dualislogs | i've been bitten by the bug ...

i've been bitten by the bug ...

WHO: Open to all residents
WHAT: Inoculation Season, plus your regular monthly NAPs session
WHERE: Throughout the city, with NAPs held at The Ax Hole.
WHEN: Sept. 10-30 for plague shots and associated side effects; Sept. 10-14 for NAPs
WARNINGS: Please use if applicable!

So tell me, what do you prescribe for these symptoms?

Remember that awful plague that wiped out the city's entire original population? You know, the entire reason you've been brought here? Well, the medical science community of Dualis has been hard at work concocting a cure for as long as anyone can remember, with minimal results. But during the morning of the 10th, news of a breakthrough is announced is a special city-wide bulletin. All media channels are overtaken with this message, and alerts hit every citizen's phone. The best part? Science needs your help!

There's no formal approval process for new vaccines and medications, just a series of volunteer trials before it's determined whether what's being tested is effective. All residents are invited to participate in these trials, with a bonus of 200 extra duos as compensation for their time and possible suffering. Simply head down to your nearest MedDualis clinic and inform the MedDroids supervising that you're reporting for your civic duty. Participants will be given a quick, easy, and practically painless inoculation shot in the arm, and will walk out the door 200 duos richer. Neat, huh?

Participants will be warned that like all experimental drugs, there may be side effects. A non-comprehensive list of those possible side effects includes: minor appearance changes (hair/skin/eye color), enhancing or reducing senses (smell, taste, hearing, sight, etc.), sudden mild development of extranormal abilities (telepathy, super strength, super speed, etc.), the ability to share dreams (if you're not tired of that sorta thing after last month), and/or loss of control over abilities you already possess, or those abilities misfiring. Hey, at least death isn't included on this list!

Any intrepid Dualizen who comes down with a case of weirdness as a result of doing their civic duty will find that weirdness will wear off by the end of the month. The Head thanks you for your sacrifice!

Don't you feel the fever like I do?

Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without faces - but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

This month’s event is held at an exciting new establishment called The Ax Hole! The 'Hole is an indoor ax-throwing range plus bar plus mid-price grill-type restaurant, the first of its kind to find a home here in Dualis. You must be at least 18 to drink and/or throw axes, and if you are throwing axes, there is a limit of one drink per hour. The bartenders are very strict about enforcing this rule, and employees are available to give safety instructions on proper ax-throwing technique and supervise activities.

This is a family-friendly establishment, so anyone under 18 is welcome in the restaurant section and the viewing room between the restaurant and range to watch the ax-throwing action, but they are absolutely not allowed inside the range, even just to watch. In fact, anyone who wishes admittance to the range must sign a waiver stating that they understand the risks of participating and agree to hold the Ax Hole free of liability in the event of any accidents that cause injury or death.

If that hasn't scared you off yet, come on down and meet your new neighbors! Oh, and do try to exit with at least as many fingers and limbs as when you entered, OK?

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"Tired after one?"

Aleifr replies, the mock-disappointment in his voice mis-matched with the smirk on his face.

"I'd heard Cadians were made of sterner stuff."

Edited 2019-09-29 02:59 (UTC)

His mouth pulls into a tired smile, and he simply shakes his head.

"I don't think I could have."

"From whom?" Mira says with a laugh. He hadn't known Cadians existed before they'd met. "Must have been me." She shrugs. "I was right, of course."

She flips the axe around in her hand a few times, clearly not tired in the slightest, before taking her mark for another try. Elbow straight, throw with the shoulder. The next attempt strikes about the same distance from the bullseye, but too low this time--her general technique is solid, but she'll need practice for any degree of precision.

"But it's guns we train with from childhood."

"Something like that." Aleifr replies with a small shrug of his shoulders. As he lumbers down the range to retrieve the axes. "Could use it in combat, but it'd be stupid unless you were sure of your aim."

"Only know one Cadian. She's made a good impression, but I've only got her word to go on."

Aleifr seems to agree with the self-assessment on her technique, because he doesn't offer any additional feedback.

"You sill need to show me how to use one." Aleifr adds in. "A proper one."

"Yes, you could have," Revan insists, leaning in, her speech pitched only for Orren's ears even among the noise of a crowded restaurant. "We always have choices. You could have washed your hands of the Order, of--" her voice hitches the tiniest amount, unnoticeable to someone not paying careful attention, "--me, and you didn't. The right thing doesn't just happen. Someone has to make a choice and see it through."

"Maybe. It sounds like it can't fully fix people, though." He gathered some information from Jason, about as legitimately as someone who doesn't read comics and sort of gleans info from casually absorbing pop culture can. The Lazarus Pit, to him, has been provided as a real thing.

"I sure as hell hope it's not zombies. But it's something. What are all the things it can do with us? It's gotta be more than just a disease thing." No matter what was said to them.

"I've been asking around, and it turns out there's at least a proper range," she says, shaking a finger over her shoulder as she fetches the axe for another try. "I don't know if they've got proper auto-guns or lasguns, but they should have something fairly close."

"Yes." He shifted slightly, the grip of his gun visible at his hip. "But not here."

Orren is paying careful attention. He hears her voice catch in her throat, and feels a pang in his chest in turn.

"I ... " He hesitates, before letting out a short, rueful chuckle. "I was about to say that you're giving me too much credit, but I'm just deflecting again, aren't I?"

"I'll take close."

Wouldn't know enough to tell the difference anyway.

"Long as it's not a night I'm working, I have time."

"Maybe a bit," she says dryly, remembering the fries are there and plucking another one off the plate. "The light is a choice, Orren. The harder choice."

"Not fully," he agrees. There are a lot of problems with the Lazarus pits, starting with the fact that they're mainly controlled by Ra's al Ghul, and increasing in complexity from there. "I wouldn't recommend them as a long term strategy."

Tim raises an eyebrow at Hank's question. "Well, there's always just... general experimentation. Captive population, controlled environment. You could run all kinds of experiments in a sutiation like this, and only a fraction of them would have anything to do with disease treatment or ecology."

For a moment, he's struck by how much she sounds like her old self. The person she used to be before ... before the Unknown Regions, before the Mandalorian Wars, in the moments where the cheeky sense of humor and impulsiveness was set aside and you could see the potential that she had underneath it all. For once ...

It didn't scare him.

"A choice that I don't regret making." He says quietly, as his smile becomes a little more genuine - if no less tired. "For all the pain that it's brought me, I don't regret it."

"I don't know what an apology from me is worth," she says with a sigh. Not much, she suspects, given that the Revan who caused all the trouble is still locked away somewhere. "But...I'm sorry. For freezing up on the Leviathan, if nothing else."

Oh, right.

"And the flirting on Dantooine." In retrospect, that's become extremely awkward.

His initial reply was going to be quite genuine and heartfelt before her little addendum. The unexpectedness of that actually gets a laugh out of him.

"I'd managed to banish that from my memory." Because, yes, awkward is an utterly massive understatement.

Once the laughter subsides, though ...

"You don't need to apologize, Revan. For the Leviathan least of all." He says, reaching out and putting a hand over hers. "You'd had your entire world turned upside down. Anyone would have done the same in your shoes, myself included."

"I won't." She smiles gently. "Just don't be too loud." Sometimes if people were too loud she heard them anyway. It was rare these days though. A lot of practice had made her pretty good at shielding everything she didn't want out.

"No. Sometimes I just..." Her eyebrows knitted up as contemplated how to explain things. "Get lost in my own head. There's a reason they call me a space case back home." The tone she had was gentle, she'd accepted the fact that she was more than a bit off a long time ago. Acid casualties usually were. Or maybe it'd been how long she'd spent pushing her powers. Both. Probably a bit of both. "I had friends, two of them, they talked to people and made them do what they wanted. I didn't like that much so I put a stop to it. I was thinking about that." It would have been more accurate to say she was back there in her own mind but there was no reason to say that. Right?

"Speaking as someone who has the knowledge of my universe's Sorcerer Supreme, I find them to be different subjects," David shrugs. But maybe that's because he never really managed to get the hang of magic, even with all the knowledge.

Still, if Jane Foster of all people could get it, and she had a term like that. He is thoughtful for a while.

"That's an interesting suggestion. If she called it that, she may be talking about a system that effectively uses quantum entanglement. Linking atoms across space where the manipulation of one has a direct impact on the state of the other. It's still theoretical as a computing method."

"Yes, well, I did make an impression the last time I visited your planet." He smiled his charming smile and took a sip from his drink, though is expression fell at her next words. He watched the red mist, a strange coalescence in itself, with an arched brow before looking back to her.

"I was never given command of the mind stone. No one is." It commands itself, and it always will.

"Not my call, but I'll try." No one in her head wanted to be overheard, but Jane didn't have control over when someone decided to scream. She couldn't blame Arkady for overhearing that, exactly.

Space case was fine, Jane understood that. She also understands being a little too affected by one's powers, that happened to her more than a few times. She won't blame Arkady for what she was going through, but is startled by her "thought process" such as it is. "Are your friends here?"

Edited 2019-09-29 05:37 (UTC)

"A bet on how I'm going to perform at the end of the session."

But he definitely feels confident as he moves toward one of the open lanes and waits for Tannor. He'd rather see the guy throw one first if it was something Tannor would be up to.

At the very least, it did to Loki. He smiled, nodding slightly. "I know something of camouflage." He could be anyone or anything he chose with the magic his mother had taught him, after all.

He lapses into silence after a moment, though, looking this Tannor over more thoroughly. "And I assume if there are entrances to this dormitory, you've found them? I'd expect nothing less of one so thorough."

"Perhaps, but why waste the funds if it isn't necessary?" He nods, smiling confidently, for no other reason that it seemed as though most weren't capable of their abilities here? Odd.

"Would you care for another beer?" He held his hand out, as though to offer an invisible bottle, a greenish gold ripple of energy filled his grasp, and another beer appeared, capped and frosty. He smiled.

"I could see it," Hank says with that bland sort of acceptance that, once again, he's in a shit show that he couldn't control.

"Honestly I don't even know if we go home... That's the part that just really pisses me off. Knowing that if this thing wants to? Maybe it just-" he snaps his fingers "-puffs us out of existence." No, he didn't even watch Infinity War and it's been literally twenty years beyond relevant. That just happened anyway. "Fuck, there's not even a way to know if we're us. Connor seems to remember me being gone most of the day but, shit, maybe I got caught in traffic or at one of the evac sites.

"Holy fuck? You can just... fuckin' Make beer? Holy shit."

And then he has to do the impolite thing of pushing the dregs of his aside to put his finger in the current brew. Which feels cold and frothy? "This is fuckin' real? Honestly my friend over there can file reports with his head but I think you've one-upped him in valuable skills." And he nods towards where Connor is.

"And uh... sorry." He tastes the beer off the tip of his finger like he needs yet another affirmation that just happened.

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