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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Erik's generally good at reading people. But he's also still a little sensitive in certain weak spots. Feeling like offers of emotional connection are being rebuffed is something hard for him to rationalize.

Why he doesn't do it very often. ]

I've known I was a mutant since I was fourteen. I didn't know there was a word for it. I thought I was the only one. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I met another. And I got married in my forties.

[ He takes a drink of water. ]

Now, why don't you tell me about people you loved who were murdered. Fair's fair.

[ He'll circle back around to the human thing in a moment. ]

Your timeline has a very different course than mine. Which makes sense, given what I've learned from Wanda about hers.

[Oh. That... David looks away, frowning. He doesn't want to explain M-Day. He doesn't want to say that Magneto's daughter caused damage to an already weakened mutant population. But he doesn't intend to say no.]

Charles wasn't in charge of the school for most of the time I was there. He had left, to grieve the death of a friend. [Of Erik, who it turned out wasn't even dead. David isn't going to share that part either.] Instead the school was taken over by Scott Summers and Emma Frost. When M-Day happened, when we lost our powers, they decided that they couldn't be bothered taking care of former mutants. That to protect what was left they had to circle the wagons. So they sent what kids they could home. It... They loaded the kids up on buses.

No one knew that an anti-mutant group had gotten a hold of a broken robot from the future that sought to wipe out mutants. Things like that happen in my world. Too often. The robot's databanks told these bigots that us kids? We'd marry mutants, or into the human population. That we'd become some of the most vocal voices in seeking change for mutants. For equal rights. And that we'd succeed. It was seen by the racists as a tainting of the genepool, as mutant-apologists. And since they knew when the buses were going to move out...

[He's pale and he's shaking. David can smell charred flesh. Hear screams.]

RPGs, Erik. They launched RPGs at the buses. Almost all the students who had been turned human, slaughtered. I was lucky. My parents were going to pick me up themselves, and I was trying to convince Scott to let me stay. I...

It took days to dig graves for all the ones who had no families or whose families refused to take the bodies. One funeral after another, over and over and over. Kurt's voice was raw from services. And it didn't get better from there either.

[ There's a lot to take in. Erik hears to all of it. He listens to all of it. But it's going to take a while to sift through everything David just told him. And there's one point near the beginning that is tripping him up. Scott, fine. The boy is dull but seems capable enough. But... ]

Who let Emma take over the school? I don't care who died. Charles never would have stood for that. The woman is a menace.

[ He can't hide the note of admiration in his voice even as he condemns her. Yes, a menace. But what a beautiful menace she was.

Also she's been dead for at least twenty-five years but he'll chalk that up to differing timelines. ]

[It's a lot to live. But if anyone deserves to hear the worst mutants can experience, save what became of Genosha of course, it's Erik. Because in his own world, he'd be one of the few that could ever do anything about it.]

Honestly? Scott helped make that decision. And from my understanding you let her run a school in Genosha. With my mutation, I knew a lot of her mind. I'll tell you that the woman had some formal education in teaching. I don't know when, but at least in my world, she wanted to teach. But, I'll tell you one other thing...

[This at least gets a small smirk from David.]

You haven't heard school announcements or been chewed out by your headmistress until you've experienced that with a telepath. Ouch. Pretty sure incidents of guys sneaking into the girl's dorms at night, and vice versa, dropped to zero.

[ Erik is uniquely qualified in most worlds to do more than any other could accomplished. When he's able to work with Charles, they make an unstoppable pair. That was how they managed to face down the combined might of both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. and ensure the survival of the mutant race.

It's always a fragile alliance. Blown apart by their own force of will and passions too great to contain. But when the stars align they can move planets.

But before he's able to wax nostalgic about such things he has to get over his shock at what David is telling him about Emma Frost. ]

Oh she could teach you things that don't really belong on a school curriculum.

[ He says in a tone full of implication. And nothing more. He's not quite sure how old the boy is but he's not had enough to drink to start telling stories about the '60s yet. ]

She was a lot of things but I never imagined her a hypocrite.

Oh? And how exactly is she one?

[Because if he can take that knowledge back to his world, he doesn't mind sitting on it for his pleasure. But it's all interesting.]

She taught English classes. And ethics. Roll that one around in your head.

[ Erik regards David for a long time, assessing whether or not he's willing to explain this to him.

What the hell. He's old enough to ask the question he's old enough to get the answer. But first. ]

I'm going to need about one and a half more lagers before I'm ready for this conversation. [ He flags down a cocktail waitress, or barmaid, or whatever they call them these days, and orders another round. ]

Ethics. [ That one he's ready to handle. ] The first time I met her, she incapacitated me by dredging up my worst repressed memories with such clarity I couldn't tell where I was anymore. Ethics.

Yeah, she wasn't great in my world. She was the White Queen of a group called the Hellfire Club. And there were more than a few people who had a problem with that.

[He definitely had, because it seemed like Emma had been up to her old trips more than a few times.]

[ Erik swallows about half of his beer before nodding. ]

The Hellfire Club was an actual club. For, ah. Discerning clientele with adventurous tastes. It was a cover for the Brotherhood, as well as a useful source of blackmail for powerful people who might have otherwise gotten in our way.

[ Most of the rest of the beer. ]

She was Shaw's partner. I murdered Shaw and took over the Brotherhood. She, ah. Showed me the ropes as it were.

Interesting. They weren't as tightly intertwined in my world, at least not always. In my world the Erik there was formerly one of the Kings. But back home, it was Magneto who created the Brotherhood.

[Still, he's left smiling at the showed him the ropes'. Because, you know, David thinks that means Erik probably slept with her. Interesting.]

But yes, she was an associate of Shaw in our world too. In the end she came to Xavier's side, mostly because she wanted to seduce Scott away from Jean I think.

[So much gossip.]

[ Erik smirks again. ]

It's good to be the king.

[ The fringe benefits alone were worth it. Until he got set up to take the fall for assassinating a president. C'est la vie.

He chokes on his second beer. ]

Emma was murdered when Jean and Scott were in primary school. And I don't think any force on Earth could make them work together. [ He rolls his eyes. ] Telepaths are such prima donnas.

Well, from my understanding, they had a lot of sex. Noisy at that.

[He knows their favorite positions. He'd rather not think about it.]

In my world, they aren't too different in age. But our worlds are clearly very different. Hell, I might not exist in your world, or if I did, might not yet.

[ Erik grimaces. He knows a few of Emma's favorites as well. But Scott can barely shave.* ]

Sometimes I wonder if there isn't some aphrodisiac agent in the groundwater in Westchester.

[ He knows first-hand. ]

It was 1992 when I left. What year was it in your world?

[*Editor's note: Scott is close to 30 but if you ask Erik he'd say he's "Twelve or something". ]

I really don't want to know if there is. The place was already a bit... active by throwing teens together.

[He sighs. That's... really young. Hell, David wasn't even BORN in '92]

For me? Twenty-fourteen.

So am I to understand my counterpart is eighty-four years old? No wonder I look different.

[ Not that he's aged much in the last twenty-two years, but he's gliding past that because he still doesn't have an explanation for it. Maybe it all catches up with him in the next few decades. ]

When I was there we were a little older than teens. [ Erik was in his thirties. ] Didn't make much of a difference, I'm afraid. Biological imperatives and the freedom to express yourself for the first time in your life, I suppose. [ He's quiet for a moment. ] For the first half of my life I thought I was the only mutant in the world.

[ A lonely experience he never quite got over. ]

In his defense, he doesn't look a day over fifty-five. He's aged gracefully.

[Still, he's considering Erik for a long moment, trying to think of the best way to phrase the thing he says next.]

In my world, you were one of the first ones. So, it makes sense to think that. I'm sorry you had to experience that. I was one of many.

I suppose some things are consistent, then.

[ He's lost in thought for a moment. His counterpart, is he Jewish as well? Has he endured the horrors that Erik has? Or was he spared those torments? He could ask David, he knows. But it feels invasive, somehow. Gossiping about a man he'll never meet, prying into his most painful secrets for what? ]

There's only a few of us, here. Probably a good idea to stick together as much as possible.

[Oh yes, he is. The number definitely tells that story. But there's definitely this tension in David that almost seems to evaporate. 'Us'. 'Stick together.' He's considered part of this. He belongs to this group of people. Which was what he wanted after he lost it.]

Thank you. For saying us. And I can't help but agree. Other people here don't... the can't really get the way that feels growing up. The way people look at you. The way people attack us even when we don't do anything to them.

[ There's a lot of people in the world that can't comprehend what it was like for Erik to grow up. But isn't that what "Never again" is supposed to mean? ]

Nobody should have to know what that feels like.

[ He looks David in the eye, doing his best to express the sincerity of what he's saying. What David recounted so casually is Erik's greatest nightmare. After a lifetime of enduring the stuff nightmares are made of, the notion of having his mutant powers torn from him is a horror he can't imagine. ]

You are not what was done to you. You are still my brother.

[It's something that David doesn't know how to process, but he takes it as in stride as he can. And in this case, that means a smile as the timer rings. Time to move.]

I'll hold you to that, Erik. Because it's nice to be welcome. Just avoid considering us a 'Brotherhood'.

[ He laughs and shakes his head, smiling fondly. ]

Oh, no. Jean and Ororo set me straight on that about ten years ago. They told me the term was chauvinist. Haven't quite settled on a new term yet. "Siblinghood" is just... awkward.

[ And he'll be dead before he lets Charles stamp him with an X like his other monogrammed minions. Even with their newfound truce. ]

[Which wasn't what David even remotely meant, right? But if you wanted feminism, it needed to be more than just the X-Men.]

I meant more I wasn't really a fun of the work your group got up to back home, and with you making that joke, I realize that it's probably similar where you're from.

[ No, it wasn't even close to what David meant, and Erik is well aware of that. Sometimes he'd like to just enjoy a conversation without it turning into a trial. He fixes David with a level look. ]

You don't know what I did.

[ He has enough of his own sins to atone for. He's not taking on those of his multiversal counterparts. ]

If you want to ask, ask.

True enough.

[And yet it's the Brotherhood, and that's usually followed by 'Evil Mutants' so he could get it a little.]

If you could truly find peace between mutants and humans, what would you want to do with yourself?

[ They never used the "Evil Mutants" part of the title. A little too on-the-nose. ]

Live with my family. Raise my children.

[ It's literally all he's ever wanted. Depressingly modest goals for how unattainable they are. ]

What lofty dreams do you have?

i've been bitten by the bug ...

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cw: death of children, racism

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