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Daycycle 115 [ November 6 - November 12 ]

daycycle 115

[Nov 6 - Nov 12]

[OOC Plotting for this Daycycle can be found here.]
[The latest from the Alpha Interwebs can be found here.]

Early, Early Morning [0500 - 0800]
Rooms 1101, 1103 and 1202 will be woken up at 0500 when two squadrons of Internal Security Gray Ops come to arrest Oliver Queen, Peggy Carter, Parker and Julianne Holtzmann for treason. All but Parker will be led away at gun point and their roommates, Bucky Barnes, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Felicity Smoak, Isabelle Lightwood, Zatanna Zatara and Jack Harkness will be immediately taken into IntSec for questioning. They will be questioned separately about the activities of their former roommates, suspicious activity concerning their remaining roommates and their own loyalties. (The intensity of the questioning is up to the player.) They will not be released until the Early Morning briefing. A complex wide manhunt for Parker will be initiated.

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

Special Troubleshooters, Emma Swan and Jack Harkness have been selected for the following mission.

Survey Citizens using simple word-association interviews. Flag anyone that uses the following words, "terrorist, secret, anarchy, moist..."

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.

All Troubleshooters not assigned a mission should report to their Service Firm for their daily duties, unless specifically assigned a different shift.

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 the Commissary and will be hosted by The Teela O'Malley Fan Club. Join us as we gather to celebrate Alpha Complex's #1 cebrity!

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Zatanna tries not to register jealousy at all, even though she feels it. Rob trusts Lydia and he doesn't trust a whole lot of people, in her experience. Mostly, just the team. It makes her wonder whether Rob likes the other girl. Plus, Lydia's really pretty and Zatanna can't compete with the way the girl looks in addition to the confidence she seems to carry. Zee isn't self-conscious, but neither is she extroverted and self-assured. What normal teenager is? Clearly, Lydia is a pod person or something.

"Yeah, she's nice. Robin trusts her, so," she says. She shrugs. Indifference is better than envy, right?

Alcide isn't far off what Zatanna has been thinking ever since finding her friend here, but it's more complicated than that; it has to be if he hasn't already solved the problem. ...unless she and Alcide are the only ones missing something… Zee files that thought away to ask Robin next time she sees him.

Snorting with amusement, Zatanna nods. "That makes two of us," she replies. She's never been all that interested in computers, but now she wishes she had been.

His response earns him a bright smile. Beaming back at him in a mixture of relief and appreciation, Zatanna shakes her head. "I don't care what you wear. This is going to be so much fun!" she gushes as she turns a corner and leads them down an especially dark alley. They're nearing the warehouse where Specials HQ is hiding. "Just a little further," she updates him.

Lydia is beautiful, yes. But Alcide has had some beautiful women in his life that weren't so beautiful on the inside. He has no reason to think that Lydia is off in any way inside or out aside from the fact that she is extremely confident for someone her age. But he's also had time to learn that looks aren't everything. Give him someone who's both pretty and shines from the inside out like Zee, Gracie or Buffy any day over someone who's beautiful but can't be reached beyond the superficial. Time will tell with Lydia. But as far as Alcide is concerned, Zee is way ahead in that regard.

However, a lot of people seem to trust Lydia. That says something too.

Her excitement is enough to let him know that he did the right thing and it's gonna be okay. No matter what, Alcide wants to make sure she has a good time at this thing. He'll do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.

The dark alley is a little disconcerting. He wishes he had his heightened senses so he could better feel his way through it. As it is, his normal human senses are on high alert, as high alert as they can be. Really, this is proof of how much he trusts Zee, his just blindly following her as he is. "What do people do in this place? Secret meetings?"

Zatanna shakes her head a little. "No, I think they just...like hang out," she says with a little shrug. Zatanna hasn't really had a chance to talk to Robin in depth about the time he's spent here, so she doesn't know a lot about the origins of the Specials HQ, she just knows they keep it top secret so that it can be just for Specials.

Zee just sort of assumes that they don't tell all the Specials at once because Specials keep getting dragged away for treason and they want to be sure that they're letting the right ones in. Translation: the ones that won't give them and their headquarters up in a second to save their own asses. As someone who is a member of a team that used to be pretty need to know only, Zatanna can respect that. She wouldn't be bringing Alcide if she wasn't sure bff was trustworthy.

She reaches the door of the warehouse and looks over her shoulder once more, pulling the door open only when she's satisfied that they're alone. "Ta-da," Zatanna presents with a little smirk as she leads Alcide in. They're greeted by a little metal dog, one that Robin had been playing with when she'd gotten here the first time. "He plays fetch. I don't know whose he is, but he's cute though. Anyway, this is Specials HQ," she says as she shuts the door behind them. "Nothing crazy special but it's safe. Rob insisted that it's safe." Which, to Zatanna, is probably the most important part.

Likewise, Alcide is used to keeping an entire species a secret until recently. And the fact that the cat (or the wolf as it were) was let out of the bag on TV in front of the entire world was not his doing, not his fault. He's seen people hate on Vampires a long time. Now they have something else to hate on too. If he'd had his way, he would've kept that secret forever. So needless to say, like Zatanna, he's good at keeping things to himself.

He can understand the need for discretion. If this place is secret, maybe Alcide can find some people there who can further help him understand this place, the way parts of them are carved out of them, and everything else. He's hopeful, knowing about this place.

Even if Zee says it's just for hanging out, Alcide is hopeful that it's... something more.

When she looks back, Alcide does too just to make sure they're alone. He'll keep watching behind them even as he follows her inside, up until the doors are shut. The metal dog is weirdly cute. And Alcide has to wonder what that's about. He isn't sure what he was expecting, something more clandestine and... super secret agent-y, he guesses. This is just a warehouse, nothing more. Still, if it's safe, there's the possibility of something more between the Specials.

"This is good." He says with a nod as he looks around. "It's... promising." In the way that people are doing things against the Computer's wishes. He likes that.

"Yeah," Zatanna agrees, wandering a little further inside. "I guess this is where Lydia started making the soaps and stuff and I don't know what this thing is," she says, walking closer to the board filled with little posts, strings and knots all over the place. If she knew better, she'd realize that it's Stiles's board, but she doesn't, so to Zatanna, it just looks like a mess.

She turns to face him again. This place is kind of dumpy, but it's nice to know that no one who isn't already in the know will ever find them down here. It means that the Specials have a space to do things they shouldn't be doing...like what she and Alcide are trying to do: find a way to get their abilities back. Granted, there's not much by way of the materials or information they'd probably need around here right now, but it makes for a good base camp once they figure out how to get started.

"So yeah, welcome to Specials HQ, Al," she says with a cheerful little grin. "Not too shabby for starters, huh?"

Alcide follows her to the board and his eyes narrow as he tries to make sense of it too. Maybe he's still too new here for it to make sense cause he's having a hard time following, just like Zee. Given time, he might catch on to whatever someone is trying to do here.

"Not too shabby at all." He turns, looks up at the ceilings for any cameras. There are none. He likes that. It brings with it a sense of freedom. Not that Alcide ever pays them much attention anyway, but he knows everyone else does. People will be more willing to talk in this space.

He looks at Zee, a corner of his lips pulling upward. "I bet people talk a little more freely in here than they do out there. Maybe we can figure out what they know, who we need to talk to." Truthfully, Alcide is on the doorstep of doing something stupid, probably, like trying to be a one man army. But this, knowing this is here, it helps.

At his mention of the ability to talk more freely, Zatanna's face lights up like she's just realized something. That's because she has. There's a system in place for the cameras and she's learned it. She just hasn't had a chance to mention it to Alcide yet. "Oh! Oh! Oh gosh, I almost forgot! Speaking of...speaking more freely," she says, moving back toward the little sofa which has clearly seen better days and dropping down onto it.

"Not all the cameras that look like they work actually work," she says quietly. "Rob has a system in place. Look for the dots. One dot means the visual is broken but the audio is still functional. Two dots mean the camera is offline, so it looks like it's recording, but it isn't," she tells him. She'd nearly forgotten and it's such an important thing, she thinks. The cameras are everywhere, but Rob made it sound like only half of them actually work properly and whether he is the reason for that or not is outside her scope of knowledge but if she had to wager a guess...well. It's Robin.

Alcide is still standing, not because he has problems with dirty couches, he's just got too much going on in his mind at the moment to even think about sitting still. The wolf, if he had it, would be restless as hell right now. At this point it's just habit to give into what the wolf would do or be, etc. He's slowly walking from one end of the room to the other, a slow pace back and forth as he listens to Zee.

He only stops when she finishes explaining and looks over to her. "So somehow the Computer hasn't caught on to that and we're... not as watched as we think we are."

The Computer, it seems, makes mistakes. Alcide likes that. Mistakes mean an opening for him. Mistakes mean that the Computer can be tricked. Mistakes mean that there's hope for his sorry ass who doesn't know the first thing about computers to get a foot in the door. "The Computer's imperfect... which is good."

She gives her friend a small nod and a significant look. Yes, they're on the same page with this line of thought. Zatanna knows it before Alcide even says it aloud to confirm her suspicion. The fact that the Computer is flawed is a huge step in the right direction and gives her now, as it did when she originally heard about the cameras, a resurgence of hope.

"Exactly," she says. "And the more I thought about it, the more I keep thinking about it...the Computer is, you know," she adds with a little shrug, eyebrows lifted, "a computer. It can't function on its own. A computer, by definition, is just a device that stores and processes data. Which means...it will never be perfect because it has to be programmed by an imperfect being: a human."

That's the thing about computers. They only ever do exactly what they're told. Someone programmed Friend Computer to be the way it is. And that means...someone can reprogram it to be something different.

Edited 2016-11-16 16:32 (UTC)

"So maybe we're in a Wizard of Oz kind of deal." Only the more he thinks about it, they have to be in a Wizard of Oz kind of deal. Because Zatanna is right. There has to be a man or a woman behind the curtain, controlling it all. Or at least there was at some point. And if there no longer is, then the Computer is stagnate - it literally can't change course, or it's mind, so to speak, on any issue anyone might have with it.

Alcide is met with roadblock after roadblock in this place. How in the hell can anyone get to the Computer to... reprogram it. And what if there's actually someone there still controlling it? What if it isn't the Computer they should be worried about at all.

"You know, I've quit looking at the big picture. It's not about gettin' outta here anymore. We've gotta think small and inch our way to where we wanna be. But..." He shakes his head and pushes a hand back through his hair. "Can't find anyone in medical. Can't find anyone who knows what the fuck goes on on the insides of a Computer. I'm sure they're out there. I just... can't find 'em yet. There's only so many people I can throw myself at in a day. And only so much you can learn about a person in a short amount of time without bein' too obvious or intrusive. You know?"

He smirks and looks at Zee. "I'm usually a pretty patient guy. Don't mind admittin' to havin' trouble with it where my wolf's and your powers are concerned."

It takes Zee a second to figure out what he means by that because she hasn't seen the Wizard of Oz since she was a little girl, but it dawns on her. The man behind the curtain. "Yeah, pretty much. I mean, honestly, there's no maybe about it. The Computer is a computer. That's it, full stop. The only question is...is the programmer still working their magic or was it a one time deal that was set into the Computer's hard drive and then said programmer moved on? Because if it's the former...then all we have to do is reprogram it. Slowly."
 Zatanna suddenly wonders if that's why Robin is Alpha's Most Wanted; because he tried to do that already but he got overzealous and impatient and changed too much too quickly and someone noticed the changes were happening when they shouldn't have been.

Alcide sounds a little bit downtrodden when he responds, but Zatanna isn't. "We might have to wait on Medical for a little bit and put that on hold, as much as I hate it, but I do know someone who knows what goes on inside a computer. He's the best hacker I've ever met. Let me talk to him and see what he knows or can figure out. It sucks that we can't just...put together a team so that we can delegate out tasks for a mission and do this all at once like we would back home, but we can still do this. We just have to do it step by step instead of hitting all sides at the same time. That's all," she says hopefully.  "I'm not very good at being patient at all, but just think of it this way: if we take it one step at a time, then we're a lot less likely to get caught. Right?"

It was one of the movies Janice liked when they were younger that Alcide could stomach again and again. That's the only reason he knows about it. Otherwise, Alcide never had much time for television or movies. When she gets it though, and as Alcide listens, he makes a face and shakes his head. "You know somebody?"

He nods at her, because that's the first hopeful thing that isn't 'let's sit on our asses and wait' that he's heard since getting here. He'll take it. He'll take anything that isn't sit and wait.

"I mean I don't mind puttin' myself out there, meetin' people and findin' out what they can do until we find someone who can help us anywhere, medical or computer or however." Alcide isn't a hermit. He can be standoffish but not to the extent that he doesn't like people... certain people. "So... yeah. I'll keep doin' that."

At the question, Zee nods and gives a little smile. "Yeah, I do. I'll see what I can come up with. I can't promise results, because I don't know what kinds of limitations he might run into or whatever; I don't know anything about programming so, you know, it could be a language barrier for all I know, but I can talk to him."

She'll figure something out, but with that in mind, Robin seems like the best place to start, so she makes a mental note to do so the next time she sees him.

Nodding again as she shifts on the couch and then pushes herself back to her feet. "If you're more sociable than me, which most people are in this place I guess, then yeah definitely do that. The more people we know collectively, the easier it'll be to find the links we need and then, you know, we'll know with whom to start to build some trust. It's not going to be a super fast process, but slow and steady wins the race. ...then again, if my friend can do here what he can do back home, then we might not even really have to bother so much with the rest for a little while. Who knows what we can unlock by taking over behind the curtain, you know?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Daycycle 115 [ November 6 - November 12 ]

daycycle 115

[Nov 6 - Nov 12]

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