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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

It should be immediately obvious that something’s wrong. The way Steve reacts — the way he practically freezes when he hears Dick’s voice — is so different from Steve’s normal friendly hellos.

There’s a flash of danger in his eyes as he turns to face Dick. Even now, when doesn’t remember him, he can still see that he’s a kid, and he was relaxed in that chair a moment ago.

“Who are you.” A demand more than a question, as Steve slowly starts to walk his way, on the lookout for anything he could grab as a weapon on his way there. There’s a few possible candidates.

Dick glances over as soon as the words are out of his mouth and his cheerful smile immediately drops when he sees the expression on Steve's face, it is not what he's used to seeing, and his first thought is panic, wondering if he's somehow done something wrong, maybe Steve found out about Dick spying on him while he was in the hospital and was angry about it, or maybe he'd... wait.

Who are you

The question is like a slap to the face and for a long moment Dick just stares at him.

"Ha ha, funny joke Steve," he tries, hoping that he's right, he made a joke about forgetting, Steve is pretending to forget, that's all right? That's... that's it? His voice is weak though, a waver of uncertainty in it.

It seems like every day now Steve is wishing he had his shield again.

“Son, I’m gonna ask you one more time. Who are you. How did you get in here.”

A long time ago, Tony used this as his lab, but Steve’s memory of even that are faulty. But it does mean that there’s still a lot of scrap metal nearby, and he doesn’t pick anything up, but Steve commits everything he sees to memory.

The certainty that it is not a joke drops onto him like a block of ice, because there's no way that Steve would hear that waver in his voice and keep up with the joke, especially not with that serious an expression, not with the way he was cataloguing everything around him - Dick recognised that look, he was watching out for a weapon if necessary.

"Steve... I don't..." he was lost for a moment, uncertain, but he found his feet again and tried to explain "My name is Dick Grayson, I'm your friend, you let me stay here... you really don't remember me at all?"

It’s when Dick says his name that Steve gets his first flash of a memory, like a part of his mind has kicked a single rock out from beneath a landslide. He sees Dick, even younger than he is now, a kid doing trapeze. But it doesn’t make any sense — why would he remember something like that?

But what really works in Dick’s favor, is that Steve doesn’t see any aggression. In fact, he sees a glimmer of sudden loneliness — it’s a look he’s all too familiar with. Steve’s never been one to attack someone who doesn’t mean others harm, so while he stays careful, very careful, his voice isn’t as forceful as it was a moment ago.

“Dick Grayson.”

He says it, like maybe that would trigger another memory, but nothing happens. “I let you stay here?”

It’s hard to process whether this was some kind of trick, or if he’d really lost some part of his memory. If Steve was back home, he’d be heavily learning towards the former, but in Alpha … he remembers getting new memories so clearly that Steve … well, he never thought he’d be thinking this, but maybe it’s possible.

Dick watched him carefully, desperately searching for some glimmer of recognition, for a moment he thought he saw something but it was gone just as quickly. Still, he didn't appear quite as hostile as he did before, perhaps he'd just gotten used to Alpha - it wouldn't be the first time their memories had messed up after all, perhaps it was just another glitch or... he didn't like to think of the alternative. It did at least sort of explain why Steve hadn't brought him any food, he'd forgotten about him because of Alpha meddling (or something similar at least), not because he didn't care.

"You did," he nodded, wondering if it was safe to explain why, after all if they'd taken his memories what else had they taken? It didn't take him long to decide, however, if anything bad had happened to Steve he was already in trouble, this was the safest place in the complex right now and only Steve knew about it, he'd have to go on the run anyway, no matter how much he told Steve now.

"I went off-grid... I needed somewhere to stay the computer couldn't find me, you said I could stay here..."

There’s something odd that clicks in the back of Steve’s mind. Just four days ago, he had been talking to Ronan about what it’s like to go off-grid. He knew so many of the details, even if somehow, he could remember who it was exactly that he’d helped navigate those details.

“Why are you off-grid, and-“ Steve considers for a moment what to ask. “How do we know each other?”

Maybe something at the beginning will help him remember — but in the meantime, he backs up a little, to go check the security settings at the door. Just like how the normal Specials HQ has a lock that can identify authorized individuals, Tony had built something like that for this facility as well. Only Steve himself has the ability to add people (or so he believes, since he doesn’t remember Dick, or his hacking skills), so if he’s in there …

He’s still careful though, and Steve never has his back to the kid, even if sometimes it made for awkward angles.

It's a little off-putting to see Steve back up to check the security without turning away from him, and even though part of him understands it, he's still hurt that his friend trusts him so little. Still, he knows that Steve will find the settings are changed to let him enter, so he doesn't make any move to stop him.

"It just seemed easier, I wanted to try and find out what I could about this place, the more information we have the more we can figure out what to do, or if we need to do anything. There's already plenty of people checking up from the inside, so I figured I could be the... I don't know, ghost in the machine I guess," he laughed a little. "I mean I was already pretty good at stealth and I fought crime without any super powers before, so I don't have anything less here." Sure he was without Batman's resources, but he had plenty of ingenuity to make up for it.

"We've both been here a while, we met probably when there was a memory glitch a while back and we swapped memories. You're sort of... you've been one of my closest friends..." he tried not to let the sadness creep into his voice but he knew it was there anyway. He at least managed to stop himself explaining that Steve was an almost paternal figure, not when he hadn't mentioned anything like that even before this little incident.

Sure enough, Dick’s photograph, name — everything needed to give him access — was there. And yet, Steve still doesn’t remember inputting any of that information. He has to consider the fact that somehow, this place has been hacked. That Dick is just stalling to keep him here.

And yet.

When Dick brings up the fact that he’s been a friend, that they’d met during a memory glitch awhile back, well, that’s something Steve does remember. Even if his memory of it has been adjusted to take Dick out. So he remembers the idea of seeing someone else’s memory, but he doesn’t remember whose, or what they were. That’s at least something for them to go off of.

And then there’s that very real sounding sadness he hears in Dick’s voice.

“I remember the memory swaps. Someone in the MemoMax facilities had messed up, they’d told us. So somehow, we had other people’s memories put in our heads.”

But Steve doesn’t go past that. He doesn’t say, and I remember getting yours.

"Yea," Dick nodded, encouraging, hoping that whatever had been done to Steve had been done poorly enough that he could get through it somehow. There had to be an answer to this, but he wasn't sure he wanted to hack into the computer systems with Steve standing right there, there were clues to be found but he couldn't go looking for them until he'd convinced Steve that he was who he said he was.

"I think something like that's happened again," was what he did say "Something that's taken away your memories of me maybe... it wouldn't be the weirdest thing that's happened since we got here, I mean, that memory I got of you in the plane was so vivid... and you... you remembered my days at the circus, right? And me with my dad I think?" he was pretty sure that was roughly what Steve had told him he'd remembered from Dick's past, he hoped the details were still similar enough that it would add weight to his argument, if he was describing things that Steve did remember, maybe it would help convince him.

"Do you remember the party? My birthday? Lydia threw a party...?"

What Steve could really use is some video footage of him and Dick interacting. Not that he knows to ask for that, or that Dick would even be capable of pulling that kind of archival clip up, but it'd be proof of what he's saying. That Steve's memories have been altered. Ever since he's gotten here, he only remembers getting more memories, not losing ones, but Steve supposes that makes sense.

How could he remember the things he's forgotten?

"No." It's instinctual, the way Steve responds because he really doesn't remember any kind of party. Or birthday. No one celebrated birthdays here because they didn't know what day or year it really was. But something Dick had said other still stuck with him.

"Tell me about the plane."

His shoulders slumped when Steve immediately responds negatively, although he didn't know what he was expecting, why would Steve remember a party if he couldn't remember the person the party was for? He wondered if anybody else remembered, if everybody would forget him by the time his next birthday came around.

"The plane?" he repeated, a little bit of hope creeping back into his expression. Maybe he could convince Steve of something, at least, if he could tell him everything he remembered "It was too dangerous to land, you had to crash it somewhere safe, you were speaking to a woman over the comms, Peggy I think you called her... it was so... it was sad, I remember feeling that. You had her picture in a compass... and... and you told her you'd need a raincheque on the dance." it was difficult, even now, to talk about it, the emotions connected to the memory had felt so real.

Yes, the plane. It's clear that Steve's ready to hear about it in a way that hasn't been the case since the moment he stepped through the door.

He looks like a statue, standing there, tense, just listening. Until Dick mentions the compass. No one else was there to know that he'd opened up that compass. But Steve remembers the footage they played in the Smithsonian. He'd been studying a map over the hood of a jeep. The whole world saw his compass with Peggy's photo inside.

But the wording. A raincheck. No one except him and Peg were part of that conversation.

Steve remembers every single word he said during those last few minutes of his life. Every one seemed to matter because they'd be the last words that Peggy should have ever heard from him, and Dick had gotten that part right.

He takes a breath.

Then he grabs ahold of the back of a nearby chair, pivots it around, and takes a seat.

"Dick Grayson," he says again, his mind finally willing to accept that he knows this kid, and just like that, the original memories he got from Dick that day during the MemoMax mess-up come back. Not just as a flash, but as a real memory.

"You ..." He blinks as his hand comes up over his forehead for a moment. "... grew up, doing trapeze ... ?"

Dick almost held his breath after he'd finished speaking, watching Steve sit down and waiting for his verdict... and just like that, he almost sees the recognition dawn. He isn't sure what, exactly, Steve has remembered or how clear that memory is, but there's a spark of something and that's all he needs to bring his hope crashing back.

"Yes!" he nodded excitedly, catching himself with a sheepish smile and trying to tone it down and contain it a little more, not wanting to startle or scare off Steve when they were finally making progress "I mean, yes, I grew up in a circus with my parents."

"Why do I remember that?" he asks, more to himself than to Dick, because the more he thinks about it, the clearer the memory becomes. And yet ... there's no flood of memories to fill in the gaps or to explain why he's here, sitting in the Avengers HQ with a kid who grew up in the circus.

A hand come up over lips, framing his face and dragging down to try and relieve the confusion. Maybe if Dick could tell him something — anything else — he could remember.

"Because you got my memories, and I got yours," Dick explained patiently, he didn't feel particularly patient, but he knew this was a delicate operation and he would have to take it slowly or Steve might freak out.

"I promise we were friends, you said I could stay here when I went off grid, you used to bring me food... cornflakes, if you could get them, they were my favourite..." he didn't know if that little detail would be enough to spark something more, but he also knew that details were important, it was the little things that could trigger people's recollections, even in normal circumstances.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Daycycle 124 [January 29 - February 4]

daycycle 124

[Jan 29 - Feb 4]

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