meat_mooks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meat_mooks) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trans_92012-03-11 08:05 pm
meat_mooks) wrote in trans_92012-03-11 08:05 pm
Survivalist Plot: All That Scarcity Promotes is Desperate Men and Tyrants
Day 3 and 4
The remaining hours of the night are tense and ugly, marred by the smell of blood and the complete distrust sewn by Bridge's death. When the sun finally rises, it feels as if the night's been far too long and yet their chance to rest was cruelly short.
The sun peeks over the horizon and onto the parched desert. In the bright sky, if one squints, it's possible to make out that lights are still flashing on the radio tower. The rest of the town is dead, as usual.
The remaining hours of the night are tense and ugly, marred by the smell of blood and the complete distrust sewn by Bridge's death. When the sun finally rises, it feels as if the night's been far too long and yet their chance to rest was cruelly short.
The sun peeks over the horizon and onto the parched desert. In the bright sky, if one squints, it's possible to make out that lights are still flashing on the radio tower. The rest of the town is dead, as usual.
no subject
Really, the rescue part of this mission is no longer a concern to Howard. Screw that crap, he's saving himself first before the random strangers here, if any are still alive.
He fills a gallon-plastic bag with some cooked monster meat from the fridge and a water bottle with the juice from the flesh. Using a pot to do the cooking was a good idea, they got to keep all the fluid. Then he gets into the car. "You get any sleep last night?"
No, he's not holding the door open for you, Diana.
no subject
Waiting for Howard to gather some meat, Diana checked the safety on the flare gun for about the hundredth time that day alone, but knowing their luck she dare not even hold it for more than 10 seconds without checking again. Or making sure it wasn’t near the pocket she was keeping those matches she’d found in.
A shrug. “I caught a few winks.” Only for a little while, much less than the night before, but Howard didn’t need to know that.
In retaliation for his door stunt, Diana pulled her own, using the time it took for him to walk around to the drivers side to climb into her passengers seat and lean over, locking his door from the inside.
She gave him a deliberately sickly sweet smile through his own window and waved. Diana would always be Diana.
no subject
Howard flips her off and climbs in through the passenger door. Desperate times or not, there will always be time to be complete tools to each other. He starts driving, reflecting on the fact that going anywhere is so much easier now that they actually have food in their stomachs and aren't facing crippling dehydration.
He looks over at Diana. Neither of them look exactly good right now; aside from the fact that they haven't seen a shower in four days and probably haven't gotten a full night of sleep combined, the stress is also pretty evident. But in a way it's comforting. To Howard, the strain and vigilance looks more natural on her face than a mask of serenity.
"Where do you think the shuttle went, anyway? I lost my sense of direction coming down through the roof."
no subject
As they drive, Diana adopts her usual travelling position of resting her chin on her palm and watching out of the window. She catches him looking and smiles teasingly; puckering her lips and blowing an air kiss his way. Always too easy and too fun.
She turns back to the window and closes her eyes for a moment, trying to recalling something other than nausea and panic from the fall.
Her eyes open and Diana takes her cheek off her hand. “Towards the cliffs.” She looks at him expectantly. “Still got the map?”
no subject
As are the monsters.
They already found out how to bait one monster, could they trap and burn the rest? The few they've seen tend to attack individually, but Howard doesn't believe there are many of them. They eat specific parts of the body, not all of it, or they wouldn't be hunting live prey like they do, but they'd also be congregating around the areas where they ran into people. And so far they've only seen one at a time.
Something to consider.
He veers towards the cliffs and pulls the map out of his pocket before handing it to her. "Yeah, here. Maybe there'll be some emergency food and drink on the shuttle, too. Can't hurt to look."
He bites his lip as they approach the cliffs. The shuttle is in pieces, although thankfully it didn't explode. Shrapnel is everywhere. The body of the shuttle is crumpled and ripped in half.
"Look for anything useful. God, I wish we had Computer Jack here." Someone who would at least recognize what a distress beacon would look like.
no subject
As they got out the car and made their way over, Diana did a quick scan of the machinery she could already see and really, it all looked the same to her. “I’m not too good at this stuff. Like you said, Jack would be much better.”
They picked their way around the collapsed metal, splitting up to poke and stare at random bits shuttle with wires and things in it that indicated it might be important but hell if they knew what it was for.
After several minutes of futile search she threw up her hands and walked back over to Howard, putting her palms on jutted hips. “I’m going to be honest here, shocker I know but here we go; I have no idea what we’re supposed to be looking for.”
yay I get to use my dumpster dive icon
"Look for anything that blinks or looks like it might have once blinked. And, you know, the usual. Any emergency food and water supply. A crash kit. Medical supplies. The whole shebang."
He sounds positively gleeful as he pulls a compartment out of the shuttles damaged dashboard. As much as it frustrates and discourages him to be reduced to, yet again, going through garbage and refuse looking for useful things, at least there are useful things to be had. He tosses Diana another flashlight from the compartment and finds another flare gun, although this one, being issued by Stacy, is a bit more futuristic. He hopes it still uses cordite.
\o/
Of course, the medical stuff and supplies she recognized right away. She announced them, so Howard wouldn’t have any reason to get his boxers in a bunch with her, they have enough reason to distrust each other, food and water had to be something they were at least half honest about.
But that did bring up something…
Diana takes the flashlight. “Won’t you need this?” Then she eyes the flare gun in his hand for a while wordlessly, fingers idly running over the groves of the one she already carries.
She speaks to him again. “Are we letting the others know about everything we’ve found?” It sounded as cruel as she thought it would, but she refused to take it back.
Re: \o/
Howard doesn't care even a little about how cruel it sounds. It's practical, and now that they have meat and monster blood back at their shelter he doesn't even feel guilty about cracking open the food supply box between him and Diana. It doesn't have much, just a meager compressed food bar of rations for each of the crew members for two days - so fourteen in total - and iodine tablets.
Figuring they're allotted at least two of these each, and that the Master has gone off to do whatever enigmatic douchebags do in these circumstances, Howard hands three to Diana and takes three for himself before relocating the other bars to an innocuous-looking toolbox. They'll hide the toolbox inside a seat in the car or something. He pockets two of his share and snaps the third in half before eating a portion.
It's not like anyone else is out here to stop them stealing the allotted food for the mission.
He holds his hand out for the flashlight. "Good point. If we split, I don't want to get left in the dark around here."
They still haven't found a distress beacon. He keeps looking, but honestly he's not sure what to look for either. A black box? A radio?
no subject
“Glad we’re on the same wavelength.” Well, not really, because that’s kind of creepy, but she makes a tease out of it by smirking at him.
As Howard does another circle around, Diana spots something that seems to be flashing the same numbers over and over, along with the word ‘error’. Preparing herself for disappointment, she walks over and after giving it a soft tap with her foot to ensure it wouldn’t blow up in her face she picks it up. The same numbers continue to flash, along with the error message.
The wire that connected it to the shuttle had been burnt so badly that when Diana inspected it, it simply snapped under her touch and as she watched, she noticed the display growing dimmer. Something pops loudly inside the machinery and everything dies, numbers and message included.
Well, if it wasn’t broken before, the smoke coming from the cracks meant it was now.
“Howie~” She called.
no subject
He sends off a message: "S.O.S.". The comm screen flashes with "Message Undeliverable: Please Connect with Service Site". Figures.
He looks over what Diana's found. "Did you break it?"
no subject
A look of amusement crosses her face before she puts on a mock pout and heightens the pitch of her voice. "Oh, no, dear. I just looked at it and it broke, I swear! You know how useless my female brain with these technowhusits. It would be much better if you, a much more clever man, just took it out of my simple dish washing, pot roast making hands."
And with what could only be called a witches smile Diana shoved the said 'technowhusit' into Howards hands.
no subject
He carries it over to the car. "And now, while we're all missing dear Jack, let's take a minute to consider the odds that anyone in our little group knows anything about technology."
no subject
“What about that guy?” She smirked and used her hands to place quotation marks around his name. “You know, ‘the Master’.”
no subject
Diana and Howard are unlikely to get people killed out of pure malice. To better their odds at surviving, sure. But the Master is a different sort of evil.
no subject
Diana turned to him, expression one of expectation. ”Well, you know the others better than I do. What are Karis and Cedric like with this stuff?”
no subject
So, meat shields.
no subject
But Howard trying to keep Cedric lowkey was a funny sort of cute. In fact, the two of them walking on eggshells around her was adorable in the most amusing way and she had no intention of spoiling it yet.
"I asked if you know if any of them have a clue about electronics."
no subject
Honestly, Howard likes being able to lord something over Diana - and the fact that he's been on the ship longer, and knows everybody, suits well enough.
no subject
"Well, that's a great start."
no subject
no subject
"Can I drive yet?" She smiled and teased as they opened the doors.
no subject