My Old Ways

His phone buzzes. It’s Scott.

“Here when you are.”

Thank god - someone Henry Keyes trusts can scope out the place before he gets there.

“There in like, ten. Blue heart emoji” Keyes types back. Send, dwhoop.

His eyes look up and to his right - he’s in the back seat of a fully functional and tuned-up Ford Model A which is being driven by Driver Plague Doctor, who looks exactly like you might imagine.

The engine may have a few necessary upgrades and the novel air conditioning mechanisms they installed may “make true collectors throw up at the abomination,” but much like Henry Keyes’s general aesthetic - if the vibes are immaculate, why complain?

The aesthetics are there, sure, as is Henry himself in a pressed blue button down with rolled up sleeves, pink zaddy shorts, an incredibly elaborate belt, and fashion sandals. Not to mention, he’s clearly paid a recent visit to Barber Plague Doctor with his freshly clipped sides and printer-ink-black beard…but his facial expression doesn’t match the rest of his Just Went Shopping, Betch appearance.

Indeed, Henry has something else to complain about - he’s both in an incredibly strong position, and potentially an incredibly hard to maneuver one.

As soon as he learned the rosters of each team, Keyes knew the plan: there are three finalists, there are three Vae Victis competitors, do everything it takes to end up as the final three and let the best man win. Everyone on Team Avalon is worthless to Keyes and worth eliminating at every opportunity, and it would be disingenuous to a fault to pretend he and Scott Hunter weren’t completely solid.

As if on cue, Keyes’s phone buzzes again. Scott.

“You can use the actual emoji, you don’t have to like, describe it. See you soon 💙”

Keyes’s face is unchanged as he quickly hammers out:

“C u blue heart emoji” send, dwhoop.

The problem that’s furrowing his brow, that’s harumphing his many harumphs, and panic-Googling “Aggro Crag what is”: in games like this, you have to do a delicate dance of bullshit, lies, and manipulation and always look out for the knife in your back. There’s no delicate dance here - it’s blunt force STOMP shit.

He keeps thinking about it. There’s an answer there, he just knows it. It’ll hit him like an attack on the senses. Always seems to appear like a mallet to the head.

His car pulls up to the AirBnB. Driver Plague Doctor, the professional he is, strides around the Model A and opens Henry’s door. Lord, it’s hot to be wearing that masked get-up, but his title isn’t Complain About The Heat Plague Doctor, so he manages. Keyes strides out of the car and immediately dwarfs his driver, which happens all the time in most of his encounters except when they involve professional wrestlers. Driver Plague Doctor then pulls out his luggage - two custom blue and pink leather bags with a “VV” pattern that pays homage to Louis Vuitton’s famous branding, containing all his travel shit - the outfits, the toiletries, the products, the chargers, and most importantly, his most recent boutique purchases. He knows Survivor was going to be a major feature on PRIME television, and damn it, even if he knows he could trip and fall into a burlap sack and look handsomer than the other three men on his team, he wants to blow them out of the fucking water with his hotness. Henry Keyes knows as well as anybody - in Survivor, the hot ones always make it further.

They share a Roman arm-clasp and Driver Plague Doctor sputters down the road. Keyes scopes the exterior - pretty milquetoast. He checks the front door - nondescript. He opens it and enters - perfectly cromulent and unspectacular. He just starts to get a feel for the layout when he hears some footsteps.

“Hey Henry,” says Scott.

“Hey-yyyyyyyyy…” replies Henry as he slowly takes in the most bizarre-ass facepaint job he’s ever seen in his life.

~~~~~~~~~~

Alright, Rob Williams, you prick, “good job” on your “win”. Classic bullshit from someone for whom I assumed went back far enough to respect a fellow vet better than that, but fine. Fine. Anna Daniels either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that she’s pre-ordered her own ruination by braining me with that title, and it doesn’t bother me which. Her time will come when I say her time will come, unless she pisses off Miss Troy one time too many and she ends Anna first. She is not the fish worth frying now, and frankly, neither are you, Rob.

The way I see it, you know you’re not breaking up Scott and I, and you’re a conniving piece of shit, so I can only guess you and Tony will try to align your stars. From everything I hear about The Grin, good fucking luck there, friend, but by all means. See if he’ll save you when push comes to shove. 

But that’s neither here nor there.

Fact is, I’m not going to get a rematch for the Five Star because I have every fucking intention of making it to the end, and I know you do too. If I have my way, I won’t see you there - if you have your way, you won’t see me. We get this and it really shouldn’t have to be said to be understood.  I’m happy to at least stab you in the front in this way.

I wonder if you understand, though.

The only thing keeping Anna Daniels safe right now from Hell’s own revengeance where my knee runs through her skull over and over until it bursts…is my involvement in Survivor. 

If I’m in Survivor, I’m stuck in these AirBnB’s, I’m restricted in my televised appearances, I don’t have the freedom to find a certain would-be Time Lord in the wrong place at the wrong time for her face and brain. If I’m not, well. I won’t be too busy, will I?

Maybe it’s worth putting your thinking cap on and understanding that if the four of us, somehow, figure out a way to focus on beating the shit out of everyone else instead of ourselves, we can win/win this thing. Win/win/win if you factor in Anna’s point of view.

I would say “your call,” but that gives you the false impression that you are someone in charge of anything I might say or do, so instead I’ll say, as far as you deciding whether or not to put your knife away and help me get to the end of Survivor, “pick your poison.” 

~~~~~~~~~~

After exchanging brief pleasantries, Henry Keyes finds his way to his room. Rob and Tony haven’t arrived yet, and now seemed as good a time as any to unpack.

He knows he needs to wash his new boutique clothes at some point, so he opens up his bags and tossed them in a nearby white plastic laundry hamper, which he moves near his door so he won’t forget later.

He then gets to unpacking the rest of his stuff, grabs his toiletries, and heads for the bathroom. Real estate in there is going to be priceless, and after seeing how much space Scott’s face paints have already taken up, Henry understands that if he doesn’t act now, he’s going to have to store his brushes, his beard balms, his pomade, his scents, his mouth routine, his face wash - you know, essentials.

It takes him a significant amount of time, and he chuckles to himself - remember who’s on your team, Henry? Odds are 50/50 Rob and Tony don’t travel with toothbrushes, and odds are 90/10 Rob doesn’t deodorize. Maybe he doesn’t need to claim as many inches of countertop and medicine cabinet space as he can.

And then he has another thought - remember who’s on your team, Henry? If they’re not Scott - fuck ‘em.

~~~~~~~~~~

Most of what I know about you, Tony Gamble, is by reputation, which ain’t nothing, but it’s certainly nothing that scares me. You’ve got a mouth on you that stirs shit up, which, honestly, I like to hear. There’s always that one person on reality shows - and believe me, Helen and I have binged watched them all - that one person whose entire identity is shaped around my favorite TV trope of all time, “I’m not here to make friends.” Yeah, no shit you aren’t, none of us are. I wonder if that’s you. You fit the profile - everything you’ve ever done in your career and in your life, if word on the street is to be believed, you’ve only ever done if it directly benefitted you. I love a Machiavelli, because a Machiavelli understands the big picture here.

The big picture, of course, is that nobody SHOULD be here to make friends. Eleven of us are going to be pissed off not to fight for the Universal Championship at the end of all this, and I’ve already got a Bestie, which is worth more than any number of friends you might have yourself.

I’ve got two friends out of eleven in this thing, which is more than most and all I really expect. You’ve got Jiles until he forgets about you or until the rest of his tribe eats him alive - but you’re scrappier than that. For as much as Cancer Jiles is a living cockroach, you’re a cockroach too - and maybe a better one. Jiles is going to get smothered in his sleep with Vickie Hall or some stupid shit someday, because on a long enough trajectory, everyone ends up hating Cancer Jiles (though I hear the half-life of the Bobby Dean isotope is being studied in Oslo for lasting such an insanely long time) (maybe it’s all the down time). I actually believe you might outlive us all.

You know how to Survive, capital S. There’s a “Ha” there for somebody else.

You’re the dangerous one, in my estimation. All my senses tell me you’re cleverer than you look. I’ve seen your eyes before in other men - men I’ve stolen from, other men who have tried stealing from me, men with whom I’ve made some pretty risky deals that ended up paying off in the long run.

Maybe there’s a deal with a devil in our future. Or, maybe I’ll use your face as leverage for my boot at the last moment as I climb the last hurdle on the way to the top of whatever this mountain thing my phone tells me is “An Aggro Crag”...too soon to say.

I’ll have to look you in the eye first.

~~~~~~~~~~

Henry steps out of the bathroom and it’s become apparent that a third person has entered the house, booking it down the hall for some reason. Henry steps back out and starts up a conversation with Scott, only to hear a bedroom door creak.

Henry’s door.

“Who the fuck?” one imagines running through Henry’s brain.

He can’t think about this for too long, because Tony Gamble has just arrived. Henry gives Tony the slightest nod before he’s distracted once again, this time by horrible sloshing sounds. He turns again towards the hallway. Henry’s door opens, and his eyes grow wide.

He sees the shame-exit of an exhausted middle aged man buckling his belt for some reason. They lock eyes, or at least Henry thinks they do - and he can feel his face begin to flush red.

“Cool it, easy introduction now. Can’t blow the gasket right away,” one imagines Henry’s next thoughts to be.

Perfect time for a family meeting, right?

…

The group sat in basically a circle, and boy oh boy was Henry staring laser beams directly into Rob Williams, sat across from him.

Henry Keyes: “Nice to see you, friend-o.”

Rob hardly looks at him.

Rob Williams: “Yeah, it is nice to see me.”

Keyes’s ears are on fire again, against his better wishes.

~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve never been able to hide my feelings well, have I?

Everyone always said so when I first broke into the business. I took it as a compliment at the time - I thought it was heroic to throw myself headlong into every danger, no matter the risk. The number of lessons those days taught me…lessons about knowing who to trust, how to pick my battles, knowing not to start a battle at all until the outcome is already decided. Maybe that was my big mistake at UltraViolence - slipping back into my old ways.

I was looking at the small picture - a debut, a career moment, a singular opponent to consider, completely ignoring the fact that PRIME is dominated by faction warfare and Vae Victis is every bit at fault as anyone for making it this way. If the scope of my vision weren’t so narrow, maybe I would have had an answer for “outside interference in the Fed's Technical Masterclass Championship division.” 

My old ways would have me demanding justice right here, right now, reaching across the table and slapping Rob Williams in his wet weary eyeball for talking back to me after only claiming victory via “someone else pulling it out of his cold dead asshole.”

My old ways were too stubborn, too resolute. Too ready to pull the trigger. No, some bullets, you save. Some bullets you save for a long, long time.

Children hit back right away. Pirates, reeeeal pirates, they plan. They wait. Then, only when the time is right, they pounce. And then they take, they take, and they fucking take until Vae Victis has everything.

…

So yeah, Rob. Look into my eyes. Understand that I’ve heard everything I need to hear from you to know where you and I stand. And understand that I am providing you a tremendous amount of grace by my physical inaction.

~~~~~~~~~~

Scott Hunter seems to be in his own headspace, zoned out. Something about his face paint is really hard to look at, and the other three are perfectly happy to hold their own conversation while he enters some zen-meditation Dangerous Zone.

Henry Keyes: “Right, well, we obviously are Team Snow, and obviously, there’s some obstacle course deal where there’s buttons to be pressed and smoke machines to be blasted by and foam blocks and whatever the hell else, I didn’t finish reading the Wikipedia article. Point is, I know that we may not be all -”

Rob Williams: “Yeah, great. I hate you and you hate me. We work together until it’s time to kill one another and then we do what we do best. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.”

Keyes is dumbstruck at this. What a short-sighted buffoon. An ape. The gall of this man.

It’s unclear if Scott has registered what’s happening right now. Keyes glances over at him for a split second and catches that Scott’s face is totally blank.

Tony Gamble: “I mean, sounds about right to me, unless I’m missing something?”

Keyes shakes the bewilderment from his face and turns to The Grin.

Henry Keyes: “You are missing something - both of you. I was trying to say, if we can find a way to actually boost each other up and use our unique strengths to our advantage, we’ve got unmatched talent on this team. Winning solves any socially deductive game theory bullshit we might have to, quote unquote, Struggle With. Our tribe wins, nobody leaves. Doesn’t need to be that hard.”

Rob Williams is already up from his seat before Keyes finishes his second sentence, and is gone by the time his spiel is finished. Henry’s eyes follow him out of the room, and the frustration is unmistakable. Tony gets up and gives some passing thought Henry’s way, which honestly sounds like mumbling to Henry right now because his ears are hot again. Tony doesn’t sound outwardly hostile, at least, so when the fog quiets, Henry turns back to him.

Henry Keyes: “You get it. Maybe you can get through to him.”

Tony leaves and catches up to Rob. They begin their chat, and when Henry is sure they’re out of earshot, he nudges Scott.

Henry Keyes: “So you know what we have to do, right? Play to win. Buddy buddy with these assholes as best we can. But you and I need to meet Kerry in the finals of this thing.”

Scott turns and nods to Henry.

Scott Hunter: “Yeah. We do.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Kerry, stay smart out there, wherever you are. If it can’t be Scott or I, I want to see you at the top of this Aggressive Craig.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t watch the show where this gimmick appeared when it came out. You may be shocked to learn I didn’t have the most traditional childhood, and cable television was not a thing in my life in the early 90’s. Scott seems to know the rules, so I’ll learn what I can for him.

I might be the strongest and the toughest on Team Snow, but it’s hard to say how those skills will translate on PRIME’s version of this task. Miss Troy loves to throw in a curveball, and she knows I know she loves to throw a curveball, so whatever that curveball is going to be, she’s going to try to make it so out-there that even I won’t have a lead on it as her Bestie.

Real pirates plan, and by plan, I mean “plans”. Plan A is to use my raw animal magnetism and my unmatched horse-like strength to power through this thing and power to the top all on my own - but if Scott or Tony (or, heaven forbid, Rob) might have a shot at the top first? Plans B, C, or heaven forbid, D. Plan E is Kerry’s team winning. Plan F is called Plan F because F stands for Fucked.

Fine to let them have it. Shine early, save my bacon for me, grow more threatening on everyone else’s radar, that’s equally acceptable. Who knows, maybe there’s an opportunity to sabotage the worthless goons from Team Avalon, and that could be my play.

The important thing is to be ready for everything.

~~~~~~~~~~

Henry was not ready for the smell that met him when he returned to his bedroom. It was an attack on the senses. It assaulted the sinuses.

In his laundry bin, loaded with all the new clothes he planned to wash ahead of his big Survivor appearances, was the most profane and scattershot smattering of human excrement.

The epiphany hit him.

He could go back to his old ways, kick down Rob’s door, demand a fight, maybe dump this basket of shit and ruined silk onto his sheets.

Or, he could pretend like nothing happened. Throw the basket in the dumpster.

And wait. Deep beneath the waves.

A Kraken, in waiting.

Tentacles circling.

Preparing to drown Rob Williams, Anna Daniels, and everyone else who has ever called themselves a Whoresman,

when it’s Time.