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Daycycle 112 [ October 16 - October 22 ]

daycycle 112

[Oct 16 - Oct 22]

[OOC Plotting for this Dacycle can be found here.]

Early Morning [0800 - 0900] — All Troubleshooters Report for Duty

No Special Troubleshooters have been selected for a mission this morning.

Morning & Afternoon [0900 - 1600] — Service Firm Positions
All Troubleshooters not assigned a mission should report to their Service Firm for their daily duties, unless specifically assigned a different shift.

Free Enterprise is pushing a new, adjusted street form of No Fear (Dynomorphin). The original pharmaceutical is meant for those in Ultraviolet ranks, but this form is much dirtier, cheaper and more addictive. In order to get people hooked, they've put a healthy dose in the wagon wheel's ORANGE and RED level coffee-like supplies. The drug causes a very bullet proof feeling of euphoria. Side effects include paranoia, hallucinations, increased sociability, increased sex drive, panic attacks, excited delirium - extreme agitation and violence, and the temporary loss of feeling in nerve endings (inability to feel pain). A standard dose lasts four hours. Withdrawal symptoms include nosebleeds, sweating, nausea, dehydration and blinding migraines. For those that want more of the drug, Free Enterprise will make it easily accessible.

At 1200, a squad of Grey Ops will arrive at Medical Services to escort Caitlin Snow away for suspected treason. Anyone asking for additional information will be told it's classified and warned not to continue asking questions. Approximately fifteen minutes later another squad of Grey Ops will arrive at Internal Security to lead Vision away. Anyone asking for additional information will be given the same party line.

At 1400 today, Jack Harkness will be summoned by Mind Control to the Production offices on the twenty fifth floor. There he will be offered a position in Media Production where he will assist with the Teela O'Malley show. This position will come with a clearance level promotion of ORANGE, since the talk show star doesn't associate with anyone of lower clearance level. Jack will be responsible for ramping up the excitement levels of the live audience and the personal entertainment of the star.

Evening [1600 - 2200] — Citizen Improvement
All Alpha citizens are encouraged to better themselves through Alpha’s wide variety of educational, entertainment and cultural opportunities offered each evening. Attending these sanctioned events are not mandatory, but is highly encouraged by The Computer. Citizens choosing not to take advantage of these opportunities, have a growing number of other options available to them in how to spend their hard earned credits and free time.

Tonight’s event will be at 1900 in Meeting Room G, Wagon Wheel Floor 24 and will be hosted by the Alpha Smiling Club. Join us tonight for refreshments and tips on faking it until you make it!

Alpha Curfew Restrictions
All Alpha citizens should be in their quarters within the Wagon Wheel by 2200, unless they’ve been given permission from a GREEN or higher clearance level citizen. Sleeping Aid gas is dispelled each night in the Wagon Wheel at 2200 to assist citizens in getting a productive sleeping period.

Confession Booths
There are hundreds of confession booths available around Alpha Complex if a citizen would like to communicate directly with the computer. Please use these confession booths to report mission statuses, report treason or terrorist acts, unregistered mutants, confess your trespasses against Alpha Complex, request propaganda or speak with Your Friend, The Computer, at any time.

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Buffy shakes her head because she's pretty sure it came from ahead of them, but as he points out, it doesn't matter much. There's nothing and no one to see.

Unless they've got gas masks and then they could be out creeping around. It could be some of the secret societies that seem bent on hurting others.

She nods a little at his suggestion. It's a good one. Fewer cameras are always better. They make her feel less watched, a little more able to breathe. She doesn't take quite the same care simply because he's right, they're only getting the top of her head. There are advantages to being short. She hesitates at the end of the hallway.

"Hello?" she says in a whisper that's not really a whisper. "I know I heard something down here," she gestures down the hall to their left.

Derek stiffens when she whispers, because she's making any sound at all. "What are you doing?" he hisses at her, looking around quickly. Normally, Derek is all for going full force right into the eye of the storm, but that's when he's a werewolf. Right now, he's a human and he's never been all that great a fighter. At least with his werewolf abilities, he's faster and stronger and he can heal pretty quickly. As a human, he's no good at fighting and he doesn't have any of the extras that might balance his lack of skill enough to make him passable.

"So shouldn't we go the other way?" he asks in that same whisper.

Another sound behind him has Derek moving again, whirling in place and falling into a fight stance because at least he's got that down. There's nothing there. Derek's heart is racing, thumping so hard in his chest that he feels like it's going to beat right out of him. His adrenaline is pumping so hard it feels like he's trembling. "Jesus, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell...?" he whispers more to himself than to Buffy.

Sorry, Derek. She's the girl that walks into an alley yelling 'is someone there'. Of course, she's also used to being the thing that monsters have nightmares about. She hasn't quite gotten the hang of fragile human yet. She is a pretty decent fighter even human though, thanks to all the practice she'd gotten being slayer-y.

"No," she says, giving him a look because right now she feels good: fearless, the way that she remembers feeling in her glitches. "Don't you want to figure out who's up and what they're doing?"

She presses on toward where she thinks she's hearing the sound, pressing close to the wall and turning the corner quickly, kicking out with one leg.

"Ow," she says .005 seconds after she kicks the wall. "Wall hard. Buffy's foot, not so much."

Derek's eyes widen a little as if to try to emphasize his point as he shakes his head. "No. No, I don't. I don't want to see who's up and what they're doing; what if we get caught and arrested for treason?!" He looks and sounds as incredulous as he is at the moment. Doesn't Buffy see the potential for Very Bad Things to happen to them if they're not especially quiet and constantly vigilant? Doesn't she understand that it's better just to go on the defense than the offense right now, in a place they still don't know very well?

There's still no one behind them in spite of the fact that he keeps hearing someone behind them and it makes him especially uncomfortable, but he moves forward because Buffy does. Mostly because, even if he'd never admit it to her because it's so weird for him to genuinely feel like this, but...Derek's kind of scared right now.

Buffy turns a corner quickly and kicks her leg out but Derek winces for her when it makes contact with the wall rather than anything else. "Ouch...what'd you do that for?"

"Whoever is up would be arrested for treason too," Buffy hisses at him over her shoulder. "They're not going to report us and we haven't gotten caught by the cameras yet. Come on." Buffy is fearless right now. Paranoid, but fearless. She'd been the same way as a little girl.

No one behind them and Buffy isn't hearing anyone behind them, but she does hear someone ahead of them. "Maybe it'll be the person who's staging all these riots," she suggests quietly as they walk.

"There was someone there! I know there was! I heard them!" She spins in a circle looking for the someone she heard, for the flicker of shadow that she saw. "They couldn't have gotten away that quick. They've got to be here somewhere."

Of course, now she's got a bit of a limp as she walks...

"Unless they're guards and they're doing their jobs right now," Derek counters, frowning heavily. She's not thinking this through, she can't be. She can't possibly be thinking this through thoroughly or else she would realize that he's onto something here...

Derek looks even more uncomfortable at her suggestion than his own thought that might be night guards. "What do you want to do if it is? Take them on with no weapons? I didn't bring mine," he points out. It's usually so quiet at night and they nearly never see other Alphas in passing, so he's stopped bringing his laser gun along. Derek hates guns. Always has, but especially since having been on the receiving end of a bullet. On multiple occasions.

"There's nobody up there, Buffy, the sound is coming from behind us, I'm telling you," he insists, frowning, and grabbing her shoulder to stop her. "Here, get on my back, you're going to make that worse if you keep trying to limp on it. Then what are we going to do?"

"What would they be guarding? Everyone is asleep!" Said in her best 'duh' voice. Clearly, she's not thinking. Otherwise she'd realize that there would obviously be guards out to catch people doing exactly what they're doing, but they haven't run into anyone in all their other explorations.

"Knock them out?" she suggests. She didn't bring her billy club either. She hates guns as well and refuses to use one unless it's absolutely necessary. "I throw a pretty good punch and I can do that kick thing."

That kick thing that she did to the wall and is now limping because of.

She scowls at him. "Are you sure it's coming from behind us?" She's going to take him up on his offer of a piggy back ride though because her ankle hurts and he's making sense.

"We're not," he points out, frustrated. "They'd be looking for people like us, Buffy, why are you trying to make it easier for them?" He huffs a long suffering sigh succinctly and his brow creases as he looks back at her.

Derek lifts his eyebrows and gives her a patronizing look when she says she can do the "kick thing" because...can she, though? Now that she's kicked a wall and she's limping, can she really? "Yes, I'm sure," he says, crouching down for her to climb onto his back when he gets the feeling that she's going to take him up on the offer.

Once she's started, Derek hooks his elbows behind her knees and stands up straighter, hitching her up on his back a little to make sure she doesn't fall. "It's coming from behind us. I'm one hundred percent sure," he says. Not that he's actually seen anything to back that suspicion up, but...he knows what he heard.

She sighs back at him, equally as suffering and frustrated. "Paranoid much?" she rolls her eyes at him. Clearly, she's not paranoid. He's paranoid. "We've been fine so far." Which is just asking to be smacked.

Pfffft. She can totally still do the kick thing. The leg she stands on is great! It's the kicking foot she's hurt. She recognizes the patronizing tone of his voice, but hops on his back anyway, arms circling around his shoulders.

"Okay, so what's our next move, John Nash," Buffy responds, her tone of voice making it clear she thinks he's being ridiculous, not to mention her reference to the Beautiful Mind genius. At least she called him smart?

"One of us has to be," he mutters under his breath, rolling his eyes. Because God knows she's not being any amount of paranoid and this is a place where some level of paranoia is a good idea; it'll keep them alive and out of trouble, Derek likes to think. So he'll be plenty paranoid for the both of them, thank you very much.

The reference is entirely lost on Derek and if she could see the confused look on his face, she'd know that. He shakes his head a little. "I don't know, I think getting out of the sleeping quarters section of the sector would probably be a good start?" he asks more than says. Derek starts moving toward the elevator with that, hefting her up again. She feels a lot heavier than he thinks she ought to — like Katniss had... — and he's reminded again how much weaker he is in this human form and how much he hates it.

"Do you feel weird today?" he asks abruptly. "Just...I've felt kind of weird all day. I've been acting weird all day, I feel like..."

She grumbles at his muttering (yes! she heard that) and if she digs her good heel into his stomach when she shifts, well it's an accident!

Nope, not seeing that confused look. She's busy looking over his shoulder at where they're going. She still wants to investigate and find out who is up, but he's got a point. "Fine. Let's head toward the armory and see what's going on there at this time a night."

Once they're in the elevator, she'll slide off his back and rest against the elevator wall. "Maybe we ought to stop by the medical unit and see about stealing an ACE bandage," she grumbles a little.

His abrupt question brings her thoughts to a squealing halt. She falters and shifts a little. "Yeah. Weird," she says in agreement then sighs. "I had sex with Alcide. In the hallway." Her tone of voice says 'that is so not me'. "SO...there's that." She tilts her head at him. "What did you do?"

Derek grunts a little and jostles her a little harder than necessary to adjust where she's sitting on his back — also totally an accident — but when she agrees to get out of the area and go to the armory, Derek's quick to latch onto it and he moves them into the elevator lowering her a little so that she can slide off him until they get back off it again. "Yeah, that's not probably not a bad idea, wrapping that ankle," he agrees. "And then we can...I don't know what we're going to find in the armory but we're going to have to be careful," he sighs. The armory is probably guarded more heavily than maybe anywhere else in the Complex. Although, he has no idea, he's never really been there.

At her answer to his question, Derek looks over at her with his eyebrows lifted. "...well, that makes me feel a little better about making out with Katniss at my troubleshooting station. ...with a line of Alphas waiting for fitness assessing standing around watching..." he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. Making out is probably exaggerating a little since it was only a kiss, but it's the intensity of it that has him using that verbiage.

At least Katniss doesn't live with him, though. "Awkward..."

They're such children. "I think it'll be fine," she remarks, talking about her ankle. She's had several injuries before and even if they did heal on their own, she thinks she's learned a little about what's going to grind her to a halt and what she can push through. "Wait. No. We ought to go snoop around R&D, see if we can figure out anything about the explosion, see if maybe they're keeping things from us." It might be less guarded than the armory and it might be more fruitful.

She snorts a little at that. "Glad I could make you feel better," she rolls her eyes. "The alphas needed something to talk about anyway," she says by way of comforting him.

She'd make some joke about him having to work with Katniss, but she'll see Alcide plenty at work as well. He may not be Special Forces, but she'll likely see him anyway. She sighs a little. "Yeah. My life is about three billion decibels of uncomfortable now. It's not that I wouldn't...you know, but not after only knowing him a day. And not in a hallway."

Derek lifts his eyebrows at her suggestion that they change tack and check out R&D. He knows already that's where the explosion was before Buffy even says it and while his interest is absolutely piqued, Derek shakes his head. "Are you crazy? That place is probably swarming, they're bound to be investigating, don't you think?" he asks. Maybe they wouldn't be investigating this late into the night but one never knows and Derek is on the wrong side of paranoid right now. Of course he assumes the worst.

He gives a little huff of amusement. "Sorry," he replies, realizing that he hadn't meant for it to be at her expense, really, but it is true. He does feel a little better.

The more she talks, the less Derek really knows how to respond. This isn't the sort of conversation he's accustomed to having with anyone, let alone a female. "Well...it could be worse. He could've been someone you wouldn't have banged, right?" he asks as the elevator doors open. Derek takes a few steps forward and holds the door open with one hand while crouching slightly so that she can climb up onto his back again. "That really sucks though. Do you think there was like something in the water today or what?"

"I think they're probably done for the night. Investigation seems like a day job to me," Buffy responds. After all, it's not like it just happened. She's running more on that fearlessness, that feeling of immortality rather than the paranoid he seems to have tapped into.

She shrugs a little. "At least one of us feels better." She means that too. Telling him isn't going to change how she feels about what happened (probably) but hey, if it makes him feel better, that works.

It's a conversation she might have with WIllow, or even Spike, but not with many others. At least he's taking it all with a grain of salt and he is helping her see the bright side, such as it is. "Okay, well there is that." She climbs back up on his back, arms around his shoulders, letting her chin rest against his shoulder.

"It had to be something, right? I mean...you acted weird. I acted weird. It's not like I know Alcide very well, but who does that normally?" Besides, if they can explain it away with something in the water, that means she doesn't have to examine her actions too hard. "I'm glad it's worn off."

Yeah. It's totally worn off.

Idiots.

It's uncomfortably comfortable to feel Buffy climb onto his back again and rest her chin on his shoulder. Mostly because, when Derek thinks about it, they've only known each other about two weeks, give or take, and they started off on a pretty distrustful foot, at least on his end. Now, he thinks nothing of carrying her around; she thinks nothing of making herself comfortable while he does it.

"See, could be worse," he replies, adjusting her weight on his back before he starts moving. Maybe he likes her because she reminds him a little of his sisters. Buffy is kind of a healthy mix of Laura before the fire and Cora after it. So he, weirdly, has a vested interest in trying to cheer her up a little. He hasn't realized it yet, but Derek has sort of adopted Buffy as de facto little sister.

"It was definitely something. All I had all day was water and coffee. I guess it could've been the soylent, but I barely ate any today…" he says thoughtfully. He huffs a little. "Thank God for small favors," he agrees to the sentiment that, clearly, it's worn off. Idiots, indeed.

Thinking he's seen something moving in the corner of his eye, Derek whirls in place, his fingertips digging into Buffy's thighs to keep from dropping her. "What was that? Did you see that? You saw that, right? Somebody's following us," he hisses.

It's nice to have someone they can trust here, someone they're comfortable with. When she first met Derek, she wouldn't have put money on her person being him, but she's really glad it's worked out this way.

"Yeah, yeah," she mumbles, still not pleased with the turn of events, but he's right. It could absolutely be worse. They're actually about the same age, but she doesn't mind Derek thinking of her like a little sister. She's never been a younger sibling. It's nice. He's certainly become a de facto big brother.

"I didn't eat much soylent either, but I did have a lot of coffee. Caffeine doesn't usually do much for me." Caffeine doesn't do much for her when she's a slayer because she metabolizes it too quickly for it to do much. She forgets she doesn't have that same metabolism here. "I used to drink it by the gallon at work." When she was a barista, or at least it had felt like it.

He whirls and she tightens her arms, not paying so much attention to whether or not she's strangling him as she had been. "Yeah...a shadow, right? But we just came off the elevator. Were they watching for us? Maybe it's just...someone like us." Someone prowling around after curfew.

Derek pauses at that. "I had a lot of coffee, too, today," he replies. "It doesn't have an effect on me back home, but now that I'm just human, it gives me a little bit of a boost, but I usually just have a cup or two during the morning meeting. I've been drinking it all day," he says. Oh God, they drugged the coffee. That has to be it, they drugged the coffee and he'd been drinking it like water all day. Panic starts to set in. Things with Katniss could've been exponentially worse, but he hadn't had a cup in a while and he'd been able to grab ahold of his right mind for a few minutes in time to separate himself from her.

He could've been Buffy and Alcide if he'd grabbed one more cup of coffee before she'd started dancing with him. Jesus...

His arm fidgets under her leg, like he wants to raise his hand to run it through his hair but he can't because he's holding up her weight instead. It feels like the world is spinning too fast around him for him to keep up mentally with it.

At least Buffy's seen it this time; they've both seen the shadow and they're being followed. He knows it. They must be. "Yeah, a shadow. Of course they were watching us, there's cameras everywhere, Buffy, this place is like the Big Brother house on crack. Everywhere we go, everything we do, we're being watched. Maybe we shouldn't be out tonight. We should go back. Don't you think we should go back and just try again tomorrow?"

"Yeah, it has more of an effect on me here too." If she sounds disgruntled at that, it's because she is. She's gotten used to not having her powers here, but that didn't mean she liked it. They'd drugged the coffee and Buffy is grumpy about it, even pissed because things had been almost as bad as they possibly could be.

For his sake, and Katniss's, she's glad that they hadn't ended up like her and Alcide.

Buffy is actually pretty glad she's not standing and that she's with someone she doesn't even remotely want to hit.

She takes a sharp breath, holding it as indecision whirls around her. There's a big part of her that still wants to explore, that wants to rebel, that's fearless, but the coffee really is wearing off, or it's effect on her is changing. Either way, she finally agrees with Derek. "Yeah. Okay. That might be a good idea."

Especially since she's hurt.

The stark realization that hunters — slayers; whatever — in Buffy's world are more powerful than humans would've put Derek on edge again, in this state, except that he's more focused on worrying about the fact that there's someone following them, Buffy's injured, and Derek's no good without his wolf.

Relief washes over him when Buffy agrees that they should go back, so he moves right back into the elevator. This time, he doesn't put her down. Once they reach their floor, there's no fumbling to get her back up on his back, so he just heads down the hall and gets them to their room. After setting Buffy down on her bed, he moves to his and wishes her good night before getting comfortable and letting himself drift off. They can try again tomorrow. Tonight is a bust.

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Daycycle 112 [ October 16 - October 22 ]

daycycle 112

[Oct 16 - Oct 22]

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