fandomhigh | Day After Doomsday, Thursday, Per 2

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doomsday

Day After Doomsday, Thursday, Per 2

Hardison just wanted it on record that he loved this room, all right? He was willing to stay on Fandom island forever and always, amen, so long as they kept letting him come up and geek out over the Danger Shop. Going through some of the saved scenarios, he'd found the one that had correlated to the radio report he'd based the class off of, and with a few tweaks and changes, he'd had it set up to his exact specifications.

Perfect.

When the students stepped into the Danger Shop for his class today, they'd find themselves stepping into the lobby of the dormitory all over again, with a few pointed differences. There seemed to be a barricade built against the boarded-up windows, consisting of a good deal of the furniture that had clearly been dragged down from the floors above them. There were no lights on, though the hum of a generator could be heard by anyone who was quiet enough to listen, and Hardison had been kinder than the previous teacher and programed it for daytime, with beams of sunlight coming through the cracks between the wooden slats.

There were cans of food lined up against one wall. There were weapons, what looked to be the entire contents of both the weapons locker and sharpened, weaponized versions of the practice fare from the salle, laid out against the other. A sign hastily scribbled down on a piece of paper pointed deeper into the building, directing any possible injured to a first-aid station in the rec room.

Hardison was sitting on the staircase leading up to the next floor, lines of code flashing across the screen of the laptop sitting in his lap processing.

"Sup," he said, as the last of the students entered the room, "I'm Hardison, your teacher for Day After Doomsday. Don't worry about callin' me Mr. or Professor or none of that, just Hardison'll do. Welcome to class. Pull up a patch of floor an' I'mma tell you how it's gonna work." As he finished speaking, the doors to the dorms closed themselves and a barricade made of couches and tables and other odds and ends sprang up to block it. Once the barricade was in place, the soundtrack kicked in, a chorus of howls and moans that didn't sound even remotely human. It was hard to pinpoint where the noises were coming from, save everywhere. While some were faint enough, others were distressingly close. "So, the End happened. There was a lotta screamin', a lotta shoutin', a lotta bleedin', an', yeah, a lotta dyin'. You've managed to survive the initial catastrophe, yay for you, but now you gotta deal with the scariest question of all: what next? What you know is a mad outweighed by what you don't. You know you're all here, that there ain't nothin' in the dorms tryna get you--yet--an' you know you got a few more hours of daylight before it's gonna get too dark to see."

"What don't you know? Damn near everything else. Are you the only survivors or are there others? What kinda supplies do you have? How safe is this place? Will the barricades hold? Who knows--you ain't even sure what's out there. All you know is that there's a lot of them an' they don't seem real keen on lettin' y'all live in peace." There was a loud BANG as something large flung itself against the front doors. The barricade shuddered, but held, and whatever it was withdrew with a low growl.

"Now, what happens next is completely up to you. I'mma be around an' can answer some questions, but don't be surprised if what I say amounts to 'find out for yourself.' Your choices determine everythin' here. At the end of each class, I'mma ask you what you intend to do for the next week an' the scenario you face in the followin' class is determined by those decisions. I ain't gonna tell you what's a good idea or a bad one, what's liable to keep y'all alive a little longer or end up with a TPK--err, total party kill. If y'all make terrible decisions across the board, then the class after the majority of y'all die, we'll start over from scratch an' see if you learned anythin'."

"So, I don't know y'all. I don't know how well any of you know one another. Some of you might be friends, some might be strangers, some of y'all might hate each other. Bit of free advice? I'd figure out a way to work together anyway, cause you are all y'all got. This class is all about stayin' alive for as long as you can, an' comin' up with ways to make that time last just a little longer. Figure out what you need to do and get to it, a'ight?"

There was another loud slam into the door from the outside and Hardison grinned. "Good luck."

[Open, have at, and make threads as messy as you'd like!]

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Now that you know what you've got, and what you've got is mostly borrowed time, what are you going to do about it? There's a garden on the roof, and if you're lucky then whatever the enemy out there is, it won't be able to get up there. Can you possibly cultivate enough food to keep your survivors fed in the long term? What about winter?

How about power? How badly do you need light? What about electricity for the fridge? Stove? TVs? They'll need it to work by in the first-aid area, of course. Candles? They're a finite resource, too. Magic? Well and good, assuming you have people with powers who aren't dead yet, too.

Weapons? The blade of a sword or an axe will tarnish and get dull, but it'll last a load longer than a few rounds of ammunition or a few crossbow bolts, once things get hairy. How many experienced fighters are there left, realistically? How many people can be trained to fight, under the circumstances?

You've got to get out of here, eventually. How do you even know if there's life beyond the island, any more? Can you manage to scratch out a permanent residence here, assuming the portals are down and the Causeway has been torn apart? And if you do stay, what is there in the town that you can use, assuming you can get that far? And if you don't try to make it that far, how do you make certain that your makeshift barricade holds?

What should you do next?

"I've filled as many sinks as I could with water," Elsa noted, "but that's not going to sustain many of us for very long if we lose the clean water coming from the faucets. And when we lose power, there goes whatever food needs to stay cold to keep."

She fidgeted for a moment, and then ventured, "I can provide water and keep things frozen, if push comes to shove. But I'd rather not have to, and if whatever out there gets in, you can't bank on me surviving long enough to keep that going indefinitely. I'm a temporary fix, at best."

"We need to leave," Jasper said, arms crossed over his chest. "This place isn't full of infinite resources and I feel like I'm trapped in some musty coffin. We should split up, let one small group go out and scout and the rest stay here, safe."

He shrugged. "If the group that leaves doesn't make it back, then the group that's here at least knows they're dead and can change plans."

Dear Old Dad had always meticulously planned things so plans rarely shifted but he knew there were contingency plans and failsafes in place just in case.

"Uh huh," Raven said. "And which group do you propose you be part of?"

"I don't care," Jasper answered, shrugging lazily. "I'll do whatever but I'll go. It's not like I'm gonna say 'you go and you go and you do this and go fetch me a margarita.' I'm not the leader. Do you really want to just sit and wait?"

"Staying here doesn't mean 'sitting and waiting'. I think it's way too early to start talking about leaving. We need more information about what's out there, so we can prepare for when we go, not just send people out blind to die."

"That's why you send a voluntary scouting group. I don't think I ever said pack up and go. But knowing what's out there is a good thing," Jasper replied, glancing at the boarded up windows. "I'm not asking people to go to their death but staying here isn't going to work in the longer term. If people wanna go out and check it out, are you gonna stop them?"

"Of course not. I'll probably go out, myself, once I'm pretty sure I know how to do it without getting spotted or eaten. But we can still get more information from in here. I saw some of those things when I went scouting earlier; they're nothing like I've ever seen before on the island, or heard reference to. We have no idea yet what they're capable of. We have a reasonably secure location here, we should take the time to find out as much as we can from in here before we start risking people."

Jasper shook his head at her. "This is a base of operations, sure, but whatever's out there is gonna figure that out sooner rather than later. And they'll come this way so if you think you're safer in here than out there, we'll have to agree to disagree."

If this hadn't been fake, he'd been out the door in an instant, not willing to confine himself in a small building with other people. Too much risk.

"But the stuff in here isn't gonna last," he added. "And I'd rather have a stock before it gets to the point where we're stealing and tearing each other's limbs off for the last spoonful of old beans."

"The things I saw are eight feet tall and can catch birds out of the air," Raven said. "But if you think you can dash out and grab us some more food, please. Feel free."

Re: Plan Ahead

ihuntkillers.livejournal.com - 2015-05-07 17:57 (UTC) - Expand

"This isn't that big a group," Cosima observed, doing a quick census in her head. "The food will hold a couple weeks, at least. Longer if somebody wants to go all urban homestead and try to get some plants growing. I think that guy" -- Jasper -- "is right we should send a couple scouts out just in case they find, like, a fully gassed-up jet waiting to fly us away, but we should be prepared to have to stick around."

"The garden on the roof looked pretty intact," Raven said. "There were plants there that looked okay, anyway. Some flowers and things? I don't know much about plants. We probably need to be careful going up, though, it looked like there were some claw marks on the stone."

"Because of course whatever we're up against has claws that can mark stone," Cosima shuddered. "Maybe we could rig up a fence? Or is that just asking the monsters to fly?"

She'd noticed Raven's squirrel trick, and found it fairly impressive. Too weird to think about, but impressive.

"Well, I don't know it was them and not something else, but they do have plenty of claws." Raven shrugged. "I didn't have time to really get a feel for how smart they are, or how much they can do. Yet. I guess watching and finding out could be my week-plan, so we can have the info for the next class."

"They're big enough to see from up there?" Cosima shuddered. "Gross. What do they look like, besides claw-y?"

"Basically humanoid," Raven said. "Only with a stubby extra set of arms and a tail. Really tall, pointy bits coming out of every direction. They were moving around in groups, but they seemed okay with beating on each other. Pretty fast, one of them grabbed a bird as it was flying by." Not the prettiest picture she was painting. "Most of the island's destroyed, but I don't know if they did all the destruction. Lots of smoke in pretty much every direction -- including across the causeway."

".... yikes."

That was all Cosima had. She was out of intelligent questions. After a moment more and a pointed glance at Hardison:

"It's like whoever programmed this thing doesn't want us to head out right away, or something."

Re: Plan Ahead

tigerundercover - 2015-05-08 00:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Plan Ahead

sciclone - 2015-05-08 00:02 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Plan Ahead

tigerundercover - 2015-05-08 00:20 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Plan Ahead

sciclone - 2015-05-08 00:33 (UTC) - Expand

"I'll go," Hanna volunteered, putting a bow over her shoulder. "Although, it would probably be best to get to the roof, and see what we know about whatever is attempting to get in, first. Then find out if we should all leave because of it."

"Thanks," Cosima told her, indicating the bow. "You look pretty comfortable with that thing, so way better you than me."

"I lived in the wilderness for most of my life," Hanna shared with a small smile. "I could teach you, if we have to. Or teach the others." She grimaced. "If we have enough time to do so."

That might not be a given.

"Might be better to teach somebody who isn't nearsighted," Cosima said, tapping the frame of her glasses. "I'd love to give it a try, but somehow glasses don't scream expert marksman."

"Mmm. True. But-- do you know how to defend yourself?" Hanna asked, now worried. "With other weapons, or your fists?"

"Only if logic counts as a weapon," Cosima admitted. "Think I could convince whatever's out there that scientific law means it can't possibly exist?"

Re: Plan Ahead

hexentotchen.livejournal.com - 2015-05-08 01:38 (UTC) - Expand

"We should set up watches. We're all going to have to sleep eventually, and we don't know enough about what's out there to know we're completely safe behind these barricades."

"I'll see what I can do about the power supplies," Tali offered. "I can't guarantee anything, but I'll do my best."

It would take her a long time to figure out how to rig any kind of communications system in an era that predated the comm buoys, but getting ancient technology to cooperate? That she could do. Probably best not to let expectations get too high, though.

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