dualislogs | oh, we dance in misery

oh, we dance in misery

WHO: Open to all Dualizens!
WHAT: the Plague Memorial Masked Ball
WHERE: the Mayor's Mansion (central Dualis)
WHEN: the evening of November 16
WARNINGS: Visuals/discussion of disease and death in the setting. Anything else, please use appropriate warnings!

At 8 p.m. sharp, the lights inside and around the Mayor's Mansion turn up, and the doors are opened to the crowds that begin to trickle inside. All entrances are manned by Iterations, and all party-goers are scanned for both proper attire (formal and masked, mandatory) and weapons (absolutely forbidden) before being allowed entry.

Once inside, attendees are greeted to a spectacle of warmth and light and lavish decorations, all themed in white accented with gold and violet. Venture into the ballroom, and you'll see intricately carved ice sculptures in various representations of death, all laden with garlands of marigolds and violet chrysanthemums. At one end of the room, a rotating cast of musicians plays soft music in differing arrangements of strings and piano. Long tables at the other end of the ballroom are piled high with punch fountains and platters of delicious party foods, and a few bar stations serve beverages of the more adult variety to those of age.

Outside the main ballroom are seven smaller rooms, for more intimate conversations and quiet recovery from the main gala (or just skulking like a brooding weirdo, if that's your thing). Six of the rooms are decorated in monochrome blue, purple, green, orange, white, or violet, and the seventh room is pitch black with red accents.

Throughout the night, the mayor herself winds in and out of the crowds, shadowed by a pair of bodyguards. She is all smiles, greeting people with a friendly handshake and effusive words of thanks for attending the ball, but she never stays in one place long enough for a true conversation. This is a celebration of life and a remembrance of the dead, after all - not the time or place for talks of business or politics.

Enjoy yourselves tonight, everyone! And remember - death eventually comes for everyone.

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It doesn't take long for Erik to notice the paranoid wanderings of the other man. He saunters over as Hank is preoccupied with... a potted plant? And clears his throat.

"I might be able to help with some more discrete examinations, if you know what it is that you're looking for."

Hank grimaces as he pulls back from a thorough plant investigation.

"You heard about a bombing when everyone first arrived? Trying to make sure there's not another one." Because it would be a terrible time for it. The police are pointedly aggressive at the moment, the public is being further alarmed at the idea the Heart might be out there. And he doesn't want these kids in their building to get in trouble because someone keeps making foolish decisions to prove their point.

He straightens up.

"Sorry. I know there's already been a sweep. I just thought I'd double-check."

He likes Nick. He does not like her company.

"If there's a bomb, poking potting soil with your fingers isn't the best way to find it." Erik lifts his hand about waist height, spreading his fingers as he searches the surroundings for anything untoward. "Good way to lose a hand, though."

"If there is a bomb, it doesn't have any metal in it." He announces once he's done with his personal sweep. It's not absolute proof. They have technology he doesn't really understand, but... "I've never come across a bomb design that doesn't use any metal."

He sighs at the mention of the bombing and everything else. "I wouldn't put it past them to try. Dilettantes."

"I'm not putting my fingers in it. If someone put something in the pot, they would have left soil around. Either on the floor or just jumbled on top. But there's nothin' fuckin' wrong with it, or anywhere."

Maybe he's just being paranoid. But there's, honestly, no other way to be at the moment. This fucking place where he can't trust one side not to throw them under the bus, and one side not to drag them away.

"Nothing under any of the tables or the buffet or in the fucking kitchens. Not so far, anyway. I guess I just got a bad feeling." Then that's followed by one of those looks that has to acknowledge that good feelings are getting harder to come by.

"Unless they swept up after themselves." Erik points it out, but he's not entirely sure the Heart actually would think to do that. So he's not too strident about that particular point.

"Bad feelings are worth investigating." At least in his experience, they always come from somewhere. Even if he has to create the source himself. He tilts his head away from the potted plants and in the vague direction of the kitchens. "Do you want to do a sweep? I can sense metal but from it'll be easier if I'm closer."

He doesn't mention how this is a new development. Back home he could be miles away from that kitchen and identify every alloy in the place. But for some reason since arriving in this city he is having a harder time. Maybe he's just getting old.

"You can do that?" Hank asks curiously. "Like uh... some sort of built-in scanner or some sort of natural sensitivity?"

But yeah, he'll take it.

"Anyway, fuckin' A. I could use the help. I know they used wires with copper and an old phone for their last bomb. Like the shitty bricks with the digital shit screens. They've got some metal components in them. So they're gonna have less metal than a couple of quarters, plus a lithium battery."

"I'm a mutant." Erik replies as if that is a complete explanation. He usually gives this speech more attention, but now he's distracted with the whole explosives sweep.

Belatedly realizing maybe he should go into a little more detail. "A mutated x-gene can manifest in a number of ways. I can manipulate magnetic fields. Damned useful."

He's also incredibly powerful. Usually. The "usually" part is why he's not going into just how diminished his abilities are since arriving here.

Whatever it happens to lots of guys.

"Right, yeah. I know about you guys. I had someone explain it to me." That, and he can remember hearing the word spattered around some of the more geeky guys he used to hang out with when he was younger. Though he's had plenty of time to reconcile that 'fake' has nothing to do with 'real' here. It's merely a thrice-told vague tabloid guideline.

He would agree, though, that the 'usually' is a huge pain in the ass. One he doesn't even understand when he's pals with a motherfucking god (he doesn't know he's an alien) and fuckin' goddamn wizards and somehow this Head is about to just turn them off? Does he just turn off how they think about their powers or something? Are they still there?

"Thanks. I know people have probably checked, but honestly we don't fuckin' need this. And if we find it-" this part he's exceptionally quiet about, "-I wanna get it out without anyone seeing because I don't want to give people more excuses to go apeshit cracking down. It's not fucking good right now."

Erik nods, satisfied that whatever explanation Hank was provided, he has enough working knowledge that further discussion is unnecessary at this time. His powers being dampened is an annoyance. A troubling one, but just an annoyance all the same. If they were completely removed he would be in an unstoppable rage. Maybe that's the gambit. Neutralize him in a way he can tolerate.

Erik also speaks softly. "If we are going to resist," and he is. No matter what Hank or anybody else decides, Erik will be striking back against their captors. "A crackdown is inevitable. It is better to make peace with that, determine when it is most tolerable." He glances around. "Striking this event might be a symbolic victory but there's far too much collateral among our own people. It's not worth it."

"Don't use the fucking 'R' word in here. Don't use it where someone can see your mouth to read lips. Don't use it where there could be a camera pointed at you. Don't use it where a single person that doesn't live in our building can hear." He doesn't know if Erik knows how serious this is yet, but he should tell him. He still speaks pretty quietly, hiding his mouth by smoothing out his beard. Then, he clears his throat.

"People watched for online threats certain words acted as triggers to spybots. So then people'd end up getting monitored. It's even worse than that here. Let's hang out later, when we're not at a big fancy event about death hosted by the Mayor."

"Right now I just need to make sure that there's not an incident."

"Spybots can't get close to me. I'll just fry their circuitboards." Which he can do, but he's also not aware of virtual spybots that exist only in strings of code, and not physical devices that follow one around. He's still got a bit of catching up to do with the technology. They didn't have anything like that in the early '90s, especially not on his technology-free island commune.

He is unimpressed with Hank's speech. "There's a line somebody in your position has to walk, you know. Between keeping the oppressors at bay and doing their dirty work. There will be incidents. If you prevent all of them, you're just playing into their hands."

"You won't know they're there. You're gonna have to trust me on that right now." He grins like he made a joke to some friend, like he's just ragging on the party, but again, he follows it with another drink.

"I can explain later. Alone. Not anywhere near her."

Erik doesn't outwardly roll his eyes but it's heavily implied. "Of course not." As if he didn't just demonstrate his exact ability to do that. Humans can be slow on the uptake. "Whatever you need to feel comfortable."

There is a commotion happening on the other end of the ballroom, near where Erik and Hank had begun talking. Erik turns and squints. "Do you know who that is?" He asks, indicating the dark haired man having some trouble with the local constabulary.

Hank can hear it in his tone. The casual meandering superiority, and it grates not that it exists (fuck, that's Loki 90% of the time and he can get along fine with him and even very much enjoys his company), but rather that in this case it can get them killed.

He's about to tell him to start picking out people, to point out a double that he can find in the crowd right now (knowing that they're nearly all doubles), before he sees them come for... Jason.

"Shit, shit that's Jason. Fuck."

Those fucking iterations. Jason has a problem with chill, and he can already see this going badly. Any concernse about Erik not understanding the gravity of the situation hit him like a lead weight, and that Hank actually likes Jason hits him like a heavy weight, dragging every previous annoyance down.

He'd expected the Heart to be targets. But not that dumb petulant kid. And he thinks he spent his 'get out of jail' card on Squall.

"Goddammit," he breathes.

Erik is superior. Homo superior, if you ask him. A different species to man. And the fate of humanity in general is not something he concerns himself with, unless it is directly impacting the fate of mutantkind. It's not a great habit when he's trying to work with humans in order to escape from this place.

His brow furrows deeper when Hank recognizes the young man. "What did he do?" There isn't always a reason. He knows this. But he's still hoping that there's some kind of identifiable pattern of oppression at this point. Something predictable so they can make informed decisions about what path to take later.

"He made them mad. Fuck... They've had a hard on for dissenters recently."

Hank rubs his mouth, wrinkling up his nose. There are words hiding behind that, a whole ramble, a desire to share how seriously the Heart fucked up. This wouldn't be happening if they had been honest with them. Their fucking performance, that effort to terrify them into taking them seriously as an emotional ploy to control their loyalty, now has had the added shit of scaring their malevolent dictator.

And, as predicted, they're hunting for it in all places.

"Hey, look. I think I'm gonna need a fuckin' drink later." He comes by Rick's often enough. He actually legit likes the bar; actual live music that isn't obedient shlock that caters to the system. It's not just that it's where some allys hang out, and he's been there often enough to see Erik around.

"I'll uh... be in later."

Erik didn't recognize him from the meeting, and he glances sidelong at Hank. Finally, a flicker of recognition in his expression. "Well. Dissenters should get with the program," he says blandly, for whoever is surveilling them.

He nods at Hank's talk of seeing him later. "I work most nights."

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oh, we dance in misery

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