i've been bitten by the bug ...

[headandhand]

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?

Comments

[fuckregularpeople]

Jane noted the young woman across from her -- bald hair, purple eyes, well-worn if pretty badass clothes -- and, in a rare occurance, felt no real annoyance. None beyond that she was there and Jane had to talk to her, at least. She looked like someone who at least knew what it was like to be considered weird.

That didn't make her a friend or anything, but it did mean Jane gave her the benefit of the doubt for now, and her response seemed to confirm her instincts.

"Yeah, they definitely wouldn't." Mr. Nobody hadn't either; after all, he'd called her "Sensible Jane" when she didn't immediately reject that fuckhead excuse for a villain's ideas. She shrugged. "What I meant is, do you hear some obnoxious fuck talking about what you do while you do it?"

[hellofishies]

"No. I haven't heard anyone else since I got here." Was that helpful to say? Probably not really. It was strange to actually miss hearing the others. Karl would probably appreciate it. He hated hearing them think about sex and drugs and all the things he found terribly inappropriate to eavesdrop in on. Arkady on the other hand had just found it kinda funny how he tried to always shield himself from them for such a silly reason.

"Nobody would be able to talk to me if I didn't want them to." There was firmness in her voice and certainty. It was such an odd question for someone to ask her though. Odd and specific. She knew odd. Odd was very familiar to her and odd recognized odd.

"Why would anyone want to talk to you about what you're doing while you're doing it?"

[fuckregularpeople]

Jane frowned, contemplating the intricacies of this answer. "You hear other people a lot?" It was helpful in proving again that Jane had guessed right, this woman was a little weird in more ways than one, and in suggesting maybe she should be wary. Arkady seemed friendly enough but if she heard other people, she might hear Jane (or the others), and that was not a welcome thought. "You can listen in?" A mind-reader would be a pain in the ass to deal with, although that wasn't what she had meant.

Mr. Nobody had never read the Doom Patrol's minds, exactly, although he'd been damn good at emotional manipulation. What he had done was treat them like characters in a story and used narration to do it, which was just as bizarre to Jane as it was to anyone else. But she didn't get a say in the bizarre, she just ran with it.

"Beats the hell out of me. Control fetish, probably. What happens when porn isn't enough."

Although this didn't seem to be exactly his type of operation.

[hellofishies]

"Only when I want to. Hearing voices when you don't want to sounds like it'd be hard." There wasn't a full amount of truth in her statement. She had heard voices before when she hadn't meant to. The voice hadn't been clear about who it was but it'd told her a lot of things. That was a mystery she'd been trying very hard to figure out. She thought she knew but maybe... she shrugged. "Yes. I can listen in. I won't if people don't want me to though."

Would someone actually believe that? Maybe not someone so on edge as this woman seemed to be. Control fetish she said. Arkady looked off for a second like her mind had checked out to the moon. Alice's voice came to her with a burst of anger and fear. Other voices came back and joined the chorus. Mark and Luke had lost themselves. Twisted all up into believing they were gods. Maybe they were gods. It didn't give them the right...

"They think they're gods. Fear and anger bleed together and power twists it all up." An echo of regret and sadness crept into her voice. Perhaps a little guilt leaked it's way through. Then she blinked and focused back in. "I knew someone with a control fetish and too much power." She let out a tiny laugh. "He'd always been a shit though. Even before he realized what kind of power he had."

[fuckregularpeople]

"Well don't." It's not really a question of belief. If you asked what Jane believed she'd be hesitant to share just to avoid the argument that usually follows. It's just a matter of truth, and Jane's unsure whether Arkady's telling it. She's been forthcoming so far, but good liars tell the truth often enough to be believable.

She is selling it though, with that dissociative little outburst of exposition. Jane's no stranger to those herself, and realizes she should probably cut the girl some slack. If she's crazy, it's less a question of subterfuge and more a question of confusion.

"Sounds about right." The description fit Mr. Nobody to a T, and as the rest of the Doom Patrol pointed out, he was about as basic a bitch as you could be with interdimensional powers. "Was he talking to you? Just now?"

[hellofishies]

"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?

[fuckregularpeople]

"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?"

[hellofishies]

"I'll try too. So don't worry." She tried to give her best comforting smile to accompany the words. Someone didn't need to be a telepath to tell that the idea made this woman uncomfortable.

She shook her head at the question. "No. They're not." Sadness touched her voice with that response. This was not a subject she wanted to linger on for very long. They might not always get along but ultimately they were family. "Are your friends?"

[fuckregularpeople]

That was probably pretty obvious, but didn't most people prefer privacy to oversharing? Jane had met a few mind-readers before and had never seen things end well when they poked into someone's head without permission. Even when she wasn't involved it seemed to blow up. For Jane, who was not great at pre-emptive damage control, being aware of that was important.

"What friends?" Jane said it flippantly with a little wry smile. What she had were former housemates, the remnants of a possible team. And possibly the worst leader ever.

[hellofishies]

"You don't have any?" Well, that was a bit sad. Even in the small town she'd grown up in she'd had other friends beyond the FreakAngels. Mostly boyfriends. Mostly really not great boyfriends. But a few friends here and there. And recently there'd been Alice. A brand new friend brought into the fold. It was nice to have seen that was still possible for them.

"Maybe we could be friends." She smiled brightly with her words.

[fuckregularpeople]

"Not really. I have people I know who don't hate me." Which seemed good enough, most days, even if it was a slight exaggeration. Rita and Larry were people she'd known a long time and Vic was a friendly acquaintance, but Cliff was her friend, even if she was more comfortable ignoring that fact right now. Cliff was an asshole and a clueless dickwad who pushed her boundaries and never understood anything even when she spelled it out clearly and drove her crazy. But he really cared. Even if she wasn't sure she trusted why he cared, he had demonstrated it many times.

And this girl seemed to care too, which made her feel a little exhausted and a little sad. "Hey, what's your name?" she asked. "Mine's Jane."

[hellofishies]

"I think sometimes people need more than that." To keep them together. If she hand't had Connor when she'd taken things too far she wasn't sure what would have happened to her. The others cared in their own dysfunctional ways but not like Connor. They cared in that way people care for their old favorite broken toy. Do you play with it again and risk it breaking more? Do you lock it up somewhere safe to keep it from getting another dent or scratch? Or do you pretend the accident never happened and then just forget about the toy? It was hard to know which one. Connor hadn't done any of those things though. He'd just continued to treat her like a person. People needed friends for times like that.

"Hello, Jane. I'm Arkady." She smiled brightly again.

[fuckregularpeople]

Did they? Maybe most people did. God, this girl was as wholesome as a puppy watching the Care Bears. Which at least meant she hadn't poked into Jane's mind, or she wouldn't be acting so pleasant. That was a slight relief, but it didn't make Jane feel much better.

"Yeah. Look, Arkady, you don't seem like an asshole so you get a heads-up. I'm not so great at the friend thing, got it? So maybe you should find someone who's going to believe you really are as nice as you act."

[hellofishies]

"Most of my friends would say I'm not so great at the friend thing either," she gave a shrug. At the very least they'd made it clear to her that she wasn't a great friend prior to her accident. They probably weren't that wrong. She'd done a lot of things that made it hard for them and then they'd been left with the after effects. After effects that were hard to understand and harder still to deal with.

"And most of my friends are even worse than I am. Definitely worse than you could be." But she loved them all the same. "Hey! I'm as nice as I act until I have to be something else."

[fuckregularpeople]

"Wow, you're really selling it." Jane glanced at Arkady drily for a few seconds then shoved her hands into her pockets and sighed. It wasn't just inconveniencing someone, it was constantly being the inconvenience, and Jane didn't believe Arkady understood.

"You don't know me," she said firmly. "And I don't know you either, so I don't know if that's true. But you seem nice, so I hope things are fine for you. I hope you make friends."

[hellofishies]

"No, I don't know you and you don't know me. But you remind me of people." A lot of people actually. Which was a bit strange all on it's own. Or perhaps just a bit interesting for one person to remind her of quite a lot of other people.

"Maybe we'll get to know each other though." She starts to get up as she realizes they've probably met their time quota. "I hope we'll talk again sometime. But, if you really don't want to, at least take care!"