"Well, this is interesting." Roxanne chuckled, looking around at her fellow American contenders—or, "agents", as TJ had already started to call them this season—tugging on the chain and lock that bound her wrists together to no avail. From what she could see, from the vets, it was herself, Kaycee, Tori, Amanda, Ashley, and Aneesa for the women, and CT, Faysal, Devin, Josh, Cory, and Nelson for the men. As for the rookies...
She had absolutely no idea.
She knew them. Vaguely. She knew Michaela from her season of Survivor. But she had only a vague chance to be able to get to know the rest.
There was Jeremiah from Love Island. Tommy and Michele from Survivor. Corey from 12 Dates of Christmas. She was pretty sure that was it for the Americans.
But she really had no idea who'd be coming for her. She didn't know if they knew who they'd be looking for. All she knew is she just had to stand there, and wait.
And then, they came.
It was two unfamiliar men first—a dark-skinned one and a lighter-skinned one, covered in tattoos. Neither of them came for her—the tattooed man called out for Kaycee and the other ran for Tori. She was waiting for a familiar face until...
In came Kyle motherfucking Christie.
Roxanne and Kyle had a... a troubled relationship. As people, they had a mutual-respect-sorta-friendship thing going for them. But as competitors, they could not stand each other. They'd likely work well together, but in the game, they simply could not tolerate each other's presence. But when Kyle came down shouting for a Survivor player, Roxanne couldn't help but shout, "I'M RIGHT HERE, KYLE!"
...To which he replied with an emphatic, "NO, SCREW YOU!" before giving in to whatever he was trying to figure out and running to Amanda, of all people.
To each their own, she figured, and went back to looking around. Her eyes eventually settled on the brick in front of her, which had randomly-colored letters and numbers on it.
They had to mean something.
It took a couple people running by—some familiar faces, like Nam—but mostly unfamiliar ones, each with different flags plastered on their helmets and shirts until she saw a man with what looked like the Hungarian flag on his helmet. He looked like a lost dog until he made eye contact with her, but didn't move.
Noticing that some people—like the tattooed man that chose Kaycee and the two women that had run past looking for Cory—had come in with knowledge of who there was and wanted a specific person, she felt the only reasonable thing to ask was, "Are you looking for me? Pop-Rox?"
The man stepped closer, basically cutting off her sentence. "Yeah, who are you?"
"Roxanne. Pop-Rox."
"Yeah, I wanted— I wanted you." he nodded, but didn't move another muscle towards her, stadting to raise the sledgehammer instead.
"Okay, am I your partner?"
"Yeah."
Roxanne held her still-bound-together hands out. "Okay, you have to unlock me. Now, this wall first, the one by me. There's... There's these numbers and letters on them, we need to memorize them, and then break it. just do it in one go. Yeah?"
"Yeah." he nodded, and smashed the side she was asking him to. She proceeded to the next side of the rectangle, repeating the numbers under her breath until she memorized them.
"Black four, orange two, green one. Can you remember that?"
"Yeah. I got you."
They continued this process until all of the walls were smashed, as best as they could, and they were able to start freeing the chains. They seemed to be a little bit above the middle of the pack—ahead of people like Michaela and her partner but behind Kaycee and hers. Glancing around, she noticed CT and his partner having basically the same strategy that she had—which she felt was pretty funny. They seemed to grab their safes and chains at the same time, heading to the next part of the challenge completely tied up, with CT only maybe two steps ahead. Two steps was a lot in the game—but Roxanne was sure she was solid with the combination, if there was one.
If it was the letters, they were fucked.
"How are you doing?" Roxanne, whilst carrying the safe, called over to CT.
"I'm doing excellent, thank you for asking." CT chuckled. "This is Berna."
"Lovely to meet you, Berna, I'm Roxanne!" she chuckled before they arrived at the next part, reading the board out-loud. "Place your safe on a decoding station. Use the dials to unlock the safe and retrieve your diamond. Bring your diamond to the finish line. Okay, let's go."
By that point, she realized not that many teams were ahead. She was, in fact, middle of the pack, but she hoped that her and her partner's memory would be enough. They set their safe down and Roxanne began putting in the numbers up top on the dial, getting most of them but forgetting a few. "The three I gave you, do you remember them?"
"No."
— — — — — — —
"Well, great. So I'm standing there, in front of this giant dial, decoder, whatever, and I remember all but three of the numbers. Three! Three. And they're the numbers I gave to my partner , and does he remember them? Nope." Roxanne chuckled despite herself. "Oh, fuck my life."
— — — — — — —
"Goddamnit." Roxanne mumbled under her breath, before plugging in the code with three random numbers, hoping to at least have a lucky guess. "Uh, one of them was one, four... Goddamnit, the colors." After three attempts...
Nothing.
Fuck.
At this point, they couldn't do anything. They were locked out of the safe for five minutes. And that five minutes was everything in this game. Pretty soon, Aneesa and her partner ran off, followed by Michaela, then Tori, and pretty soon, almost half of the group had left. She went to turn to her partner, but... he was nowhere. He had run back to the fucking bricks. The bricks that were now completely obliterated.
So she ran after him, annoyed but not planning to be hard on him.
— — — — — — —
"So I go to ask him again, because we're locked out of this damn safe for five minutes... and he isn't there. He ran away." Roxanne sighed. "Fuck me, this is gonna be a long season."
— — — — — — —
When they knew that they knew the code they made it back, and at that point, it was only them, and Ashley and her partner. Quickly, Roxanne plugged in the numbers, opened the safe, and they were on their way.
"Hello!" Roxanne grinned to the group as she finally reached them. "Not last."
"Not last," TJ chuckled, as the duo went to place their diamond down. Her partner, who carried it, placed it on the pedestal.
At least they knew they wouldn't be purged, if that was the case.
"Give me a hug." Roxanne opened her arms. "We didn't win but we didn't lose. That's okay, right?"
"Yeah."
"What's your name?"
"Gabo."
"Gabo. I'm Rox, lovely to meet you."
"Nice to meet you."
"What happened, memory queen?" CT teased as Roxanne and Gabo rejoined the group. "You were doin' so good!"
"Three numbers, Christopher." Roxanne rolled her eyes, and CT chuckled, putting an arm around her. "Three fuckin' numbers."
"Hey, at least it's not as bad as last season." he rubbed her arm with another slight laugh. "Proud of you. Got it done either way."
Pretty soon, Ashley and her partner had made it, and the group assembled, lined up in partners, so TJ could speak to them.
"Alright, everyone. Welcome, agents." he nodded, addressing the group with that slightly menacing TJ look in his eyes. "For those of you that I haven't met, my name is TJ Lavin, and I'm your handler. While your backgrounds might be different, and you may call different places home, you all have one goal in mind, and that's to make it to my final and earn your share—the lion's share—of one million dollars."
As soon as the words left his mouth, cheers absolutely erupted among the group. Roxanne was used to this kind of reveals—but this time, she swore she would actually get the money.
"Some of you came to play." TJ continued. "But I can also see who really needs some work."
Roxanne clenched her teeth in an awkward smile, and felt someone—Kyle—reach over and pay her shoulder. She looked at him, wanting to flip him off, but continued to pay attention as TJ kept speaking.
"Since this is a cutthroat season, Ashley..."
Phew.
"...Hughie, I'm sorry, but you guys got last place."
Ashley's partner—Hughie—inhaled sharply and laughed despite himself. "I am not eliminated."
"And by getting last place—"
"Into elimination," Ashley attempted to finish TJ's sentence.
"—You are done..."
Shocked gasps and exclamations left the group, including Hughie and Ashley. TJ, if he had more to say, couldn't say it for a while.
"...Getting last place."
Shock turned to relief as the group couldn't help but laugh—TJ included.
"Consider this a very stern warning. Got it? Now, on the other hand, our winners, Logan and Aneesa, great job!"
The group clapped. Roxanne couldn't help but feel a sense of relief—her and Aneesa were close enough that she knew she wouldn't be sent in first, if that's how it worked.
"With winning comes power," TJ continued. "You two will now form the Agency. As the Agency, you are not only safe from elimination, but you will also have some important decisions to make. The rest of you will go back, deliberate, and nominate one team to sent into the elimination round. The Agency will decide who faces them."
"Fuck." was the first word that left Aneesa's mouth, earning a chuckle from basically everyone.
"I'll see you soon. Get out of here. Great job." TJ concluded, and the group clapped once again before beginning to head back to the house. Roxanne knew, then, that this would be one hell of a season.