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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

June 17; Central Square Park - Bomb Time

"We need to keep the parade route cleared, place hard barriers for the attendees. Every year we end up with at least one kid trying to jump the fence and run at a float," an older veteren of the force is saying.

"Sounds about right for kids," Hank says. He's the oldest one in this batch of cops. All of them rookies. Hank's the only vet from somewhere else. Back home that would have gotten him a better job right off the bat. Here? He's gotta get used to some of the different species available. Hell, some of the rookies here are species here that don't even look near human. He was still getting use to the idea of fuckin' androids on the force. This completely kicks it to the curb.

He looks over the map of the parade route, drawing a red line on the screen. Makes X's on the places he already knows to be high traffic areas. The ones where people have probably been waiting for hours. He wrings his mouth to the side, quirking it into a hard frown. Alright, so the're giving him from the start to the first few blocks as escort. Sounds easy enough. He'll relay and take over after the next guys. Looks like a lazy job.

Guess it's better than finding two week old bodies rotting in houses. He'll look at the menial bullshit work like that.

"You'll be using these," the veteren says, leading them over to metal... fuckin' horses or something? His heart immediately cries in pity for the pain his ass is going to be subjected to after riding that for a while. Great. He at least gets on the thing without being seated backwards. "Please listen to me more than fuckin' Connor did," he leans in and whispers to it, pats its metal neck, walks it over near one of the middle floats and relaxes.

The whistle blows, he's ready to go, and then there's an explosion and a plume of debris.

"Aw hell!" Hank yells as a tide of people flee. "Come on, get off your floats." He shouts up at some of the wranglers. Who knows if that's the only thing that had a bomb on it. "Get to a safe distance. In an orderly fashion! Fucking orderly!" He yells at a man that shoves two smaller women out of the way, then rides with them a few steps until they've righted themselves. "They'll be setting up barricades that way! Get down there."

As it's not a real horse, and knows better than to kick and step on people, the moment he sees someone knocked down he walks it over to stand in the way of the moving crowd to keep them from getting trampled. Until everyone is out of the way, this is all he can do. Give the guy time to get up with a giant obstacle in the way.

June 17; Central Square Park - Post-Bomb

Later, when the area is cleared and there are paramedics on the scene and other assessors, he rides the 'horse' over near to the stage, clammors off its back, and intends to speak with his supervisor. Supervisor is talking with a couple of other cops. He doesn't interrupt, but he catches bits here and there.

Right off he can tell this was a small stakes deal. Either they didn't want to buy enough materials to set off attention or they only wanted something on a small scale. He can't get too close yet, though. All he can do is go back to the nearest taped border and fend off rubber-neckers.

June 17-23; aftermath around the city - Looking for a snack on 'horseback'

A few days later he's back up on his robot steed, doing the rounds at the celebrations. Everyone seems to have calmed down, which is creepy as fuck. Everyone sort of has this fucking attitude that's way too familiar. A bombing in one place, and a few days later there are other people ignoring it in an unhealthy way or dramatically exaggerating their fears for attention.

Mostly Hank's just dropping the occasional parking ticket, issuing warnings, and smiling down at various kids excited to see either him or the robot. Which snorts sometimes and shakes out its wires like it has a mane, and that's strange. He's gonna be pissed off if he actually starts liking this fucking thing.

He's also hungry as fuck, and looking out at the first decent place to eat.

The issue with dating a hero? They run toward disasters, not away from them. The issue with dating a hero who used to be able to fly and can't anymore? You lose them in a crowd. For all that he'd been following Billy closely since the explosion, running toward everything that was going wrong ~~why was this his life, why had he been in enough situations like this that his instinct wasn't to run away from things?~~, the press of crowds had eventually separated them, and there was only so much he could do then. The crowds would thin as they pressed away from the source of the blast, and Nida would find him then. Or maybe Billy would respond to his frantic messages at that point. For now?

For now he was trained enough in crisis management ~~including some crises he'd started himself~~ that he can't just not act. In this case by helping up a child who had gotten separated from his parents and fallen in the streets. Which means he pointedly ignores the bellowing idiot up on a metal Mesmerize-like robot until he's hugged the boy and lifted the child into his arms.

"Yeah, be that as it may, you guys would probably be well served getting some uniforms on task to help deal with children separated from families. People tend to be impressively idiotic in a situation like this."

He knows better than to curse at a police officer, it was an easy way to get yourself in trouble, but he is definitely not impressed by the supposed authority and lack of control going on here. He whispers something to the boy before setting him down and pushing him off in the direction the crowd is moving. And that's before he moves past the man and the horse to help another person close to getting trampled. Unlike the 'horse' he is nimble and quick, stepping between people and catching arms, redirecting them with the ease of someone trained to move through crowds. A thief, or perhaps a plain-clothes officer, until he gets to the person and helps them up. A few encouraging words before sending them on.

"You'd be more effective, officer, letting your mount bully through some areas and getting down here to help. We need more bodies, not less."

Hank is using the horse exactly how it's meant to be used, to break up the flow of the foot traffic. And he has to be on it to shout orders, because if he's not up he can't see and he'd be ignored by the crowd. And the horse itself is meant to be crowd control. There are some uniformed and plain-clothes ground officers moving in, too. Some are picking people up, some are moving to the scene.

But god, there are always a few of these guys. And no time to argue with them, because it's an emergency, and they can shoot off whole fucking self-righteous soliloquies while someone's trying to call out crowd control.

"Hey hey! I gotta stay visible. If you're certified and wanna help that's fine. Stay away from the floats and stage." He moves the horse again, this time over to someone else. He leans holds to the saddle and leans down to help them up when they offer a hand. If they can get up on their own, he has to let them handle it themselves.

It is organized in a way he's familiar with, at least. He pulls out a whistle and wishes that siren would stop blaring. He listens to an announcement from his radio before he whistles and calls out street numbers to where the barricades are being set up. He moves the horse towards another person, a teenage boy. This one's sprained his ankle, so he gets off and slowly helps the kid onto his good foot with an arm around his midsection.

"Sorry we can't get you an ambulance out here, kid." He grabs the reins of the horse with his free hand to keep it in the way until he can get to the officer.

"Cops," Nida sighs as he considers the man. Not as useful up there, but they work by their own regulations, which Nida gets. Would respect it, but really, he doesn't. Then again, he was raised and trained to work around the rules.

"Gonna point out one thing. Do you know if, when they cleared the floats, they checked under them? I was raised in an orphanage, I can tell you from experience that sometimes, when kids are scared, they immediately go under things that look like good hiding places, even if they are closer toward what the actual danger is."

Because adults? Whatever, the cops can probably deal with the crowds, and Nida doesn't care as much about full adults. It's the kids he worries about most. And when he sees Hank working with the kid he moves forward to the boy, kneeling slightly. He tears a sleeve off of his shirt and, quickly, starts wrapping the ankle a bit, to help support it better. Sure it means taking the shoe off some and giving it to the kid to hold, but it will make walking to safety easier.

That weird metal horse snorts again, and Hank can't tell if that's an exhaust system or a way for it to simulate noises, but he did feel heat against his fingers. Weird, small distraction as he gets the kid closer to where the medical responders can reach him. "Great thing for fuckin' asshole bombers to hide under while making a getaway, too, if they didn't do it in the crowd. I doubt there are any bombs under them or they woulda went off with the platform. Not trusting it, though."

They need all the details they can find. As of now, Hank knows nothing. He just knows people hide in all kinds of places, and he'd fuckin' love to have Connor here right now. These cops better have their own scanning plastic pricks because Hank is minus his favorite one.

"Look, I get it. Tell the cops to do a check over there. If there's a kid have 'em shoo it out and they'll probably let you help it to safety. I figure these people are smart and resourceful and maybe armed if they can do this." The under this kind of surveillance is left hazily implied.

He settles the teenager down where he can be reached. The kid is scared and starting to cry already, not from the sprain but the noise and the memory of the explosion and the adrenaline wearing off. Hank wishes they'd shut off that damn siren so people could fuckin' get their heads out of that gut screechy sound reaction.

"Well, if they're there, I promise not to break any of their bones while I restrain them for you," Nida offered, without a smile. He was serious, almost deadly so.

But he does frown at the man for calling a hypothetical kid 'it'. As for him, he shakes his head.

"I always found that bombs tended to be the resource of the less intelligent than they really thought they were, the quick to act without considering the surrounding people they hurt, and the rarely armed when they come into the area they're attacking, to try and minimize additional attention. But if that's your insistence, officer, then I'll accept it."

Which isn't important anymore because the kid is crying. Nida goes down to a knee and reaches up to tuck some of the kid's hair behind his head.

"Hey there," Nida coos lightly, in the tone of someone who is used to working with kids, "it's all going to be okay. I know it's sorta loud now, but that's just because one of the fireworks went off super early. But see? This guy here, he's a police man. Your parents ever tell you about police men? They're here to protect us, and they're really good at it. He's helping keep people away just in case. But everyone got really scared. It's okay, that happens. I got scared too because I didn't see it coming, and I'm a professional monster hunter. Not even kidding."

Yeah, the kid doesn't entirely look like he's buying that, but at least he's calming down just a little.

"Now, there's some really nice ambulance people over that way. They're going to want to see if your ankle is okay. After that you stay put, so the people like this nice guy here can help get you home or to your family, okay?"

He reaches into his pocket and fishes out a stray piece of candy he'd bought earlier and hands it over with a smile. And ruffles the kid's hair with a smile before looking up at Hank.

"Isn't that right, mister officer? Everything's okay, right?"

Work with him here.

"Citizens arrests still might get you interrogated if they're just a jackass overreacting. Look, play it cool, I don't care if you are a one man army, nobody should ever fucking act without back-up."

But his partner isn't around, is he? The one person he'd started reliably trusting to get his back. And the wave of irritation at being alone in this hits him. He'd been isolating himself for so long, driving himself into the ground, hopeless and miserable until there came one person who held onto him and refused to let him go. He'd promised to be anything he'd wanted, and that alone Hank had needed. And this fuckin' place took him away.

It's a short-lived thought, pushed through in the blink of an eye, but when the kid's settled Hank points to the kid. "Tell the paramedics to call the people you live with. And when they talk to me I'll tell 'em what a good job you did."

It's quick words, but he can't take too much time on it. He hauls himself back up on the horse. "You wanna check out the damn things, come with me." He checks on his radio for verification that he can step outside of his instructions and approach the floats, using the horse now more for speed since much of the crowd has moved away.

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Bomb Time

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Post-Bomb

When you switch between comment types and lose your damn mind.

lol, one sympathizes

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Aftermath

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Bomb Time

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