the diva

She struggled with how to answer, resorting to a series of stammering and blustering without actually responding. And to her relief, Rosey dismissed Hana's thoughts in the end. But the truth was: Rosey was right. Hana broke the rules, she took advantage of a pure, almost sacred system, as a scientist. She'd put herself before the experiment, and made herself a test subject without Dr Pan's approval. It was hugely shameful, and now Hana had to listen to Rosey trying to convince her that Hana was one of them. Hana recoiled at the thought.

"It's not shit," she snapped, letting her annoyance drown her shame. "This is one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in human history! Dr Pan is on the precipice of one of the greatest discoveries known to mankind. If you can't see that yet - if you have petty regrets signing that contract, that is your problem, Rosey. This isn't just -"

she put you in the doghouse

Hana's rant cut short, embarrassment swarmed her at the thought of Rosey King saying this out loud. "Don't mock me just because Dr Pan did what she thought was best for the experiment. It's my job to convince her otherwise. Look - we're back in the Panop Village. We are so close to making contact with her and Mr Hook again! We need to get back in their good graces, Rosey. Think of the success of you - of us! With our serum results, we are living proof her first experiment is still important!"

She rocked back on her heels, taking in a breath to compose herself. Hana was getting excited all over again, eager to make amends with her employer and mentor. All she had to do was convince them that her and Rosey (and the other survivors) were valuable results.

And, of course, the more pressing issue of this second experiment, and the stupid announcement. Hana pointed to the loudspeaker and grumbled. "This was probably Mr Hook's idea too, you know. He only has money, zero foresight. No vision!"

She shook her head. "Anyway. Okay, fine - fine fine fine. Let's be useful to each other, so we can figure out...how to...well I know what my goal is." Rosey knew too: Hana wanted back in Dr Pan's good graces. She tilted her head at Rosey, squinting suspiciously. "What's your goal? You better not say revenge. I'm not going to allow that."

And then Hana started her ranting and raving again and as much as Rosey should have kept her mouth shut, should have played nice or at least keep her cool, she just couldn't hold her tongue in (the moment that announcement happened, Hana became the only person on this beach she could potentially lose her cool with without having to fear dire repercussions, hopefully anyway).

"Oh hell yes it was all shit! You saw the carnage it all caused, how could you still defend any of it?!" Rosey's brain just could not comprehend, she doubted it ever would. "And of course I have regrets. We didn't sign up to die, we didn't sign up to watch most of the people in this die. I didn't sign up to risk my husband's life because he came with me. And if it's so fucking important, why did your precious little Dr. Pan came after us to get rid of us?! Why did she leave us to die for twenty years?! Twenty whole fucking years, Hana! It's a miracle we're still alive to even have this conversation, that doesn't mean whatever those two, whatever you did, is scientifically important. If anything, it should be a blueprint on what not to do ever again!"

Hana has truly lost it. Rosey already knew that, and yet, this entire conversation only strengthened her belief in that in a shockingly new way. She didn't think the woman could truly sink so low in her own believes and the fact that this was the moment they were tied together was worst case scenario for Rosey.

She scoffed, crossing her arms, "Trust me, Hana, if I was mocking you, you'd know. I was simply stating facts that you refuse to see." She pinched the bridge of her nose and grumbled, not caring if Hana heard her or not, "Why didn't I drag somebody else with me here so I'm not here just with you, I will never know."

And what was important to Hana was making the point that Mr. Hook was most likely behind the announcement. "Are you in love with Dr. Pan?" she couldn't help but ask. "Is that what's happening? Is that why you're so blindedly obsessed with these experiences and getting back to her good graces? Why you shoved that shit into your body? Wanted to be the perfect specimen just for her so maybe she notices you and then you guys can live happily ever after and all that?" That would certainly explain so many things.

As for the memory loss, it was something Zaid had tried piecing together himself. "The majority of us woke up on that big scuttled cruise ship, the Odyssey. I don't recall booking a cruise. The last thing I remember was just a regular night after work, taking the train home. Then...I woke up here. It's different for everyone, love."

He perked up as he heard Rosey's own tale. "Robots. Was they hornets, like? Big flying hornet machines? They attacked us too! Or...they attacked the buildings, and generators. And they, erm. Dug up that mass grave pit too. Their queen was destroyed through."

Rosey probably had plenty of questions about that, but Joshua cropped up, and Zaid winced when he realized he'd rather cocked up Rosey's ruse. Not his fault though, he wasn't an actor!

"The wagon," he repeated after Rosey, then it was like a lightbulb ticked on, over his head. "Right, the wagon! Of food! Bloody hell, Joshua! What would Lindi say if she found this missing! You know I still help her take inventory and all, I'd have to report this." That was a part-lie; Zaid had stopped helping Lindi out for months, now. But Joshua didn't know that. "You really don't want to look like that dickhead what starved people and made Lindi's life harder, ey?"

Zaid could at least sense the shame, then conniving shifty eyes of Joshua, as he stood there, deliberating. "And don't even think about trying to banish the both of us. I'm already pulling my weight, darling. You should do the same. Now, off with you. I'll handle this." And quite bravely (Zaid thought of himself), he strode forward and took a hold of the wagon handle, steering it away from Joshua. For pity, Zaid gave him a box of FLOWR custard cremes. "Go home, mate. No one needs to know. And I...I would never let you starve."

Another lie. Or at least, a guilt-laden false promise that Zaid did not want to think about right now.

Thankfully, Joshua just gave Rosey one parting glare, and walked away. Zaid quickly began walking in the other direction. "Fuck me. Sorry, love. I'm not much good at improv like that. Joshua's not a bad bloke, he's just...scared. We all are." Zaid looked at her. "Isn't there some way you could help us?"

At the mention of her husband, her expression softened, though - she couldn't not smile when Tiago was mentioned. "Tiago, my husband came here with me, yes. And thankfully he survived it all as well, he remained back where we all were for now." And damn it, she missed him. It hasn't even been that long but she missed him - then again, she doubted that it would ever be any other way.

She listened to him talk about what he did and didn't remember and Rosey just could not understand what the point of the memory losses really was - but then again, did she really want to understand how the two assholes' minds worked? Not really. "The point or the pattern might be revealed later - what state is the cruise ship now? Does it still have resources or did you fully empty it out? Is it even approachable still?"

Rosey's spine stiffened at the mention of the grave pit - the assholes even made the robots dig them up. Probably had another reason for it, intimidation and such, but to Rosey it almost felt like the two were preparing the grounds for Rosey and Hana to arrive. To make sure they know where those people are, to drive the pain and the horrors and the trauma even deeper home. "Yeah, they were-- they are the same," she nodded. "And then recently one almost dead washed up on our shores, that was what prompted us to seek out this beach again, see what is actually happening here."

At least the topic shifted rather swiftly with Joshua, and Rosey could practically see the lightbulb be turned on in Zaid's mind, finally jumping into the game and actually getting the wagon. At that point, Rosey stepped back and let him handle the rest - her speaking and pushing it more would not be a smart choice, and really, he got it. She just made a mental note about Lindi keeping inventory - if she couldn't get anything out of Zaid regarding food, she could always go to the woman.

Zaid gave something more edible and usable than cinnamon to the guy, and then they were off, Rosey finally dropping the act as they turned their backs to Joshua and letting out a small chuckle once they were out of earshot. "You're sending me into the forest with cinnamon and then you give him some pudding or whatever that was? Very useful, what can I say," she teased him.

Rosey waved at him, "You figured it out at the end. Not everyone could be as natural at improvising as I am." Even though she was annoyed in the moment, but that wasn't the point. She glanced over her shoulder for a second before she looked back at Zaid. "You say he isn't a bad guy, but he's not going to be happy when he'll see me around the beach in a day or two. Or when he realizes no new food supplies were provided. Should I be prepared that he could get other stupid ideas into his head? Like coming after me?"

Hana focused on their speculations about the bracelets instead, and access into the Tower. She smiled a bit, hearing Rosey's words as praise. Dr Pan truly did know how to keep an experiment pure, unadulterated. Withholding pertinent information, keeping things on a need to know basis so the experiment didn't get corrupted. If only the serum hadn't made people get all...annoying. With their mutations and panic.

Then Rosey pointed out that Hana too the serum too, and...well. Maybe now that they were back here, facing a new crop of mutated freaks, it was finally time to confess. It was just her and Rosey, it had been 20 years. It was time.

"I wasn't supposed to take the serum," she started. "I just had two doses, before the hornets showed up. It was a new strain of the serum, um. Serum 1c. Serum 1a was a bust, and Serum 1b - that's what you and Tiago were administered - fared better results, but. The science team were always improving the chemistry, always honing, based on results from the test subjects - from you guys. We manufactured a new serum 1c, and...I tried it on myself, first. I wasn't supposed to - the staff was never meant to be part of the experiment, Rosey. I think..." Hana bit her bottom lip.

"I think that's why Dr Pan punished me too. Somehow, she found out. One of those stupid cameras probably saw me administer it on myself."

Rosey had slid down to sit, Hana slowly paced in front of her. Rosey's protests over holding the food storage hostage was both dramatic (typical actress) and hilarious. Hana almost considered it for a hot second, then suddenly grinned.

"We have to make ourselves invaluable to these people. They're brand new, and they barely know anything about anything. We know a lot more than them. Or, well....I do." Hana snorted, looked smug and lofty. "You're not as useful as me. But I can pretend you are, and you'd owe me."

Ha! Score one win for Hana.

Rosey actually stopped dead in her tracks as she listened to Hana admitting that she wasn't supposed to use the serum on herself. Maybe if it was anyone else, Rosey would have felt actual empathy for the woman, would have thought about just how terrifying her own decision must have been when people started dying and she had the serum in her system already, how much she must have been beating herself up about the truth, how, in a way, that made her even more one of them.

But this was Hana and all Rosey could see were their disagreements that lasted two decades, the fact that the woman started out on the other side and still, still hoped to be back on the other side - there was no way she'd allow herself to feel empathy for Hana, not even on this, not even when she understood what the woman must have been going through immensely.

"Isn't that, like, a big breach of trust in any kind of scientific experiment?" She had no idea how it actually worked, but it felt wrong on so many levels, what Hana did. "You know what, that doesn't actually matter, your consciousness can handle that, I am sure of it. But that just makes you one of us even more, despite how you keep trying to seperate yourself from all of us. It only proves my point even more, Hana. You made the decision to give that shit to yourself, just like we all did when we signed all of those fucking papers they put in front of us.

"And it probably means that you are absolutely right," a sentence Rosey did not think she would say directed towards Hana specifically, but here they were, "she put you into the dog house. And I don't think there is any escaping it now."

None of this would actually help either of them with their situation, but somehow this knowledge both pissed off Rosey even more and made her feel so much better.

Until, of course, Hana put unveiled threats in between the two of them, by offering so kindly to keep quiet about how Rosey was more useless than she was. (Which was absolutely correct, Rosey was not one to have done much of the surviving in the past twenty years, but that was absolutely not the point right now.)

She slowly looked up at the woman and then pushed herself up onto her feet and stepped closer. "You know what, Hana, you might be right - I am not as useful to them as you could be. But I also wasn't deeply integrated with Dr. Pan and Mr. Hook either. I didn't spend twenty years trying to get back with them. And no matter how useful you are, you lose their trust? No information in your brain can save that situation. And with that, I can help you." She could both sell or sink Hana, Rosey was sure of it. Because even if she wasn't as smart, she was good with words and she was a hell of a good actress still, even after all these years, in her mind she could turn them against Hana if she really wanted to.

Mutually assured destruction, how fun.

"We can't fight, and we can't fight back, yes. If they send in another load of robot hornets, we might lose people again." And that would be bad. Though he wanted to follow those things and find out where they were headed to. Destroy all of them.

"People with money rule the world, not that hard to believe they would be able to do it again," he suggested. There were enough big leagues in the world who could do whatever they pleased. And maybe his look on the world was too dark, but he thought an experiment like this got far more support than it deserved.

Adarsh thought the more she heard, the more she would get scared of those within camp. She might need to see some things in real life, perhaps over the course of the next minute someone could come running towards him in need for healing... not that would be asking too much of the universe.

He frowned. "It doesn't matter if not everyone thinks that way, this place doesn't have authority, nobody is in charge, so everyone is in charge."

Rosey shook her head, "It's not the money that is the confusing part. There are always piece of shits who can get their hands on it, a certain breed of people is somehow made to get money for shitty purposes. It's that not a single word got out about what happened. That journalist, no reporter, no random person raised the red flad. Nobody looked for one of the people who was part of the experiment."

And selfishly (not that she would have called it selfish, she was famous after all), that nobody was looking for her specifically. Nobody wanted to know where she was, that her parents didn't beat up a storm about not showing up a year later, that her fans didn't demand to know the truth, that an entire industry didn't raise questions about one of their biggest stars disappearing without any trace. How could those two assholes keep what happened to her quiet?

Of course she couldn't be completely certain, but it seemed like the guy was buying was Rosey was doing, and she had to admit, she was enjoying the performance of the meak, weak, scared little girl quite well. It was fun to use the acting muscles a tiny bit after such a long time.

Rosey pointed out how much more scientifically advanced this new experiment was, compared to the first group. No crew needed, no administrators. This second batch was entirely automated using bracelets and god knew what else. Hana felt envious, a bit peevish at how easily her role in these experiments was excised. She was necessary, dammit! How could Dr Pan not see that?

But this wasn't the point Rosey was trying to make. Theories, theories. "I'd need to actually get my hands on a bracelet to inspect it, but. Given how badly the serum reacted with your test batch...maybe it's not the source of power. Maybe it's a mediator. A...a dampener, or a controller. Or a measuring device. God, it could be anything, really." Hana shook her head, staring up at the Tower again. "The answers are in here, I'm sure of it. Or in the Medicentre, maybe. Or...god, I don't know."

Regardless, theorizing and speculations meant nothing at this moment. As much as Hana wanted to jump back into this experiment like 20 years of survival had never happened. As much as Hana wanted to prove herself useful once again...Rosey had a point.

The announcement piped up again, as if highlighting Rosey's concern. And Hana reluctantly had to agree. "Yeah...yeah you're right. They might attack us." That was the immediate, imminent issue here. And Hana finally started to worry about it.

She looked at Rosey. "Well, what do you think we should do? Go back into the forest? Maybe try and find our group again? If there's more of us, then..." Then what? A handful of half-starved, unarmed survivalists versus dozens of super-powered freaks?

Hana paused, actually listening to the entire cheery announcement. "They'll cut off the food supply. That's the threat." Hana frowned, feeling like she was missing something. "...where's their food supply coming from?"

Oh no, she absolutely should not have put the thought of the bracelets and trying to figure things out into Hana's brain. The other woman would have probably eventually gotten there on her own, but the later the better would have been Rosey's preference. Actually, never would have been the best, but with Hana, that was probably impossible.

"Or maybe only what they allow us to see will actually be found, wherever it will end up being," she said. She hoped it wasn't the case, but if she could get Hana to chill a bit and not look... "You know how tightly they kept everything to their chest before, why would it be any different this time around? They just eliminated all additional risk factors by people being involved, so nobody can slip up, no information can get out before it needs to, right?"

"And for the record," Rosey added, hand on her hips, "you call it my experiment, but you were apart of that as well, Hana. You got the serum as well, you could have died with the rest of those people in that mass grave, you were chased away and escaped from this beach along with the rest of us. You keep putting yourself in a whole different category, but you were just as much part of that experiment as me or Tiago or the rest of us. You were no better than the rest of us. If anything, even worse, since you're still buying all the bullshit they sold you two decades ago."

Something seemed to have sunk in for Hana, and on one hand, Rosey felt a huge surge or success that finally, finally she had gotten through to her, but on the other hand, why did it have to be on something like this? Why did they have to be put on blast for it to actually happen? It only frustrated her even more. She leaned against the door of the Tower and slid down onto the floor as she watched Hana unravel a bit.

"I don't know, Hana," she muttered, trying to replay the message in her brain. The two of them against the rest of the beach, that was what they wanted to set up. Not just wanted to, they actually did it with the first announcement already, it would just take different amount of time to sink in for different people.

And then Hana asked about the food supply and Rosey's eyes widened, misunderstanding what Hana was trying to ask completely. "What are you even-- we can't take their food supply hostage, Hana! We can't make things even worse. We can't just leave, that would prove to your two assholes friends they have all the power, but we also can't just mess with their-- no, our existing food either! That will just prove to everyone here that they should get rid of us. Get that shit out of your head! That is not the solution whatsoever."

There were endless possibilities about what those VHS tapes were recordings of. It was easy to assume the worst, this was one of the people who trapped them here after all. Though the optimistic hope Rosey provided that maybe he enjoyed rom-coms did make her smile and chuckle in amusement. "Well if you find something good on those tapes, make sure to let me know. I'm a sucker for romantic comedies."

It would be wrong to say that Selin wasn't at least a little pleased with the praise on her work. "Thank you. It really means a lot to hear that. That really was what I was going for essentially. Please, stop by whenever you want, everyone is welcome to enjoy everything that's been collected." It was hard work and she wanted it to be enjoyed and used by everyone here so having a member of the community share their appreciation for it was a big self esteem boost.

Selin had to stop and think about just how many people they lost during their time here. She certainly couldn't forget Maria. That explosion into dust or salt or whatever fine particles that caused Selin's own powers to activate out of fear. "We lost...quite a few. More than we could have anticipated but...it felt like we've gained more people than we've lost." She answered, realizing that, though it wasn't a competition, their deaths weren't as horrendous as Rosey's. They had the whole mass grave to prove it.

"The IDs are still in the medcenter, I think. I didn't think it was appropriate to take those. I wasn't even the one to find them. Zaid and Lokni did, have you met them yet?" Zaid might have been harder to get an audience with given his residence in the tower, but Lokni would have been a lot easier to come into contact with.

She didn't think, however, that Selin would put the little comment together. She gave a warm smile. "Yes, it was. I lived here with my husband, Tiago, when we arrived here." Totally did not think somebody knew that somehow and when they saw that she arrived back here, spruced it up a bit before she realized it was turned into a whole different place. Nope, Rosey would never. "That was our bedroom with these really pretty floral bedsheet that somehow we always got full of sand, there were little charms hanging outside, there were a couple of chairs out where we watched the sunset while he played on his guitar. " As shitty of a place and experiment this turned out to be, she probably remembered too much of it. But those first few weeks of memories were actually great, and it was all spent with Tiago, how could she not remember them fondly?

Rosey gave a small nod. "I shall. And who knows, if those tapes are all fun movies to watch, maybe a later addition to this place could be a movie theater room." Was that a selfish hope? Without a doubt, she would have given probably a questionably lot of things to watch movies again, even if they were the shitty ones. And if by any chance some of them were hers... But she couldn't get her hopes up. Instead she smiled, "Thank you for the invite, I will definitely come back around."

Selin said they lost quite a few people, and Rosey couldn't help but wonder what happened to them, what they did to their dead. She couldn't remember seeing any memorials or graves for them, but she also didn't specifically go and look for them, either. The existence of the mass grave pit sort of overshadowed everything else in that regard. And it wasn't really something she wanted to ask about, either. The thing that Selin said after, however. "What do you mean you gained more people than you lost?"

"No, I haven't met them yet, but I'm sure it'll happen sooner or later." Despite this damn situation - or maybe exactly because of it, she didn't know if these two people would be against her and Hana and want or even demand them to leave, or if they'd be okay with them staying. (Really, she could have been happy herself with Hana leaving just so she couldn't get close to the two assholes, but not this way, not where that feeds into what the assholes wanted. And this was yet another reason to hate them, really, they made her side with Hana on something.) "But that's good to know, that the IDs are in the medcenter. It is something I wanted to seek out. Maybe do something for those who passed." Something that she didn't actually think would be a focus of hers, and yet, she kept thinking about it.

It wasn't about the breach of privacy, it was a glimpse of actual empathy. The sheer humiliation Zaid felt, reading his own reasons for signing up, he simply knew he couldn't handle the second-hand embarrassment of why anyone else signed up for this. Not even Tej, honestly.

Zaid perked up though, when Rosey explained about how her group had run away...run away to somewhere out of the experiment's long arm. Away from cameras, escaped (but still trapped). Free but not free. "I thought this whole bloody island was controlled by them! You're telling me, it's not? Is it even an island, bloody hell!" Zaid was excited, pleased even.

He felt an epiphany, a sense of superiority and smugness that he hadn't felt in 8 months. "Now I understand why our psychopathic bosses are trying to get rid of you and your mate. You're not just liabilities. You know something they don't."

And that clinched it for Zaid, really. Rosey had answers, locations, experience here. No way was Zaid going to let that go. He wanted to keep Rosey.

Until Joshua showed up - not just hoarding food, but wanting to expel Rosey. AndJoshua wouldn't be the only one feeling this way, either. Fucking hell. If Zaid chose to defend the newcomers, he needed a damn good reason for it.

And Rosey herself, apparently, wasn't so easily deterred. She started on some strange ruse. An actual ploy, like they were in some movie. When she mentioned asking advice on spices of all things, before Zaid could stop himself, he barked a loud, incredulous (and bitter, but only he knew that) laugh.

"Ha!" he exclaimed a distinct pain tightening his chest. Zaid ignored the pain, and tried to spin it for Rosey's ruse. "Erm...yeah! That's right. You survived without chili and -and - and cardamom all these years, so just fuck right back off, woman! Here, you can have this -" Zaid reached into Joshua's wagon and shoved a small jar of cinnamon sticks into Rosey's hand. At Joshua's protest, Zaid said, "You've already got a jar of ground cinnamon, mate. Trust me - you? Will never use that much cinnamon. You just wouldn't know how."

Turning to Rosey, he said, "Now piss off! I'll escort you to the forest meself!" With his body turned away from Joshua, Zaid shrugged at Rosey and gave her a confused expression: is this what you wanted me to do? The fuck am I doing?

Maybe if she was actually faced with the decision herself, in the position the others were, she would have kept to her own file as well, but Rosey couldn't have possibly imagined not reading the others' files herself. But she wasn't going to make a comment about it, put herself in a worse light. Instead, she said, "How did that work, by the way? The whole memory loss thing? Like in the movies, you just woke up in the same room, all confused?"

Rosey shook her head. "No, by the end of it, they didn't have any control over the small place where we were. They tried to, though, they sent robots after us to take care of us. But even if they don't have control over that space, it's small, and I couldn't possibly tell you just how much of the rest of the place they have control over, how big it is, or even like you said, if it is an actual island or not. I always just assumed it was."

The smugness that showed on Zaid's face wasn't something that Rosey really felt, but he did bring up an interesting point of view that she hasn't thought of yet. "Maybe. But if that's the case, I don't have a clue what it could be - it just feels like we know how to survive on barely anything, but why would they need that kind of information?"

They could discuss it later, though - they needed to deal with this Joshua guy and him hoarding food first. And for a hot second, Rosey thought it would be so easy - Zaid seemed to have understood what she was trying to do.

Until he didn't.

She settled down on the rock and watched his clearly practiced movements - she could see it now, how this was absolutely not his first time -, and it took her a second to settle in that he's been doing this by his camp. Not the bungalows, his camp. "Your camp? You live out there, in the woods?" Maybe if she was in a better state of mind, she would have tried to be less direct about inquiring, but she was simply curious and it slipped out.

She took the eel from him carefully, blowing on it for now to make sure it wouldn't burn her - and wondered if him not living in the bungalows meant that he was part of the people who ran the experiment or if he just took himself out of it. Probably the latter, considering the timeline he shared. "It depends on what you'd consider here and arrive. To a degree I've just arrived, yes - at least to this beach specifically, with all of you here. But I've been on this island for about twenty years, and spent the first few weeks of that on this beach as well. Originally from America as well, from Los Angeles. West Coast all the way, right?" She could not tell if he actually recognized her or not - he seemed like the kind of guy who would recognize her and then just not say anything to be polite and not be intrusive.

Rosey asked more questions, and these ones Zaid responded better to. He didn't even realize he'd been avoiding her initial queries about the food supply. Subconsciously or no, thinking about food inventory - about feeding others - was a sore topic for Zaid. But questions about the cameras, the monitors, the feeds? That had become Zaid's new wheelhouse.

"If they do record, it would have to be digital recordings, but. In your time..." Zaid frowned. Would it have been digital then, or actual tapes? "Have you asked Selin? She's the librarian, erm. Brown hair and eyes..." Or were they black, or hazel? "Pretty thing, twenty-something. She was collecting as much media as she could from the Tower, minus the personnel files."

Zaid pointed at Rosey. "Personnel files. They might even have one on you, love."

Rosey was doing a stellar job answering everything he asked. Zaid could sense some kind of growing tension in her, but he didn't know what could possibly get her that way, so he ignored it for now. Who knew what was going on in her mind. "There are others?? I've - I've never seen you on any of the camera feeds, so that means there's no cameras on that beach you were on. Why did you avoid coming back here, for all that time? Were you afraid of-- oi! Joshua! Where d'you think you're going with all that, mate?"

Zaid had cut himself off and yelled out when he noticed another man furtively dragging a wagon behind him, rushing to his bungalow. In the wagon was a pile, covered poorly by a blanket. A glimpse of FLOWR brand cans peeked out from one corner.

There was a chance that Zaid didn't know even though he spent, according to himself, a lot of time in the Tower - which is where Rosey assumed all recordings would be -, but still, she filed it all away as something not available for them. "I haven't talked to her about it yet, but I will, thank you for the suggestion."

At the mention of the personal files, a shudder ran down the back of her spine. "You've got those in the Tower? Did you guys look at them?" There were so many things she wanted to ask, but she kept herself at bay. The easiest way to get answers is to look at them herself - even if the thought itself made her feel sick.

She shook her head, "Where we were, there was a lack of everything, not just a lack of cameras. It was not controlled by them. And we never came back, because we didn't want to die, simple as that. They were-- let's just say, not too happy, that we ran away from them and the experiment we were in the middle of." Rosey actually sounded cool and collected. The basics, she could talk about it almost as if it didn't happen to her, she was just a bystander in everything. And that was about how deep she wanted to get about her time on this beach.

The conversation got disrupted, however, by a guy name Joshua. Well, Zaid yelling at the guy named Joshua, who was apparently hoarding food to his own bungalow. Doing it very badly, might she add.

And Rosey wanted to point out that him stockpiling and stealing the little given food that they all had made things even worse because he was shortening the learning curve on how they can survive on their own, and that even if she disappeared right this second, the food might very well never come back, not to mention that the assholes would just keep blackmailing them with food in the future because they'd know it would work. But none of them would work, not on somebody who - instead of even coming up to her and trying to get rid of her to solve the problem -, actively decided to make things worse.

So instead she gave a quick glance to Zaid and hoped that he'd be able to follow. "Funny you should ask that, because he was doing just that. Convincing me to leave for good."

"But let me guess? It's not working and you cannot wait to watch us all starve?"

"No, actually I--" a calculated glance down before she continued, "I was just about to tell Zaid that I'll be leaving soon." No such thing was happening, but damn it, she was selling it, fully believing it in the moment. Joshua stopped dead in his tracks, looking at her dumbfounded and really, that look was worth the lie, even if they didn't get the food back. But fuck this guy, he was not having any of it.

"Wait, seriously?"

“It used to be extremely handy,” he lied. “When I could heal without restrictions, I’ve brought two people back from the brink of death. However, this new limit, in my case, it affords me the possibility to heal three injuries, but often only minor ones. It’s as if our overlords recognised we could simply survive whatever shit they threw at us as long as I got to the scene quickly enough and decided we’d be better off actually trying to survive their little tests.” If he could sell the lie with his hatred for the people behind all of this, he could come off as more convincing, so he believed.

“I trust you,” he said. As if. “If it was that easy, they wouldn’t have been able to start a second experiment.” But money, and resources, and people who liked to play with the lives of others. He didn’t know why others had signed their lives away, but he’d clearly been desperate enough. It was unfair to anyone.

He shrugged, as if he wasn’t sure how to properly name them. “Something with spontaneous combustion and light manipulation, hard to name, harder even to describe. One just explodes into lava, the other can slice you to pieces with light.” Or something like that. Lets be honest, he’d never much cared to find out.

”They can be dangerous,” he said. “But nobody else is particularly sane either. There is the stormbringer, Lokni, pretty sure he can bbq you with lightning; the shy little pest that lives out in the woods by themself, Baskar, not sure they aren’t hiding some horrible past; our renowed doctor might have the skills but she can speed up her movements, might send you flying without knowing, and she needs to eat so much to keep her strength up, this situation will not serve her; there is the idiot who is stronger than any person, they are clumsy as hell. And of course, most of them look as if they’ve never went a day without food, their little monkey brains are bound to go haywire about all this, combined with their powers… melting pot for disaster.” He paused. “There are some who are immune to it of course. It’s not as if with the food from the warehouse gone we won’t have sufficient alternatives.” And he did truly believe that.

"So nobody can just go off and burn this entire place to the ground, basically, is what you're saying. Which, aside from stopping you from healing everyone no matter how many get injured, also means that if something else comes at this place, everyone has limited powers to fight back using them." Which was just as jarring to find out - then again, her group did it for decades without any superpower, so really, even the limited powers give an advantage compared to what Rosey was used to.

I trust you. This guy was either an idiot who gave his trust so easy, or thought Rosey was an idiot for believing that sentence after half an hour of conversation. Either way, Rosey was kind of having fun with this conversation. She shook her head, "I still can't believe they actually could do that. That nothing leaked and they weren't jailed after what happened with us." That, at least, was an actual honest sentiment.

And there it was - little prodding here and there, and now he was spilling a bunch of different powers. Rosey filed them away in her brain - it would be useful to know whether or not those powers would actually be used against her. She wondered if the man knew just how much ammunition he was handing her with all the badmouthing he was doing of his fellow neighbors. She didn't have plans to spread it around just yet, but if she had to in the future... oh well.

She wrapped her arms around her waist, though, glanced down for a quick moment as if she was considering even asking the question. Have to play the naive, hopeful part right. "But not-- not all of them would possibly try something, right? I cannot believe that this many people all, collectively, would let these assholes manipulate them into turning against us." Another pause and then her voice was a tad bit weaker, less sure, but still hopeful, as she asked, "...Right?"

There was more to the Tower than that the control room, of course. But it was the only part that Zaid was interested in. The dorm area was just for sleeping, the file room he refused to acknowledge, and the main floor with the strange broken equipment, he wasn't technical enough to understand.

Besides, Rosey King was a famous actor or something wasn't she? Twenty years back, anyway... Cameras would be the important part for her.

Rosey seemed vehemently opposed to the people in control of this place. And given what Zaid had heard about the pair emerging from the woods looking like wild forest-folk, he could believe it. Then again, they could be yet another trick. Costumed up to look like they'd been surviving on scraps.

Rosey King was a famous actor or something.

But Rosey had all the right reasons, points that Zaid hadn't thought about (not that he thought about much except the control room recordings and exploration. and Tej).

"How did the pair of you survive? For twenty bloody years, no less? Are there other...erm, houses out there? Other places like this?" Zaid motioned to the relative civilization before them - the bungalows and Medicentre, the Hub and warehouse. "How did you two stay alive?"

In case she took offense, Zaid added, "I wouldn't have been able to survive."

She couldn't believe that back then, having cameras around thrilled her, got her excited. She kept her life private as much as possible, but it didn't feel like invading into her private life, it felt like recording and documenting something that would be shown and talked about for decades and centuries, and she was at the forefront of it, among the firsts who's names would go down in history for what was happening on this beach.

She was right, probably, just for all the wrong reasons.

"Do they have past recordings as well or is it all live feed and people are watching if they want to? Do they still run, now that the place is empty aside from whoever from your group goes in?" If it was still running (and it had to, since they noticed almost immediately when Rosey and Hana showed up), those live feeds had to show somewhere else as well.

Once again Zaid answered with new questions (less accusatory this time, which Rosey appreciated) instead of an actual answer to what she was looking for, and Rosey was getting a bit annoyed, but she forced it down, did not show any of it - this wasn't the situation when she could nilly-willy get annoyed and snap at people, as much as she got used to being more open with her annoyance and anger in the past twenty years.

So instead of pointing out that they really should be talking about the food, she shook her head, "It wasn't just the two of us." If it was, they would have killed each other before anything else would have killed them, really. And Rosey didn't even want to think about Tiago being in that damn grave pit in that case.

"Most of the people died, but there were others who ran alongside us. A handful of people, barely any, but it was enough that once we settled down on another beach we found, we managed to make it work. It was hard, we lived on scraps, we had to build everything up from scratch and in the beginning the assholes kept sending things after us to take care of us, too, but we made it." It was luck of the draw as much as their skills, that some of the people who survived and ran actually had knowledge on how to survive at a place like this island. "They stayed behind when we came - we weren't even sure if you guys actually were here, doing a whole new experience or if we were just being fucked with, maybe to lure us out or something."

"I honestly can't even remember what the VHS tapes were. I found them in what I assumed was where the investor guy stayed. Mr. Hook I think he went by in all the different documents. I assume they're either something pretentious or unsavoury. All the books and music records I found in that room, same deal." She explained, walking over to one of the bookshelves where she remembered placing all his stuff. "Like. Self help books, books that are meant to teach you the tricks of being the next big entrepreneur, and stuff that you'd think they were so intelligent if they sat down and read it and understood it. And they were covered in dust! Completely untouched and unopened!"

Selin started putting down the books she was showing off, trying not to get overworked at the idea of this loser billionaire holed up in his fancy room in the tower, surrounded by beautifully crafted bookshelves and expensive record players and television, just to not be reading the books, or enjoying the music. "Yeah right now I'm kind of going with an honor system of letting me know, but also I made these little sign out slips to put in the books, just to record who had it last and for how long. A sign out book might be easier to keep track of what's gone if anyone is ever looking for something specific."

At least Rosey and Hana had seen these things too, so she wasn't sounding completely deranged. "They...actually didn't try to kill us outright. They stung us if we threatened them, but most of them were just destroying things rather than targeting people. But...people did die during that." It was sad to hear that they went through, maybe not exactly similar, but just as horrific of an experience. All of them signing up thinking good things would happen, only to be surrounded by death and suffering. "Some people in our group found old ID cards from your group of people. And those hornets dug up this pit where those who died were buried. It was...horrific. I'm sorry you and the other survivors went through that. It must have been so scary."

Selin refrained from mentioning anything about the one person from that group that she knew. They weren't necessarily close but she was a friend of the family, and she wasn't sure if she was ready to find out the answer if she survived or not. "Well, I don't think they necessarily laid out what these challenges would entail. And everything was all science and legal jargon. It must have said something about keeping us to test the effects of the experiment without disclosing what those tests would entail. I don't think I would have signed up if I saw 'you'll be expected to use the powers you get to fight and survive robotic murder hornets' in my contract."

Rosey frowned. "If they were in Mr. Hook's room, they could easily be creepy surveilance footages of all of us, but he might just secretly love watching romantic comedies and hoped nobody would ever think twice about not watching his stash." She made a note to herself to, at some point when she got herself to actually look at the insides of the Tower, check out those VHS tapes. If they were surveilence, if they were records of the experiences, it was better to know. A scoff, "Of course he'd be that person. And probably thought he was better than any of these books all combined, that he knew better." Not that Rosey was the self-help book kind of person, but she'd read them just to be the complete opposite of Mr. Hook in this situation.

If she didn't know better, Rosey could have so easily believed this was nothing more than a sweet project somewhere right in the heart of civilization, and yet, the fact that it was right here, among all of this chaos and death and uncertainty, it made the existence of this place that much greater. And as much as part of her loved this and she already knew she'd spend time here, part of her also hated it and felt like she needed to get out of here immediately. But she pushed the thought back down and smiled and said, "I think both could be useful for different reasons for sure. And overall what you built here is great, Selin, truly. I was not expecting anything like this to be here - didn't think it was possible, really. Makes the beach feel a bit lighter than what it really is."

The gigantic robot hornets weren't even aiming to kill. Just hearing that made Rosey's stomach lurch in anger. Her group was chased and attacked what felt like countless times before they were finally left alone in peace, definitely aiming to take care of them for good, and then these people were tested but it wasn't real danger. Why couldn't they just leave them alone as well? And then she pushed the thought aside - she couldn't be angry at the others for this shit, even if they had it better so far. Even if it was hard to not feel a bit of anger at least. "Did you guys lose a lot of people since all of it began?"

Her stomach lurched at the mention of the pit. "I heard about the digging up, yes." She gave a short nod. "Safe to say, worst experience of my life. Or the beginning of it at least, the past 20 years wasn't rainbows and sunshine either." And still, they were the lucky ones. Somehow. "You say you found ID cards - do you have those as well in here? Or are they collected somewhere else?"

--and interesting. Rosey appearing on their beach with a single companion who she didn't get along with? Who wasn't necessarily her single haven while being witchhunted? More than interesting. Useful.

"Easy, easy," Alex said with a startled laugh, wrapping his hand over Rosey's on her glass as she gestured wildly with it. A sign of how deep in her cups she was, a practiced actor like her losing track of what she was doing with her body. He took his hand back and licked a droplet of cheap rum off his thumb, nodding at her theories. "If we were likely to come after you," Alex said, "then that's a feasible theory. But I don't think we would. Not most of us, anyway."

Because now Rosey had Zaid's name in her mouth, Adarsh's, and Alex rose from the sofa smoothly, setting down his own barely-touched drink to say, "I might have a photo of Adarsh here, lemme just grab it. He's this good looking brown guy with a shock of black hair but a scowl as if someone just kicked over his pani puri cart. You'd know him if you saw him."

SNICK.

Alex stepped away further behind the sofa, a rueful look on his face, eyes bright and dilated: he hadn't fetched a photo at all. He'd gotten the pair of handcuffs he'd filched from somebody's suitcase on the ship, and snapped one bracelet around Rosey's wrist stretched out along the back of the sofa, the other to one of the sturdy wooden slats. Mid century modern, couldn't beat it.

So even when Alex got up to get a photo of Adarsh - a photo of Adarsh, how would he have any kind of photo of anyone, Rosey, use your brain! -, she didn't think twice about it. Even when the handcuff snapped around her wrist, her brain needed time to catch up and for a good five-ten seconds she just stared at it, her drunken brain not even processing the information strapped around her wrist fast enough.

"What are you even--"

And then it hit her as if she was hit with an airplane crashing right on top of her.

"Are you fucking insane?" she jumped up, feeling clearer in her head than she really should have been, considering how much rum she drank, shaking her hand fruitlessly, her wrist very much stuck to the sofa now. "Did you lose your mind, you asshole?!" she looked over at Alex, her hands, her voice shaking from anger.

"Good joke, good job, you got one over me, har har." She was continuously shaking her hand, trying to get it out of the damn handcuff, as if it would actually do anything. She needed a key for this (unless she broke her own wrist, but she was not thinking of that as an option). "Now let me out, Alex, because you cannot fucking keep me locked to this piece of shit sofa."

"The Tower was locked to us at first, too. It, erm...opened up to us erm. Almost 18 months ago, really." The tunnel entrance through the mass grave pit of human remains - Rosey King's people, in fact - made Zaid shudder internally. But at least now he'd been part of the taskforce who carved out the second entrance, directly to the main floor of the Tower.

He stiffened at the words of the announcement, unsure what to make of it. That suppressed rage that he'd tamped down with regret and shame - but the rage was easily directed to the announcement, the people behind this whole nightmare. Dr Pan and Mr Hook. Zaid hated them, he knew that in his heart.

But he'd signed up for this, hadn't he? How much of that blame should be directed at himself?

Rosey was asking about the food storage and supplies. Six months ago, Zaid would've had detailed answers for her about inventory and storage from the hunting-foraging-farming-fishing projects formed by various industrious people.

But he'd abandoned his authority over all that, now. Zaid barely ate anything himself. He'd become one of those people who only used food as 'fuel', rather than to savour and enjoy.

"Why would they do that?" Zaid motioned to one of the nearby loudspeaker posts, ignoring Rosey's questions for now. "Why would they punish us, just because you and your mate showed up? What do they have against you? Them...those in charge. Dr Pan and Mr Hook, yeah? Do you know them, have you met them?" Zaid looked even more wary. "Did you work for them?"

"I probably should take a look at some point. See what they have on all of us. If there's any information about the others who didn't make it." They stayed here for such a short time, they didn't even know all of their names, who died due to the serum. Rosey, however, couldn't get herself to go in there. Not yet anyway. At least there was another way into the Tower and it wasn't just through that mass open grave pit with the remains of those people who weren't as lucky as the small group Rosey spent the past two decades with.

She'd forever be grateful that Tiago was not lying there, but that feeling could never be stronger than her anger towards the people running the experiment for putting them in these situations to begin with.

"Found anything interesting or useful in those 18 months you had the Tower all to yourself?"

Instead of answering her questions, Zaid instead asked why the two running this island would do something like the announcement, and Rosey automatically snorted, "Because they are assholes."

But Zaid kept talking, asking stronger, more accusatory questions, and then the last one came that got her horrified even at the thought of it. "Hell no, I'm not working with them, never have, never will!" she snapped and then stopped herself, took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down. She was not Hana. "I'd rather jump off of a cliff or some shit than work with those two. And I've never met them, either. They had plenty of minions to do the daily tasks of everything that needed to get done back when our experiment was happening - they clearly did not want to dirty their hands. And if they had something on us, they would have just thrown that information in instead of paint us as scapegoats."

She pinched the bridge of her nose, let out a long sigh. "I'm not the enemy. I cannot tell you for sure why they would do this, but I can take a strong guess - they want to fuck with everyone and if they turn us against each other, we're not looking at them and plotting against them." And then there was Hana, of course. Worst possible person who could have come here, what was that woman even thinking, Rosey wasn't sure, but the fact that she worked with the two heads of this place would not be good news for them.

The bracelets were in the present, and it was clear Rosey had also given some thought to their properties. Their...abilities. As the only person here that Hana trusted - and only due to twenty years of hard-won survival together - she was eager to talk it through. At least Rosey King wasn't an idiot; the actor had always displayed an annoyingly clear and resourceful mind. Pragmatic, even. Of course, she had to bemoan about how hard it was for her to be fancy amongst the plebs, but Hana had pushed her to it.

"It must require more than just bracelets with fancy coloured rocks," Hana concluded. "They don't remember how they got here. Just waking up here. Maybe during their blackout time, they spent months in clinical, receiving trial drugs and tests before getting placed here. That was all just done off-island, instead of on-island like you guys got." She ignored the part about her own curiousity. Hana wasn't sure how to answer that.

Rosey went on one of her rants (Hana called them 'Rosey-rants'. Clever) and Hana stood stony-faced, and weathered it. Arms folded as Rosey ridiculed, rejected...then theorized. That was always the interesting part of her rants - when Rosey 'played along' by making counter-points. That was what Hana wanted to theorize against, and Rosey was pretty good at providing it for her.

"So you can believe forever-youth and crazy superpowers, but you draw the line at immortality?" Hana couldn't help but say first, tone dry as a desert. Even if she wanted to engage with Rosey's analysis, Hana still wanted to get a teeny dig in.

"Think about it, Rosey. Twenty years out there, with barely enough to get by. We had no modern medicine - which was part of the cause and effect of permanent youth, of course. The serum was designed to bolster immunity against allergies, viral or bacterial disease that could degrade our bodies further. Age isn't the only factor that ages people! Natural calcium loss, plaque build-up in the heart, inflamed livers, toxins in air and food - all the markers for a body's slow march towards death. We have bodies that once born, immediately start dying. The serum was designed to stop that. Or - to repair cellular growth where needed. It's a complicated process...but anyway--"

Urgent now, Hana surged towards Rosey, hands curved in appeal. "Our group of survivors - did any of us die from pneumonia, or heart attack, or anaphylactic shock? Sure... there was, um, Derek; but even immortality can't prevent decapitation!"

She crossed her arms, tried to push her mind to the bracelets instead. "That is so much more complicated than what was done with us. And requires so much more science. And has that many more chances of failiure." How many didn't even make it onto the island, damn it? Rosey did not want to think about that. "So whatever happened to them is most likely strictly tied to them and it cannot be reproduced - at least not on this place and without those assholes' resources." At least Hana couldn't make and create a bracelet of her own. "Do you have any theories on why they aren't able to take them off? The bracelets?"

Rosey shook her head. "I don't think it's impossible. I just think it would be oh so convienient if by accident the serum that was supposed to give us eternal youth also gave us immortality and we realize it just the right time when we would need it so desperately against other people."

But Hana wasn't fully listening, she was trudging on, explaining her own science theories and this is where the woman lost Rosey and Rosey hated it. She wasn't a scientist. She played a doctor once in a movie, but the function of that was that when the time came, her character was the one who had to do CPR on another character. She didn't understand the medical jargon Hana was talking about. But there was no way Rosey was willing to say that out loud, admit that in front of Hana. So simple, basic sense it was.

"You said the most important thing yourself, though, Hana - Derek couldn't stand a chance against decapitation. Even if you are right - I don't think you are, but let's pretend. Even if you are right, we are not facing natural causes. Nobody is going to be running at us with peanuts just in case one of us is allergic or scaring us into a heart attack. If they do something drastic, it's going to be stabbing us, grabbing us and throwing us out into the forest, setting the bungalow we are in on fire. Shit that even these serum defenses wouldn't do anything against.