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Daycycle 124 [January 29 - February 4]

daycycle 124

[Jan 29 - Feb 4]

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

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

No Specials will be selected for a mission today.

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

At 0900, Allison Argent will be reassigned to Armed Forces' Very Special Forces firm under Steve Rogers.

At 1300, VIOLET judge Bethany Abbott will be discovered dead in her chambers. Her death will ultimately be ruled murder by poisonous gas. Mind Control will immediately begin running coverage on her accomplishments, including the controversial decision less than a week ago to drop the treason charges against Oliver Queen and Parker and return them to Alpha. Once again, the letters "MOD" will be found at the crime scene. This time carved across Abbott's desk underneath her slumped body.

Gracie Cannell will be pulled from her blog to cover the breaking news due to her Special status.
News of the murder will spread like wildfire across Alpha, inciting fear in higher clearance citizens because VIOLET citizens were believed to be untouchable. In lower clearance citizens, the event will be enough to get ASS vocal again. Within hours there will be anti-special messages spray painted across Alpha.

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 1800 in the Wagon Wheel, floor 25, Room H and will be held by the Extreme Ironing Club. This group is for those Alpha citizens who can't get their uniforms wrinkle-free enough. (Though anyone who may attend this incredibly boring sounding meeting, will actually find an established Free Enterprise dice game in progress instead.)

During the dinner rush, at 1900 a group of twenty ASS members in masks and armed with steel bars will form a brief demonstration in the Commissary in which they chant "Down with Specials." If there happens to be any Specials present in the Commissary at that time, they will attack them with malice.

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

After seeing the news, Cisco's decided that maybe it's not the worst thing in the world to tote the new and not quite complete heat gun with him in addition to the standard issue laser gun that Cisco absolutely plans to tweak into something less useless and way more cool once he finishes the commissioned weapons. The Citizen Improvement activity for the night sounds like a holy crap bore, so after an early dinner, Cisco heads back to his room to take a nap. Then, he's headed back to the Commissary and to True Alpha, where he plans to stay up until curfew working out the last minute kinks on the heat gun. At the moment, he can't really control it all that well. Sometimes it shoots out like a firehose only, you know, with fire and other times, it'll fire quick little bursts of flames. Before he can call the project complete, he needs to iron that out so that those are individual settings rather than spontaneous responses to the trigger being squeezed.

Once in the Commissary, he has to weave his way through the crowds to get to True Alpha and he doesn't register right away what's going on. There's always commotion in the Commissary; that comes with the territory of being a large room wherein everyone congregates for lack of better options to pass their time. It's when he finally realizes that there's chanting — like a protest or something — and what that chanting is that it dawns on him that this is decidedly not good. Never one to jump at being the hero without backup, Cisco turns on his heel to leave again only to find the exit congested with people thinking, probably, the exact same thing.

The whoosh of air beside his head is ultimately what gets his attention, less than the words slandering the Computer off to his left. When he feels that, with a quick ducking movement, he turns to see what the source is, just in time to watch a friend of Gracie's getting whacked in the back of the head with a — seriously?! — steel pipe. "Oh, hell nah," he mutters, frowning for a moment before anger gets the best of him. "Hey!" he shouts, pulling the heat gun out of one of the deep pockets of his jumpsuit and holding it up to face the sky. "Say hello to my little friend!" he shouts in a mediocre impression of Al Pacino's Scarface. Cisco squeezes the trigger and the heat gun gurgles out a few quick puffs of fire before shooting out a long burst looking like a torch.

He lets go of the trigger only for a second before pointing it at the dude with the pipe. "Didn't anybody ever tell you not to bring a pipe to a gun fight?"

Alcide has never been a fan of guns. Yes he grew up in the South and he knows how to shoot and hunt, of course. But he's always had teeth and claws and guns were ultimately used to hunt him and other shifters. So even if he knew there were things like heat guns to carry around like no big deal, he probably wouldn't want one. But at the same time, how come he doesn't know about heat guns??? Really, it has to be that he just doesn't know the right people. Someday he needs to fix that. Today, he's just relying on brute strength to get him through, which, to be honest, has very rarely failed him.

Needless to say, when his momentary daze starts to clear, after he hears what sounds to him like Al Pacino's line from Scarface, and he turns to see the boy holding a gun that shoots fire, he wonders why he doesn't know about those and if he would want one even if he could get it. Maybe. No. Yes. Maybe. He shakes his head again and pushes up to standing. "Where'd you get that?"

The masked man who had attacked him and had been momentarily stunned by the appearance of a fire gun turns on Alcide again. And this time, Alcide catches the pipe in his fist before it can hit him. His eyes glow yellow briefly and bones shift beneath his skin. Nails extend to claws and Alcide almost starts to shrink into large wolf size before everything shifts back. For a moment he's stunned at his almost transformation. But then he spins the guy around and slams a fist into the back of his head, knocking him out.

Alcide tosses the bar aside as the masked man falls to the floor and he looks at Cisco... Gracie's friend (boyfriend?), he now recognizes him. "Thanks for that. You okay?" He rubs a hand on the back of his own head where he'd been hit and it comes away with blood. Then he realizes what just happened. He'd almost shifted. The realization is clearly startling. "Holy shit. I almost..." He looks at Cisco, wondering how much he saw.

The loose threat and the smugness with which Cisco delivered it is probably what spurs the protesters into action after they stand staring at him for a moment, uncertain about the weapon — at best, illegally obtained in the black market; at worst, something new they've never seen before — and Cisco turns the gun out to the crowd. "Don't make me go all Heat Wave on your asses," he warns, not that he thinks any of them will have a damn clue that he's talking about Captain Cold's partner in crime back home. His eyes shift over to Gracie's friend and he grins even though he's panting for breath; he might not have been doing much, but the adrenaline is surging through him like a freight train.

"I made it," he says, but before the other man has a chance to respond again, Cisco notices the other man swinging and shouts, "look out!"

Alcide grabs the pipe, though, like it's nothing and then...something happens to him that Cisco can't explain and his aim goes a little slack. "Holy shhhhh..." he starts and trails off as the (much) larger man fights back, finally acquiring and tossing the steel pipe aside along with the man in the mask.

"What the what?" he breathes, "dude, that was awesome!" He's lost the gratitude in his own awe and excited incredulity. A movement behind Alcide catches Cisco's attention and he notices another protester coming through. Pop culture references are kind of his thing, not unlike the names, and this one slips out before he can stop it, pointing the heat gun around Alcide and at the other protester. "Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!" he says before squeezing the trigger again. He should feel more horrified when the flames engulf the man even as Cisco lets go of the trigger. Instead, he has a flashback from the R&D Explosion and Cisco's tone goes cold. "Don't worry about the pain; your nerves will be the first to go," he says in a low voice before leaning back against the nearest pillar as the man on fire drops like a stone to the ground. "Dude, we gotta get out of here," he says, looking back at Alcide. "Before more of them show up."

This guy has the best fighting quips that Alcide has ever heard. He's never been the witty type or very pop culture literate. Alcide was always too busy for TV or reading or much of anything outside of running a business and sometimes saving his friend's asses. He's seen a few of the classics because of his dad, but other than that... he hasn't seen or read much media. But Cisco sounds so witty while he's literally kicking ass. It makes him think of Buffy with her quips while fighting. He likes people like that who always have something entertaining to say in moments of seriousness. It relieves the tension, in a way. And sometimes it's necessary.

It's a lot to take in. This kid made that gun, which is amazing. Alcide knows he just felt his wolf. He knows it. His first thought is to run and tell Zee. But no, it's too chaotic right now for that. He tries to bring the wolf out again. Nothing. "Aw, fuck. Come on." He had a taste. He wants it again. Of course, Cisco can't know how hard he's been working to get his wolf back. What happened? What made it possible?

His gaze is darting around the room at large to try to figure out what might be different about any other time there's been an attack. He can't even process what might be different. Then the gun is pointed around him and Alcide snaps back into the present to turn and see the fire engulf the man. With a deep growl he slams his foot into the man's chest to push the burning man away from himself and Cisco.

Alcide turns back to Cisco, who is clearly not as alert, at least momentarily, as he was before, and nods. "Yeah, follow me." With a hand at his shoulder he pushes through the crowd, slamming heads together and throwing people out of his way, punching others, as long as they're wearing masks and carrying metal bars. He's getting this guy out of here. Because if Cisco can make things like guns that shoot fire, then he's important. Also, Gracie likes him and Alcide likes Gracie. And last, but not least, Cisco just saved his life, he thinks.

"Oh man," Cisco breathes as the other man puts a hand on his shoulder to lead him through the crowd. It's like it occurs to him belatedly what he's actually done and he's starting to feel sick to his stomach. That's some Reverb style action, right there, and that's not Cisco. This place is ruining him. This place is going to turn him into goddamn Reverb if he's not careful.

It does occur to him that this guy is trying to save his ass because he's made a cool gun, or because of Gracie, because he's too caught in his own head. He's no better than these guys, now. He just isn't. And now...he's going to have to hope to God his face isn't on camera or figure out a way to hack into the system — God, where is Felicity Smoak when you need her? — to erase the footage because if making the gun is treason, which it probably is, using it on a regular Alpha is almost definitely even worse.

Cisco navigates through in a haze, firing little shots of flame from the gun to ward people off, but he's careful not to repeat his previous action by actually hitting anyone. Between that and the way this huge dude is throwing punches, it's more than a little bit of a relief that they manage to get back out of the Commissary and Cisco wants nothing more than to collapse against the nearest wall and lose his shit officially, but even right here, it's not safe.

"Where do we go now? Where the hell do we go now?" he asks. He'd worry about Gracie — he does, but at the same time, he isn't — if he didn't think she's probably somewhere a little more safe doing a news report right now. If he had any idea that he was wrong about that, he'd be right back in there looking for her. Then again, she does have the cold gun, so maybe she'd be okay anyway.

Alcide is helping Cisco out for a lot of reasons, truthfully. Yes, there's the gun and the fact that he knows this guy is tied to Gracie. There's also the fact that he basically just saved Alcide's life and Alcide wants to return the favor. It's clear that Cisco is a little bit lost in his own mind, which, gun or not, would make him a sitting duck in the chaos of the commissary. No way would Alcide leave someone so clearly in that state of mind in the fray. He's just not that kind of guy.

Gracie's boyfriend saved him. Now Alcide is saving Gracie's boyfriend. It's as simple as that, really.

Out in the hallway, Alcide looks around the immediate area. One of the masked men flees out into the hallway and Alcide is quick to grab him by his shirt and shove him up against the opposite wall. He pulls his mask off so he can see his face, a frightened face now that he sees the Specials are fighting back, and Alcide hisses at him. "Masks are for scared little boys. You gonna do somethin', own it. We're not your enemies, you fuckin' stupid ass piece of shit."

Alcide rips the crowbar from the man's hand and then lets him go. The guy flees down the hallway and Alcide drops the crowbar to the ground with a clang. He looks back to Cisco. "We need to get you somewhere you can think clearly. You're a little... off. You did what you had to do, that's it. You saved me. Plain and simple. For that, yeah, thanks don't seem like enough to repay you with. Where's your room? Where do you feel the safest?"

Cisco makes a mental note never to get on this guy's bad side; even without a weapon, he's practically a weapon in and of himself. He's huge and he's unafraid. That makes him a pretty good guy to have on one's side and an especially bad one to piss off.

The smaller Special is watching the now unmasked flee after being exposed and bullied (and rightfully so), so it takes him a second to look back over at Alcide when the other man speaks to him again.

"I'm usually the sidekick in the lab buzzing in the hero's ear," he admits, but that probably only really makes sense to Cisco. He's going to turn into Reverb at this rate and that terrifying to him; it's all he can think about right now.

Where is his room? Well, not the place he feels safest right now, that's for sure, but trying to get to the Specials Headquarters is too dangerous. "Down on twelve," he says numbly, "1204. Shit, my roommate will still be up here; she's VSF. I should be going back to help her out, I know my gun is a million times better than anything they'll arm her with…"

And yet...he's so ready to get the hell out of here.

Alcide doesn't suffer fools lightly, he never has. And these people, the ASS members, attacking innocent people with little to no provocation when there's a bigger enemy here, are fools. So while he had no intention of bullying the guy, more knocking some common sense into him, maybe it does come across as bullying and for that, he's sorry. Alcide isn't someone to really bully anyone.

What Cisco says really doesn't make sense to him except for the sidekick part. He thinks he gets the gist that Cisco isn't usually in the middle of the fray like he was just now, and Alcide goes with that. "Yeah, well today you were the hero... at least as far as I'm concerned." Which probably doesn't mean a whole lot since he doesn't know Alcide and just saw him get in another guy's face. But, whatever.

He gives Cisco a few moments to think through his answer and then shakes his head, placing a large hand on his arm. "Hey. You sure that's the best idea given where your head's at right now?" If Cisco says yes, then Alcide will go back into the fray with him, keep people off of him while Cisco uses the gun. He still isn't sure Cisco isn't a little off from what he'd had to do in there to save Alcide.

Was he, though? Was he the hero? Because, in Cisco's experience, Barry is the hero: he saves the innocent people and he locks up the bad guys. He doesn't set them on fire. Cisco runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head a little, more to himself than in direct contradiction to Alcide.

The large man places a hand on his arm and Cisco looks up at the question, huffing out a humorless laugh. "No," he admits. "But I can't just bail out. I've got this weapon and it can do a lot more than most of the weapons even VSF has. Buffy's in there. Gracie might be in there. I can't just...chicken out and run away with my tail between my legs. I have to go back."

He looks back up at Alcide and the other man can probably see in his eyes that, while the decision is made, Cisco knows he doesn't like the decision. He doesn't want to go back in there. But that's the thing about doing the right thing: you don't always like it, but it's still the right thing. Cisco takes a deep breath. "No, I gotta go back in. I gotta go back in there."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Daycycle 124 [January 29 - February 4]

daycycle 124

[Jan 29 - Feb 4]

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