[b]18 November 2021 
Day 5:[/b]

"The [i]it[/i]-shay has [i]itteth[/i]-hay the [i]an[/i]-fay."

[color=red]Tammie Wagner[/color] looked to [color=red]Cliff Sampson[/color] with a confused expression, asking, "What the hell?"

"Pig-Latin," the teen said, continuing when the girl slightly older than him only seemed to remain confused, "Pig-Latin...?  You don't know Pig-Latin?"

He laughed, then began to explain, "Take the first consonant or consonant blend, like the letter--"

Tammy cut him off, "I [i]know[/i] what a consonant is, and I know what Pig-Latin is.  I just don't understand what the hell you mean by the [i]shit hitteth the fan[/i]." 

The humor in Cliff's face faded as the chastising.  He nodded his head toward the group of about a dozen [i]adults[/i] standing in a circle out past the far side of the wrecked fuselage arguing.  He said only, "[i]That[/i]."

Tammy hadn't been paying any attention to the stress and anger and other emotions building in the camp over the past couple of days. She had her own problems with which to deal, the most prominent of which was [color=red]Julia[/color] and [color=red]Helen's[/color] insistence that she clean up her act, aka getting off the drugs.  To be entirely honest, Tammy hadn't felt this good in a long, [i]long[/i] time: the pair of women had been using their herbal remedies and the less-addictive mushrooms to wean her down, as well as feeding her well, cleaning her up physically, and simply spending time with her in thoughtful and sometimes comical conversation.

But there were still times when Tammy would love to have swallowed a pill or snorted a line or jabbed a needle into her arm.  Now, as she looked off toward the group of arguing people Cliff had pointed out, that feeling returned to her.  She asked, "What the fuck's wrong with them?"

"[i]Everything![/i]" he responded.  "We still don't have enough food, so people are hungry..."

Food was still a problem.  There were over two dozen snares now, most of them in the forest, that were bringing in a consistent supply of mostly rabbits but raccoons, skunks, and a wide array of rodents, too.  A stream with fish and crayfish in it had also been found.  A clever member of the crew -- yes, Cliff Sampson -- had repurposed some of the [i]dead[/i] aircraft's wiring into little snares that were secured to a log on which collected seeds were spread; they easily caught a couple of dozen songbirds each day (not that everyone wanted to eat [i]Tweety[/i]).

Despite all of this meat [i]and[/i] the nuts, berries, seeds, leaves, roots, insects, and such forth coming into the camp, there still wasn't enough to sufficiently fill all 149 bellies each day.  It wasn't because there wasn't enough edible flora and fauna near the crash site, though: the problem was that not enough people were putting out the effort to collect and [i]process[/i] what [i]was[/i] being found.

And [i]that[/i] was what the argument beyond the fuselage was about.  [i]Actually[/i], the argument was less about who was or [i]wasn't[/i] foraging or hunting and more about who was going to [i]make[/i] those who weren't get off their lazy asses and [i]start[/i].  [color=red]Harry Timms[/color] -- the senior flight attendant who had taken a leadership role and, thus far, been accepted in that position by [i]most[/i] of the survivors -- had tried but failed to urge some of the less helpful people into putting out some effort to serve the camp.  

Harry had gotten firm support from a number of key people and most of the remaining group; if he'd been pressed to give a number, Cliff would have estimated that the flight attendant had the support of 2/3 of the 148 other survivors.

But there was another [i]wanna-be[/i] leader amongst the group, a charismatic and beautiful woman named Victoria Bevens, and Victoria had the support of yet another [i]key[/i] survivor: [color=red]Javier Flores[/color], who of course was the man with (most of) the guns. Victoria had used her charm to find the true source of the Berettas, after which she'd flirted with Javier just enough to draw her into her web. Finding another half dozen or so supporters, she put a 24/7 guard around the gun runner and his suitcase full of [i]tools[/i], then proceeded to encourage others to her way of thinking about the future of the group.

The primary differences between Harry and Victoria were simple: Harry thought every survivor should work every day to further the survival of the group, whereas Victoria's thinking was that she and those with the guns should essentially [i]rule[/i] over the others and that these [i]others[/i] should do all the work.  Harry and his [i]key[/i] people knew that this was a volatile situation: one false move from either of the two camps -- yes, the two groups were by now living in two separate areas on either side of the fuselage -- and there could very well be a [i]Shootout at the OK Corral[/i] moment.

Tammy -- by now wondering whether or not more knowledge might be better than less of it -- excused herself from Cliff's presence and wandered over closer to the fuselage and, thus, the argument.  She wound her way around the separated tail section of the plane until she could hear most of what was being said.  It became clear that the current discussion was about Javier's [i]checked baggage[/i]: Harry was arguing that the pistols and ammunition should be divided per the size of the group possession them, using the term [i]per capita[/i] at one point, which simultaneously seemed both right and wrong to Tammy; Victoria was saying the guns and bullets should be divided evenly between the two [i]factions[/i], regardless of how many of the survivors followed Harry and how many aligned with her; while Javier himself was reminding both Harry and Victoria that he'd already made an agreement to give up only four of the firearms, some clips, and a box of bullets. 

What Tammy took away from the discussion wasn't so much about the Berettas but about the 149 remaining survivors: it seemed that they were, in fact, about to divide into two separate groups.  What would that look like, she wondered? Were they going to simply continue to live on separate sides of the wreckage?  Or was one or both groups going to strike out for new territory?  

She realized that she was going to get her answer when the entire group suddenly turned for the larger assemblage of survivors, with Harry calling out in one direction after another, "[i]Attention! Can everyone gather around the big bond fire.  Everyone ... please ... we need to talk.[/i]"

Within a couple of minutes, every survivor save those still in the fuselage infirmary -- 12 patients and a couple of care givers -- and a handful of men, women, and older children foraging or hunting in the forest encircled the last of the fire pits, which currently had only the slightest of fires burning in it.  Harry gestured for silence, then explained, "We have a situation that must be resolved, and it's not something I can simply [i]foist[/i] upon the group as some sort of self-appointed leader."

He spoke on everything from food to guns to building defenses -- or, more specifically, the lack of building of defenses -- before saying, "It is my opinion that -- [i]as[/i] a group, [i]one[/i] group -- we need to elect a leader, someone to make the important decisions, the [i]hard[/i] decisions."

As Harry was talking, a variety of responses arose all about the group, some verbal, some not; some were obviously supportive of what Harry was saying while other were most definitely not.

Victoria cut in, "And it is [i]my[/i] opinion that if we were to have such an election, you would be the obvious winner, and there are quite a few of us that don't agree with that."

Just as with Harry, Victoria's words caused pro and con reactions among the crowd.  She stepped closer to the fire and more into the group's line of sight and continued, "Majority rule does not always work. We've seen this for years, [i]decades![/i] Hell, anyone who pays attention to the mayhem that is our government knows [i]that![/i]"

Cheers arose from the crowd, a minority of the survivors but a very vocal one.  Victoria continued on about the failings of [i]democracy[/i], then looked directly at Harry as she said, "If you want to be Mayor or Governor or [i]President[/i] of your little United State of Survivors, Harry, go ahead.  But my people and I won't stand for it."

She looked about the circled crowd with a confident look and asked, "Who's with me?"

Again, there was a minority and yet significant cheer.  Victoria looked to Harry again, her lips spreading in a grin.  Then, she simply turned and headed away toward where she and her followers had set up their separate camps.  One after another, survivors began weaving their way through their unmoving opposites until finally the two groups were well defined.

Cliff Sampson had been listening from the outside of the encirclement, and now he tried counting each of the men and women following Victoria away from the Big Fire.  He was surprised when his count was much higher than he'd estimated: something around 60 of the survivors -- 40% of the group -- headed for the other fire in support of the woman who was now Harry's competitor for leadership.