Episode 408: Resin, Part Three

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

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Dr. Schweiss: It was a very good idea. I was able to get all your guns.
Nika: His mouth runs an awful lot.
Dr. Schweiss: Oh, you mean on your part a good idea. Actually it—.
Joshua: (to Arden) Actually it might work out for us.
Dr. Schweiss: It might.
Kiera: (to Schweiss) Actually I’m interested in why you think it’s a good idea.
Dr. Schweiss: Because I got all your guns and now you’re my prisoners.
Kiera: Uh-huh. And what happens when our friends come looking for us?
Dr. Schweiss: (dramatically) Your friends?
Kiera: Uh-huh.
Dr. Schweiss: (still dramatic) I don’t know.
Joshua: Could we stop with all the what-if this and what-if that and can we actually get down to the point which is what are you doing and what can we do to help you do it faster so we can just get the hell out of here so that we can collect our money and you can collect yours and we can all be done with this?
Kiera: Money? Okay, now I’m interested.
Dr. Schweiss: Well, how can you help? As you can see, my beleaguered cohorts in this little venture are tired and worn out from all the work, so you could cut and carry wood. That’s how you can help out.
Kiera: There’s no money in cuttin’ and carryin’ wood.
Dr. Schweiss: That’s right. But there is freedom. And life.
Kiera: There are significant parts to this story that I would really really be interested in finding out.
Joshua: So … what chemical work are you doing and who’s doing it? It doesn’t look like you’ve got a lot of people capable of doing all the stuff that you need to do. It looks like you could probably be sped up at that end faster than the—
Dr. Schweiss: Actually the burning process has to go at it’s own—the distillation process has its own, there’s no speeding that up. Not with the materials we have here. And I suspect that since you had someone from the perfume industry here, that you know what I’m doing so you probably don’t have much longer to work this.
Kiera: What? Perfume industry?
Dr. Schweiss: You can pretend to be ignorant but your friend here has spoiled your cover. Someone must have found out what we were doing.
Arden: (to Kiera)Yeah, Joshua said you were in the perfume industry.
Joshua: What? How did I get—!
Nika: No.
Arden: Was it you? (corrects self) It was Nika’s fault.
Kiera: Perfume industry?
Dr. Schweiss: Mm-hm.
Kiera: Uh… um…
Nika: Because he was distillin’ “perfume”.
Kiera: Oh!
Nika: It smelled like raw sewerage, but … you know.
Arden: Still does.
Nika: That’s what he told me he was doin’.
Kiera: Well, how do you know that I’m not really not on your side? I might be a competitor and not your employer.

Nice try, sweetheart. Dr. Schweiss sighs and shakes his head. Joshua throws his hands up, exasperated.

Joshua: Okay, I give up. I give up. Where are the axes? Because anything I can do to help chop trees—
Arden: (sourly) Really?
Joshua: Yeah, really.
Arden: You want to help these … eco-terrorist slave drivers.
Joshua: (pissed) Yeah. Actually I do.
Kiera: Eco-terrorists?
Joshua: (to Arden) Because I do. Because it might get them out of here.
Arden: The same who threatened us and took our guns.
Joshua: That has nothing to do with it.
Dr. Schweiss: (raising voice) There’s enough light. I’ll show you. Everybody up.

The man nearest Arden prods him with a gun and we all rise and follow Schweiss back out into the rain. We slog a merry trek about a mile into the woods. There are tractor trails meandering into the green, familiar from our last trip here, and there are old felled trees here and there. Then we reach a place in the forest that had been replanted and is in the process of being harvested—or was, until recently—and it’s here the character of the wood changes.

The trees here naturally clump in groups like banyans and we can see that several of the individual trees have been cut out of the group. And other trees have been selectively cut into but not felled. Rather like cutting a vein of mold out of a cheese, the trunks have had portions removed. Coming closer we see that it’s dark sections of the otherwise lighter wood that are being harvested. Looking around, there is also evidence of an initial harvest, involving felling the entire tree and cutting the trunk into two-inch sections. They are quite pretty and it’s easy to imagine that the loggers were originally here to harvest for more conventional markets. Then the mold ‘vein’ was struck and the trees afterward show a more surgical harvesting method of cutting out the infected wood and leaving the rest of the tree behind.

Or so we’re shown by Schweiss. Seeing the mold in its natural surroundings, Arden mutters about humans being infected by mold and Schweiss tells us that yes, indeed, it is nasty. The primary effects of infections of this sort are cysts that grow in the victims’ throats and from there the mold goes on to infect the internal organs. It’s most nasty in open wounds.

And guess who gets to harvest the stuff now?

Arden: So … what do you want us to do?
Dr. Schweiss: You can continue what we’ve done here, cut and remove wood.
Arden: In a seemly random nature?
Dr. Schweiss: You’ll see
Kiera: And what are they going to do? (motions to Schweiss’s men)
Dr. Schweiss: Guard you.

And Schweiss goes on to show us how to harvest the wood. He goes to an exposed area where a tree has been hollowed out somewhat by the parasite. The infected wood is darker and that is what we’re going after.

Rina: Can I get a mask, please?
Dr. Schweiss: A mask? You don’t want to be cutting with a mask on.
Rina: I don’t want to be breathing this shit in.
Dr. Schweiss: Well … that’s true. I would hold your breath. We don’t have masks.
Arden: (sourly to Joshua) Yes, it was a great idea.

Schweiss goes on to tell us that animal infestation is extremely rare for this mold. Apparently it prefers tress as hosts over humans.

Kiera: So why are we cutting out this … lichen … infected whatever tree… whatever this is again?
Arden: The short answer is because they told us to.
Dr. Schweiss: It’s a valuable resin once it’s distilled from the wood.
Kiera: Oh.

Schweiss catches sight of Rina tying a handkerchief over her nose, bandit-style. He angrily berates her for it and she keeps right on tying it. No way is she breathing that crap in, no matter the odds of coming down with it.

Kiera: How much more’a this stuff do you need again?
Dr. Schweiss: Well, I’d say … A couple hundred more pounds would probably do it.
Kiera: Isn’t it be easier to synthesize this in the lab?
Dr. Schweiss: No. It’s virtually unsynthesizable. Besides, people want the Real McCoy.
Kiera: But can’t you just grow it?
Dr. Schweiss: (geez!) We are growing it. It’s right here!
Kiera: No… In a farming situation.
Dr. Schweiss: No. In fact one of the fascinating things is that naturally occurring mold is far superior to anything that’s ever been attempted in agriculture. I looked it up.
Arden: Whoa. That is. So. Fascinating.
Kiera: Wouldn’t it make more sense to go and bring in a crew and get a larger harvesting?
Dr. Schweiss: If I owned this property, yes. But sadly, I don’t own it.
Arden: They want to steal it instead.
Kiera: Oh. And you didn’t think about making a sneaky offer for worthless property. Cuz they probably would’a sold it to ya, cheap.
Dr. Schweiss: (getting fed up) And it was haunted too! You’d think they’d want to get rid of that stuff. Useless property.
Kiera: (ditto) Well, did you ever contact them to see about about sellin’ it?
Dr. Schweiss: Well the fact is, that plan isn’t necessarily gone. Perhaps the disappearance of five more people would add to the—.

Nika cuts him off before he can complete that thought.

Nika: You know what? You don’t have to have people go disappearin’. Make your offer. We can go back and tell’em, “You know what—?’
Kiera: “That’s a worthless thing. That’s an infected forest. That ain’t gonna do you no good.”
Dr. Schweiss: Say the people who already tried to sneak weapons past me, who lied to me on a couple of occasions.
Nika: Yeah, well … You know.
Rina: I haven’t said a thing.
Dr. Schweiss: I’m afraid you’re not reliable in this regard.
Kiera: Well, you’re not exactly trustworthy either. You’re—
Dr. Schweiss: I’m the bad guy! I’m not supposed to be trustworthy.
Arden: I’ve been nothing but honest in my complete contempt for you all.
Dr. Schweiss: Well that I can trust. Thank you for that.
Rina: Don’t worry. He contempts all of us.
Arden: Some more than others.
Rina: Us, especially.
Dr. Schweiss: I appreciate your honest contempt but it doesn’t embolden me to want to trust you.
Nika: I’m sorry but I’m not going to give you any weapons when you tried to kill me. You’re the bad guy.
Joshua: I’m sorry. I tried. I really did. I’m sorry.
Arden: Are you apologizing to us or to him?
Joshua: No, I’m apologizing to him.
Arden: Why?!
Joshua: Because I hate all of you at the moment!
Arden: Why? We didn’t do anything to you.
Joshua: Because I didn’t want us to get into a freaking firefight over a gorram piece of wood!
Arden: And I don’t want to be a slave laborer for two weeks! Or for however long.
Joshua: For a thousand credits? For a thousand credits I would gladly do slave labor for two weeks.
Arden: Okay. Good luck.

And while this little grievance is being aired in the pouring rain, Kiera’s engaged Schweiss in a little discussion of their own.

Kiera: And I’m just sittin’ here thinkin’ I wouldn’t be able to maximize this production to make more money. You do realize you’re sellin’ yourself short of a money-makin’ opportunity.
Dr. Schweiss: How am I selling myself short?
Kiera: Well, for whatever it is, we’re a captive crew and we’re going to work slowly and resentfully, but if you put us in for a cut for whatever you make, we will work with greather enthusiasm thus delivering better productivity.
Dr. Schweiss: As I say, you haven’t really engendered trust yet in this regard.
Kiera: Yeah, but you haven’t even given us a chance.
Dr. Schweiss: Perhaps you can demonstrate this eagerness by working hard and then I’ll take it you’re trying to win my favor that way.
Kiera: So if I work hard for one day, does this mean that you’ll give me a cut?
Dr. Schweiss: Perhaps.
Kiera: Define enthusiasm.

Can you believe this woman? Arguing for a cut when there are half a dozen men pointing weapons at her. In the middle of nowhere with no real way to escape. And of course, Arden decides to crack wise.

Arden: Make the beast with two backs.
Kiera: (to Arden) Now see, always it goes back to that. I’m sellin’ you to somebody, cuz there’s some woman somewhere—.
Arden: Not me. Not with me.
Kiera: No, I was volunteering to sell you to them.
Joshua: I can’t stand this anymore. Axe please.
Dr. Schweiss: What’s that?
Joshua; Axe please.
Dr. Schwiess: No, it’s too late for that. We’ll head back.

And retracing our tracks we go. On the way back, Rina asks if any of the grabber-saw mules she saw at camp work. Dr. Schweiss confirms that yes, they do. Rina proposes they use one of them to harvest the wood and—

Dr. Schweiss: No. This is work that needs to be done with a careful hand. You don’t want to waste any of it. Or destroy it.
Kiera: But we don’t even know what we’re doin’. So how am I gonna know I have cut carefully?
Rina: Do you want quantity?
Dr.Schweiss: Actually, both quantity and quality.

Well, with the grabbers, the wood won’t fall and get banged up than if we felled the trees by hand. After all, if we have to go thirty feet up a trunk to get at a vein with pitons and ropes, the safest option would be to lop off sections and let them plummet to the ground to be harvested, risking injury to the mold vein. Does he really want that? Schweiss assures her that the mold grows mostly near the roots.

Rina: Near the roots.
Dr. Schweiss: Mm-hm.
Rina: Where’s the chainsaw?
Dr. Schweiss: Your eager friend also suggested that I hand him an axe and I thought we would wait until it was light to work.

It’s 1600hrs, 4 PM, and hardly the middle of the night. However the omnipresent rain is making the environs dim and since it’s winter in the southern hemisphere, the temps will only start getting colder as the afternoon progresses. Dark, cold, rain—not conditions conducive to productivity.

Arden: Does it ever stop raining here?
Dr. Schweiss: Yeah. Probably.
Arden: When?
Dr. Schweiss: It didn’t rain four days ago.
Rina: Yeah, it only rained twice last week. Once for three days, once for four.

On that happy note, we’re marched the rest of the way back to camp and Dr. Schweiss considers where to keep us. Hmmm. Rina’s hoping for one of the bunk houses above ground. Kiera murmurs a place with windows we can crawl out of would be nice. Nika warns them both that escaping now would probably not be the best way to handle the situation.

Arden: How about we stay on our ship?
Dr. Schweiss: I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Joshua: What difference does that make?
Dr. Schweiss: Because you’d leave.
Joshua: What difference does that make?
Dr. Schweiss: Well then, that would spoil our plan.
Johsua: What? Like, we go back and we say, “Man, gather together all those people that you haven’t gathered together to this point to invade the place. It doesn’t make any difference. All you’re doing is effing this up. You’re basically trading off your experienced work for guarding us to do the inexperienced work instead of putting everybody to work to get it done faster. But … whatever. Either just hand me an axe and let me cut when we get back or put a gun to my head and shoot me. I’m—
Rina: No!
Joshua: I’m tired. I’m tired of this.
Nika: Wow. Pissed much?
Joshua: Yeah. A little.
Arden: I understand perfectly his position.
Kiera: Or he can just let us out on a cut and then we could just fly him out of here. Because if you let us in for a small cut of the profits, we can fly you out of here in a day or two. And still get our money and get you off-planet to sell this stuff.
Dr. Schweiss: All great plans.

But … No.

Kiera: Well, yours haven’t been spectacular. How do you plan to leave with it? You gonna hike down the river? Ride a log down? How’re you gonna leave with it?
Dr. Schweiss: Hmmm… If there were only some sort of ship we could use.
Kiera: A ship we can blow sky high with a capacitor when you try get on it?
Arden: (to Kiera) This is— Now, see this is—.
Kiera: (to Arden) You were going to us killed anyway since you were goin’ to walk down and tell everyone what was there.
Dr. Schweiss: At that stage, once we leave, we don’t care. As far as that goes.
Kiera: Like I said, how’re you gonna leave? How are you leavin’? And don’t get all drooly-wonderful about our ship cuz we can blow that thing. You plot and threaten to blow them up but lemme tell you, it’ll make a big explosion once the drive on that thing goes sky high.
Dr. Schweiss: How will you blow it?
Arden: If we told you that’d be telling.
Kiera: Yeah, you know what? We got this silly crazy engineer and she’s just nutso.
Rina: Hey.
Dr. Schweiss: (yeah, right) And she’s got magical powers? She can blow things up at a distance?
Kiera: No.
Dr. Schweiss: If she could do that I would suspect that we would be—
Arden: If we told you she could do that, you would try to find a way around it, would be my guess.
Dr. Schweiss: Ahhh….okay.
Kiera: All I can say is you better not try to bypass the locking mechanisms.

Somehow, this argument isn’t going as well as Kiera and Arden hoped. We’re led to the generator room we’d found earlier. It’s a 40 by 80 foot building. Schweiss promises to bring some food for us in a little bit and locks us in it. Once the door’s closed, Nika gives Schweiss a slow count of ten to walk away before she rounds on Kiera.

Nika: Nice way to challenge the bad guy to go break the locks.
Kiera: He’s going to kill us and break the locks anyway. Either it’s moved it forwards or moved it backwards by x-amount, but either way he’s going to take the ship we showed up with on the way out.

Rina’s a little more sanguine about their chances.

Rina: Great. They’re locking me in a room with stuff I can use. What’s here?

Arden? Not so much.

Arden: Just so you know? I have to get it out of my system—.

And he starts pacing the length of the room and turning the air blue. We leave him to it. Nika and Kiera discuss our captors in the meantime.

Nika: How skilled are the … insane little critters that brought you in?
Kiera: Those guys? Maybe the sniper can shoot but I’m not sure any of the others can. If they held those guns more tenderly, I would think they were hot.
Nika: Well the doctor don’t really know what he’s doin’ either, so ... If it really comes right down on to it, I’d say we stand a reasonable chance hand-to-hand.

The room is dominated by a large standard Blue Sun model 1725x Planetary Generator. It has a fuel line that goes through to the outside of the building and it’s missing the valve the line would normally hook up to. The generator is obviously incapacitated.

Nika calls us together.

Nika: From our science types, what are they actually making?
Arden: (calmer now) As far as I can tell, they’re harvesting mold, distilling it, and making it into some sort of compound.
Rina: I think it’s a pharmaceutical with a high price tag.
Nika: You would say a drug of some kind?
Rina: May be.
Nika: He seemed to think that we would know what it was that he was up to.
Kiera: Well, the fact that he seemed to be upset that I am a perfume company scientist would indicate that it really is some sort of perfume. I’ve never gotten into high-end perfume.
Rina: (eyeroll) Maybe it’s mind control perfume.
Arden: I didn’t get a close look at his lab so I could be more specific as to what he was doing.
Nika: You did get a close look at his lab, so that you took samples when we were supposed to be going back to town.
Arden: I didn’t get a close look at his laboratory set up.

Thinking a little further on her cosmetology experience, Kiera realizes she does in fact have a bead on what Schweiss is doing. Agar wood, or oud as it’s sometimes called, is a dark resinous heartwood formed in Aquileria trees. They are large evergreens originally native in Southeast Asia of Old Earth, now carried over via the Exodus. Prior to their infection with the mold, the heartwood is relatively light and pale. As the infection progresses the tree produces a dark aromatic resin in response to the attack which results in a dense dark resin-embedded heartwood. The resin-embedded wood, commonly called gaharou jinko, aloeswood, agarwood, or oud (and not to be confused with the laquour) is valued by many cultures for its distinctive fragrance and is used in incense and perfumes. The relative rarity and high cost of agarwood was almost responsible for the complete extinction of the species on Old Earth. It is a very valuable resin, fetching up over a 1000 credits a kilogram.

Kiera tells us all of this and Nika looks at her, puzzled.

Nika: So … what exactly are they makin’?
Rina: Tree ambergris.

Kiera explains it again. Then:

Nika: So he was really tellin’ the truth? See, I thought he was lyin’.
Kiera: No, he’s really telling the truth.
Joshua: I said he was telling the truth. And nobody—
Nika: No, you said he was telling the truth about the stuff in the air.
Joshua: I said he was telling the truth overall, but you kinda shut me off.
Kiera: So we’re basically cuttin’ the stuff and he’s distillin’ it to make it easier to carry.

Yeah. Easier. Carrying a package of resin from one planet to another must be infinitely easier to get past customs than stacks and stacks of a fungus-infected wood. More innocuous that way. Kiera crunches the numbers and estimates 100 kg of the resin would fill one crate and be worth roughly 100,000 credits, the equivalent of 2,000,000 in Old Earth currency.

Wow. That’s a lot of money. And that sort of money makes normally nice people … lethal.

Arden: The only problem I have with this is that we’re expendable when this is all over.
Nika: Yeah, but I didn’t gather they were killers.
Kiera: Nah, they’re not professional.

Oh, so you mean we’re going to get killed by amateurs? That’s nice. Thanks.

Arden: I heard something about they have a ship to take them off-world.
Nika: That doesn’t mean they’re going to kill us. It means they’re going to try to take the ship.
Arden: I just have a dark opinion of peoples’ nature.
Nika: I’m not terribly surprised given recent developments.

Is it her or has Arden gotten darker and more bloodthirsty lately?

Kiera: Yeah, I think it’s desperation more than anything. I mean, there’s a Monday morning warrior out there with his with his little … bush hat and little bush clothes.

Well, Kiera reconsiders, little might not be the right word. Expensive hobby-ish, maybe. The sort an enthusiast who isn’t a professional would buy. And it’s also possible that since there have been rumors of survivalists in this camp before, perhaps Mr. Monday Warrior had simply appropriated his gilly-suit from what was left behind when the survivalists left. Can’t blame a guy for making do with stuff at hand, eh?

Speaking of which, Rina’s going over the room for useful things to help them escape and while she’s doing that, Nika wraps up the discussion.

Nika: Here’s my argument. Joshua’s has determined that he’s been tellin’ the truth all the way around.
Kiera: Well, I kinda figured that. They aren’t exactly pros.
Nika: So they seem amenable to the idea that if we bust our tails for a couple of days thye might go ahead and extends some trust back.
Kiera: Obviously they’re scared to death and are afraid of being discovered. If the company discovers this stuff, then the lumber becomes secondary. (a beat) Whoever knew, who’d ever guess we’d be captured by scientists?
Joshua: (to Nika) I effed it up. Sorry.
Nika: No … I’m the one who didn’t listen.

Kiera starts to laugh.

Kiera: I’m thinking I should have went, “Hey, it’s still explosive in here, let’s run. I’ll wrestle my gun away and shoot and blow us all up and back down.”
Joshua: I still screwed it up. I don’t know but I screwed it up. If I knew how, it would have been easier to figure it out.
Nika: I’m thinking you didn’t do anything.
Kiera: (agreeing) Uh-uh.

Joshua’s not entirely convinced. Rina’s continuing the case the room for stuff she can use but listens in.

Nika: So I’m thinking basically they seem to be completely on the level as far as Joshua can tell and as far her nose for perfume can tell. (tilts her chin to Kiera)
Kiera: Mm-hm.
Nika: So they seem to be willing to extend a level of trust if we’re willing to bust our asses for a couple of days.
Rina: Hard work never hurt me.
Kiera: Well … cuz I mean, think about it. They steal our ship …
Nika: (agreeing)We don’t have a ship.
Rina: No one’s stealing Lagniappe.
Kiera: They also have to try to figure out a way to get that ship off-planet. Or at least get it to another ship. Well it’s a small place, they know which ship we went up on and where’s he gonna land at in a place we didn’t?
Nika: The trick there is they came up here for an expedition for the company so getting themselves off-planet is going to be a challenge anyway.
Kiera: Yeah.
Nika: If we bust our tails for a couple of days, maybe even the whole two weeks, and get them the hell out of here …
Kiera: Mm-hm. I’d be willing to help them get the heck out.
Rina: We’re no poorer than when we started.
Nika: (exactly!) We’re no poorer than when we started. We get our pay from the other guy.
Kiera: I think we might be able to swing something if I help them distill it.
Nika: Well, we’d have to prove we could be trusted for and we pretty much hosed it. And that was my call. And I was wrong.
Rina: I didn’t do anything. I was the first one to give up her weapon.
Nika: You were.

Well, Rina held on to her knife and her leatherman and her assorted pocket tools and gave those up only when frisked, but still—it was the initial give-up she’s referring to. After all, guns were what were asked for.

Rina: What is a prisoner’s first duty? Always?
Nika: To escape. (overriding Rina) In any case, I am willing at this point to believe the idea that they are not likely to kill us unless we really become a problem, to go ahead and bust our tails for a week or so, and help them out. See if we can—.
Arden: And if they kill us then?
Nika: You know what? If they kill us then, we won’t give a crap.
Arden: We’re not?
Rina: We’ll be dead.
Nika: We’ll be dead.

And beyond caring. So, there.

Joshua: (murmuring) That may not be the best negotiating point.
Nika: (eyeroll) Arden’s going to take the negative side of this no matter what, all right? No matter what I say. So. (shrugs)
Arden: That’s not true.
Nika: It’s not?
Arden: No. It isn’t true.
Nika: Arden. Have you taken the positive side of any argument in the last six months?
Kiera: Yes. Yes, he has. He’s positive he’s negative.
Arden: That made scientifically no sense.
Rina: It made perfect sense.
Nika: You skipped over the question. You give me one time in the last six months that you’ve given a positive response to anything.
Arden: Of course I have. (See?) See?
Nika: That was not a positive response.

Kiera opines she doesn’t want to eat anything they might give us. She’s worried about what they might sprinkle on it. You know, getting infected with the TSE or the fungus. Yeah, there is that. Nika agrees 100% on that score.

Arden: Hey, we’ve got no choice now. We’ll go along and do what they tell us to do. And when they kill us I’ll tell you I told you so.
Nika: That’s fine. You know what? If they kill us and we go to hell, Arden, you can say I told you so until eternity.
Arden: I don’t think there’s any such thing as hell.
Joshua: I don’t want to go to hell.
Rina: If you’re lucky, you’ll get a foretaste of it right here.
Kiera: (How?) Chopping wood?
Nika: Rina. That is not helping.
Rina: (growling) What would help is if I had something to use in here.

Arden suggests ripping the wiring out of the generator and Rina is about to comment on it when Nika puts her foot down.

Nika: Stop. If the plan here is to actually cooperate, I want zero looking-for-shit-to-kill-people-with. None. No weapons. No nothin’. No improv weapons. None. Because I’ve watched you kill people with your bare hands and you don’t need’em anyway.
Rina: (quietly) All right.
Arden: That’s true.
Rina: I think she’s on to me.
Nika: All right. (to Arden) You. Zero negative comments. None. Keep your mouth polite. Cooperative. Show some bedside manner, for God’s sake.
Rina: Oh, God, now we’re all going to die.

Nika orders Arden to behave. If not, she’ll have his mouth duct taped shut. Rina says they took her duct tape.

Nika: I bet if I tell that doctor that I can’t get you to shut up and that you are completely insubordinate, he will give me duct tape because he shares my pain.

They’ll be here all week, folks. Don’t forget to tip the waitress on your way out.

Joshua: (softly) That’s not fair. Arden has to be who he is.
Arden: I’m going to do my best to be positive.
Joshua: There you go. See?
Nika: (suspicious) What?
Arden: I’m going to be positive. I’ll have a smile on my face as they walk me to the grave.

All week. Tip on the way out.

While Nika is putting her Captain’s foot down, Kiera pulls a fade during this and taps on the door to get the guard’s attention. She gets it. The door opens. It’s chained. The man beyond squints in at her.

Kiera: I got a question.
Guard: What’s your question?
Kiera: Um, a) where’s the bathroom, and b) how about some paper?
Guard: I’ll see what I can do. I guess in the corner or somethin’.
Kiera: All right. I appreciate it. Can we have a bucket?
Guard: Uh, I’ll look around and see if I can find a bucket.
Kiera: All right.
Guard: We’re gonna bring some dinner soon too, so we’ll do that.
Kiera: What’s for dinner?

MRE’s, he says. Kiera’s relieved—the food’s sealed and can’t be messed with. Thank you. Behind her, Arden overhears the mention of the bucket and snarks: oh joy. It isn’t long before the door opens and they deposit 5 tv dinner-sized MREs, a five-gallon bucket and a roll of toilet paper on the floor. And a gallon jug of water.

Kiera: Yes! Score!
Arden: No lid?
Kiera: Hey, guys? Can we have a sheet, too? Cuz, three girls. Two guys. Um …
Guard: It’ll be dark in a little while. Don’t worry.
Arden: Nothing I haven’t seen before.

And that’s about all the charity we’ll get out of the guards. No sheet. No lid. The bucket goes into the farthest corner of the generator room and we’ll just have to deal. Even so, it’s better than the alternative. Nika turns to Kiera once the guard is gone.

Nika: Are you really that modest?
Kiera: No-oo, but …. (indicates Rina) The more crap we can get them to throw in here, eventually she oughta be about to figure out a way to blow the roof off or somethin’.
Nika: None’a that.

After all, Rina did promise her Captain she’d cooperate. Kiera’s made no such promise and takes several turns around the room looking for something she can use as a weapon. Nika tells her to stop or she’ll slap Kiera upside the head. That said, we start in on the MREs. And mixed with the MREs are little bags of Kaviar Krunchies. A bright spot in an otherwise dark situation. Rina starts speculating what she can do with the mylar packets from the MREs. Mylar conducts electricity and we’re in a room with tons of wire … Nika distracts her engineer from the lethal applications and suggests she make a cover for our latrine bucket with the wrappers. Rina grouses that she’d be able to do a better job if she had something to cut with. Kiera suggests she can get back to making a shiv. Nika sighs and tells her to go ahead but she can’t carry it with her. Furthermore, if Kiera gets caught with it she will disavow all knowledge of it.

Done with eating, we clear what loose scrap we can from the floor and make ready to doss down on it. It’s concrete and it’ll make for some hard sleeping.

Arden: That’s okay, my back was getting tired of the softness.
Nika: Omigod. There he goes again, Joshua.
Joshua: It’s okay.
Nika: Fix it.
Arden: I’m being positive!
Nika: I’m going to kill you.

Joshua steps in and smoothes things over, gets Nika and Arden separated before one pounds the other. We crack out door open as far as the chain will allow for light and air. It’s still raining but luckily, nothing wet makes its way inside.

Arden: Will you tell me a bedtime story before we go to sleep?
Nika: I hate you. (a beat) Once upon a time there was this man that I hate …
Arden: Was he a handsome man?
Nika: Yeah, he was pretty damn good lookin’. Til he opened his mouth. And then his true ugliness showed through.
Arden: So that’s it?
Nika: I hate you.
Arden: I’m not doing anything.
Nika: I hate you.

The heat from the earlier exchange is gone and chuckles and snorts pepper the dark of the generator room.

Arden: Why?
Nika: Because you KISSED ME in the middle of what could have been a COMBAT situation.

And the heat is back again.

Joshua: Calm down …
Arden: I thought you wanted me to be more positive.

Arden is restless and starts poking around the room. He finds a corner of the room that’s not concrete but sheets of metal riveted to a frame. A sheet is loose and Arden starts working it looser. It would take some serious kicking and pounding and banging to pop the rivets.

Arden: We could pop a few rivets and kick our way out.
Rina: And Nika’s about ready to blow a gasket, so why don’t you put her right up against there?
Arden: I’m just trying to be positive.
Nika: I’ll put it to a vote. You wanna pop the rivets and run, we can fight our way out and do it. Kicking a corrugated tin wall is gonna make a lotta noise.
Arden: I’m just exploring the options. I would do whatever my fearless leader tells me to do.
Nika: That is not true. And don’t even—
Arden: It is! It’s true.
Nika: And don’t even do that. I hate it when you do that. Don’t do that.
Arden: What?
Nika: The attitude. The—you did it again.
Arden: I have no—
Nika: You did it again. The sarcasm is dripping off you.
Joshua: Okay.

Enough already.

Joshua: Okay, Captain. You go stand in that corner. Arden. You go stand in that corner.
Arden: But I didn’t do anythi—
Joshua: No-no-no, I don’t care. Go stand in that corner and you go stand in that corner. I don’t want to hear it.
Nika: Masterful tact, Joshua.
Joshua: I love both of you. Stay away from me. (to Arden) And don’t you even come near me.

There being nothing for it we doss down and try to get as comfortable as possible. Arden pulls off what clothing he can to spread them out to dry. Rina lays down on the concrete floor with her jacket folded for a pillow. Kiera stuffs her ears with tissue and curls up in a corner. The rest do what they can to make it through the night.

Jump to:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

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