dualislogs | ya gotta wanna be a battering ram

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ya gotta wanna be a battering ram

WHO: The entire dang city.
WHAT: Dualis Days, a week-long summer celebration.
WHERE: Central Square Park and the rest of the city.
WHEN: June 17-23.
WARNINGS: Terrorist violence, likely some blood and injuries. Please warn in individual threads!

June 17; Central Square Park.

Every year for as far back as anyone can remember, the start of summer is heralded by the week-long festival known as Dualis Days. This celebration officially kicks off at midday in the middle of Central Square Park with a commencement speech by the current mayor. This year marks Marcelina Dubanowski's third term as mayor of Dualis; she is an average-sized, middle-aged human-presenting woman with blonde hair styled in a short bob and a plastic, toothy smile that never seems to turn entirely off.

"Welcome, one and all!" she begins, with the practiced cadence of someone who is quite comfortable with public speaking. She invites all citizens, new and old, to spend the next week indulging in festivities in all districts of the city and getting to know their neighbors a little better. This is a joyous time of celebration, and the crowd responds with enthusiastic applause as the mayor finishes her speech and introduces this year's parade marshall, Peshtigo Tengfei.

Tengfei blows a whistle six times to signal the start of the parade - and this is where the celebration goes sideways.

A loud explosion tears through the air, and it's followed by panicked screams and the sharp screech of microphone feedback. A bomb has gone off at the platform where the mayor was standing, collapsing the wood and tearing it to splinters and dust. Chaos erupts in the gathered crowd, and as the people shift in all directions to get clear of any possible additional bombs, a loud siren cuts through the cacophony, calling attention to the sudden crackle of video feed present on all television screens throughout the city, including those set up in the park to broadcast the mayor's speech for those standing far from the stage. The picture is plain, a black background and bold white block letters filling the screen:

WAKE UP
WAKE UP
DON'T BELIEVE THE LIES

The final image is an anatomical graphic of a human heart, displayed for about three seconds, and then the feed goes black again.

Confused murmurs sweep through the crowd as citizens resume tending to the injured and evacuating the area until official first responders arrive.

June 17-23; aftermath around the city.

Dualis Days continues as scheduled, though Mayor Dubanowski is unable to enjoy the festival, as she is spending the week in the hospital recovering from her injuries. A team of Iterations guard her door - no visitors allowed - but the news media frequently report updates on her condition. Nothing to worry about, folks! Return to your celebrations, and don't mind the increased visible presence of the Hand as Iterations are stationed every few blocks throughout the city. It's only for your protection, after all.

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Everyone here has terrible taste and doesn't accessorize with winged skulls and heraldic eagles, so yeah, Mira and her uniform stand out a bit even though she's left the armored pieces back at the dorms.

"If I'm needed." She nods at the teenager. If he were Cadian, she'd say he was about the right age to be wrapping up his Whiteshield years and getting his permanent assignment. Of course, his commanders would have something to say about that hair.

"Have the Arbites assigned an incident commander yet?" she asks, looking around the scene for the officer she expects to find directing the cleanup.

OOC: If you don't want to mess with linguistic confusion, the translation can just render "Arbites" as "police," since that's what it means.

Squall's clothes is 'modern' enough to fit in but it's not as sleek as everything else. He's decidedly not showing any signs of mods that are common either.

He idly runs his hand through his hair to straighten it out while looking around. A smattering of personnel and civilians are converging on the stage where the mayor was. And he's starting to see the beginnings of a barricade further out from the stage being set up to keep civilians out.

"Arbites?" Incident commander is a good context clue though so he responds to that while pointing to the people blocking off ground zero. "Maybe. They had security but didn't look like they were prepared for an attack like this. They're probably scrambling a response team."

"Interior Guard? Tribunes? Constables?" She tries the first few synonyms she can think of as she looks where Squall is pointing. Every planet calls their local law enforcement something different and it gets tedious.

"Throne on Earth, who plans a public speech and doesn't consider it might be attacked?" Mira grumbles to no one. "They're lucky no one positioned snipers."

"Law enforcement?" Usually the army in the bigger countries in Squall's world. Police aren't quite a thing. He frowns at her grumbling. She isn't wrong, really.

"That AI kept insisting it was peaceful. Maybe they actually believed it, or this is all an act. The bomb's..." he looks at the stage. "Small. They're making a statement. Kill the mayor, get everyone's attention."

These are all assumptions anyway. With the way civilians are being shooed off the broken stage, he has a feeling things are going to get covered up.

"You can't trust an AI," Mira says, lip curled in disgust. There might not be anything she can do about it, but she doesn't believe a word the cursed thing has said. "But I agree with you about the purpose. No need for a large explosion when the morale effect from a small one will do."

"Why not? Do you have AI in your world?" He's never seen AI like the Head. While he's not entirely comfortable with programmed intelligence, he's curious what would drive that much disgust from Mira.

He's starting to feel antsy with the increasing number of law enforcement showing up though. He turns slightly, looking at Mira with a slight beckon of his head. Does she want to move somewhere else?

"I should hope not," Mira says, not quite understanding the question. The Imperium is fully capable of creating AI. It's just thoroughly illegal. "If we had, the Mechanicus or the Inquisition would destroy them."

Lovely place, the Imperium of Man.

Mira glances around the scene. It's not as bad as she'd feared--the charge hadn't fragmented the wood of stage in such a way as to cause massive casualties like an artillery shell would have, and the people with severe injuries are already being seen to. Without a medi-pack she herself is no more use than anyone else with first aid training, so she meets Squall's gaze and nods. Might as well stay out of the way.

"How do you know not to trust one?" Did one try to destroy the world? That sounds kinda cool, but he knows better than to think that means anything good in reality.

Squall returns the nod and slowly starts to move away from the stage, grimacing despite trying not to. It's weird having a whole chunk of something shift inside of him. He steadies himself soon enough and just keeps walking to exit the park.

Mira's not quite there on figuring out most of the others don't share a universe with her, but she has realized they all had utterly worthless educations on whatever backwater worlds they come from, so she's not surprised Squall doesn't know about the revolt of the Men of Iron.

"At the dawn of the Age of Strife they turned on mankind in the most destructive war the galaxy has ever seen. The Emperor Himself decreed--" Mira stops the history lesson when she sees Squall wince, minutely examining his posture. "You're injured."

There it is. The history of how anything with power end up wanting to destroy everything in its path. It's even more reason to find a way back to Rinoa. He blinks when she pauses and he responds by not-so-subtly pulling back too late to adjust his posture.

"It's not that serious." It's fairly bad. "I can deal with it." Translation: Please just drop it. He's fine.

Having herself recently been a teenager who'd lie about that sort of thing, Mira has her doubts.

"Is that so." She sounds like an officer giving a soldier a chance to back down, which is natural enough, since she is in fact an officer.

Hey, he knows that tone. Tried to use it himself but his teammates are all immune. He hasn't had that much of a chance to do so with the rest of the mercenaries at Garden yet.

Anyway, he's still not backing down, straightening to stare back at her.

"Yes, so just drop it."

"Fine," Mira says, in that tone that means 'not fine,' but she doesn't push. He's not really her subordinate, even if she now feels responsible for him courtesy of that overdeveloped Cadian sense of duty. "At least get it looked at eventually."

You know what sucks, Squall? Infected wounds.

It's not going to get infected!! Probably.

He nods. "I will. I don't want to die. I just don't trust them."

He half expects they'd just cart him into some underground lab if he follows them into an ambulance.

Mira snorts. "Sensible enough."

Of course, she's the one who's so paranoid she hid from snipers at a public festival, so maybe don't listen to her about what constitutes reasonable precautions.

It's only half sensible really. Since the city's probably already taken all the samples they need. It's just hard to shake the paranoia and timing of it all.

"So your world was nearly destroyed by AI? It sounds like a long time ago."

"Something like 18,000 years." Mira shrugs. "Records from before the Age of Strife are so sketchy I doubt anyone knows if my homeworld had been settled by then."

'World' means something a little different where she's from.

"And no one used AI since?" That's... a ridiculously long time if so. He's just going to assume there are multiple worlds in her world now. Yep.

"No world in the Imperium." Mira shakes her head sharply. "...At least not openly," she admits after a beat. "They're forbidden by personal decree of the Emperor. Anyone experimenting with AIs is a traitor by definition, and would seek to hide their crimes."

If you think that means someone somewhere is pretty much always messing around with AI, you're right! Mira doesn't realize it, though.

"Is there a chance a city like this was hidden somewhere in those worlds?" It still means he's stuck in a whole other universe but if there's a chance someone might know their way around, he'll take it.

"Not on an Imperium world." Mira is absolutely certain this place would have been bombed to a smoking crater if it were within the Imperium's sphere of influence. "But on a lost world? Certainly."

Hmm. Curious.

"Might be worth looking into. Maybe your emperor's been hiding this too." Shady governments are a thing. He's pretty sure there were evil kings in story books too.

"If the Emperor is concealing something, He has good reason," Mira says sharply. That is not the tone of someone who thinks her government is shady--or at least not its de jure head. The God-Emperor of Mankind doesn't do much direct governing anymore, what with being held in stasis at the brink of death for 10,000 years now.

"Even if he's responsible for keeping us here for a year?" Not saying that her emperor is responsible but just throwing that out there.

Not that Squall has room to talk. He still followed Garden despite all the shit it threw his way.

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ya gotta wanna be a battering ram

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