Episode 408: Resin, Part Four

Was a Synopsis, now in process of converting to the usual transcription. Thank you for your patience.--Maer.

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Sunday, 13 Jul 2421

The rattle of the rain hitting the corrugated roof overhead is oddly soothing and we manage to drop off to sleep. It stops sometime the next morning and we’re woken by the absence of the noise. Rina grouses the bastards took her watch and she can’t tell what time it is. Nika has a better sense of the clock and says it’s about 0600 hours. We all sore from sleeping on the concrete floor. Arden starts doing his morning stretches and calisthenics. Kiera yawns and pulls the tissue from her ears and comments that she had a nightmare that she was stuck in a nasty corrugated thing with all of us and oh, damn. Not a dream.

The door opens. Light pours in. Rifles point in our direction.

One of the guards asks us if we’re ready for breakfast. We are. Kiera even goes so far as to order eggs and bacon and toast.

Guard: We got eggs.
Kiera: Seriously?
Guard: Yeah.
Kiera: (delighted laugh) I would love you if you got eggs.
Guard: Well, … I mean they’re reconstituted.
Kiera: Reconstituted eggs’re fine.
Guard: And something that resembles bacon.
Kiera: It better not be that dog.
Guard: No. That dog was sick.
Rina: Did you run it through the protein texturizer?
Guard: Uh … you probably want to talk to the Doctor about that.
Kiera: I hope not. Maybe I don’t want bacon.

They lead us outside where everyone’s sitting in the open and hand us the reconstituted eggs and the ersatz bacon. Rina looks at the stuff dubiously and Schweiss catches her on it.

Dr. Schweiss: If we wanted to poison you, we could have just killed you instead.
Arden: Then you don’t know the stuff about the prion disease.
Dr. Schweiss: I don’t know the stuff about the prion disease?

Arden explains to him that running the protein paste through a texturizer, especially the older models, changes the protein into the catalyst for the disease. Eat texturized protein at your peril.

Dr. Schweiss: Really.
Arden: Really.
Rina: (backing Arden) He wrote the book on the subject.
Dr. Schweiss: (to Arden) Who are you?
Arden: Dr. Arden.
Dr. Schweiss: Dr. Arden six-eight—something or other?
Arden: Yes.
Dr. Schweiss: That Arden? Oh, we read your stuff.

But he thought Arden was just investigating Prion disease. Nika chimes in that he’d been sent to the camp to determine if there had been a Prion disease outbreak in it.

Dr. Schweiss: Why did the terrorists blow up St. Albans? That’s where you discovered it, right?
Arden: I don’t remember St. Albans being blown up by terrorists.
Rina: Remember? St. Albans was blown up by terrorists and they took out the Qupie factory, so you can’t make Qupie Dolls to make the Cortex relays work. Remember that?
Dr. Schweiss: There’s also the doctor who had the lab where you guys discovered the prion—.
Arden: Yes. That is where we discovered the cure but I have no idea why they blew up the factories there.
Dr. Schweiss: Hmmm…. Dr. Arden. Wow. I’m sorry. I would’ve let you sleep in a … different room had I known you were the Dr. Arden.
Arden: It’s not that big a deal.
Dr. Schweiss: No, no! See, scientists like you—all famous and you know, government scientists like me, what do we get? Nothin’ and nothin’.
Joshua: Excuse me, not to be rude, but … I’ve had to deal with the sarcasm. All night. So maybe you could just tone it down and state exactly what you mean. I’d appreciate that.

Arden looks at Schweiss and then at Joshua.

Arden: He was being sarcastic?
Joshua: Yeah, he was.
Arden: I didn’t get that.
Dr. Schweiss: I’m sorry. I’ve had—
Joshua: Yeah, I get it.
Arden: That went way over my head.
Joshua: Yeah. I get it.
Dr. Schweiss: Yes. But perhaps that doesn’t matter anymore because I’m going to be a very wealthy scientist.
Joshua: Yes, you are.
Dr. Schweiss: And it doesn’t matter if my talents have not been recognized.
Arden: I do agree that government scientists aren’t paid attention to as they should be.
Dr. Schweiss: Thank you for that.

Hmm. A mite touchy on the subject is he?

Nika: Just out of curiosity, just what exactly were you working on?
Dr. Schweiss: I, well, … I had two jobs. At first I was with the ACDC here.
Nika: And that is what I understood them to tell us in town was that your expedition came up to check on the camp.
Dr. Schweiss: But. But after there was some political turmoil and the ACDC here was no longer the ACDC but rather a bunch of guys without paychecks, we were hired by Burnham Corp to come here, run some tests, see if there was Prion disease.
Arden: Was there?
Dr. Schweiss: There was.
Arden: And where are these people?
Dr. Schweiss: They’re all dead. As near as I can tell. Or they’ve run off into the hills. I mean, we’ve put up one of the dead bodies out there to scare away people. But that didn’t scare you.
Arden: And the machinery that came to life?
Dr. Schweiss: Ah, yes. Yes. All the logging equipment here can be operated remotely or not. It wasn’t exactly remote—we programmed them, you know, in a mild way to scare off the locals.
Arden: What tripped it?
Rina: (low) Timer.
Dr. Schweiss: You probably stepped on a pressure plate.
Arden: Oh. Quite ingenious.
Dr. Schweiss: I thought as much. But this is mainly to scare off the locals. You know, Rim folk. They’re not as smart as everybody else. And they have Prion disease from eating all the Prion disease food.

Nika’s Rim folk. She frowns but keeps her mouth shut about the slur and Kiera starts to sputter. Rina steps in quickly.

Rina: The only thing that scares me is getting the TSE from eating infected texturized proteins.
Dr. Schweiss: Are you worried about the bacon?
Rina: I’m worried about everything you’re putting in front of me that’s not a prepackaged MRE.
Dr. Schweiss: Okay. Well, I’m not going to eat something that has Prion disease in it.
Arden: Well, might as well get to work.

He rises and stretches and Kiera protests.

Kiera: Before we get to work, I do have one last question, Doctor.
Dr. Schweiss: Yes?
Kiera: Cuz you’re a government scientist and all—
Dr. Schweiss: I was a government scientist.
Kiera: Well you were. We assume that you’ve unofficially resigned now, but I do have a question. Where in your government contacts—cuz you’ve led a relatively quiet life, right? Doin’ low level research, not being recognized. I understand that because I too have come from that world—
Dr. Schweiss: Right. Make your point, woman.
Kiera: I’m just butterin’ you up to ask the question: where the heck do you plan to sell this stuff because you don’t have contacts to sell it?

Silence.

Kiera: I’m just wonderin’. At the social parties that I went to, with government doctors, etc. I just—
Arden: I doubt that government scientists went to the parties you went to.
Kiera: You’d be surprised. I’m just kinda curious.
Dr. Schweiss: As near as I can understand, this entire system has been taken over by pirates or something. There’s someone who will recognize the value and be willing to trade for it.
Kiera: Yes, because after you and your intrepid bands of powerful men show up with your suitcase, you will die horribly riddled with bullets and they will take it and appreciate it. A whole lot.
Arden: Oh-kay. Daylight’s wasting!
Joshua: Where are you going with this, Kiera?
Kiera: I’m just pointin’ out something. Just showin’ up with some of the people we’ve dealt with and tellin’ them that’s what you got insures that you will not live to enjoy your profit. You will not see your profit. They will show up and take it from you.
Rina: What a ray of sunshine she is.
Kiera: So I’m saying—I’m offering our ability to help them in the transaction so they can live to enjoy the profits.
Rina: All right. Just give me the damn bacon and eggs. I’ll eat it.
Kiera: I’m just sayin’, cuz I care.

Arden laughs out loud at that one. Dr. Schweiss tells Kiera that since she knows so much, she can work out a plan to help while she’s working.

Kiera: But I have made a plan. But involves me distinctly being more of a partner, maybe kind of an intermediary than it does hacking out this stuff.
Dr. Schweiss: As long as I leave rich enough that I never have to worry about it again, and my friends as well, then we may be willing to make this work.
Kiera: Well, I’m just saying cuz what you got is the stuff and what I got may be contacts.
Dr. Schweiss: So … you’re saying we should keep you captive for longer.
Kiera: Sure, cuz going out and tellin’ my friends you’re holdin’ me hostage is really going to make them well disposed to you. Arden: It might.
Rina: All right. Let’s go.

Kiera persists.

Kiera: I just wanna help you think through all the angles of your plan, cuz I think y’all have figured out how to get it out of here, you just don’t know what to do with it when you’ve got it. I mean, just wanted to make sure you’d thought it through. (a beat) Not to make you nervous or anything. Don’t want to burst your bubble. (brightly) All right. I’m all warm and fuzzy. Let’s make you some profit that you won’t be able to live long enough to spend. I’m all for it.

That done, they lead us up to the worksite and put us to work. Arden says quietly to Joshua that perhaps there might be a weak point in the relations between Schweiss and his crew. Since Joshua’s more attuned to undercurrents than most, keep an eye out for it? Joshua agrees. Kiera agrees, too. After all, look at what she was able to accomplish just being her cheerful bubbly self. She raises her voice loud enough to be heard by our guards that it’s a pity, really. They seem to be nice guys but it’s a pity the underworld’s going to kill’em. Rina’s thinking along the same lines. She has absolutely no confidence that Schweiss is willing to split a single penny of his haul with the others, no matter what he’s promised them. But she keeps her mouth shut. No point in antagonizing the guards. Arden remarks that he just wants to put his fine surgeon’s skills to work on the trees. Where’s the saw?

One of the guards takes something like a very thick greasepencil and marks an area on an infected tree, explaining how to spot and excise the targeted resin. The trick is to stay about a hand’s width away from the darkest of the heartwood. It’s easy to spot where it is, being markedly different in color. He reassures us that he doesn’t think the mold is really all that dangerous. Rina ties her handkerchief across her face anyway. As for how far down it goes, there’s no real way of telling without flaking off pieces of the dark wood a little at a time. The goal is to get chunks no bigger than a shoebox, at largest. Much bigger, the guard explains, and the chunk burns too hot to produce the resin of the best quality. Once we extract the wood, just chuck it into the wheelbarrow and go for another piece. Duly educated, we’re given miniature chainsaws and ordered to work.

Arden reminds everyone that open wounds are an invitation for mold infection—get any wounds disinfected and bandaged before starting work. He asks the guards to go back and fetch his doctor’s bag from the generator room, just in case there’s an accident. The guards refuse, saying they’ve got a first aid kit. Arden insists, saying his bag is a better first aid kit. No dice. The guards tell us to work with theirs today and they’ll see about tomorrow. Arden retorts that if someone dies today, there’s little point in waiting for tomorrow. True, the guards say. So work carefully.

Kiera asks one of the guards to cut a bit of her shirttail off so she can make a bandana much like what Rina’s got on. She pulls her shirt free of her trousers and holds it out, affording the guards a glimpse of the flesh beneath—sneaky woman—and several offer to do her the favor. She gets that bandana, no problem. In fact, she gets enough cloth for two.

Our guards take to the high ground above the work site, settle down with their rifles in their laps and get comfortable. Can’t really blame them, considering 48 hours ago, they were doing the very same work we’re doing now.

It’s nasty backbreaking work. There’s less chainsawing than at first blush. Hunting down the infected wood and marking it off and then cutting and digging it out requires a lot of stopping, pulling the chainsaws free of tree trunks and limbs, and restarting again. The finer trimming work has to be done by hand. And over everything the rain continues to fall, wetting and chilling us down even as the work keeps us sweating.

We gratefully break for lunch and eat whatever they put in front of us. Kiera stretches the stiffness out of her and asks the guards:

Kiera: So who gives a massage when we’re done with this?

That garners chuckles all around and Nika takes the opportunity to chat up the guards.

Nika: Are you guys native to this area?
Guard: No. No, ma’am.
Nika: So you’re not locals. I just wondered if you guys had come up with this squad or if you were the ones who escorted him up.
Guard: Yes, that’s right.
Nika: What are you gonna do when this is all over?
Guard: Well… I reckon… I dunno. Get a parcel of land or maybe go travel or somethin’. Hadn’t thought much about it.
Nika: Lofty goals.
Guard: Maybe just all the liquor and women I can take.
Kiera: Yes, if they don’t die sellin’ it to the pirates.
Nika: Don’t be nasty.
Kiera: I’m just tryin’ to be honest. They seem to be nice guys. (to the guard) I’m Kiera by the way, what’s your name?

The guard seems taken aback and mumbles a name, offers up one or two more for the others. Kiera defends her conversational tactic to Nika in a quick low-voiced exchange.

Kiera: I figured it would be nice to get to know’em.
Nika: Yeah, but you don’t have to keep rubbin’ their nose in fact that—
Kiera: They’re gonna die horribly?
Nika: —unless the Doctor gets some streetsmarts clues—
Kiera: They’re gonna die horribly.
Nika: —that they’re gonna have bad luck.
Kiera: Yeah. I know, but—.
Nika: Rubbin’ his nose in it is not nice. You don’t gotta be nasty.
Kiera: I know…that’s why I want to get to know’em as nice people. So maybe if they’re givin’ their names we can tell their family they’re all likely never to be found.
Nika: Kiera, again! You’re doin’ it again!
Kiera: I’m sorry. I care about them. I know the pirates are just gonna vent them, they’re gonna space vent them and that’ll be it.
Rina: Kiera …

The guard clears his throat.

Guard: The Doctor has some plans for this, so he’s not quite so …
Arden: I bet he does.
Kiera: Really? I … sure.
Nika: (to Kiera) The doctor suggested that you might be considering some plans, so … why don’t you do that?
Kiera: Oh, I’ve considered all of them.
Arden: I think what she’s saying is to shut up.
Guard: He said something about not negotiating with the stuff with us. So that if they killed us, they wouldn’t be able to get the stuff. That seemed like a pretty smart idea to me.
Kiera: Y’all haven’t done this too often, have ya?

Cuz, remember the part about if they killed all of you? Where’s that get fun?

Joshua: Actually, it sounds less like a good idea than you might think. How much … I mean, can you fit it into two suitcases? Once you’re done with it?
Guard: I don’t know …. don’t know how long this’ll go…
Joshua: Well, let’s say we go for two weeks. So that’s like, what? two suitcases worth of stuff?
Guard: That sounds about right.
Joshua: And so you’re basically saying, he’s gonna take the two suitcases, go somewhere out of your sight with them, negotiate, and then … bring back the money. He told us we might be able to work together in some sort of agreement if we put down the guns and then he basically puts us to slave labor. That’s the same sort of negotiation, right?
Guard: Well …
Nika: How much did he tell’ya it was worth?
Guard: We don’t know, exactly, but he said thousands.
Kiera: (scoff!) A thousand?
Guard: Thousands.
Nika: Thousands. For the two suitcases worth?
Guard: Mm-hm.
Kiera: Really?
Guard: Mm-hm.

Kiera laughs in the man’s face. Her tone makes it clear: Good luck with that…

Guard: (looking askance) What’re you sayin’?
Kiera: (laughing) You’re getting’ paid too little. You’re getting’ paid little more than they are. (points at us)
Joshua: What we’re saying or what they’re trying to say and not doing too good a job of it—.
Nika: Sorry. Lost my train of thought.
Joshua: Is that two suitcases of this stuff, from what I understand, is probably worth closer to a hundred thousand credits. Instead of thousands of credits.
Guard: A hundred thousand credits is thousands of credits.
Joshua: Yeah, but ‘thousands’ implied … never mind.

Joshua waves it off.

Kiera: Let’s be honest. You could take one suitcase and easily flip it into five hundred thousand credits.
Rina: Oh definitely. It depends on how you invest it.
Kiera: Oh he’s so rippin’ you guys off. But that’s okay. We’re not part of that agreement. Rina: I’ll tell you something. If I got my hands on that much money? I’d invest it and live on interest. Never touch the principal.
Joshua: What I’m saying is that so far the doctor has not shown me any sort of indication that he’s a team player.
Nika: Or dealin’ square with anybody.
Guard: Well he’s been workin’ with us. We got—
Joshua: That’s because he needs you.
Guard: Yeah?
Joshua: What happens when he doesn’t need you anymore?
Guard: Well, you know … He’ll need us.
Joshua: Why would he need you?
Guard: Well, we’re guardin’ you, for one thing.
Joshua: No, no. After this is all done. After he’s got the stuff.
Kiera: Yeah, and he’ll kill us.
Nika: And he tells you that you gotta be the one to kill us?
Guard: Well, we’ll send one of us with him. So he can’t just take the money.
Joshua: (not buying it) Uh-huh.
Guard: Or maybe we’ll all go.
Joshua: But that’s not what he said was going to happen.
Rina: (heavily) Excuse me for a minute.

Rina gets up from the group, goes behind a nearby tree … and laughs her ass off. The crew argues the point, regardless, as Rina gets it out of her system and gets a grip again.

Nika: Jesus.
Joshua: My point is—
Guard: And why won’t that work?
Joshua: What kind of ship does he got? Something that can fit all of you?
Guard: Well, yeah. I mean, he’s got a guy up there with a ship.
Joshua: Where is ‘there’? Brisbane?
Guard: I dunno exactly. He says he’s got a message sent to it to let’em know to come on in. Some sorta coded message.
Joshua: Really.
Rina: Ohhh ….I see.

And Rina’s thinking of the weird-assed screaming transmission we’d picked up upon approach. She sits down and trades a look with Kiera.

Kiera: Uh-huh.
Joshua: All right. You seem like you got a lotta trust in him. I don’t know why you got a lot of trust in him, but it seems like you got a lotta trust in him. Because so far the only evidence I’ve seen is basically his word that he’s not going to walk off with hundreds—
Kiera, Rina, and Nika together: —of thousands—
Johsua: —of credits.
Kiera: More than a hundred thousand. We’ll see if he pulls on you what he did to us. What happens when he fills that spaceship full of gas and says I’m leavin’ ya an’ you can’t shoot me cuz you’ll blow up everything?
Rina: Yeah. He says da svidaniya govniuk. What are you going to do then?
Arden: I thought Russian was a dead language. (off her look) Sorry.
Kiera: We’re just tryin’ to think through things for ya.
Guard: So what are you suggestin’ that we do?

Now we get to it. Finally! Jeez, these guys are slow!

Joshua: I’m suggesting—
Guard: Do you mean we should take it away from him?
Joshua: No.
Guard: Try to sell it ourselves?
Joshua: No.
Guard: I don’t know why we’d have a reason to trust you, either.

Okay, maybe not so slow.

Joshua: I never said you did.
Guard: It’s a pretty dark place here. You don’t wanna be thinkin’ for yourself, you’re gonna have problems here. So, yeah, we’re gonna make sure we’re gonna get our fair share.
Arden: Well, that’s good!
Rina: I have a question for you.
Guard: Yeah?
Rina: Who’s holding all the guns? You? Or him?
Guard: What’s that?
Rina: Who’s holding all the guns? You or him?
Guard: The guns?
Kiera: Mm-hm!
Guard: We got guns and he’s got guns.
Kiera: He don’t know how to shoot’em really well, does he?
Guard: I don’t know.
Rina: It seems to me that you’re holding all the cards.
Kiera: Mm-hm!
Guard: Right. So what’s the problem? If we’re holdin’ all the cards because we got the guns, and he can’t double—
Kiera: See, but you don’t have all the product and he’ll be on a ship.
Guard: Well, maybe we’ll have the product.
Joshua: Fair enough.
Kiera: So you guys are just gonna … ?
Guard: What are you gettin’ at, lady?
Kiera: What we’re tryin’ to get at is we’re thinkin’ you’re getting’ a raw deal. And since everybody’s pretty much in the—
Guard: So what should we ask for? You tell me. You tell me what should we ask for?

He’s getting angry now and the gun is waving.

Kiera: All right. If I were you—
Guard: If you think there’s some kinda problem goin’ on, you better have a solution or otherwise I know how to solve one problem right here. I ain’t as gun-shy as that scientist.
Kiera: (unfazed) I know. If I were you, what I would want is when he shows you the two suitcases of stuff, definitely have one of your most trusted people go with him. Send one of us, cuz we don’t care one way or the other, with him. And you can hold the rest of us hostage.
Guard: Why would we wanna send one’a you?
Kiera: Cuz we’re a third party. Disinterested. We’re not gonna get any money offa this. Besides, if you don’t send somebody who knows how to talk to the pirates that he keeps going on “I can sell it to the pirates”, then your person won’t come back and neither will he. And there will be a lotta nice stuff floatin’ in the market and the pirates will be a lot wealthier.
Guard: We’re not going to give stuff to the pirates.
Kiera: Well, see, what I’m gettin’ from you guys is that you’re not professional criminals. This is somethin’ you all just stumbled on and you wanna maximize and take advantage of the profit. Right?
Guard: Right.
Kiera: So you never done this before. Right?

Okay, at this rate, we’ll be here all night.

Joshua: Her point is that her job, and she’s pretty good at it, is maximizing other people’s profits—and her own, of course, is what makes that work—
Guard: What? Is she some kinda criminal?
Joshua: What she’s saying is, allowing her to help you typically allows you to get a bigger cut out of the whole thing. A bigger pie to divide between you.
Arden: And helps us by making sure we live through it.
Rina: Yep.
Kiera: Yep.
Joshua: Cuz we’re a little concerned we might not live through it.
Kiera: Cuz if you were a professional at it, I wouldn’t let us live. But if we’ll really face that, if we’re that kinda person, we’d just go ahead and rush and die anyway. But we’re not doin’ that.

Thank goodness.

Guard: We can’t … make this stuff. What about you?

The guard we’ve been talking to calls out to another guard who’s a little more Core-side.

Guard: Daryl? What do you think?
Daryl: I don’t know how to make that stuff. I mean … you know, I’m not a scientist so I don’t think I can do it.
Kiera: Well, see, since I’m from the perfume industry, I do. And I do happen to know what he’s got. And I also happen to know he’s sellin’ you short.
Daryl: We’re getting a cut. How are we being sold short?
Kiera: How do you know you’re getting your cut? You got it on paper? Got it on a handshake? How many of you gonna know? Now, if you let him fly off in a ship to bring it back to you, where are you goin’ to be waitin’ for him? Is he gonna come back?
Guard: It’s not gonna go down like that.
Kiera: So how’s he gonna plan it’s gonna go down?
Guard: He’s gonna talk to some guy.
Joshua: Some guy.
Guard: He’s gonna show the sample.
Kiera: Uh-huh.
Guard: There’s gonna be money.
Kiera: Uh-huh.
Guard: It comes to us. We divide it up.
Kiera: How?
Guard: Well, we have a system …
Kiera: Uh-huh.
Guard: And then he gets his share. We get our share. And once we count it and make sure it’s all there, we give the location of the rest of the stuff.
Kiera: Uh-huh.
Guard: How won’t that work?

Kiera sighs.

Kiera: All right. So how, magically, if he’s talkin’ with somebody givin’ you money, how’re y’all gonna get money too? Are y’all gonna be on the same ship? Are y’all gonna be in the same place?
Guard: I reckon we’re gonna be on a planet somewhere.
Kiera: Same planet. Some place?
Guard: Yeah.
Kiera: Where they have the upper hand. Where youmeet where they choose. Y’all have a place to meet’em at? A neutral spot?
Daryl: I don’t know. Schweiss has been pretty good about—Well, he captured you guys. If you’re so smart, how did you get here?
Kiera: I didn’t get captured. I got roped into it.
Joshua: That was my fault. I actually trusted him That was my fault. Sorry.

Alas.

Kiera: Yeah, cuz I’m thinkin’ y’all have his bright plan for keepin’ people away from the log camp has been to make it haunted.
Guard: Well, they been talkin’ ’bout Prion disease and stuff like that.
Kiera: Uh-huh. All right.
Guard: People’re pretty scared about that Prion disease.
Arden: For good reason.
Kiera: Yeah. So.
Guard: I heard about them Reavers that it made. All them Reavers’re made by Prion disease.
Kiera: Oh, yeah. Our wonderful doctor here seems to have written a paper about it.
Guard: The Alliance says it weren’t true, but I know it’s true. I seen it.
Kiera: Now assume he’s convinced everybody and we are the last survey team that comes to find out what happens to you, and they assume if we don’t show up soon that it’s all gone mad and there is Prion disease, then the most likely thing they’re gonna do is come and firebomb this forest so it will not infect the planet. Therefore you die, we die, and everybody dies.
Guard: Who’s this ‘they’?
Kiera: I’d say the government.
Arden: The corporation.
Guard: The government?
Kiera: No, the people who own it.
Guard: What government you talkin’ about?
Kiera: No, no. The corporate people who own this camp.
Guard: Why would the corporation care about that?
Joshua: What? About the Prion disease?
Kiera: Because they can’t get people up here.
Guard: They’re gonna light a forest on fire in order to get rid of—
Kiera: Why not?
Guard: But that would destroy the trees.
Kiera: So? There’s minerals underneath the trees.
Joshua: The point is not the trees. The point is that I’m pretty sure that if they decided they wanted to, they could control-firebomb an open area, wipe it clean of anybody else, come back in, rebuild the buildings and do the lumberyard, they would like to avoid that, I’m reasonably certain.
Arden: It is expensive.
Joshua: But my point is, that what are you going to do with us after all this is done? You gonna kill us?
Guard: I don’t want to kill anybody.
Joshua: Well, he said it would take about three weeks to get it and we got two more weeks to go before the company guy realizes we’re missing. And then goes to stage C, which is basically start gathering the local people to firebomb the buildings.
Kiera: My understanding was bringing in a militia force with the vacc suits to come in and just firebomb everything and then clean out what was left.
Guard: Now, see, that’s where this is a better plan than what you’re sayin’.

Oh?

Guard: He told us, and Daryl here will back him up, if there was Prion disease here, even in the soil, they were just goin’ to close up shop and move out. If we don’t call back in, they’re gonna assume there’s Prion disease and they just close up.
Nika: He changed his plan after you all disappeared. Cuz they were not expectin’ y’all to go missin’.

Oh snap!

Guard: But right. That would just make them think it was Prion disease if you don’t come back.
Nika: No. You’re not listening to me. You all went missin’, there’s no way Prion disease got to you in such a short amount of time. So they’re assuming there’s a bunch’a Reavers up here.
Guard: Unless we been got by Prion-Reavers.
Nika: Right. So they don’t care if it’s Prion disease or if it’s just plain Reavers, they’re just gonna firebomb it to get rid of all the Reavers. Because if we go missing, that means there’s still Reavers here.
Guard: But firebombing isn’t going to hurt us.
Nika: No? Are you fireproof?
Guard: Look. That concrete building is.

Oh, you mean the bunker?

Kiera: Yes. Because you will always survive thousand-degree incendiary bombs. Okay.
Guard: It’s a hundred feet down.
Kiera: What kinda air ventilation system you got?
Guard: It was built by crazy survivalists!
Joshua: Screw that. After the firebombing comes the seriously armed forces. You think we were armed? You think they were armed? We were lightly armed—.
Guard: So you’re saying we should work faster.
Joshua: I’m saying it isn’t going to happen.
Nika: I think working and getting out faster would be a good thing for us. It’s not gonna matter for you guys.
Guard: All right. Well, get workin’.
Kiera: I was just thinkin’ it was nice knowin’ them. They’re goin’ to die, we’re goin’ to die…
Joshua: Okay, One-Note Kiera.

Shut up already. Please. We pick ourselves up, grab our tools, and trudge back to the trees.

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