Daycycle 2 [ November 4-6 ]

[computerized]

DAYCYCLE 2

[ November 4-6 ]

Morning

Breakfast goes mostly without incident this morning, though some might find some unpleasant pieces of hardware in their soylent red this morning.  It appears a drone, blinded by an inappropriate use of upholstery, crashed and landed in a vat of the mixing stuff yesterday.  On the plus side, there might be some useful tech salvageable for those willing to break it out and piece it together.

As a special, you are still being singled out by the majority of the other Troubleshooters, though two or three offer congratulations to Parker and Bucky Barnes on their mission yesterday. It’s rare that one contestant makes it through an entire run of Trouble Survivor, let alone two.  If their behavior hadn’t been quite so eccentric, MC might have thought of offering them a permanent spot on the entertainment network.  As it is, they are back in the Troubleshooting pool with everyone with the added benefit of being minor celebrities.

Your Briefing Officer is brief, as always, in assigning missions.  Today’s fare is much less interesting.

Troubleshooter Team: Alec Hardison & Maria Hill

Mission:  Shortly before her fatal accident, Janice Remes performed a complete inventory of Warehouse 93, but they still haven’t forwarded her written reports to Production Control.  We’ve made numerous electronic requests for information, but they keep telling us the report isn’t there.  Go to the warehouse and find her report so we can bring Warehouse’s 93’s incompetence to Internal Security’s attention.

Troubleshooter Team: Natasha Romanoff & Matt Ferrall

Mission:There was a mutant attack on a guard outside of the Armed Forces Sector last night.  The mutant scum was injured in the scuffle, but managed to escape with valuable intel.  Your mission is to track down the injured mutant and retrieve the intel.  

All other Troubleshooters:  You are to report to your Service Firm positions for the day, until called on for Troubleshooter duty.

Intel

• Corpore Metal is recruiting again.  Members are most recognizable by their metal upgrades.  Metal upgrades are not traitorous, unless they are beyond current allowed specifications.  

• The vending machine on the 24th floor was distributing exploding bottles of Bouncy Bottle Beverage.  This is dangerous when opened near a flame.  Inspect all bouncy bottle beverages you see and request information on it’s origin.

Afternoon:

The afternoon is blessedly free of explosions or mishaps.  At 1600 Corridor Running takes place in the RED sleeping corridors, as races are held to see who can beat each other’s best times.  This results in some infighting among the RED Troubleshooters, but is casualty free.

Evening:

At approximately 1800 the Armed Forces Entertainers put on a show in the Commissary for citizens of all clearance levels.  A banner is hung across the front of a stage that reads “Winning the War on Treason for over 100 yearcycles!”  The show consists of dancers, singers and a celebrity visit from everyone’s favorite talk show host, Teela O’Malley.  Sleep aid gas is expelled into the sleeping quarters at 2100.

Comments

[offtherail]

Parker's literally volatile mood swing confuses Bucky and he watches the bottle fly before fixing her with a slightly bewildered frown. The missing pill was not yet noticed and the soldier fixes his attention back on her for a moment.

"You're going to hit someone with those, forget drinking it." It had been years since he drank kool-aid. 1978 was beyond his knowledge time frame, as was the phrase.

"Calm the hell down and speak English for once, Parker." his frustration was spiked by a combination of coming down off his morning dose and his own inability to follow her rhetoric at times.

[whosalicewhite]

"I'm not going to hit anyone." Thus far, all damage has been to the ground, or plants. She's not come close to hitting anyone.

Parker glares even more at the English comment, but decides to play with it. "Hablo Inglés, imbécil. Se podría entender si usted no estaba drogado." She may have just told him if he wasn't completely stoned asshole, he'd understand she was speaking English.

Not now, just to confuse him. Parker struggles to make herself understood. Obfuscating the point is like breathing. Purposefully obfuscating the point is just fun.

Picking up another bottle, she holds it out to him. "Bebe esto, es mejor para usted." And now she's suggesting it would be better for him to drink the explosive beverage, than drink the Kool-Aid.

One thing Parker is making clear, she finds him disgusting.

[offtherail]

Parker is an unending source of confused frustration for Bucky. He doesn't dislike her, he just can't even begin to understand her. She seems more wild animal than human at times and trying to deal with her is like trying to tell a cat what to do. On the off chance she listens, it's far more likely she just had decided to do that on her own.

He hasn't noticed the missing pill yet, and with his focus on Parker's explosive shenanigans and now her spanish, one of the languages he had not begun to learn, he just stares at her with an increasing desire to pull his own hair out.

"Okay." He's exasperated at this point and Parker is worse than dealing with drunk Morita and Dugan combined. "Blow the place up. knock yourself out until the suits come to drag you away for the hundreds of things they consider treasonous." Why was he even trying? He shoved his hands back into his pockets. This encounter had done nothing to calm his edged nerves and he needed the pill stashed away there but it was gone, and either he suddenly had holes in his pockets or someone had pinched it. Someone of which there was only one.

At least part of her anger was starting to make sense.

"I won't interfere in your business, but if we're playing that game then we are both doing it. Give it back, Parker."

[whosalicewhite]

Whatever frustrations Parker is causing, she doesn't care. Up until now, she was sure all the Reds were in the same boat: trapped by the nefarious plans of some computers with sanity worse than hers. The one thing they can do to be sure they won't be controlled completely is stay off the drugs.

In a strange way, Parker is protecting him. Her version of protection might involve finding strange ways to dispose of exploding beverages, or preventing others in this armada from from drinking the Kool-Aid.

"I'm not playing." That pill is now about to go over the wall with some beverage.

[offtherail]

"God Damn It Parker." Bucky moved to the edge of the building, staring down at the ground below with a frustrated groan. He pressed his face into his hands and rubbed his face roughly. What the hell was her problem? He needed that god damn pill.

"That's medication you -" He swallowed his words with a strangled huff. Cursing in front of women, no matter how unwomanly they acted, was not something he had been raised to do. "I need those pills to function."

[whosalicewhite]

The way Chucky says god damn it, Parker reminds her of Eliot. It's a positive association, but negated by the fact Eliot would never take drugs.

Then he lies to her about the drugs. She knows exactly what it is and what it's for. People tried to do this to her once, and that was a mistake. "It's not medication Pendejo." Well, time to throw about the Spanish insults too.

"It's how they stop you from being you, and make you what they want you to be. It's not you."

Her logic is flawless.

[offtherail]

"It's functional me." He can't keep the agitation out of his comments. How could she understand? She didn't have to see his fellow soldiers taken out in front of him by bullets and explosions.

She didn't have to relive his nightmares, being strapped to a cold hard table and tortured until he fell unconsciousness every night or feel the panic that shot through him without warning when somewhere in the complex and explosion, a drill or a pop that sounded just a little too close to gunfire set him off so he came to somewhere else in the Complex, either trying to hide or getting into a fight that for once he hadn't meant to start.

"Let me worry about what I do to myself." It was the most level headed response he could manage under the circumstances and he fully intended to leave her there. He was down to two doses for the day, but his third, now second, was still back in his room and now he needed to trek back to get it.

[whosalicewhite]

"It's what they want you to be."

She understood pills for health, mental or physical. She does not understand pills to create a mood, and keep it that way. Parker doesn't understand anything that could control a person. Who wants to be controlled?

"I'm not worried." She pauses, blinks, and tosses the beverage overboard. Somewhere on the ground, there's now a decent-sized pothole, laced with false happiness.

"You're one of us. If you become one of them, you're dangerous."

The second Chucky turns around, Parker will seem to disappear. It's a talent.