The Freelancers React to red vs blue

We Must Rebuild

Fade in and pan down to Grif and Simmons and Tucker.

Grif: They destroyed it all, Simmons, those damn stupid bastards. They blew it all up! Damn them! Damn them to Hell! Those damn dirty apes!

Simmons: Calm down Grif, we don't know that the whole world is like this.

Grif: Yes it is, they destroyed it all. I guess the society of men just wasn't meant to survive.

CT drummed her fingers against the armrest of her chair, the rhythmic tapping a steady beat for her thoughts to march to. "Hey, Rider," the petite woman started, "This is in the future, right?"

"Yes, ma'am." If CT could see her body (If she even has one, a thought unhelpfully chimed), she'd imagine Rider shooting her a cheeky salute.

"How far exactly?"

"Uh," Rider hesitated. "Not sure. A couple of years at least—three, minimum... I think."

"So would you be able to answer what the hell Grif is going on about or is that future confidentiality?" CT laced her fingers and propped her chin over the tops of them, presenting Rider with a concerned look—albeit, bare minimum concern, considering the nature of the question.

"Oh, he's just being ridiculous," Rider said with a presumed eye roll, pretty much confirming what CT already knew—or at the very least, worked out.

"Shocker," CT deadpanned.

Rider giggled.

Simmons: Hey how 'bout this: how 'bout we explore, more than two square miles, before we jump to any conclusions.

Grif: It was definitely nuclear weapons, that's what did it. And the explosions caused massive power outages which caused the failsafe to fail, which released a super bacteria from a secret lab.

Simmons: Oh come on.

Grif: That caused a huge plague, and as the victims died, they rose from the dead twelve hours later to roam the Earth and feast on human flesh.

Wash furrowed his brows. That sounded familiar—wait, isn't that a movie? He felt like he'd seen it.

Simmons: What?

Grif: A handful of gritty survivors from all walks of life were able to keep the legions of the infected radioactive undead at bay, using only their wits, and an inexplicable comprehension of agricultural science and engineering. Everything was looking good... and that's when the meteor hit.

Simmons: I think you just quoted every crappy Hollywood apocalypse movie ever.

Wash sighed. Never mind.

Tucker: Naw. Hollywood doesn't understand apocalypse. They think that just one thing from everyday life goes away and that changes everything. Like in Road Warrior it was gas, and in Waterworld it was land.

"And everyone immediately just turns on each other," Rider scoffed. So depressingly predictable. "That always bugged me—there are so many stories of people helping each other in times of need that the attack-my-fellow-humans-if-they-don't-join-me theme always felt inaccurate. Though, yeah, people suck and would definitely be those assholes in apocalypse movies, but I bet it wouldn't be as bad as they make it seem to be."

York raised a brow. Well, that came out of nowhere. "You sound very passionate about this," he observed.

"Oh, yeah. I don't need more reasons to hate people."