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Jill misses the tools of her trade. It’s not exactly that she misses the trade itself – running for your life from unspeakable man-made horrors in the rubble of your home city was never her idea of a good time. Besides, it’s not like she’s gotten a break long enough to miss it; she’s been on the run pretty much constantly since the Arklays, and the variety of freaky shit she has to deal with has only increased since she got pulled into the Realm. But she misses the equipment she used to have.
Time was, she could at least put the nasties down for a while with an acid mine, throw a few grenades, and escape into the night for a little longer. She had a radio, almost more guns than she could carry, healing herbs, and even a shitty water canteen. She had Carlos on the other end of the line, ready to come help her if things got out of hand – even when she would really prefer he left her alone – and if it truly came down to the line, she could always punch, claw, and kick her way through some low-grade trouble.
Here, though, she can’t help herself. She doesn’t even have a hunting knife in trials; it disappears from the sheath the moment she gets called. There’s no radio, even though some of the other people seem to have abilities that let them see when she’s in trouble, which is nice. But she can’t tell when they do that, and she has no idea if anyone is coming to help. Fuck, she can’t even talk in there. She feels naked, stripped of almost everything that she used to depend on. The survivors can’t even connect a goddamn punch.
Obviously she has more urgent problems than a self-esteem crisis, but in her quiet moments, she kinda can’t help but wonder: was she ever actually any good at being a cop, or did she just have enough fancy gear to look like it? How different, really, is she from Claire, who never saw a day of real training and still muddled through the apocalypse? And more importantly, what good can she be to anyone here?
All she has now are flashlights that die in seconds, toolboxes to fix the stupid fucking generators, maps that won’t show her the way out of here, apparently useless keys, and med-kits. At least the med-kits feel almost familiar. She remembers pounding a handful of green herb and perking up instantly, and this isn’t quite that, but at least the stuff in the kits gets the job done. She’s found green herbs here and there throughout the Realm since she arrived, but they’re rare. So far she hasn’t gotten them to work in trials, only around the campfire. There are only a few things she’s seen here that really resemble the herb’s effects in a trial.
The runner, Meg, she has an ability that lets her heal almost instantly when the survivors power all the generators. Jill isn’t sure how it works, and it honestly kinda freaks her out. Obviously everything here is supernatural, which… whatever. It definitely beats out the shit in Raccoon City, which was all done by human hands. At least here she knows it’s all cosmic horror – no huge implications about the moral nature of mankind or whatever. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t give her the willies, though.
Zarina, the filmmaker, she has this thing where she can zap some of her own strength into someone else and heal them quick. It’s really impressive, but it seems to take a lot out of her. She often doesn’t fully recover from the impact of the transfusion until they get back to the campfire. It’s neat, but Jill can’t really get behind the idea of weakening herself so much. There have to be better ways to help.
That 80s guy with the fancy hair, whatever his name is, he sometimes just spontaneously heals after he comes off a hook — but before that, he’s extra vulnerable as he tries to make his escape. No good. The Nemesis likes to wait close to her hook, ready to jump back up her ass as soon as she makes it down. Giving him a freebie by weakening herself just feels wrong.
If anything, Jill thinks that Nancy might have the best trick up her sleeve. She somehow takes some latent energy out of the totems that litter the trial grounds, which she then uses to heal herself after a few seconds in a locker. It’s a good deal. For one thing, she takes out one of the Killer’s assets; Jill’s gotten her ass kicked by the Hex that appears at the end of a trial enough times to know that cleansing totems is a definite boon to the team. She’s really good at spotting them, too, so it would be easy for her. Not to mention that taking a moment in a locker can be a good chance to reconnoiter a little before plunging into the next thing. All around, Nancy’s ability seems like the best option Jill can think of to replace her beloved green herb.
—
“Hey, Nancy?”
The girl looks up, apparently surprised to see Jill. “Oh, Jill. What is it?”
“I was hoping you could show me your trick. The one with the totems.”
“Oh, sure. It’s saved my ass a lot of times in here. Here, let me —”
Nancy bends down over a large woven basket sitting in her area. It’s probably three feet across and three feet high. Looks like Jeff’s work. She sifts through folded clothes, a few bottles of hair dye, and a truly startling number of empty shotgun shells, finally fishing out what appears to be a whole-ass totem.
Jill plants a hand on her hip. “You keep one of those things in with your personal shit?”
Nancy raises a defiant eyebrow. “I like to have it around. Sometimes people want to learn the healing trick, and it’s a lot easier practicing out here than trying to make time to do it in a trial.”
“Fair enough,” Jill concedes with a shrug. “So where do we start?”
—
They’ve been fiddling with the totem for a few hours by the time Nancy asks the question. Jill can’t quite get the hang of untying the knots properly to siphon off the supernatural energy. Not really her wheelhouse, she reminds herself, but it’s still frustrating to pick up the skill so slowly. She’s been glowering at the twine for the last few minutes, muttering a stream of expletives and insults pulled straight from the Delta Force mess hall as she goes, when Nancy pipes up.
“So… you know a lot of people here are from the 2010s, right? But I’m from 1985, and you’re from 199– what, 96? 98?”
“September 30, 1998, best I can figure.” Counting the time while she was unconscious hadn’t been easy, but that’s when Leon and Claire had been snatched into the Realm, so it made sense.
“Right. So obviously you’re older than me, but also kind of like my age? Like, maybe my little brother’s age?”
Jill looks up from the totem, thinking about it for a second. “Huh. I guess so. Isn’t that weird.”
“Yeah, it’s… it’s crazy. It’s hard to believe that in your time, Mike would be… what, 25? 26?” The girl’s expression sobers as she talks. Jill knows the feeling. She’s seen it on Claire’s face enough times by now when the topic of Sherry Birkin comes up.
Jill would normally just shrug and move on, but that would be with Chris or Forrest or Enrico—tough guys who probably wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it any more anyway. It’s still her instinct, but she forces it down and says as gently as she can, “Yeah, we must be pretty close in age. I guess there aren’t many of us who grew up in the seventies around here, are there?”
Nancy purses her lips, thinking. “Well… I think Ace might’ve. But he doesn’t really count, because he’s old and weird and still a little too attached to disco.”
Jill laughs. “Yeah. The youngins say ABBA came back in the 2000s, but I find that hard to believe.”
There’s a bit of quiet, then, as Jill finally unties the complicated knot in the totem. She feels the rush of energy and turns to Nancy, proud. “Hey, I think I got it!”
Nancy peers at the twine, then grins at her. “It definitely looks better this time. Did you feel the tingle?”
Jill holds up her hand, inspecting it against the firelight. “I think so. Something new definitely happened.”
“That’s great!”
“Yeah. So am I ready to heal in a locker now? Will it work next time I try?”
“Not from this, sorry. You have to cleanse one in a trial. Otherwise I’d break this one every time I get back from a trial to be charged up for the next one. But if you think you’ve got the technique figured out, then yeah, you should be able to repeat it in a trial and heal.”
“Damn. Thanks for teaching me.” Jill makes to stand up and walk away.
“Hey, wait—I actually, um, had a question for you.”
Jill turns and sits back down. “Sure, what is it?”
Nancy looks sheepish for a moment, then firmer. “Did you ever watch Cagney and Lacey, growing up?”
“Sure I did. I liked Cagney better. Always thought I might end up a little like her, if I stuck with the force long enough.”
“Oh, thank god,” says Nancy, sounding relieved. “I’ve waited two goddamn years to figure out what happens next.”
Jill smirks at her. “Well, you came to the right chick. I must have seen every episode three or four times with how often they reran ‘em.”
Nancy scoots a little closer. “So, the last I saw, Lacey was worried she had cancer. Did she? And what happened with Dory? God, I hated him.”
“Ha! I did too. Unreliable little bastard. It just goes to show, Nancy: men ain’t shit.” She feels a pang of guilt saying that, thinking of Carlos, but he would probably have just laughed that deep belly laugh of his and agreed with her. She doesn’t feel guilty for Chris or the S.T.A.R.S. boys. They all knew they weren’t shit.
“Ugh, yeah. As much as I love Jonathan, he’s done some… ugh, some really weird shit.”
“Sounds about right. Anyway, you’re in luck: Cagney dumped his ass and got herself a better man. And the cancer wasn’t really a huge deal…”