This box -- well, Tony said it. You don't get to keep the check." Opening the top. "So I figured just this once, on my dime..."
It's a trophy. A little silver woman holding a tiny gold torch. And an inscription plaque: Alex Cole: Survivor: Society Islands: Sole Survivor.
"Of course, I had to have one made in each gender, plus sixteen plaques," Jeff groans. "That was annoying -- Alex?"
Because I'm still looking at it. "It's beautiful, Jeff -- thank you." I have to show the others later, I have to --
-- but for now, he's putting it back in the box. "Sometimes Tony has interesting ideas." A long pause. "Alex -- I know how rough this was for you, and -- look, Gardener is never going to tell you this, at least not here. But he had a confessional at one point where he started talking about some of the women who come into his strength training center -- because they're looking for the strength to fight someone off the next time. And that was just about right on top of the stilts, too. I have to think he had some kind of idea, and he dealt with it in his own way..." Trailing off, looking like he's trying to think of the best words to bring out next, no real preparation time for this footage, and I think about Gardener and wonder if that was his idea of a gift to me: to keep the treatment the same the whole time, because I could take it...
Not a bad gift, really. Not bad at all.
This pause is really stretching out. Jeff can't have any more twists.
No: just a question, and it's a weird one. "Be honest with me. How many lawyers have you heard from since Jake's attack?"
"Four hundred and fifteen letters by overnight mail, over six thousand electronic ones, and I had to unplug my phone." In a little over two days. It had been ridiculous. "They all seem to think I should be suing the show for what Jake did..." Any excuse to get my prize money out of me in the form of legal fees. "There were some after the jaguar aired, too -- claiming neglect."
Jeff nods. Very softly, "We want to settle out of court."
Come again? And at least half of that makes it to my face...
...which just gets another nod out of Jeff. "If you ever repeat this, Alex, I will deny it -- but after what we saw from Jake, we had a responsibility to make sure he didn't go near you, even after we fired him. Because what he didn't do when you were under attack was why we fired him. When you're on the show, you're effectively a contract worker of sorts -- at least that's how they explained it to me -- and when one employee attacks another..." Whispering now. "The show doesn't want the negative publicity, and the lawyers will be chomping at the bit to grill us over the coals. We're willing to settle -- but we want it to be out of court if at all possible, just to stay out of the papers."
"For -- how much?"
Jeff names another number. They aren't exactly getting smaller. "It's buying silence -- but I promise you, Alex, this will never happen again on our watch --"
"-- you spread the rumors about Edward."
And that gets him to blink. "Yes." He's willing to admit that now, if only at minimum volume so he'll have some more full denial later. "The same way we spread the ones about Jake. We didn't get Connie's answer, no matter how much we tried enhancing it -- fragments at best, that could have been those words. But the more we thought about it and everything we'd seen from Connie, the more it started to make sense. So we dropped a few suggestions in the right ears. People are still looking into Edward's background, and some of it is just hunting for the paperwork -- a lot of the medical records from his early cases are missing. But --" he's working up to something ugly "-- it was starting to look like he was making mistakes on the diagnosis level. When he operated, he was golden. But when he was in a place where he might choose to operate, there were times when he'd miss things and decide it wasn't necessary, give out a few pills and send them home. Most of those had Jewish and Islamic last names, and too many of them wound up in the emergency room months or years later, some of them dying..."
Jeff takes a deep breath. It gives both of us time to put the images away.
"That took a lot of tracking," he continues. "Who really looks for released patients? But once the trend was finally spotted, his partners stopped triple-checking everything he did and sent him home while they kept looking for harder proof -- and you know the rest. Connie's church must have been going nuts trying to keep the story from getting out, and now they'll have to turn their attention to keeping people out of their building. I don't even want to think about how bad this could ultimately be..."
"But it's over." Because this time, he needs to hear the words. "Because you put the stories out there, and you made someone hear... everyone is going to know what they are..." A slow breath. "I'm willing to settle out of court, Jeff. Let me know when we can all get together."
That gets a reaction. "I didn't expect you to give in that fast."
"It sounded like a fair number." It sounded like a ridiculous number. "And I'll deny this if anyone else ever asks -- but maybe not going for more is your Reward for beating the Do The Right Thing challenge." I shrug. "Besides, lawyers would just take most of it in fees."
Just a little laugh. "Which is why we started with the number you'd probably have after the rest was taken away..." He may or may not be lying. "Okay. One more thing for now." He hands me a box. Plain white, twelve inches across, nine wide, six deep. "This is for you. And that is all I know about it. I trust the person who gave it to me enough to not believe it's a bomb, although I just barely managed to keep from having it X-rayed. But I was asked to give it to you after the show, win, lose, or contract violation -- so here we go. The last part of my duty as host."
It's not very heavy... "Who gave it to you?"
Jeff sighs. "Friend of a friend of a don't ask. You're supposed to open it in private, but see if I care. If this is what I think it is... you know, some people just can't keep from horning in..." He starts to move away. "If I get too lost in the party, I'll still see you tomorrow, Alex -- I'll be on the segment, too." Leaving the other two boxes behind. "We'll keep working things out from there. Take care of that sketchbook -- it's going to be worth a lot of money."
And he'll be talking to someone else in a few seconds, the invitees will arrive after that, he may never be this vulnerable again...
"Jeff?" He glances back. As softly as I can pitch it, "I got your letters..."
His eyes twinkle as he whispers. "Letters? I don't write letters. I'm too busy posting cryptic clues on the Internet..." Off to the buffet table, where Azure decides she's had enough treats for a few minutes, looks around until she finds me, and flies to my left shoulder.
They'll have to let her come with me. That's not negotiable. We'll both go home, if only for a little while. And then maybe we can try to make a new one... Right, Jeff?
No answer. They've both said all they had to say.
I carry the boxes out of the corner: I need a safe place to put them. Some of the others notice: Gary, Gardener, Tony, and Phillip come over. Tony's the most curious. "So what was all that about?"
"He was returning my sketchbook," I tell them. I'm having trouble believing in the other part of that long enough to say it. "And Tony, this was your idea..." I set the boxes down on another table, open the largest one again, take out the trophy.
Tony whistles. "That is nice... they should make one for all the winners..."
"Hell, I'd take a third-place one," Gardener decides. "Maybe I'll get one made myself." Denadi is currently trying to talk to Desmond. She actually seems to be making some headway. (At least, he hasn't left yet.) Trina and Frank have renewed an argument about rice cooking. Angela may cave in to Robin any century now. "But that's just two boxes. What's the third?"
Gardener and his damned ability to count. "I don't know. Jeff just said he was told to give it to me after the show, and he trusted the person who did it, so it isn't Connie's last revenge..."
"Connie," Phillip decides, "is gonna wind up playing Richard's tune. It's all the show's fault, the show was supposed to take care of everything... If she wanted the win, she should have played for it." Coming from him, those are very harsh words. "Come on, Alex -- open it! Let's see you've got. Maybe it's the idol -- it would make sense to let you keep it."
"Too heavy, and not if someone else gave it to Jeff." But I'm curious too: I start taking the tape off the box.
"So maybe it's both idols," Tony submits. Trina's coming over for a look. "Let's see this -- hey, maybe it's the tribe flag in there too, and you're getting all your artwork back."
Which still doesn't include the 'it sounded like someone outside the show' factor, but I didn't tell Tony that part, so no fault. The top comes open. Starch packing peanuts. Not helpful. There's a hint of something black in the middle of them, but not the right kind of black for an idol. Reaching in -- it's some sort of fabric --
-- it can't be -- it can't --
I take it out.
It's a little black waist pack. With yellow and red stripes on the front.
Gary takes a very deep breath. "Oh -- my -- God." So it's just a night for strong language all over. "Alex -- do you know what that means?" Now there's a stupid question: of course I know what it means. I'm just not sure I believe it. And more people are coming over to see it -- not including Desmond: he really wants to talk with Denadi -- and Jeff is making a tremendous point of not watching us...
Trina has the follow-up, if not the best possible earlier interpretation of the final card. "Is the rulebook in there?" I dig through the peanuts: it is. It's very thick. This is going to take some serious reading to find anything even remotely resembling a loophole --
-- and there's something written inside the front cover, something that's better than any poem we ever had.
I softly read it for the others. "'Where are we running? Pick a partner: I'll see you at the starting line. Phil.'" Looking around at them. "Guys, you can't tell anyone..."
Philip laughs. "I think we all know the drill by now. I'll keep it quiet." Michelle and Elmore nod. "Alex -- go out there and have the time of your life."
"I -- I can't." And before they can react to that, "Not alone." Looking around wildly, eyes coming to a stop --
-- and Phillip takes a step back. "Oh, no," he grins, arms spreading wide in half-mock protest. "I just barely got the first big trip from Jess. Besides, look at the starting date -- that's serious work time for me. I've got my own miles to work out, Alex -- can't come along on yours. Figure I'll try on my own when Gillie hits the right age, if I'm still in the mood."
He's turning this down? But -- okay, next pick, so much for strength and an open charisma to travel with, it's time for strength and strategy --
-- which isn't having any of this. "Don't even think about it," Gardener tells me. "I'm still rebuilding with Audrey. I am not asking her permission to go running around the planet with a younger woman."
They're both insane. Completely and utterly insane. No wonder we're a family: we have so much in common. "Gary --"
Who's already shaking his head. "I'm out of vacation days, and if they still want me for that publicity campaign, I'd better stick around." Gently, "Alex, you know what this decision is. There is one person here you should be making the trip with. Just one."
What is he talking about? Why are the others acting like they know exactly what he means? "Gary -- I don't understand..."
"It's easy if you think about it," he tells me. "Someone in this room has to go with you. One person should go with you. The one where it's not a choice based on strategy, comfort, or balancing out some of your own abilities. The one where you're just doing the right thing. Who is it?"
I stare at him for seven heartbeats before the answer to the puzzle comes. And when it does, I nod, then repack the box because people will be arriving at any moment and there are things we don't want outsiders to know. Look at Azure, find strength in her, and start the first step on a very long journey.
Every stride is a challenge, every foot closer a test -- but I think I can beat this one. I know what the rules are, and maybe I even have the words.
I don't know where I'm running to. But at this moment, for what might even turn out to be a little longer than just long enough, I know who I want to try running with.
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After
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{We are in the last minutes before launch, and I'm not so much eager for the start as I'm just sick and tired of everything that's come before it...}
{I know what you mean. Has the Race ever has a season that was this locked down? We don't have a single credible spoiler, one sighting we can count on -- maybe the entire planet finally developed selective blindness and no one can tell what red and yellow stripes look like any more, much less what they're supposed to mean.}
{What if they just went to a lot of new places this time -- places without a lot of American tourist traffic? Really out of the way, so they could keep out of sight.}

{Nice theory, newbie. I like that theory. I will give you instant credibility on that theory if you can also explain to me why they aren't revealing all the teams! This is insane! Ten teams on the website, and one that's blacked out with a label over it. And the label says? 'Wait for it.' Same thing for the promos. Suddenly they're taking a page out of MB's flaming book of pure evil. I swear, if this is Miz and Trish, this television is going right out the window...}
{This is nerve-wracking. Who could they be springing on us?}
{You believe your nerves are on edge? I'm the one who had the great good fortune to draw the summary for the premiere. I am actually starting to sweat.}
{Uh-huh. I'm supposed to feel sorry for your luck. You want a little less good fortune, cut down on the prayers for a week.}
{I did. I was hoping to drop off the list entirely. Writing up a show people watch -- what was I thinking?}
{I'm guessing something about the beauty of heathen lands...}
{Okay, that is the last teaser I can take about this mystery team. Good thing the show actually starts in thirty seconds.}
{Well, this explains part of it -- they're leaving from Mexico City! No wonder we didn't have any initial airport sightings -- the first jump started outside the country!}
{...you still don't catch any of the commercials, do you?}
{Okay, here they are. That's Team Future Breakdown -- Team Delta Males -- Team Doomed... everyone we saw on the website so far...}
{They're driving up in separate cars, and they're all taking a lot of time to look at each other as they reach the starting line. One team heading in at a time, coming to a stop in front of Phil. I am completely sure none of these teams have ever seen each other before. Let's hear it for the power of multiple hotels -- they're starting off as mysteries to each other. Good for TAR -- there were too many chances to check out the competition during pregame before this.}
{...and Team Frequency. That's ten. So this next car should be --}
{*dies laughing*}
(Ohmigawd...}
{Sentients and gentlebeings, prepare for a flood of locked threads! I give us about twenty seconds before we get the first protest and the first fifty celebrations, none of which will ever bother to check the other forty-nine!}
{Why did you have to say that? What did I ever do to you?}
{Oh, some of them are not happy about this. Some applause, sure, but just look at this closeup on Team FB. They want them out -- and they just said it!}
{Yes, it is kind of hard to take "What are they doing here?" the wrong way, not to mention "She already has a million!"}
{Dude, have you seen the sales figures on those books? We're talking about a lot more than a million.}
{And Alex just stares at them, gets them both to flinch back, tells the male -- what's his name, anyway? -- that they're here to play a game, and if Team FB wants them out so badly, they're going to have to beat them. We all know voting isn't going to work.}
{This could be good, this could be really good...}
{On Phil's mark, run past him and grab your bags, the clue is on top of them... travel safe -- go!}
{And they're off! Team FB is already off!}
{The Rastas just stumbled at the starting line. When your dreadlocks are that long, you have to really think about going out of a starter's position...}
{Well, they are Racers.}
{Get to the cars, drive yourself into the heart of Mexico City -- we're starting with a game of Where's The Landmark.}
{And Mary-Jane slides across the hood of the car! Just leaps in the air and skims over the top, jumping off on the driver's side, Alex getting in the back, she's navigating...}
{Sorry, Frequency: it's a standard shift. Have these people watched the Race before this?}
{M-J and Alex off to a good start. Mary-Jane laughing, saying they knew the only thing they could control at the starting line was having some knowledge of the first city, so they figured out all the ways to the airport and studied up on the place in case they had to do something here before they left, now they just have to hope traffic won't ruin all their plans... Alex saying that after this, they'll have to make it up as they go along.}
{Anyone else just see a bit of braid in that shot?}
{I'm sorry. You all have this completely wrong. That may be Mary-Jane, but that is not Alex. Believe me, when you see her from that small a distance, you have a very strong memory thereafter. They have found a look-alike -- one of her sisters, perhaps...}
{...okay. What are you talking about?}
{People, people -- she just smiled...}
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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(End of season.)

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xwraith27 1136 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Politically Incorrect Guest"
02-07-07, 05:02 AM (EST)

3. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

*Stands up and applauds*
I never thought I'd be emotional about something I read but your entire series made me just that. My heart was actually pounding by the time the votes were being announced.
Great job, Estee, and thank you for that magnificent piece of fiction. But the question still remains... will you be doing another one?

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PepeLePew13 21243 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
02-07-07, 05:50 AM (EST)

4. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

You're trying to kill her, huh?
Great job on the whole series, ST!

A Tribe siggie
"Tsk, tsk. Pepe's messing with the newbies again." Spidey, 3/30/05

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Colonel Zoidberg 3370 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Car Show Celebrity"
02-07-07, 09:39 AM (EST)

5. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

From one author to another, I salute you. This was absolutely phenomenal, and I look forward to seeing Alex and M-J in TAR, if you so desire to write it.
And let me just say this: I was way off on my speculation, as usual. Honestly, I had Gardener beating Alex 4-3 in the final vote from the start of the finale.
Now I'm not sure which I should be looking forward to most: The next real Survivor or another Estee gem.
Now I just have to ask this: Tom, Danni, Yul, and Alex in the Final Four. The question isn't who wins. The question is how fast Alex sends the other three crying to their mamas.

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jbug 12676 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
02-09-07, 01:02 PM (EST)

13. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

>Now I'm not sure which I
>should be looking forward to
>most: The next real Survivor
>or another Estee gem.
>
To be honest, after last night's rater boring opening ep (2/8), I was much more excited to get back here to read Estee's finale!

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Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser"
04-26-09, 11:49 AM (EST)

18. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

I think Alex sends Danni crying first, in a rather short time. I love Yul, but he'd probably go second, just before Tom. And it wouldn't take too long for her to send all of them crying to their mamas.
Belle Book

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Colonel Zoidberg 3370 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Car Show Celebrity"
04-27-09, 09:48 PM (EST)

19. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

Time it takes for Alex to send Danni crying to her mama...let's see. Danni from Guatemala: Ten seconds flat. Danni from All-Stars II...ten minutes.
Yul? Two minutes. Tops.
Westman? Hmmm...an hour. In a heat chamber. And Westman will swear it was just steam in his eyes.
Chuck Norris? Hmmm...maybe Alex has met her match.

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Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser"
12-18-09, 08:52 PM (EST)

20. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

LAST EDITED ON 12-18-09 AT 08:53 PM (EST)
I'd give Yul ten minutes -- the same amount as Danni from your All-Stars II -- for Alex to send him crying to her mama -- maybe just because I like him a lot -- but the others, I agree with totally.
Belle Book

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cahaya 14104 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
02-07-07, 10:59 AM (EST)

6. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

*Stands up and applauds too*
Phenomenal, indeed. You started this late last June as a "summer fill-in", finishing with a what I view as truly classic novel-length fanfic work. It's a must reread. The depth (and consistency) of the characters as well as the many highly poignant observations and insights into both showbiz culture and individual people makes S:SI an engaging story about people. And it was full of surprises!
Speculatively, there were enough clues from the beginning to hazard plausible outcomes, and many of us were right in guessing that Alex would win in the end. But how she would get there would be a big question mark for the entire season. It's fitting that Alex found the World as the last card in her Tarot reading.
I like the ending and resolution. Leaving out the theatrics by Connie (ah hah, Jake again!), I had a notion it'd go the way it went. It just seems consistent with everything that led up to it. I knew Philip would be man with his vote. (*salute*)

Wayang Kulit puppet show by Tribe.
Well done, Estee.

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azkate 239 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Network TV Show Guest Star"
02-07-07, 01:10 PM (EST)

7. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

Standing ovation, here too.
I laughed. I cried.
I'm sorry it's over.
Estee....can you find the strength to go on?
I think we would all love to see you version of TAR!
Thank you.

another tribe work of art
{Someone needs to send this to EPMB and Jiffy ;)}

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VisionQuest 649 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Reality Show Commentator"
02-08-07, 09:47 AM (EST)

8. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

I truly enjoyed this entire series. It was better than any Survivor I watched. One question - is it possible to get the story all in one post (or is it too big)? Thank you for sharing this.

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vince3 15726 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
02-08-07, 12:48 PM (EST)

9. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

Belatedly stands up and applauses too.
*prepares for the whack* If you want to do the follow up TAR race with M-J and Alex, I'd be willing to read it.......

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michel 6689 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
02-08-07, 01:09 PM (EST)

10. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

Bravo Estee, your characters had life and it made for enjoyable reading. (I want the DVD!! )
Vince: It did say (End of season) not THE END, so maybe...

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AyaK 8129 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
02-08-07, 08:22 PM (EST)

11. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

>*prepares for the whack* If
>you want to do the
>follow up TAR race with
>M-J and Alex, I'd be
>willing to read it.......
*whack*
We don't want to ruin Alex's edit during TAR. Anyway, if Estee did TAR, then we'd have to get into the whole sexual orientation question. Better in my opinion to leave that open.
And there wouldn't be a starving jaguar in sight.

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Colonel Zoidberg 3370 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Car Show Celebrity"
02-09-07, 08:28 AM (EST)

12. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

>We don't want to ruin Alex's
>edit during TAR. Anyway,
>if Estee did TAR, then
>we'd have to get into
>the whole sexual orientation question.
> Better in my opinion
>to leave that open.
She could refuse to answer the question...or just not get into it. M-J could ask, but Alex could duck the question. I would have thought that it would come out in Survivor as well, but it didn't.
>And there wouldn't be a starving
>jaguar in sight.
There was one season where they had to walk through a monastery where there were tigers...imagine if one of them got loose...

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jbug 12676 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
02-09-07, 01:07 PM (EST)

14. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

Estee, can I get your autograph????
I'm in awe! SI was fabulous! Never will a "real" season be as exciting (even not counting the jaguar, Jake or Connie bits).
Can you hear the applause? It's got to be at least as loud as when Jeff read the first vote for Alex! And probably even louder!!!

CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
~~ OK, hands getting a little tired now ~~~~

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TheFabulousLurker 165 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Blistex Spokesperson"
03-17-07, 12:22 PM (EST)

15. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP
Now that I finally finished reading it, you should be able to hear the hootin and hollerin all the way from Indiana. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I liked this MUCH more than the real Survivor.

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Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser"
01-18-09, 08:47 PM (EST)

17. "RE: Does The Game Ever Really End?: Conclusion."

(stands up and applauds, after blinking away the tears from hearing what happened to Alex's mother.)
That was the best ending ever! Great job, Estee! And here's my final Love List, with all sixteen contestants. But before that, I have to mention Alex's feathered friend:
Azure -- I'm glad I got to know you. You were a true friend to Alex and may have helped her begin to heal. I hope Alex finds a place where you can be in contact with her every day -- when she's not racing around the world or hosting what I presume is The Mole -- and I wish you well.
Now for the contestants:
1. Alex. Congratulations! You totally deserve the win! And all the pain you went through was worth it! You got a family from Survivor and the family you should've had from the beginning! I wish you well on The Amazing Race and as host of what I believe is The Mole!
2. Phillip -- you're my favorite Hariki member. And I'm glad you flipped and voted for Alex -- even if Gary and Gardner manipulated you into doing so! You're a real man!
3. Gary -- well, it looks like the mask was the jerk you seemed to be at the final Tribal Council. I forgive you for what you did -- you were just trying to help Alex out. And it all worked out in the end. Besides, I can't kick you any harder than you can kick yourself.
4. Trooper -- so you were the one who first figured out that Alex may have been raped? Well, you were a little off -- but not too far off. I think Alex will forgive you and see you in New Mexico. Oh, and go and collect your winning bets!
5. Robin -- you must've had a great time walking the red carpet! I'm glad you voted for Alex as well. Hope you become a trainer on what I think is Dancing with the Stars!
6. Mary-Jane -- looks like you don't hold grudges to save your own life. Neither do I. And you cared enough for Alex to give her your vote. I wish you all the best on The Amazing Race as well!
7. Gardner -- you're right. You are a tough-love guy, and people need that sometimes. I like you, and I wish you and Audrey well.
8. Tony -- poor guy. At least Angela apologized. Since you are apparently going to be on The Bachelor, I hope you find a woman who's worthy of you and wish you well too.
9. Trina -- so it all worked out. The final card was the World -- literally as well as symbolically. I won't go to you for advice -- but I hope you find your fame and fortune.
10. Michelle -- not much to say about you. I wish you luck.
11. Frank -- glad to see you're okay! I probably won't be dating you -- I don't think you're my type -- but I wish you well also.
12. Elmore -- looks like you learned a little something about yourself out there, since you lost weight and want Gardner to help you out. Good luck.
13. Denadi -- not much to say about you. You didn't quit all the challenges -- but you still got the "Osten" chant. I hope you do well with your health store.
14. Angela -- you're still one of my least favorites -- for now. But you may have gotten a wake-up call. If you turn that into a positive and let go of your anger, I'll like you more. For now, I wish you well.
15. Desmond -- you were an idiot and I'd induct you into the Reality TV Hall of Shame and give you the GUFU of the Season Award. But I hope you realize it and come around.
16. Connie -- Good-bye and good riddance! I hope your husband joins you in prison, where you both belong.
Belle Book

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Belle Book 1925 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Herbal Healing Drugs Endorser"
03-09-10, 09:37 PM (EST)

21. "RE: Survivor: The Society Islands: Reunion: Does The Game Ever Really End?"

I'm glad Alex got a lot of cheers! She deserved them.
If that whole story had been real and I'd been there, I might've had a sign of my own for Connie: "Connie -- Go To Hell, Where You Belong!"

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