Welcome to Gaia! ::

Esen was usually the opposite of Tara: Early to class, late to extracurriculars. God only knows that she lost her ranking in the GSA because of tardiness and was back to being treated like a neophyte there. Her educational and environmental activism pursuits were on hold until she actually found people willing to help those causes and didn't assume that being an environmental activist meant she was a part of PETA, because she wasn't that extreme in her beliefs, and without animal products, she could only eat fruits and vegetables, and occasional non-wheat grains - hardly a balanced diet for a Celiac, in her opinion.

Out of the more academic hobbies she had, she only had the Science Club to rely on today. Hearing an aluminum tray clank (this only meant someone was there right now, she wasn't late but sure felt it!), Esen simply hovered in the doorway, pulling off pieces of Laffy Taffy and sticking them into her just-as-brightly-colored mouth. Even though she wasn't speaking, she was still making a ton of noise. Who knew slightly chilled Laffy Taffy was almost impossible to chew on without sounding like a cow? It didn't matter too much, at least she was able to have the stuff, unlike the tuna salad sandwiches they were to have for lunch - go, dietary restrictions.

With her free hand, Esen waved to Tara, who had motioned for the girl with the radioactive pin to come in. Now to add to the chew-chew-chew came a clack-clack-clack of the boots she usually wore to school as she came over to the table where Tara was hard at work with a mass of purplish mineral that resembled lepidolite.

Continuing to use her free hand, Esen pulled out some Laffy Taffy packages labeled Watermelon, Cherry, Sparkling Cherry and Watermelon from an open side pocket of her messenger bag, which she often used as an 'edible snack stuff' container as well as for books and, if she was going off the campus, her notebook computer.

Swallowing the piece of Sparkling Cherry taffy after about a minute more of chewing, Esen responded in a bored tone and her usual apathetic facial expression, "Take one, but if you want the cherry with the sugar pieces in it, you're taking the remnants," shaking a half-pulled-off Sparkling Cherry taffy still in its wrapper in her busy right hand. "I'll think about the M&Ms, and the lepidolite you're holding has a formula including lithium, and two other rarer alkali metals whose names are escaping me right now..."

Even if she knew her metals, Esen wasn't gifted with full photographic memory.

"...as long as we aren't using electrolysis, we might not have too much of a problem with that, but we ought to take caution. And when I'm done with the candy, I'm washing my hands before I touch them, you should do the same if you're going to have some pre-work. Unless we're going to use Laffy Taffy as a chemical reactor, but I doubt that'll give any help to the experiment."

"I'll leave that one for you then." As long as it was sugar, Tara didn't especially care what flavor she had. After a moment's thought she selected one of the Watermelon packages and used her teeth to rip it open. Which meant she had a bit of wrapper in with her taffy, but it was so good she didn't care. "Mmm, delish! Thanks a mil, Esen."

With a slightly surprised expression, Tara looked at the rock in her other hand. "Lithium, really? If we had some manganese dioxide, think we could make a battery out of it?" She waved off Esen's concerns about cleaning up. "You never know. Laffy Taffy could be the next new power source."

Was it likely? No. Was it possible? Why not? In Tara's mind, there were no mistakes, only changes in experimental procedure. The chances of anything dangerous happening because of taffy contamination were lower than the chances of it having an effect at all. As long as it wasn't harmful, Tara was all for winging it... and in some rare cases, she ignored the danger. But this was definitely not one of them.

Her attention was diverted, however, by a new student. "Ooooh, a transfer!" What an opportunity! "You're in the right place all right, but before we admit you, I'll need to check you out. Standard Science Club procedure." This was a lie, but how was the transfer student to know? Besides, it was important.

Tara pulled a compass out of her pocket and, ignoring the chocolate smudges on it, waved it around the new girl. When that didn't seem to do anything, she moved in closer and prepared for a pat down. For all she knew, the transfer could be an alien hiding extra eyeballs under her sweater!

Tara blinked, her open teal eyes widening. She backed away from the one who seemed a potential groper, then looked at the girl with green hair. She skirted around toward her, trying to smile. "It's just a joke right? To see who's serious? Well...it's not gonna scare me off. I was a member of the Science Club at my last school."

The girl looked back at Tara, "We played jokes on new recruits too..."

She glanced between the girls, smiling more naturall now. "My name's Allistaire Silverwood....but you can call me Allie if you like. I really love science, more so on how things work...mechanics and the like."

"Alright, Tara," Esen replied to Tara's made-up face, which was practically telling her 'Up to you now, don't screw up!' A sigh was given, the sigh of surrender, containing the unspoken words 'Fine, I'll do it.' Turning to Allistaire, she gave a weak wave, and started to speak in a somewhat droning voice.

"Hello, Allie. I'm your slightly-unfriendly-looking Earth Science specialty with a side of astronomy, Quinn. Just call me that for now, although I'm sure that Tara-" she gestured at the bluish-haired girl with her makeup "-will say otherwise. I support education for everyone, but since people insist that there is a test, I'll give you a little verbal quiz." Esen also hoped that Allistaire could read lips or hear words in very hushed muttering, since she also said in a much quieter tone "Seeing you've just met Tara, I'm going to try to make it easy, it'll be nice not to be the only one with her every week."

On to the questions, Esen thought. "Four questions. Answer these satisfactorily, and you're in. The first of these four: Tell me two differences between quartz and diamond. Don't worry if you only get one right."

((OOC note - you can look up the answers if you would like. After the first question is answered, Tara will be invited to ask one ICly. Then Esen, then Tara again. I don't want Tara to be left out, so I'm going to have her ask a few as well, so long as DS is fine with that.))

(NOTE: YOUR ACTIONS WILL DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT YOU LIVE OR DIE IN THIS ROLEPLAY. YOU ARE NOT NECESSARILY FATED TO DIE JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE IN A SUDDEN DEATH. IT WILL ALL DEPEND ON WHAT COURSE OF ACTION YOUR CHARACTER DECIDES UPON.)

The door locked behind Elle with a snap.

The girls had all been busy with their test and the dissolution tubes, which after all held much more excitement than anything else in the room. It was for this reason, perhaps, that they had not noticed that next to the chemical chamber (for reactions that were possibly poisonous), there was a gun.

Not until the loudspeaker crackled.

"Hello, hello!" it said. "This is not a test!"

More crackling. "Girls, we're running an interesting psychological experiment -- you're all interested in science, so we thought you'd be good lab animals." Crackle. "Next to the chemical chamber there is a gun -- a pistol. We won't tell you how many chambers it has. The chambers are all empty save for one bullet."

Crackle. "You've all heard of the game Russian Roulette. I'm here to tell you that, unfortunately, you're here to play that game." Crackle. "You place the gun to your temple, and pull the trigger. Safety's off."

Crackle. "You're all nice girls." Crackle. "You probably don't want to play this game." Crackle. "Feel your wrists -- there'll be a slight lump in the inner side of the left wrist. That's your timer. We implanted those in you a while ago. Anyone can begin. If someone fails to take their turn in the first minute, I'm afraid we're going to set those off -- and you're not going to live after we set those off; it'll release the right amount of toxin to make your lives much briefer." Crackle. "You'll keep on going until one of you lucky ladies gets the bullet."

Crackle. "You have one minute until you begin. Someone pick it up and take first turn. Remember: one of you dies, or all of you die, so no funny business."

(MOD SET: A 'MINUTE' HERE IS REGARDED AS 'ONE POST.' IF NOBODY PICKS UP THE GUN AND SHOOTS WITHIN THE FIRST POST, THE TIMERS WILL GO.)

(MOD SET: ROLL THE DICE, ONE DIE, 100 SIDED. IF THE NUMBER ROLLED IS IN THE 1-10 RANGE, YOU GET THE BULLET.)

(MOD SET: YOU ARE NOT DEAD UNTIL WE PM YOU TO SAY YOU ARE DEAD. IF YOU GET THE BULLET, WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS OR FOR A MOD POST CONFIRMING YOU MAY POST THE DEATH REACTION POST.)

Elle jumped at the sudden snap of the door locking behind her, head jerking around to stare at it. s**t, that was never a good sign. She tensed, yellow eyes narrowing, opening her mouth to ask the nerd-science-clubby people what the heck was going on, when the sudden crackle from the speakers startled her. Her blood turned icy in her veins as the ominous message was delivered. Russian Roulette? Elle never played a game that she wasn't sure she could win in some way shape or form. Leaving her fate completely up to chance left a sour taste in her mouth. Or that taste might just be fear.

Her mind worked quickly, immediately coming up on the possibility that this whole thing was a hoax. That lasted until the voice told them to feel their wrists, and sure enough, there was a slight lump on her left wrist while there was none on her right. Unbelievable. She quickly looked up to check if the others were having a similar revelation. As her mind started to dissolve into a panic she gripped herself with iron reins and coldly listened to the remainder of the message, but she couldn't stop her heart from thundering against the inside of her ribs. There was no way this could be happening.

Elle stared at the gun across the room, not moving for the precious second it took for Esen to dart over there and take ahold of it. s**t. The look on her face was not reassuring in the least. She barely heard the words from her mouth, still trying to think, trying to analyze, trying to adapt. Someone had to pull the trigger soon, and as she saw Esen intended to do that her mind went into overdrive, knowing that if she survived that her turn was coming. No idea how many chambers, but only one bullet. Damn! Well, there were only so many types of guns in the world, only so many chambers in those types... She could figure out the probability but what good would that do her now?

Esen pulled the trigger and Elle jumped, really really wishing that she'd smoked that J this morning. This would be so much more fun if she were high. But, there it was... Esen had survived. And if someone didn't take the gun within the next minute, Elle, and all of them, would die.

"Give it to me," Elle stepped forward, grabbing the gun out of Esen's hand, feeling the weight of it in her palm, not daring to check the chambers or look down the barrel. She knew, not the odds, but that there was no obvious way to escape from this situation. Her mind was wheeling and darting in totally unhelpful directions and yet the central thought in her mind was that if they'd implanted something inside of her body without her knowledge, they probably knew about her space cakes too.

Not cool, man.

There wasn't enough time, her minute was ticking away and she glanced at the three girls she didn't know. "Elle Hammel, second floor, HAM-49. You're welcome to my stash if you can find it," she smiled crookedly as she turned the gun over in her palm and held it in an approximation of the way she'd seen them do it on TV, pressed the barrel to her temple, and pulled the trigger before she could think about it another second more.