fandomhigh | 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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"Yes, sir. Hardison," Hanna corrected herself. "For this week, find out everyone's strengths. Their ideas. And... find out who else wants to scout with me, and then do the rest of what I mentioned."

"That's gonna be hard for me to program," Hardison said apologetically. "Because, again, it involves other people. I don't have a list of everybody's strength an' skills in the system, nor their willingness to scout. That stuff, you're gonna have to do one on one, durin' class time. At best, the program would have you just havin' conversations with other people, but nothin' beyond that would happen. I control every part of the environment--" he hit a button, making the lights flicker on and off, and another to make one of the creatures outside roar. "--But I don't control your classmates, what decisions they make, what they choose to share with you. So when you come give me you plans, it's gotta be for how you plan to interact with the environment. You can do it as part of a team, of course, absolutely, but that's how you an' someone else are gonna interact with the sim, not how you an' someone else would interact with one another."

"Ahhh," Hanna said, catching on. They needed to tell him their plans, so next week's class could be programmed into the Danger Shop. "Then, I shall scout. And take photos of what I see, so others can have the information. I shall not bring back food, just yet, since we don't know what's going on, or what would be safe to eat... but perhaps a few animals for study. Alive and dead. Small ones," she added. No reason to make it too complex.

"There you go, girl!" Hardison said, beaming. "That's great, that'll work. Now, I'mma still pester you with a million questions, but you got the main thing down. So, how you wanna scout? You gonna be out there all week? Just a few days? Pop in an' out at a whim? What's your plan to deal with whatever's out there? You got any ideas what's just beyond the dorm walls?"

"Not all week, no. But perhaps a few hours-- three? At a time, each day," Hanna said. "Perhaps one attempt during the day, and once at night. Especially if our attackers are asleep-- that might be the best time to find out what they want. I will stand watch at other times, as Raven suggested, to make sure the attackers do not get in. And the animals to be brought back, to make sure they are not getting sick, or have magic infecting them. Others here would have a better idea than I, if they were part of the problem. I will climb down from the roof, and ... hmm. Check the city first, if I determine it is safe to go there from what I see on the roof. The city, and especially the Causeway on the first day. The Preserve on the second day, if we can not just leave."

She paused, biting her lip. "The beaches, and forage for food on the third day. Then regroup. And... oh. Repeat that cycle, for the next three days."

Hardison nodded; Hanna was doing an excellent job of giving him details about what she wanted to do and when and how. "What's your plan for avoidin' whatever's out there?" he asked. "I ain't gonna give you details if you don't know what you're up against, but I will tell you that you're outnumbered."

"Keep to the trees, and rooftops," Hanna said promptly. "I am very fast, faster than most humans. If I stay out of their range, that will help. Plus I will take a gun, and a bow and the arrows. And binoculars, to track their movements-- someone in this dorm must have some, or a spyglass. The telephoto lens on a digital camera would work too." She considered, and added, "Perhaps setting a fire as a diversion if I am cornered, so matches and flammable material as well."

She hoped she was thinking of everything, but kind of doubted it.

Day After Doomsday, Thursday, Per 2

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