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bailing 101

Bailing 101, Monday

Hey, look, kids. Today, you had a teacher who wasn't lurking out in the hall to see what you'd do. Feel lucky, or something.

"Hey," Atton greeted them lightly. "So last week, I took a good look at how you people handle a bailing scenario. Only one of you managed to squeak their way out, so step it up, class."

Go on, Anders. Feel smug.

"Which is why this week, we're taking a good look at the steps involved in a decent escape," he said, wandering up to the smartboard. He drew a 1., then wrote, 'EVALUATE.' "Step one, determine whether you want to keep going on the present course, or maybe it's a good idea to get out. For instance, you've been here for twenty minutes and I still haven't shown up. The situation feels like a trap. Is getting out worth risking springing the trap? Are you going to get in trouble for breaking the rules? Are you even breaking any rules, considering I haven't been around?"

He tapped the board.

"This one's important, and we'll talk about that today. But, moving on. Step two. Tie up any loose ends. Is there anything you can do to make sure nobody will come looking for you? Can you make it harder on them to follow your tracks, if they do come for you? Sometimes you don't have the time to preplan, but if you do have it, take that time."

The next step was, of course, 3. "Pick a good destination," he said. "Sometimes there's only one, especially if you're just trying to get out of a fight. Sometimes you have the time to work on it. Pick somewhere you can get lost in the crowd. And finally..."

He wrote a big four. 'FOLLOW-THROUGH'. "You can get away with failing any of the previous steps," he said. "For a while, anyway. But if you don't have follow-through, you might as well forget it. Two of you were startled by me showing up yesterday, but one of you stuck the course and talked their way out instead of getting distracted. Follow-through makes all the difference."

He cleared his throat. "But let's get back to point one," he said. "Evaluate. I know a lot of kids at this school have a bloated sense of their own capacity to handle a crisis or win a fight. You have to shake that. I want you to sit down and make a list of where your limits are. At what point does a crisis or fight become impossible for you to handle? Be honest. When you're done, read up one and explain them to the class. Discuss if it makes any sense."

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Evaluating.

Anders

Jesse Pinkman

Tali'Zorah

Garik Loran

Ada Miller

Hey, there's one this week.

Tali spent the entire lecture taking each point and comparing it to her initial run from Jacobus, her head propped up against one hand in a thoughtful pose. Honestly, that had gone about as well as it could have, but she could still think of a lot of things she might have done differently.

Though in hindsight and all, that was probably a lot easier.

Take a piece of paper. Make a list. What can you handle? At what point do you think you'd run out of 'handle' and be out of your depth? Go as long as you like.

Anders squinted hard at his paper for a long time before he started to write. Since Rand hadn't set a scenario, he went with the one most likely for him -- running away from the Circle.

Finding a way out had never been easy, but he'd done it enough to know it was possible. That wasn't the sticking point. Keeping dry and fed on the run had its challenges, but Anders had always been good at charming people into giving him a bowl of stew and a bed for the night. That wasn't the sticking point, either.

Staying gone, when he had both his phylactery and the entire Templar order working against him ... that was the challenge. And that was where his list stopped.

Ada looked at her pencil. Then at her blank paper. Back at the pencil.

Yeah, she... wasn't sure what the heck he was talking about with people taking on fights.

Now pick one off your list and explain why it'd be the sticking point for you. Everyone else, shoot: is the other person being a little too overconfident about their chances? Or is it reasonable?

"My main sticking point -- at home, anyhow -- is always going to be the people after me," Anders said, once his turn came. "They have a little device that's like a compass pointed straight at me, there are a lot more of them than they are of me, and they aren't slow with their blades. All I've figured out so far is going as fast and as far as I can to try to outrun them, but that only does so much."

"And there's no way to turn this device off, or confuse it?" Atton asked. "Maybe swap it out?"

Anders shook his head. "No, it's tied to my blood. They keep the devices -- phylacteries-- locked up unless they're hunting us, and then it's on their bodies. I could break it but the risk of getting to it to break it -- it's more dangerous than just letting it be."

"Are there any other ways to get these phylacteries out that don't involve you directly breaking into the place?" Atton wondered. "Who's got access to those things? Hell, if they're stupid enough to take it with them when they hunt you..."

"I could bribe a Templar to steal it, but they'd be putting their own life on the line," Anders shrugged. "They're the only ones who handle them, and most of them are religious maniacs. So even if they thought they could do it without getting caught, they probably wouldn't agree. The weak spot is that they have to carry the phylactery to track me -- but things would have to line up exactly right to take advantage of that."

"See, that's the thing," Atton said. "If you figure out the hows and the whens, you can make things line up exactly right. And these guys sound pretty predictable once they get going."

"Really." Anders raised his eyebrows. "All right, how would you get something about the size of your palm away from a heavily armed soldier with very few scruples about chopping your head off? The phylactery glows when I get close, it isn't as if I can sneak up on them."

There was really no question about which item on Tali's list was at the top.

"Just being who I am works against me," she said, her tone resigned and slightly unhappy. "My people aren't in very good standing anywhere in the galaxy. It's hard to get lost in a crowd when any quarian outside of the flotilla is automatically suspected of being up to something."

"Easy to get lost in a crowd of actual criminals, though," Atton mused.

"Not terribly fun, but sure," Tali allowed, and noted that the idea didn't actually scare her that much any more, so thanks for those two impossible missions a day, Shepard. It didn't appeal to her, but it wasn't a terrifying prospect, at least. "But I'd have to be careful to make sure that I'm not spending so much time watching my back that I'm too distracted to plan my next move, wouldn't I?"

Face shrugged. "Obvious one is that I've got a recognisable face, especially in places there are enough humans one more wouldn't be noticed." He tapped his scar. "This helps some."

That and the fact his supposed death had been headline news.

"You could probably get a haircut," Atton said. "Get some clothes that old you wouldn't wear, maybe change your stance a bit..."

Hey, the kid was an actor, right?

That would be why his face was recognisable to begin with.

He nodded. "Most of those are easy enough," he said, they'd gotten him to Pantolomin and Lorrd without being noticed.

"It's actually pretty easy to throw people off of recognizing you a lot of the time," Atton said.

Though if Face had any tips on how to handle the entire karking galaxy knowing who you were, he'd like to hear them.

Face had decided to attend a school in another dimension entirely, so...great minds?

"It's not that lot of the time I'm worried about," he said. "It's the rest of it."

After listening to her classmates, at least Ada had a vague idea of what the teacher was asking. "The only place I know is the carnival, I got no idea what the rules are other places, or what's 'normal' for townies," she said bluntly. "'M quick and clever and pick stuff up fast, but I still got to know, say, what a school or a class is supposed to be like before I can know when and how to wriggle my way out of it."

Atton shrugged. "Then gather your information quick," he said. "You knew it was a trick."

Ada just laughed. "I'm a carnie. Most everything in the world's a trick," she pointed out, grinning and leaning back in her chair to balance it on the back two legs. "But it didn't taste like a dangerous one, so I figured I'd wait and see how it played out."

"I don't actually know what a carnie is," Atton said, shrugging one shoulder. "I mean, besides the 'works at a carnival' part. I'm not from your galaxy."

So, y'know.

"That strategy can work. But it can also end badly if you're not entirely sure about what you're going to do if it goes south."

"Galaxy?" Ada asked, then shook her head, dismissing it as something that didn't matter. "What a carnie is depends on who you ask. Most of us tend to be con-artists and scavengers. All tricky, some light-fingers. Though if you ask a townie, all we do is seduce their children and lovers with our pretty lights and bad influences. Why they think we want their kids, I don't know. We got more than enough cousins swarming around."

"So if you got a gig that's just not right, you go quiet before stuff goes south. You fill your contract, but don't advertise more than required. Pay your fees, keep your papers in order, keep the cousins in the bone yard or on the midway, then fade into the road at the first opportunity."

He looks lost in thought today.

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Bailing 101, Monday

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Listen to the Lecture

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What Are Your Limits?

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Present Your Case

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Talk to the Teacher

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