on a train

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell turns over the crate to her parents. They believe her about finding it on the beach. They open one can to celebrate, and then Shark very sensibly insists that the rest of it be stored until it is needed.

The next few days, leading up to Tony's victory tour's stop in Four, see her ferretting out her remaining stash and distributing it between her parents and Lynnis's family until it's all gone. They're assuming a ship lost a lot of merchandise at once. Bad weather, one assumes.

She stops replacing her shells by the doors. But she does show up to work, until the day before when she has to leave. Then, she fakes sick enough to stay home, spends the day sleeping, and - at night - is rested enough to execute her plan.

Dear Mom and Dad.

I'm going for Atlantis. It's okay! I have a plan! I'll come back and get you when I can and then we can all live there. Please tell Mr. Carrasen I'm sorry about the canoe. I'll bring him a new one after I get there! I love you! It's going to be great!

- Shell Bell

...the idea, after all, is to instantly convince them that she is dead. That she is too foolish and unprepared to have any chance. That there is no point in worrying about her any further, and they should move directly to grieving - certainly not wasting time looking for her or reporting her as a missing person. The fact that she's not swiping any of the cans and only one water container - is not even bringing a fishing rod - is another clue, of course.

Shell Bell wears her nice dress - it'll attract less attention in the town than work clothes, on a Victory Tour day where everyone's supposed to celebrate, and the town in question is big enough that her mere unfamiliarity won't catch her out immediately. She packs one more practical change of clothes, sticks her stick in her hair, and puts one salty roll in her pocket to eat at around midnight and a few strips of dried salmon to nibble on as necessary through the walk. She's also wearing the less remarkable-looking of the two protective amulets she traded for during her stay in Milliways. It looks like a lump of white glass - it could even pass for sea glass. The other stuff she obtained is waiting for her in her room in the bar.

She melts the lock on the canoe shed and buries it deep in the sand. She drags out a canoe. Briefly, she considers actually canoeing to the next town up, but while she knows how to row like any District Four resident does, she's worried about being noticed on her way in, and it'll be easier to avoid that if she's not in the place where all the actual industry goes on, namely the shore. She pushes it out to sea regretfully. Saltwater spatters her dress, but it dries as she goes.

She talks to her recorder in the dark silence.

And just before dawn peeps over the ocean, she's picked her way through the sleeping town to the train station and she's pretending to be a premature, eager celebrator.

Comments

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell does remember that. She doesn't remark on it, though!

[sicaria]

After a moment, she adds, "I am not."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I saw," Bell says.

[sicaria]

"But then, I don't believe anyone expected me to be."

[she_sells_seashells]

"It didn't really fit with any part of the image you projected before that, no."

It didn't really hit Bell, in the bar, that she was talking to Hunger Games victors, except long enough to ask Sherlock not to kill her. Now she is in the train, and Sherlock and Tony continue to exist, and, yes, they are victors and she is in their train.

[sicaria]

"Pretending to be clumsy and incompetent before my Games began was the extent of my acting ability. Emotions are more difficult."

[she_sells_seashells]

"I really am clumsy. It's a good thing, too, or I might have been picked at Career camp and I would have been in Tony's Games."

[sicaria]

"What would you have done, if Lynnis had not stepped up?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"I had my stick. Assuming I didn't get a chance to escape into the arena, most of the other tributes' mined platforms would have gone off in rapid sequence before we were allowed to move, I would have fled with no supplies into the arena, and anyone I ran into would have died of internal burns that I'm sure would look very strange on an autopsy report. And then I would have never, ever come back the next time I found a door."

Pause. "That's if I actually had to go. If Lynnis hadn't stepped up, the seventeen-year-old Career girl in training would have socked her in the nose and volunteered and the girl Four Careers would have been a year younger than they're supposed to be until we hit a cohort that had two - they put in occasional backups for that in case one dies or defects."

[sicaria]

"A sound plan," says Sherlock. "Particularly the part where you flee the universe afterward."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Yeah. Or, you know, before, if given the opportunity. I wouldn't want to kill twenty-three people who didn't want to be there any more than I did."

[sicaria]

"Yes," Sherlock agrees.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Sorry," says Bell, looking away.

[sicaria]

She shrugs.

"I count it among my reasons."

Hopefully she doesn't have to explicitly specify reasons for what.

[she_sells_seashells]

She does not.

"Do you want to hear the explanation of how the amulets work?" Bell asks, pulling out her recorder. "Or about the other stuff I got, from the source?"

[sicaria]

"By all means."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Seek: first instance within last 150 days of 'amulet'," Bell tells her recorder. "Play from nearest prior pause-mark."

Obediently, the recorder plays a conversation between her and her benefactor about the amulets. The two work the same, they're only cosmetically different - the reason he has them is apparently because he bought three, not knowing which his daughter would like best, and these are the two left over. One should not trust them to protect one from anything serious. They will make physical injury - and the sorts of things that cause injury, like Bell's tripping - less likely and less serious. Often. But certainly not by enough that Bell ought to try to tapdance at the top of a staircase - though if she did, when she fell, she'd break an arm, not her neck.

"Seek: first instance within last 150 days of 'generator'," Bell says, after pausing when the conversation ends. "Play from nearest prior pause-mark."

Bell has apparently also obtained a generator. It is from a world with both tech and magic, and it turns the magical energy from a crystal inside it into nice clean electricity. Reportedly, it can output up to 570 megaglonns in its typical lifespan! ...There are attempts made to translate this into how many lights the generator could power for how long, but the woman who had the generator keeps clarifying "as long as the lights are, you know, reasonably modern and efficient" without being able to describe what that means, so this isn't much more useful than 570 megaglonns. At any rate, it's a device impressive enough to be in common use in a very advanced world. The same conversation also yields some batteries that can be charged from the generator, that "are designed for our devices, naturally, but you should be able to adapt them for anything with ordinary gold wire or spun-starlight". Bell's question about whether it has to be gold is immediately replied to with "Oh, or copper, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting."

[sicaria]

"I am sure Tony will take great joy in discovering the meaning of a megaglonn," Sherlock says dryly.

[she_sells_seashells]

"I thought so. And there's also the guns and stuff I took from that guy who wanted me to shoot at him, still. The amulet guy just wanted to help out after I talked to him. The generator lady wants a copy of anything 'particularly cunning' Tony makes left for her at the bar - she was vague about what 'particularly cunning' means so I'm going to interpret it as 'small and not terribly necessary'."

[sicaria]

"There will be plenty to occupy him when we get back, then."

This is a positive thing.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Yeah. I sold some regular advice too - no other assignments for you or Tony out of that - but all those people had was money. I paid down part of your tab with it, but not all of it. It turns out that eating like a person for four and a half months is expensive."

[sicaria]

"We'll manage."

[she_sells_seashells]

Bell nods. She is pretty happy, considering. "What do you and Tony do, most of the time? I don't watch quite enough TV to know what your chosen talents to cultivate are."

[sicaria]

"Tony had a perfectly serviceable area of expertise already. I cook."

[she_sells_seashells]

"How's he spinning it? Probably not bombs - fancy phones? Pointless little ornaments that light up and beep? Are you actually good at cooking or is that just the monosyllable you utter when reporters demand to talk about your talent?"

Goodness, Bell is full of questions.