12: Video/Spam: Fix this, Joe? --What's the problem?-- Ran out of time.

[omar]

[Video, Private to Chris, Sunday evening]

[Once upon a time, Omar hadn't minded the Barge so much. It's a prison, sure, but one with better food and more fresh air, and he'd actually really liked his warden. He and Leslie had had something of an understanding between them: she respected him by trying not to get too much in his face; he respected her by trying not to seriously hurt anyone that hadn't hurt someone else first. He'd still killed Ladd Russo twice, and she'd still taken steps against him both times, but he hadn't felt like her heart was really in it. At the end of the day, they actually kind of trusted each other.

He realizes now that he let himself get fooled into extending that trust to other wardens, too. Chris D'Amico has been a nightmare for him, pushy and rude and disrespectful and entitled, and while Omar had seen the part of Leslie that had actually wanted to help him, he's seen none of it in Chris.

Which is fine. He's a warden, after all. Omar should have remembered that most people here weren't going to be any different from most people back home: selfish and hungry. He should have remembered that any real prison warden is as much a part of the game as he is.

Time to remind Chris what their roles should really look like.

On Sunday evening Chris gets a series of video messages from Omar's communicator, one after the other, five in all. Each one seems to be filmed in the first-person perspective, at around chest height, like Omar stuck his communicator in his breast pocket and hit record. Each one depicts an attack: Jimmy, Mickey, Letty, Dark, and Arthas. The last one is very nearly current, which is good, because...]

[Open Spam for Level 1]

[...In the wake of escaping Arthas' cabin, Omar may have let the zombies out. Like Anya said: cleanup, aisle 7. Omar darts down the hallway just ahead of the pack, one of Arthas' shining gauntlets underneath his arm.]

((Omar is going to try to GTFO, but feel free to also use this post for general zombies-on-level-1 shenanigans!))

[Video, Public]

[Once Chris picks up his communicator, Omar starts broadcasting his reaction to the network at large. He really can't wait to see what happens.]

Comments

[leavetreadmarks]

[She is, although it appears as though she either very recently wasn't or intended not to be very shortly. She's yawning, but alert enough in and around that to be curious when she stops.]

Yeah? Uh, sure.

What's up?

[omar]

Had a few more thoughts about ol' you-know-who I might be up to sharing with you.

[leavetreadmarks]

[And now she's definitely awake.]

I'm listening.

[omar]

I don't talk on the phone much. I think that the other day was the most I've done so far.

[That part is actually true -- he wishes he'd dropped the call and met up with her, the way he'd used to with Bruce. Even if it's about something he doesn't mind other people overhearing, it makes him uncomfortable to think that they might be without his knowing it, or what they might do with that. He's seen what can happen: empires toppled by a single wrong word on tape.]

Come by your place?

[leavetreadmarks]

[She would have accommodated him then; maybe even have preferred it, too, although she doesn't really share the paranoia. She just likes being able to look someone in the eye and get a feel for them face to face whenever possible, and she's met plenty of other people in her - their - circle that feel much the same way.

Which all boils down to she glances around herself habitually, but doesn't really hesitate before nodding.]

Alright. I'm 7-18.

[omar]

See you soon.

[And he turns up not long after, glancing warily up and down the hall when she opens the door.]

I'm not big on ratting, you understand?

[leavetreadmarks]

No one should be. Come on, get in here.

[This is what she takes the question to mean, of course, and this is where her familiar surroundings are working against her: if they were actually on her street in Los Angeles, only the dumbest punks would dare lift a finger against her in Dom's living room, and then only once. And that's just when she's done with them.

So she doesn't think twice about stepping back to let Omar into the room, glancing up and down the hall herself.]

What's going on?

[omar]

[He steps inside at her invitation, tucked in on himself nervously with his hands in the pockets of his great big trenchcoat. He seems restless, unsettled even once he's inside. He throws himself down into a chair, leg jittering as he looks around the room.]

Nice old place you got here.

Was thinking on Arthas some.

[leavetreadmarks]

[Letty is not a fusser. She closes the door soundly behind him and follows, at ease in her own territory, confident in what she's sure is going on. She doesn't care that he's looking around - he is the wary sort, even she can see. And this is her turf, not his.

She stays standing, arms folded where she comes to stop in front of him.]

Yeah. He's been quiet enough. I've been leaving him alone for now.

What'd you come up with?

[omar]

[He glances up at her, then looks meaningfully towards another chair. It's not easy to settle down with her standing over him like that.]

It's about this port we was in together... You mind if I smoke in here?

[leavetreadmarks]

That "long story" you were talking about?

[Letty's been thinking about this a lot, and the call back to their previous conversation is ready to hand at the front of her memory; on the other hand at first she just follows his glance to the chair, then back to him. There's a five second delay before she catches up to that one.

She crosses the room, returns with an ash tray from one of the shelves where she stashed it while cleaning because she doesn't smoke, but a lot of the people that end up here back home do. She drops it onto the coffee table close to him, drops down on the couch herself, letting that stand as its own answer.]

[omar]

Mm-hmm. Thank you.

[He picks up the ashtray and puts it on his lap, then lights himself up one of the cigarettes Luna drummed up for him. He still seems... nervous, fidgety, but the smoke seems to dull the edge enough for him to speak up again.]

It was this big mess of port. We all got split up, way we did back in that last one, except nobody got no vacation out of it that time. There was these monster-looking things... Vanquish, they called 'em. So I might have missed a thing or two, 'cause they had me up in they fighting pits, knocking 'em out like some kind of gladiator.

[Knocking them out is the kind word, he supposes. There had been a lot of brutalizing. A lot more killing. He presses his lips together, a flash of something old and worn in his expression. He stands, still holding the ashtray in one hand, moving aimlessly around in his unhappy distraction.]

But every so often I was back down in my room -- every so often I been checking in on the rest, you know? Arthas, he was back here, I think, but... seemed like the boy was trying to raise up an army.

[leavetreadmarks]

Yeah.

[This is a stand-in for a "you're welcome," brusque but correct for what it is; she's a little surprised by the obvious nerves, raising an eyebrow as she watches him fidget with the cigarette. She understands not being comfortable with being anything like a rat - really, she does - but he put off a lot of swagger in their last conversation, and he's certainly self-possessed on the network otherwise.

Still, it's not terribly surprising, and she doesn't comment even when he gets up and starts moving around, though neither does she stop watching him as she listens.

And, well. That sure sounds like the Barge hasn't changed much in the past two years, if recent experience is anything to go by. Sounds like it might be.]

Makes sense. He was a leader back home and that doesn't just go away, no matter where you are.

You know what the plan was after he got his army? [She's just. Going to ignore the rest of that for now, her focus narrowed to Arthas and anything she can use right here, right now. She sits forward a little in her own chair, elbows braced on her knees.]

[omar]

[He's still moving, fretting over his cigarette, rolling it back and forth in his fingers every time he takes it from his lips. He paces towards the other side of the room behind her.]

I think he was trying to help, is the thing of it.

[And as much as almost this entire routine has been an act, this part isn't. He remembers the port, and he's absolutely positive that the information he's giving her is legitimate.

Whether or not she chooses to believe it after what comes next, though, is her own business.]

I'm not, though.

[And in one swift movement he slips behind her chair, raises the ashtray, and brings it down heavily on the back of her head.]

[leavetreadmarks]

[Later, she'll wake up with a blinding headache and the quickly rising heat of her temper that demands she return the favor - and certainly, if this were anywhere else, she wouldn't even hesitate. She'd pay back the attack twofold and warn him that next time, if there is a next time, it will be the last.

Later, she'll wake up and wonder how she got so goddamn stupid. When she got so goddamn comfortable. And she'll learn, and eventually maybe she'll think about what he said about Arthas, but mostly she'll be pissed, and she'll take it out on his temporary warden - or she'll want to, until she sees what's gone down while she was out.

Here and now, though, she's confused by the statement, and has already started to turn more fully to face him - ] You're not wh- shi- [- when there's an explosion of pain. Everything goes black before she really has a chance to process it, and she sags in the chair, out cold.]