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we’re ready to make you one of us.

WHO: Open to all Dualizens
WHAT: When Roboclones Attack
WHERE: Anywhere in the city!
WHEN: The night of Oct. 19
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable! And if you happen to end up dead by roboclone, please fill out the death form!

It’s an ordinary night in Dualis, until it suddenly becomes a very dark and stormy night in Dualis. There hasn’t been a single day of unpleasant weather since any of you arrived, but soon after the sun begins to sink behind the city’s skyscrapers and the neon lights intensify for the night, storm clouds begin to gather overhead and unleash a cacophony of thunder, a deluge of rain, and brilliant spikes of lightning arcing across the sky.

It’s a violent storm, to be sure, but surely severe weather is no challenge in such a technologically advanced city as Dualis, right? As long as you stay indoors, you can keep safe and dry until the storm passes.

Except … less than an hour after the storm begins, the power all across the city goes completely out. All buildings are dark except for the illumination cast by lightning across brick and steel and glass. All electronics - including phones - are dead, all biometric locks are disabled, and no attempts to call, text, or reach the internet or the network succeed. Eerily, the streets are silent and empty.

Under normal circumstances, such a widespread blackout would merely be odd and inconvenient, but tonight, circumstances are anything but normal. About half an hour after the blackout begins, something approaches you, wherever you are. In the dark, you’ll be able to make out that its shape is humanoid, but maybe its motions are jerky and mechanical. As it draws closer and you get a better look, by candlelight or flashlight or flash of lightning, you recognize the face staring back at you.

That face is your own.

The face, like the rest of the body, is likely some degree of incomplete, an incongruous jigsaw of metal and flesh, but it’s definitely yours. And this machine doppelganger’s mission is soon made apparent as it launches a targeted attack on you:

It’s here to kill you.

After nearly four hours, the storm subsides and the power is restored and the city falls back into its normal rhythm. Will you survive until then?

May the odds be ever in your favor, friends.

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"Yeah, especially right now. And luckily he fuckin' had his own double back home. So I guess we're one for one in having damn duplicates fuck with us."

Sorry, Arkady. His language is his outlet for his tension.

His back still hurts, along with parts of his arm and his hip. "Nah, it's okay, I think I'm fine. I've been in worse fights. Just uh... caught me by surprise. Didn't think I'd jump myself... Uh, so, this double-" he goes to the door, and looks out one way and then the other. Nothing yet. "-The thing it knew. Was it something you hadn't told anyone else?"

Because Hank has a really, really fucking bad feeling.

"Everyone must be getting one. But why and where?"

Oh, she's heard much worse so she doesn't even bat an eye at it. Where seemed important. Where had they come from?

"That was the point I think. To catch us by surprise." Makes sense given the blackout and everything. It could have been a surprise attack. Or something like that. She hesitates and when she answers her voice is very quiet.

"Yes. It shouldn't have known."

"Whatever made those knows some of what we know. I don't know if it was before or not." He remembers the moment he'd started asking Connor personal questions and the other one knew. It downloaded his memories. Something is downloading their memories. Haphazardly, imperfectly, but it is.

Hank waits for Arkady before going onto the sidewalk. With the eerie quiet, even with conversation he can hear scuffling and shouting occasionally.

It makes him uneasy. It means any plans that they might come up with might be useless, even with the most secrecy or avoidance. Maybe the reason there are so few Heart is because it's just not made it to the memories of the newer memories yet, and not the older ones. Maybe that whole comment I’ll make sure you’re better wasn't changing someone, but replacing them. Maybe maybe maybe fucking maybe.

He'll have to bat all this shit around in his head later. He just knows these things remember shit that's not theirs.

"So your abilities work a little bit, right? Think you can figure out a direction we'd be most needed?" Not everyone here can fight.

"But why would they want them to know what we know?" Why is always the question on the tip of her tongue. Why is where motives come from and once you know why you can move forward better. At least she knows now that she's right to be suspicious of this place. "I wish it hadn't known."

The last little bit is something she mutters under her breath as she walks out onto the sidewalk. She looks around and then actually pulls her jacket up over her bare shoulders. It's eerie out and she's feeling the desire for something to cling to. Usually, back home, it'd be Connor or Kirk. Here there's nobody and it's strangely cold. Maybe that's just because she's thinking too much. Thinking about what it means that those things knew things they knew.

"They work some. I haven't been..." she frowns. "Trying as much as I should have been. I can try to look but I won't be here anymore." She gestures up and down at her body. When she speaks again she's got a tiny bit of hesitation in her voice. "You'd have to watch the me here."

He can tell this is a difficult situation for her; why wouldn't it be? Even without knowing any of her circumstances, it's a body double in a strange place knowing shit it shouldn't, with her ability to defend herself properly purposefully weakened.

"I wish they hadn't, either." He says, catching that last little bit. Even memories that didn't feel deep felt like intrusions. He'd learned that from his scattered thoughts from before, the memory sharing. But rather than ask her about that now.

"Let's stay by the building, alright? I'll watch over you while you look." He puts his hands on her shoulders to urge her under a broader overhang, opting for that rather than going back into the bar. Too dark in there. At least there's some night flavored light out here.

"My one ability is to be an inconvenience to assholes so I'll keep anyone fishy away."

"Did yours something you didn't want people to know?" Maybe hers only said something like that because there's so much she doesn't want people to know. Hiding things isn't malicious. Or she doesn't mean for it to be. Guilt is a powerful motivator though and there's a lot of guilt in her. Guilt that she keeps to herself hidden underneath her smiles.

She tilts her head and then nods. "Okay." There's no reason to not trust him and besides, she can't die. Or at least she couldn't back home. It hasn't occurred to her that this place would be different in that respect. It's another thing she should add to her list of things that she should have tested. Or should be testing. Maybe once this is over.

"I like fishies." She smiles and then sits down right there under the overhang. "Don't get freaked out, okay?" With that statement she grins, crosses her legs, and then her eyes start to glow again. After a second her body relaxes as she tries to look around. It's a bit harder than she remembers it being back home. More than a bit. A few minutes pass and then she comes back and blinks.

"I can't see everything." The expression on her face looks almost like a pout. "Or that much. I should be able to see more. Somethings interfering!" And that's just plain frustrating. "But I think there's some people in trouble a block or so away. Being attacked by themselves."

"Yeah, it did. Except it knew ev-"

There's something there that makes Hank pause. He raises a finger. "Actually it knew what a lot of people did. When everyone started remembering other people's memories, that's what it remembered. It remembered things those other people saw."

And that means...

He has no fucking idea what. "This is gonna fuckin' drive me nuts." Right. He has no fucking clue. But Arkady's was more exclusive. God this is gonna fuckin' bug him.

But he remains quiet as she concentrates, and this time he's expecting the Children of the Damned look so it doesn't surprise him. He just keeps an eye out and waits.

"It's alright. You probably are literally doing the best you can. It works." About a block away or so. "Which direction?" He prepares to head that way, lighting up the LEDs on his uniform so he'll stand out on approach. He'd rather be something for people to run toward than worry about being something that could be aimed at. Stealth doesn't matter as much at the moment.

"No, it's not alright." There's a dejected quality in her voice that she's not attempting to hide. If ever there was someone to be accused of wearing her emotions on her sleeve, it's Arkady. In her mind she should be able to do more, see more, help more. It's the same type of pressure she puts on herself back home. It's also the same type of pressure she internalized on herself back home.

She stands up quickly and then looks from left to right in order to reorient herself with this perspective. "That way." She points to the right. "I'm pretty sure. It's slightly different above. Yes. That way." She nods emphatically and starts to walk that way just assuming he'll come along.

"People remembered other people's memories here?" That sounds like something she can do but she doubts that's what he means. But it does peak her curiosity. She thinks maybe she's heard a mention of something like that from someone else, but she's not entirely sure. Things come in and out of her mind so easy sometimes. "Being nuts isn't so bad." She turns back to smile at him.

"It's alright to me, though. You don't have to do everything. I'm a detective. I got the normal shitty senses, but I can take the little bit you give me and run with it."

Sometimes 'okay' and 'alright' are small. "I'm not disappointed, it helps."

He does follow along, though, getting ready to pull the gun before he picks up one of the axes.

"Nah, it isn't so bad. It can be a damn inconvenience, but some pretty brilliant people were out of their minds." You know, when you're a woman that shifts between personalities ragefully on the sidewalk or bizarre ladies with telepathy or, god help him, his own depression making him point guns at people and shatter at the seams.

"It was like you'd suddenly be reminded of something. A smell or a set of words or a face and you'd remember something that happened to you. And you were like, what the fuck, this didn't happen to me?" Hee boggles again at it. "And some of the stuff- I didn't want people to see. But a lotta people saw it. And that fuckin' thing that looked like me? Had seen that stuff."

"I should still be able to do more. I can back home." And she wants to be able to help more. "I can usually do things by myself. Even though sometimes they don't think I should. Or can." They being her friends back home. Most of them knew she was capable on her own. Some of them even thought she was dangerous on her own. Yet they still rarely like to actually let her get involved when the dangerous things started happening. It's frustrating, especially when all she wants to do is be able to help.

"I don't think it's an inconvenience anymore. It's just the way some people are." Nuts is the way she's described by others so often that she's accepted it as at least partially true. She knows it's not completely untrue, but it's also not completely true. Some of it is just because they don't understand the things that happened that changed her. It always seems so difficult for people to just understand each other.

She listens to his descriptions of the memories with an ever growing look of concern. "I can see people's memories if I want to. But it's not like that." Telepathy isn't something she's trying to hide here. There doesn't seem to be much of a point and she figures it's best to be at least a bit honest about it. There's discomfort surrounding the idea of mucking around in someone's head and she doesn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. "Do you know how that happened?"

"I believe you. It's shitty this place is such a dick about taking away people's abilities. I don't even know how someone would do something like that."

He makes a so so motion with his hand. "Makes the job a little more complicated." Because some people didn't handle their crazy so well. He doesn't handle his crazy so well. Someone that's hurting can scare people, and sometimes someone that's confused can hurt people. He's from a line of work where mental illness grows even in the healthiest people because of the strain of failure, with more public servants suffering from that than on the job conflict.

But that's entirely beside the point, because he gets that she's concerned about her quirks.

"For the record you don't seem crazy. You seem kinda scared and disappointed in yourself. Maybe a little weird, but that's it." Just the eye thing in the dark was pretty creepy. "And no, no clue. Maybe something was trying to take our memories for the clones and fucked it up somehow. It wouldn't surprise me if the Head had psychics or somethin'." He listens carefully for sounds as they go, staying on high alert.

"I don't like that someone can do that." There's a distinctly childish quality to her tone in that. Like someone throwing a momentary tantrum over having their ice cream melt. It passes quickly and she just shakes her head. "I don't have limits back home." Some compared them to gods. She's not really sure if she likes that comparison. It's close enough to accurate though; which means it would take something of considerable power to take hers away. That's disconcerting.

"Kait would say something like that." It was always about the job for Kait and that job was police stuff. Kait would also tell her she was crazy though. And threaten to cut her parts off, which she still found very rude.

"I get weird a lot." So very very often. But she likes weird better than crazy for the most part. "There's a lot to be disappointed with." It's a statement that applies to more than just things in this place, but she doesn't elaborate. "I think the Head has a lot more than they say." Maybe that's just her being paranoid. Or maybe not. Something made her very uneasy though. "I think what I saw wasn't too far from here."

"I don't like it, either. And you know what? I think you're right. I think eventually it can have even more of our memories." And that's not good. Especially with the Heart having dragged so many people into their mess against their will. Trying foolishly to simultaneously appeal to heroism and endorse the idea that an agenda was more important than people.

They didn't want help they wanted strong minions and resources. And that's infuriating.

Hank is very much a cop. And one that has threatened other cops with his own gun, but when they've been especially bad. "Alright, lead the way. Get behind me when we get close." He doesn't even question her lack of limitations back home. She's helping him here with what she has now.

"Why would it want our memories though? Mine are bad." So bad that she doesn't always want them. That's one of the many reasons she drinks. So why would anything else want their memories and knowledge? "Unless..." She looks over at him with a very concerned look. "There was this movie I saw once. People got put into pods and then something else replaced them. The something else was like them but not." It's been a long time since she's seen any movies but everyone knew that movie. It's the kinda cheesy movie her and her friends would have put on in the background to only partially watch while they did more interesting things. But now she wishes she'd paid a bit more attention to it. The thoughts cause her to shiver as an uneasy chill sweeps up her spine.

Luckily there isn't much time for her to get too lost in her own thoughts. A scream breaks through the silent night up ahead and the sounds of a struggle can be heard ahead. Her eyes flash bright white just for a second and then she turns to look at him with normal eyes. "Two people. I think their things are attacking them." She keeps her voice low so they aren't heard. This would be easier if she could just talk in his mind but she doesn't want to make him feel freaky again.

"I saw that movie, too. And considering how badly my duplicate wanted to kill me? I'm thinking that's the case. Fuckin' traumatized my partner too. Pisses me the hell off."

Hank. Hank you traumatized him.

But yeah, that scream is pretty damn distracting. Hank draws his gun and rushes off, flashlight focussed in the direction of the screams. Sometimes its hard to tell who is the fake and who is not, if they are twins? Happen to look alike? People happen to look alike, here. His duplicate did a good job of hiding what was wrong with him.

So he has to make a tough call. He can start with disabling shots, but it takes a lot to slow these things down. Still he manages to call out a "Freeze! Get away from each other!" just as he turns the corner, ready to respond if they don't do what he says immediately.

If they had more time she would have asked about the traumatizing parts, but they didn't. The corner is turned and with it the danger of the situation is clear. There's a young woman--two young women actually. Both look very similar. They're medium height, glasses, wearing a long sleeve sweater, jeans, and boots, with mousy brown hair. The clothes make it hard to tell which might be a robot duplicate and which was just a scared innocent woman. They both froze though and stared at him.

"Help! This thing it-it's me and it's attacking me!"

The other one shook her head fervently. "No!!! Don't listen! T-this thing attacked me!"

Well, that's inconvenient. Arkady looks at Hank and frowns.

"I can tell which!"

He hates this situation. Worse, because he doesn't know either of these women. But what he does remember? Was that his doppelganger was impatient.

"Put your hands up!" He aims at them, veering between one to the other. He tries to look at those raised hands while he's at it- his double had fucked up hands with no nails.

And then he just stands there. Waiting for one to react. Waiting for one to get cold in the rain and show it. He doesn't lower his gun.

"Strike up a conversation. Make 'em tell you all about theirself," he tells Arkady. Like this, he can watch for physical ticks, discrepancies in their story.

There's a few seconds of hesitation as Arkady looks from the two nearly identical looking girls to Hank. If she was alone this would have been an easy decision to make. With him here though she hesitates. Her eyes already spooked him once and she's worried he'll be bothered by it again. It's the easiest solution though and something tells her they don't really have much time.

So, her eyes go white again as she looks into both their minds, she winces as she enters into the robot mind and puts one hand to her head. Her nose starts to bleed again and she frowns. Second time tonight. "Ouchies..." She points with the other hand to the one on the left. "That one!" She says with a strange amount of confidence.

"No!" It shouts and rushes at Hank because he's the one with the weapon. Besides Arkady with her bloody nose doesn't seem like too much of a threat. The only thing it really wants is to kill it's other and Hank is probably the one most likely to stand in the way now.

Hank realizes that he might need to prove what he did tonight was necessary. So in the moments before Arkady uses her ability, that valuable pause, he pulls out his old phone from Detroit and puts it in his pocket. The camera facing out, record feature on, an improvised body cam.

It's just in time, too, the view of it changing from her with her bleeding nose, pointing out the one who's false, and then them rushing him. The next shaky view is the single shot to the head.

He shouldn't be getting used to killing doubles, but he is.

"You should get home, lock and barricade the doors and windows." He advises the woman, looking down at the bleeding body spewing sparks from an artificial brain. "Don't stop for anything. We can escort you if you need."

We. He probably shouldn't be volunteering poor Arkady for this, but she's signed on at least for that one short adventure.

The woman, much to the surprise of probably nobody at all, mostly just looks like a deer lost in headlights. She blinks from Hank to Arkady and then finally down to her metallic self and takes a step back.

"No, no. No escort. I-I'll manage," she stutters the words out clearly shaken. Who could really blame her after that? "Thank you." The words are said quickly, but earnestly, and then she rushes away. Clinging tightly to her purse like perhaps that will save her somehow. Or protect her. Or make her forget that really just happened.

"She's very scared," Arkady frowns looks down at the robot. "I think I'll keep feeling her for as long as I can. Things go out of..." she moves a hand back and forth, "range quicker here." But she wants to make sure the woman is safe. "Sirkka would just take the memory away to make her better." She muses mostly to herself and then she looks over to Hank. "Do you think there's one per person or maybe more?"

"I think there's one per every person awake tonight."

It is really, really bothering him that the police department is empty. It's almost like everyone wasn't supposed to be around or awake for it.

"People shouldn't have their memories taken away. Even when they're scary as fuck, or they hurt. It's better that she knows. We need to know about this shit."

He turns off the camera in his pocket, watching her go with a deep sigh. This isn't good. But so far, it does seem like there's only one for each of them. "My partner can sense DNA- he's former CSI, used to work with me as a detective back in Detroit. He knows my DNA pretty well. When I shot my double, some blood got in his mouth and he recognized it. These things are grown from us, or made to be just like us."

"We do, yes." She doesn't disagree about the needing to know about this particular shit. Whether or not people needed all their memories was neither here nor there and that was an argument that everyone back home spent too much of their time on anyway. Here it didn't matter. What did matter was where these things came from and what they wanted. What they wanted was clear, especially after the rest of what Hank said and she cringes at the information he gives.

"Oh no." There's concern on her face and just a hint of anger in her voice when she speaks again. "Their minds are different. It hurt a bit. Kinda like if you slammed your head against a big hard wall." She puts her hands behind her back and rocks back and forth for a second and pulls them out and touches her head with one. "I can see inside people's minds. It doesn't usually hurt and it's usually not hard. But this was different. It felt bad. And my nose bled." Which was annoying but at least it had been helpful here. "And it couldn't do what I can do. If it could it would have been filled with big bads." Then she would have been the big bad. Not a fun idea. "Maybe they still needed to grow more?"

"Yeah... Maybe this power going out thing wasn't an accident."

And for a moment he's fucking livid, though he doesn't say it out loud. The irritation rolls off him in waves, and if emotion could be shown in imagery the rain falling on him would be steaming off his shoulders.

He realizes, bitterly, that the Heart had purposefully avoided telling them about this. That they must have known from the things they said, but they used withholding information as a way to manipulate them. A backwards way of 'trust us to know best'.

It doesn't raise his confidence in them, not when they'll trickle information to suit their own ends.

He sets his jaw. "I should have gotten her name so I could check on her later. Come on. Let's make sure some other people are safe."

"It seemed specific. Someone I know mentioned that too." When the power had gone out and she found herself momentarily startled someone else had made the comment that maybe this had been for cover. They really should have all been more prepared for something bad to happen. He's not the only one angry at all of this. Her tiny hands ball into fists as frustration rushed to the surface of her mind again.

"We were always prepared in Whitechapel. We should have been here too." It was life or death in Whitechapel and clearly it was life or death here as well. She let out a frustrated huff.

"I could find her again I think. I'll try tomorrow to check in." It was the least she could do. "I hope there won't be too many hurt because of all this..."

"Angel, I know it's real hard to not think of it as your fault, but the truth is we had a lot of trouble finding anything to prepare with. Everything is restricted. Even libraries don't have the info we need, okay?"

He doesn't mean to sound patronizing saying that to her, just concerned and reassuring. That rage melts off him and he puts his arm around her shoulders if she'll let him.

"I'm glad we got a way to do a follow-up. Come on. Let's go find someone else, okay?"

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hellofishies - 2019-11-14 13:46 (UTC) - Expand

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