vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR

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CALHOUN HOUR - SURVIVOR

At the crack of dawn, presumably, Calhoun gathers everyone in the first floor warehouse to make an announcement.

"That's right, it's time for another of my special events!" He seems pretty pleased with himself. "I noticed you lazy, fat test subjects really let yourselves go last round! It's like I don't feed you here or something."

"Well, I'm worried about your health, always lazing about and not getting proper exercise. So, I decided to be the change I want to see in the world, and so we're going to do something a littttttttllllllle different this time."

"To stop you guys from getting soft from all the fun you're having here, it's time for a little workout."

From one of the doors Calhoun never lets anyone go through there's a loud, metallic banging sound repeating, as if something is trying to get out. Calhoun does not seem troubled at all by this. In fact, he seems pretty excited.

"The rules are simple, everyone's getting sixty coins to use as they see fit. You'll notice the vending machines on both warehouse floors. Anyone who isn't caught will even get a memory back." But what does that mean?

"So go on, survive for 23 hours, I'll even give you a five minute head start. Good luck!"

And with that he scurries off. Should people hang around they'll get to witness that same door open five minutes later. From the door comes several figures, human in shape but something is very, very wrong.

They seem to be robotic, skeletal humans. At one point they must have had some synthetic skin over them but most of it seems to be melting or ripped off. They don't move very fast, mostly they shamble about until they focus on a target. Better hope it's not you!

BASIC INFO ✖ FIRST TEN HOURS ✖ LAST HOURS ✖ POST EVENT MINGLE

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Once Heiji's quest to map out the rooms brought him to the garden, he would find Clive at the very back, attempting to climb one of the trees because everyone knows that trees are the best hiding places ever. But being a 5'2" city boy who wasn't very strong to begin with, it was going about as well as you'd imagine. That Sasuke kid always made it look so easy, this is such bullshit. He couldn't even manage to get up on any of the branches.

Eventually he realized he wasn't alone in here anymore, which made him start to panic a little but he let out a sigh of relief when he saw that Heiji was in fact not a robot. ~~Or was he?~~

"Oh, good, it's just you." Just going to pretend that those miserable attempts to climb that tree didn't happen just now, ahahaha...

Heiji ~~did the robot~~ ~~wondered what Clive had been doing to that tree~~ waved at Clive. "Hey, nice to see ya didn't get caught. Listen, I was -- "

Before he could finish his line of thought, however, a now-familiar clanking sound came from the other end of the Garden. Shit.

Could robots climb trees? Or were they like the fucking jaguars of the mechanical world? In any case, there was little chance that they'd be able to outrun it out in the open like this. Heiji laced his fingers together and held out his hands as a makeshift stepstool. "Hurry up!" he said in a low voice. "I'll give ya a boost!"

Oh great, now there really was a robot in here. Just Clive's luck. He immediately took advantage of the boost that Heiji offered him to finally get up in that tree, though he didn't climb up any further just yet. Instead, he held a hand out towards Heiji, using the other to hold onto the tree trunk and spoke in a rushed, quiet voice. "Come on, I'll help you up too!"

Heiji grabbed Clive's hand and started to climb, only...

Only then the tree began to sway dangerously back and forth. As quietly as he could, Heiji slid back down, keeping low and trying as much as he could to hide behind the limited shelter of the tree's trunk. He looked up at Clive and shook his head. The tree wasn't strong enough to support both of them, so... maybe the robot would go away?

Heiji quietly grabbed the handle of the shovel he'd dropped in order to climb the tree as the robot began toddling around the other end of the garden. Maybe he'd just have to make a dash for it, anyway. But could he make it?

Clive let go of Heiji's hand as he made his way back down, frowning as he did so. If only this tree was stronger... He climbed up more now, just high enough to get out of plain sight but low enough that he could still safely jump down when he needed to. With nothing else he could do for Heiji at the moment, he watched the robot intently to see what it would do. He was ready to jump down and help Heiji at any time if it looked like he was in trouble.

For a moment, it looked like Heiji was safe and the robot was going to leave without incident... and then its head spun around a full 180 degrees and fixed right on him. Goddammit.

It ran toward him with surprising speed (Seriously, what was this, a robot linebacker? Was he going to have to eat a Trident Tackle?), such that Heiji really only had time to leap out of the way and swing at the back of its head as hard as he could with the shovel.

Comically, the robot's head spun around with with the blow, leaving it stunned for a precious second or two. And the river was right next to it...!

Heiji gave the robot a shove toward the water, but knew from experience that these things were heavy. If only someone were around to do some kind of crazy awesome jump kick and give it that extra push --

Wow, look at that, the robot was perfectly in range to make a crazy awesome jump kick from Clive possible. How convenient! He got into position just before Heiji shoved the robot, and as soon as he did Clive leaped right out of the tree and kicked that dumb robot in the face as he came down, providing enough force to send it crashing down into the water.

It would have been a truly crowning moment of badass for Clive if he hadn't crumpled to the ground right after landing, holding the leg that he used to kick the robot close to his chest and rubbing it. Despite the fact that they just showed that robot who's boss, Clive sounded completely defeated when he spoke. And clearly in a lot of pain. "That hurt so much more than I thought it would..."

Well, at least Clive could take solace in the way the robot shorted out in a ridiculously awesome light show before rattling to a stop at the bottom of the river.

Heiji bent down next to Clive, offering him a hand up. "Well, them things are made of metal. Nice save, though. You could totally go into pro wrestling."

Someone give Clive a folding chair; his future career was stretched out in front of him! You know, if he could get over the crumpled over in pain part.

Yes, that was pretty nice to watch, but it didn't make his leg feel any better.

"I think I'll pass on that," Clive said in response to the pro wrestling remark, grabbing Heiji's hand and trying to get himself back on his feet. However, intense pain shot up his injured leg the moment he put weight on it, so he winced and shifted the majority of his weight onto his good leg as he threw an arm around Heiji's shoulders and leaned against him for support. Sorry bro, he kind of can't stand up right now without you.

Then he looked over at the entrance to the garden with a worried expression. "So, what now?" It would probably be a while before Clive could walk normally again, and if another robot came after them like this then they were done for.

Hmm, good question. "We should probably find a good place for you to hide. What about the Confinement Room? I bet if ya got into one of those cells and fastened it closed, it's be pretty tough for robots to get in. And if ya kept out of sight in there, they might not even notice you enough to try."

He didn't mind Clive leaning on him, but not being able to run was going to limit Clive's options for escape. "...Or I guess we could try and stick you back up in one of those trees again."

"I don't think I'm in any condition to climb a tree again, even with your assistance..." Though he didn't think he'd be able to make it all the way to the confinement room like this, either. What a dilemma this was. Unless...

He let out a sigh. "I'm sorry to ask this of you, but would you be able to carry me on your back? We'd have a better chance of making it safely to the confinement room that way. If not, then you can just leave me here and I'll figure something out on my own." It was his own fault that he got hurt, so Heiji didn't have to inconvenience himself for Clive's sake if he didn't want to.

Oh, that would make things much easier! Good thing Clive had asked, too, because most guys weren't too crazy about being offered piggyback rides. Heiji turned around and offered his back to Clive.

"Sure! No need to be shy about things with them robots tooling around. I'll get you there in no time!"

In a normal situation Clive probably would not have appreciated being offered a piggyback ride, but when he had an injury like this one, it really was the best thing to do. He could swallow his pride for the sake of not getting captured by robots.

With Heiji's approval, he securely attached himself to the taller boy's back. "Thank you, Heiji."

Robots: destroyers of pride and also John Conner.

"Don't mention it!" It was the least he could do, right? Heiji set off in the direction of the Confinement Room. Luckily, Clive wasn't all that heavy; if he'd been the one injured, they would've had a real problem.

"What a mess, huh? One minute we're living the high life, the next we're running from factory rejects."

"I'm sure that Calhoun set it up that way on purpose. It was perfectly cruel of him to put us through this after we had such a good time with the cooking contest." It didn't surprise him one bit. Calhoun was such a wanker.

"By the way, did you use any of those salts yet?"

Heiji shook his head. "Never got the chance, since he woke up us at the crack of dawn." Obviously, Heiji was still a little crabby about that.

"You can bet I'll be tryin' them out after this, though. If I can even keep anything down. I'm still amazed you could make somethin' that detailed."

Clive felt him there, man, why did Calhoun always have to wake them up so early for everything... Couldn't they have something happen in the afternoon for once?

"Oh, it's not that great, really... Wait, are you not feeling well?" He was. Kind of super drunk/hungover while that whole poison business was going on so he was out of the loop about that.

"Oh, well... actually, right after the whole cooking thing, I got pretty sick. Came down with a fever, got chills... that kinda thing. It passed really quickly, but for a little while, I thought for sure I'd get carted off just like the others."

He shifted a little, adjusting Clive's weight on his back. "But as you can see, I'm just as as good as new! Not gonna eat any more of Simon's cooking anytime soon, though."

"You got sick from Simon's cooking? Isn't he the one who won the contest? We made a cake together and it was absolutely divine. Didn't get sick at all afterwards, either. ...Well, I sort of did, but that's because I got drunk after the contest." That hangover was a total bitch but he still regretted nothing. He probably wouldn't have another chance to get drunk in the warehouse again so it was totally worth it.

Heiji frowned. "See, I ain't exactly sure. I don't know all that much about baking, but I do know that it seemed like Simon knew what he was doing. If it was just normal food poisoning, well, the oven should have taken care of that. If I had to guess, I'd say Calhoun put somethin' in the ingredients."

He crossed his arms, leaning back in his seat. "But then why didn't everyone get sick? I guess it would make sense if Calhoun was just gettin' back at me for something, since I ain't exactly the most cooperative fella here. But then why Simon?"

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CALHOUN HOUR - SURVIVOR

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