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Daycycle 110 [ October 2 - October 8]

daycycle 110

[Oct 2 - Oct 8]

Early, Early Morning [0400 - 0800]
Lydia Martin will be woken up at 0400 when a squad of Internal Security Gray Ops come to arrest Samantha Groves for treason. Root will be led away at gun point and Lydia will be immediately taken into IntSec for questioning. She will be grilled for the next four hours on Root's activites and her own loyalty. She will not be released until the Early Morning briefing.

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

It is announced that there will be a mandatory ceremony for all Troubleshooters this evening in the Commissary. Not attending is treason.

There is no Mission assigned to any Specials Today.

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.

At 1200 explosives planted by the Frankenstien Destroyers will detonate in the Bot Processing division. The goal is to destroy as many bots as processing equipment as possible. These explosions will cause significant damage to the division and temporarily lock down part of R&D. Troubleshooters will be called to the scene to help clean up and assist citizens caught in the blast.

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 Commissary and will be hosted by Internal Security. This ceremony is to recognize the hard work and dedication of the Troubleshooters who have gone above and beyond in their service to Alpha Complex. The following specials will be promoted a clearance level for their work: Jillian Holtzmann, promoted to ORANGE for her work in explosives, Lydia Martin, promoted to YELLOW for her work in hygeine, and Matt Murdock, promoted to GREEN for his work in Personal Legal Defensive Practices. A mandatory round of clapping will be held for three minutes for each promotion.

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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Strangely enough, being held hostage by a crazy dictator of a laptop isn't the craziest thing Alcide has ever heard of or experienced. In fact, it's not even in the top ten. He might have had to watch the video a handful of times before he quit arguing with the people in the place where he woke up, but that's nothing new. And now he knows that he needs to bide his time until he can get a handle on this place and figure out what's to be done about his being here and not back at home.

To say he's a bit disoriented is an understatement. He'd just been in the woods, just discovered that Sookie had gone off with Bill (again), shots rang out, not he's here. Needless to say, his heart and his mind are reeling. He's furious and he has nowhere to direct that anger. On top of that, all the wolfy bits of him have been dug out to leave bits and pieces of him hollow on the inside. He feels off kilter, not right, like only half of him is here.

When he reports for Troublehooting duty it feels like being tossed into the deep end of a pool without knowing how to swim. That happened to him once when he was a kid. There's panic at first. Then you do what you have to do to make it to the top for air when the survival instinct kicks in. That's the point Alcide is at right now. With his red jumpsuit on, he arrives for Troubleshooting, doing what he's told... for now. He'll help out in cleaning up the explosion in the bot processing division.

* * *

Later, he finds his room, room 1104. Usually a lone wolf, Alcide is none too impressed that he has to share a room with others. He's never been a very good pack animal. He finds a bed that seems unused and empty and sits at the foot of it, elbows on his knees, head bowed in his hands as his fingers slightly pull on the long, dark locks. The slight sting that pulling on his hair brings makes this feel even more real. He's really here. Sookie really chose to go to Bill behind his back and Alcide is furious about that. They're really all being hunted by humans and sick Vampires back home. Now he's here and maybe that's for the best considering how he was feeling back home.Everything's shit and this is the story of his life, always making bad decisions over and over again.

* * *

In the evening, Alcide attends the Citizen Improvement seminar. He stands at the back, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. He eyes each person celebrated for whatever the fuck they're being celebrated for with an intense scrutiny. So these are the people who are 'in' with the Computer? At least that's what it seems like to him.

After the first mandatory three minute round of clapping, Alcide escapes through the back and goes exploring. He can be found just about anywhere, snooping, learning his surroundings, looking for a way off of this crazy train.

Mornings aren't something Gracie minds and she considers attending morning briefing part of her job. After all, she can't report on anything at all if she doesn't know what's going on. She types out notes to herself on her PDC, or simply records things that she needs to remember. Tonight, she's making a note to attend the ceremony. She looks for faces that she hasn't seen before (which tend to be quite a few as she's still new here herself) then goes to work.

Once there, she'll transcribe her notes, pick up any assignments and head out into the complex to see what's going on. She's incredibly likely to stop citizens from all levels in order to talk to them. It's usually just a gentle 'hey, how are you' and she moves on if people don't seemed inclined to talk. Today, her wanderings will take her to the Alpha library and she'll spend so much time there that's she misses dinner entirely and is almost late for the ceremony (she doesn't even know about the explosions until later).

At the ceremony, Gracie is in the back row, PDC at hand so she can make notes. She might clap particularly loud and even 'woooo' (sorry, is this not a woo place?) when Lydia's promotion is listed. Lydia had been one of the people that had answered her endless questions, not to mention given her samples of moisturizer. She feels as if it deserves a woo. Once the ceremony is over, she'll dawdle getting back to her room, but she makes it in plenty of time to get ready for bed before the sleeping aid is released.

Edited 2016-10-03 00:24 (UTC)

As one of the back row lurkers, Gracie can't help but notice Alcide (hello gorgeous) but also because he slips out of the ceremony. She catches him right outside the door.

"Not a big fan of organized celebration?"

Buffy reports to troubleshooting duty as per usual. She's gotten used to most of the faces around her; because of all the unrest lately, she's actually fought with most of them, so she notices when there's a new one. The confused and disoriented look on his face just confirms for her that he's new and not someone she just happened to miss (and how exactly could she have even missed him). She makes her way around the room until she gets to Alcide, smiling a little at him in greeting.

"Hey. It's a little crazy making in the beginning, isn't it? I'm afraid the craz-fying doesn't go away, but you get more used to it." She sticks her hand out to shake his. "I'm Buffy. I've been here for just over a week."

She'd say this was getting old, all the protests, destruction and violence, but she actually kind of likes the way it breaks the day up. It's not like she wants anyone to get hurt and she's not advocating property destruction (out loud) but she's not hating having something to do besides walk in circles and train. She also understands their need to rebel, to destruct, to explode, to protest. If she couldn't do something to help people here, she might be in the middle of them. She's never been much of a law breaker, but she is a rule breaker of sorts. In any case, helping people here kind of keeps her from making too much trouble. These people don't need any more trouble.

When she realizes that the kerfuffle in question today is an explosion in which people were actually injured, she dives right in, missing her super strength more than ever. She's strong, but she is still a relatively tiny person. When she encounters some piece of debris she can't move, she reverts to 'General' mode, barking at people to help her get this moved. Of course, not everyone listens because she's still a level RED, but enough realize the point in her orders and do help with the clean up and the assisting.

Seriously, she could use a nap, but there are no bones made about the fact that all troubleshooters are required to attend the ceremony. She does so, lingering toward the back of the crowd. She occupies her time by watching everyone, by trying to decide who in the crowd belong to the secret societies that have been making trouble. She's not entirely sure what she would do if she found any of them out. Mostly, it's a way to pass the time, a way to entertain herself.

Morning

Morning Orientation is spent trying to gather little bits and pieces about what happened with Root. He'll search Lydia out immediately to see if she's okay. He knows Root was her roommate and because of that, he assumes that she's been in questioning. Thank God that last night wasn't one of the nights Lydia stayed with him. He probably won't eat much, but he will guzzle down two cups of coffee. He has a feeling he's going to need it for the upcoming day.

Afternoon

There's no such thing as a normal day here lately, it seems. Someone is always blowing something up, destroying something or hurting others. In fact, it's beginning to resemble home in that way. It does give Matt a lot of work and he supposed he's grateful for that. He's busy with the Samantha Groves case most of the day. He knows he'll have to defend Root at her 'trial' and he's looking for every available angle he can use to get her a lighter sentence or off entirely. He knows some of what Root has done (not that he will ever tell anyone) and he highly doubts he'll be able to get Root off completely.

Evening

He attends the ceremony as he's attended almost all Citizen Improvements. Really, he's focusing so much on the others, on what everyone is saying (or not saying) about Root, that he almost misses it when his name is called. He steps to the stage, obviously uncomfortable with not only the promotion but with the applause. He appreciates the privileges that the promotion affords him, but realizes he is yet again one level above his girlfriend. He also feels guilty at receiving the promotion. In his opinion, he's not doing his job. He's only able to lighten some of the sentences of his clients, clients that he knows are innocent of any real wrong doing (and by wrong doing, he's applying more of his world ideals than anything). It kills him to have to tell his clients how little he was able to help them. He accepts the promotion though because he's fairly certain there's no declining them unless one wants to be accused of treason.

Edited 2016-10-03 00:59 (UTC)

AFTERNOON

Ronan really has to admire the dedication to destruction that secret societies seem to have. There's a smirk on his face as he helps with the clean up that disappears and sobers a little when he has to deal with injured people. He's not a tree hugging hippie (like anyone would mistake him for that) but he prefers the destruction and violence when it doesn't include innocent people and maybe he's wrong, maybe none of these people are innocent, but he has to think that at least some of them are just going to their job every day like he is.

He may be seen crouching and examining various bits of the destruction carefully. He's interested in how they did this though the why seems pretty self-explanatory. This place runs on bots. Take those out and you could make some real progress toward taking this place down.

Maybe Adam's way of thinking is wearing off on him.

EVENING

This mandatory ceremony is bullshit. Ronan is there, at least for a little while, but he is so obviously not happy to be there. He glares around at everyone, makes sure to wave to his boss then slips out the door so that he can poke around. Almost anything is better than listening to a bunch of insincere applause. He may end up on the INFRARED market. After all, he's got some credits to spend.

He'll return to his room just before curfew, slipping in with his illegal purchases.

It starts out like any other day. Tony eats breakfast, attends the morning briefing, and then heads to work. Mentally he's already dreading the ceremony that he's supposed to attend, because just the word mandatory immediately makes him cringe, but it's not like he has a choice so he doesn't say anything.

It's easy to ignore the world when he's working, though. Despite Tony's feelings towards the Computer, and this whole experience in general, he actually doesn't mind his job. Robotics has been a passion for him since he was a child, and the focus and speed that he puts into his work probably shows that. Even back home, Tony used to lose himself in his lab for days at a time, and if he doesn't do that here it's only because he hasn't found that spot where he can do so. He really appreciates Lydia's offer to use the lab she uses, and he knows he can technically use the one in HQ, but he just hasn't found that 'corner' of the complex that feels like it's his just yet. His workstation is as close as it gets for now, so his shifts go by pretty quickly.

It also helps that he likes who he works with. Not really his supervisors, because again, it's that whole thing with authority that makes Tony want to just be flippant and obnoxious almost by instinct. But he likes working with Cisco, because the guy is obviously smart and knows what he's doing, so it makes his workday a generally good part of his day.

Today is like any other day, and that will be the thing that will annoy him later. He will wonder if he missed any signs, something that could have warned them about the explosives. He will wonder if there was anything out of the ordinary, something that they should have detected or found that could have prevented it, but in the moment there's nothing. Nothing that alerts him about what's coming. Nothing that he finds, nothing that he can stop. He and Cisco are just talking about an upgrade to a bot that they can both work on, when suddenly there's an explosion and the room is shaken with the blast. Tony can barely react before he finds himself on the ground amidst rubble and smoke, and his ears feel like they don't function right because they're still ringing. He tries to speak, tries to move, but his whole body just hurts, and he's just tempted to let himself fade away like he so desperately wants.

Except, he knows he shouldn't. If he falls asleep he doesn't know when (or if) he'll wake up, so he forces himself awake. He pushes himself up with his elbows as best as he can, even if his chest feels like it's going to cave in as he does so, but the sight of the destruction around him is more distracting. He doesn't notice that he's bleeding from a gash along his hairline, or the blood that's already making the red of his jumpsuit look a little darker. He tries to push himself up a little more, especially now that his hearing seems to slowly start to come back even if his brain still feels like it's rattling in his skull, and he tries to see through the debris for anyone around him.

"Cisco?"

Allison doesn't mind mornings, either. One day she will figure out where she can go for runs like she used to back home, to maybe set up a kind of routine here as well, but for now she just gets up when she has to and gets ready for the day. Today is barely her second day on the job, but she really likes it so far. It's easy for her, considering her previous training, and it's also kind of fun.

As she heads out of her room, she sees Gracie about to do the same, and Allison smiles at her in greeting. "Hey. Mind if I walk down with you?"

It could give her a chance to get to know one of her roommates a little better, after all.

After the morning briefing, Allison spends her day at work as assigned. Which isn't bad at all, really. She even kind of really likes the Armed Forces Sector, although she hasn't quite admitted that to anyone yet. So far she's still learning her way around the place, and there's that sensation in the back of her mind that she's going to bump into something she probably won't agree or like, but for now she's keeping her head down while she does her job.

Or, she tries to, anyway. News of the explosion makes her curiosity peak, and for a moment she's tempted to sneak out so she can investigate some more. Sneaking around isn't exactly possible, though, at least not in a way that she would be able to justify it if she got caught, so...she doesn't. For now, anyway.

Once her shift is over, she passes by the R&D sector on her way to the Commissary but it's really just to casually see if there's anything she can learn of what happened. It's not that she's nosy, exactly, it's just that she's too used to life in Beacon Hills. It's almost second nature to investigate something big happening, and the explosion in R&D is definitely big. She takes in the details that she can, and when she can't quite 'hang out' in that sector, she just finishes her walk to the Wagon Wheel so that she can get something to eat.

By the time the ceremony begins, she hangs off towards the side, close to the back. Hearing Lydia's name makes her smile, clapping extra hard for her best friend, and once they're dismissed she tries to at least make eye contact with her to silently congratulate her. She's still not sure if she should approach her too much in public, considering the difference in the colors of their jumpsuits, so for now she's just playing it safe.

Once outside of the Commissary, she wanders off to the public waterfront for the time they have left before curfew, trying to discover a new place tonight.

Of course Alcide has noticed Gracie too. He may not be an active participant in cult-like activities but he does watch. He does notice things. Also, she kind of looks like that singer that's pretty much everywhere these days. Hard to ignore a person that's everywhere no matter how out of the loop you try to stay.

He stops in the hallway and smirks, shaking his head even as the sounds of the ceremonies in the next room can still be heard. "Not much for organized anything." He says. "You either, I guess."

For the most part, Alcide has been going through his new troubleshooting duties in a daze. How could he not? He's been thrown out of the furnace in Louisianna into the frying pan wherever this is. But he's also been told to forget those memories. He could never forget them. On top of that, he's only half of who he was. He's tried to shift. It didn't work. You'd think he'd be happy about that. But for now, it's just left him feeling hollowed out and uncomfortable.

When the blonde girl approaches him, he sees her coming. Mostly because she's the only one heading for him and Alcide is almost a head taller than most people so he has a good vantage point. She's also pretty, so there's that. It's a relief to meet someone else who's only been here a short amount of time.

"Alcide Herveaux." He takes her hand to firmly shake it. "I keep thinkin' there's been some mistake, or that I'm asleep and about to wake up. This can't be it. You know?"

Adam bowed out of the mandatory ceremony too, only he went to his job working on motorized transport vehicles instead of anywhere else. Since his breakdown after Ronan's fights, he's been very quiet and very withdrawn. He's needed to gather himself and find out who he is here and where he's going and how he's going to get there. He still has a lot of questions about himself, about how to stop this place from chipping away at him. But he's not feeling quite so hopeless as he had before.

Maybe that's because he's been secretly compiling a list of the people Ronan fought in the underground fights. It may not seem like much, but it feels like the beginning of an arsenal, the beginning of a plan.

He barely makes curfew, entering their room with minutes to spare. He's covered in grease from working on motors and slips into the showers to take a quick one before the sleep meds are pumped into the room. He finds Ronan by his bed and walks over to him, seeing that he has some new things even if he can't tell what they are. Adam lightly touches Ronan's shoulder. "Hey."

It should have been a relatively normal day. Of course, the fact that he thought that it was probably should have been the biggest clue. Nothing here is ever normal and the fact that they'd started their day with no snags and that work on the bot had actually been going really smoothly should have, oddly enough, been a big red flag. Later, he'll wonder if his unwillingness to recognize the signs of a calm before the storm prevented him from doing any excessive checks that would've had him finding the explosive and being able to disable it with help before it went off.

The shock waves knocks him back several yards and he's stopped when he collides with another production machine, the impact of it with his back, knocking the wind out of him. It takes Cisco a few seconds to realize that he's landed in a pile of flaming debris; that his hair, even pulled back in a low ponytail, is catching fire and even though the pain is agonizing, he has to move.

Cisco manages to roll, grunting out in pain, and between that and the fact that he's reached up and decided to smother the flames with his hands, because what the hell else is he supposed to do? He can't see anything — Oh my God, I can't see! — and he doesn't have time to grope around for something else to do it with.

The pain of the burns — which will later be diagnosed as second and third degree and taking up about a quarter of his body, concentrated on the upper left quadrant — is numb for the moment and Cisco's focus is on the fact that he can't see — not blind, he calms himself. You're not blind, it's just smoke. — and that it feels like he was just hit by a bus. Or at least, he assumes that this is what being hit by a bus feels like; being hurled several yards away from his work station directly into a piece of heavy machinery? Hurt likes hell.

His ears are ringing and his next instinct after the one that suggests he needs to not move now that he's away from the threat of literally catching on fire again, is to call out for Tony. His own voice sounds like underwater babble in his ears. "Tony? You okay?" That and he sounds pained. The response back sounds just as muffled and warbly, but he still manages to recognize his name in it. "I can't move..." he calls back. "You dead?" He huffs an inappropriate laugh then before groaning with pain. They need levity, sure, but now really isn't the time to try for it. Not until he knows that the joke is in fact a joke and that his coworker isn't quite literally dying a few yards away where Cisco can't quite see through the smoke surrounding his work area yet.

Edited 2016-10-03 16:18 (UTC)

Adam is at the R&D sector for the same reasons as Allison. Once his shift is over motorized transport, he's headed directly there where the explosion happened. It didn't take long for word of the explosion to spread like wildfire through the complex. And Adam, while never one for blatant destruction of any kind, thinks it's kind of brilliant as far as tactics against the Computer go.

Of course, by the time he gets there, it's been mostly cleaned up. They tend to manage that fairly quickly here, as if the quicker they clean it up the quicker they can pretend like it didn't happen. He's standing there with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jumpsuit when he sees someone else checking the scene out in the same way that he is, just a quick glance over everything to see what there is to see. "They clean up pretty fast, huh?"

As far as Citizen Improvement goes, Derek's not a big fan of attending. He couldn't give less of a shit about that stuff if someone paid him to try, so his attendance is always specifically decided on whether or not he's actually semi-interested in the event at hand. Or, in this case, it's mandatory. Derek hangs back but he gives a loud, two-fingered whistle of approval when Holtz gets her official promotion. He'll be a little bummed to lose her from their room, if he's honest, but he's happy for her. Promotions typically mean perks and Derek's pretty sure that one of the only things that could actually count as a perk in this place is real food. He hopes Holtz gets access to some with this, otherwise, is it really worth it?

He's impressed but not surprised when he hears Lydia's name. Having learned belatedly how to use the network, he'd looked back and seen plenty of posts from Lydia with regard to creating new products. He'll buy them, half to support someone from home and half because it beats the hell out of the shitty stuff he's got access to now, but when he hears a woo! in the background a ways away, he can't help laughing. Whoever that is, they're apparently a fan of Lydia. He would've thought Allison, except that the louder clapping a few feet away from him against the back wall has him looking to see that, no, Allison is right there. Alive. Allison is alive.

Derek moves a little closer. They've never particularly gotten along and they haven't any real reason to, but Derek can still appreciate that it's nice to see her alive. "Hey," he says with a weak smile because this is awkward, but the least he can do is alert her to the fact that he's here if Lydia and Stiles haven't already. It's only fair. He'll stay out of her way and she will probably stay out of his, he imagines, but it seems only fair to at least make himself known on his own terms. "It's good to see you," he adds. Alive, he keeps to himself. "Maybe not in this place, but...are you doing okay?"

Zatanna hates it here. She doesn't hide that fact and she doesn't care if "Friend" Computer knows it. She wants her magic; she wants her team back. So when she's forced to attend a mandatory "pat these strangers on the back for bowing to The Man" ceremony, Zee stays about as long as it takes her to find a way to slip out unseen.

She's been doing a lot of exploring in her downtime. It's not like there's anything else to do anyway. The Citizen Improvement stuff is stupid and she might as well get to know her surroundings the best she can. One never knows when it'll come in handy. Like, for example, today when she'd had to go help clean up the mess left behind in a terrorist attack — at least that's what it seemed like to her — and she couldn't help thinking bitterly how many more lives could've been spared and how much faster she could've gotten the R&D sector back in order all by herself if her spells worked worth a damn. All the same, having explored around the area a little, she'd been able to get there quickly and do what she could to aid the effort. She hopes there weren't any Specials caught in the blast. From what she can gather, the Specials are the only real people here and the rest are mindless drones. She worried a little, but she'd put it out of her mind.

She's been wandering outside the Wheel Wagon for a while now and she notices movement in the corner of her eye, catching her attention. First of all, hello, unfairly hot guy way out of her age range. Second, he looks lost and she wonders if that's because he's new or because he's wandered outside his area of comfort to explore and has just now realized he doesn't know how to get back. Zee doesn't know if he's a Special, but she's kind of hard-wired to help people, so she moves to him anyway. "Hey...you look kinda lost, you okay?"

That morning, she'd been practically the walking dead and Matt had been able to see it almost immediately when they'd met at the morning briefing. She'd assured him that she was fine and that she was just tired from being kept up half the night dodging questions she absolutely knew the answers to. Lydia's a good liar, but it's still something that takes a lot out of a person, especially on only a few hours of sleep. She's just glad that it wasn't one of the nights when she'd stayed in Matt's room, because that could've gotten pretty messy really fast. After reassuring him, though, that she was fine, they separated to go about their day.

Lydia makes it a point to find and hug Allison and Gracie to thank them for their support after she gets off the stage. It's validating to be promoted and it puts her exactly where she wanted to be. ...except, of course, Matt's also been promoted, so now she's right back where she started. At least she has the GREEN jumpsuit, still. On the plus side, now he'll have a kitchen and she'll have her own room; she can make him dinner like she promised. He can sleep in her room so neither of them is risking too much trouble. She's a lower clearance level, so while their relationship would probably be looked down upon with regard to Matt's judgement, it won't get him into trouble. Though, she doesn't think the GREEN apartments have the security cameras, so maybe it's worth the risk to just keep doing things the way they've been doing them and enjoy the extra privacy now that it's available to them.

After meeting quickly with Allison and Gracie, in turn, Lydia looks for Matt, coming up beside him and giving him a little brush of her fingertips on his jaw so that he knows that it's her before she starts to pull him away into a secluded corner of the room where no one will see the way that she presses herself up against him and kisses him. "Congratulations on the promotion, baby," she whispers against his lips before finally parting from him. She knows Matt well enough now to know that he probably doesn't think he deserves it. He hasn't been able to get anyone out of their punishments. Lydia thinks that the cards are intentionally stacked against him and the fact that he's able to even get a little wiggle room is something worthy of being recognized. It'd probably be a goddamned miracle if he'd ever been able to actually get someone out of their sentence entirely. Instant Violet, probably, she thinks but doesn't say.

Has his body always felt this heavy? It's a random thought, and one that is pointless right now considering what just happened, but Tony's thoughts feel too loose and confusing to muddle through or even sort then properly. And really, his body just feels heavy, and he half wonders if that's why he finds himself stumbling once he manages to haul himself up. He should be used to this, he reminds himself. He has gotten knocked around more than he has a right to as Iron Man, even before that - he needs to focus. He needs to find Cisco.

As he looks around, he doesn't even know where to start. The room is a mess, and he can barely make out anything between the destruction left behind, but Tony's main goal right now is to find Cisco. He tries to locate the jumpsuit, maybe a hint of red (the jumpsuit, the idea of blood guiding him to Cisco isn't a thought he's willing to entertain), but no luck.

The sound of his voice suddenly catches his attention, but the smell of burnt flesh and hair is really what registers more than anything. It's probably adrenaline alone what makes Tony move over to him faster, but it still doesn't feel like it's fast enough. Especially when he really takes in the extent of the burns that he can see, and shit. Shit.

"Hey, man." There's a hint of a slur to his words that he himself can't notice, and when he drops to his knees it feels like his whole body just plummets. The pain feels like it's pulling him under, but he reaches for Cisco's right wrist so he can check for a pulse. Focus, he reminds himself. Focus, damn it.

"I've got you. We're okay." Well. That's probably sugarcoating things, but despite the strain in his voice, he still tries to sound reassuring.

It's a weird feeling seeing Tony drop down next to him like that, because it's equal parts relief and fear. The thing is, what little he's gathered of the other man's personality in the time they've been working together so far is that they're fairly similar in their typical responses to things; both are more likely to force dry levity into a situation where it's unwelcome than anything else, just for the sake of staying sane, but the look on Tony's face tells Cisco more than he actually wants to know about his own state. Which is to say...not good.

Strangely, as Tony's trying to reassure him that they're both fine when neither of them are, Cisco's mind wanders off. He wishes Caitlin was here. She'd know how to fix them both. He wishes Barry had his speed, so they could get to the hospital wing faster; they both clearly need it. He tells himself he's going to develop new jumpsuits that still look similar enough so as to fly under the radar, but which have more protective qualities. That's what Cisco used to do back home. Before Team Flash. Before the Particle Accelerator explosion.

Explosion…

"Your chest…" he grunts. "Lay down. Lay down. Your chest." Cisco tells himself to move, wills himself to shift, just a little. He hurts everywhere, but he's okay. He has to be okay because Tony's literally got a shard of what looks like metal sticking out of his freaking chest. "I'm okay," he says, but he's not sure who he's trying to convince. "Lay down, Tony."

Counting Cisco's heart rate lessens the internal panic in Tony's brain enough to at least feel a little better. Generally, counting beats is like a comfort mechanism to him, has been ever since he was a little boy (old habit, picked up while learning how to play the piano from his mother), and right now it's almost like he's doing the same thing. Except, instead of beats, it's his heart rate, and it helps him think past the ringing in his head at least for a moment.

The problem is, he can't seem to figure out what the hell had happened. One second everything was fine, now here they are. Had it been a faulty bot? The explosion had been more than defective equipment, though, especially based on the radius of the explosion, and--

Cisco's talking again. His chest? What about it? He looks down at himself, but it's almost like he's staring at something that isn't his own body. There's metal embedded into his chest, and all he sees is red - the jumpsuit, the blood that is soaking through, and...shit, is the room spinning?

"We have to get out of here." His eyes look a little unfocused from the pain and the shock and he blood loss, but he tries to shake his head at Cisco's insistence that he needs to lay down. Lay down? No. They have to get out, he thinks, even if he can't bring himself to move as he almost sways a little in his kneeling position. "Maybe we can...find a way out."

Edited 2016-10-03 20:53 (UTC)

They're going to get along well, if this is the case. Alcide already wants out and really doesn't give a shit who he pisses off by voicing that opinion. He also wants his wolf back, and maybe that's a part of the reason he needs to get out and explore his surroundings. He needs to know how they made his wolf, and all the things that being a wolf gives him, dormant. It should be impossible. Although sadly, he also knows that impossible isn't really a thing like people like to think it is.

There are a lot of reasons for that lost look he has. Right now he's just going to claim it's the lack of wolfiness, that hollowed out feeling he has because of it. He pauses when he realizes someone is speaking directly to him, blinking, coming out of that haze. She seems young, he thinks. But then again, at the mandatory meeting, lots of people had seemed young to him.

"As alright as I can be. Tryin' to figure this place out." He says, words clipped at the ends and drawled in a way only Cajun Southerners can do. He then lifts his chin a bit in greeting. "Alcide Herveaux."

As Tony contradicts him just by not actually following Cisco's advice, the younger man has never wanted to scream or, honestly, cry more than he does right now. Tony can't help him up because he's losing too much blood and Cisco's no doctor, but he has a feeling that sitting up like that, in a kneeling position, he's only inviting more blood flow. Cisco still hurts everywhere and still hasn't registered the pain of his burns completely, yet, but adrenaline can do amazing things.

With a choked cry of pain, Cisco forces himself onto his stomach so he can push himself up. The first attempt has him faceplanting straight down again because holy shit his hands. That's when Cisco finally starts to really feel the effects of the burns, slowly trickling into his reality. First his hands from putting out the fire in his hair with them. Then his face after slamming it into the floor like that in his failed attempt to get up. His stomach turns and he freezes because, for a second, all of that pain hitting him at once on to of the fact that he's already feeling shattered on the inside of his body, makes him sick to his stomach.

"Dios, do not throw up right now, Cisco," he hisses at himself, tears springing to his eyes when he puts his weight on his hands again to push himself up. This time, he's prepared for the jolt of agonizing pain and while it still hurts, it doesn't knock him down a second time.

"We will, but...ay Dios, okay...okay, man."

He looks around for the first time since the smoke has started to settle and the whole damn lab is in complete ruin. He sees half a leg and a foot sticking out from under a fallen piece of machinery that must weigh tons on its own and before he can even register that it's a corpse, the floor sort of opens up a little beneath it and it falls from sight. Cisco doesn't know if it's going to the floor below them or whether that's actually what it looks like when a new clone is generated for a fallen Alpha.

"Hello?!" Cisco calls out. "Anybody?! Es nadie más con vida en esta lista? ¡¿Nadie?!"

They can't be the only survivors, can they?

Cisco manages to get close enough to get on his own knees in front of Tony, pressing both of his charred hands against Tony's chest on either side of the shard, half to try to slow the bleeding and half to keep Tony upright.

Natasha knows that this place is dangerous, but what she isn't used to is being worried about the people that she cares for.

Perhaps worried isn't the right word. She's always 'worried' about Steve, because he's too hard on himself and idealistic. He's bound to eventually cross a line that he can't come back from, and she doesn't know what that will do to him. She's worried about Bruce despite the vitriol she feels toward him because he's doomed himself to a life of loneliness, and she's worried about Tony because his self-destructive nature and PTSD can ruin him slowly from the inside out until he's but a shell of the man he used to be; wants to be. She's never worried about their safety, though, because they can handle themselves just as much as she can; or, they could. Ever since arriving in this place she's watched her former teammates deal with their sudden lack of physical power, and that is what the root of her concern has been. She didn't expect it to be a problem so soon.

The only reason Natasha is even in the R&D Sector is because it provides a firing range, and she always tests her blaster for the day before going out on the streets after seeing how Barry's failed so spectacularly a couple of days ago. She's just leaving when she hears the explosion that sends everybody in the halls running, while Nat begins to sprint in the opposite direction of them - toward the noise. It's a series of blasts, not just one bomb, and she's prepared to see destruction when she reaches the source to try and help whoever needs it.

What she doesn't expect, however, is to see not one, but two people that she knows, and both look horrific.

The smoke in the air is thicker in the room than it is in the hall although it seems to have settled a little, it's haze more prevalent higher up than lower to the ground. The common mistake people make when it comes to Natasha Romanoff isn't assuming that she's harmless, it's the assumption that she's stoic, so detached from the situations around her that she's capable of keeping a calm head in any situation. The fact is, Natasha panics, and she's panicking right now as she runs in the room with her arm covering her face and nose before dropping to her knees beside her teammate and her roommate. Yes, she can control panic, she's seen battle and the gruesome aftermath, she's lost good people - that doesn't mean she isn't panicked.

"Get on the ground." She speaks firmly and hurriedly to Tony first, because under immediate sight he looks worse off than Cisco does. There's metal sticking out of his chest an Natasha can feel her throat closing at the thought of losing him; their friendship is complicated. Natasha doesn't have many friends, though, and she considers Tony as one of them. She cares for him, that's an undeniable fact, and seeing him like this is easily one of her worst fears come to life. "What happened, Stark, tell me what happened." She's still speaking quickly as she moves behind him to slowly lead him down, but this time it's because she needs his brain to work. She knows Tony. If there's any way to keep him conscious it's to make him process; make him think.

As soon as he's down she's moving to look at Cisco, immediately spotting the horrible burns on his hands and his face. "You too, lie down," she adds quickly, carefully letting her hands hover around him to try and catch him if he falls. "You need to keep your hands elevated over your chest, alright? Can you do that for me? Cisco," she stares down at him, and everything about Natasha in that moment speaks with confidence. "You're going to be okay, we're going to get you out of here. Help is on the way, I just need you to stay completely still. Awake." She gives him a weak smile, but she cracks; her voice wavers. "I swear, if you stay awake I'll find a way to get you all of the damn fruit you want, alright? Stay."

This is bad. She doesn't have enough hands, but she's doing the best she can until help shows up, and where is the help? She returns to Tony, analyzing the metal that's sticking out of his chest; she can't remove it. He'd bleed out immediately. Natasha looks around but she can't spot anything fabric that isn't already burning, so she looks at her own shoulder to tear at the seam of her jumpsuit, ripping the sleeve off as quickly as she can and using it to slow the bleeding. "Tony," she says his name in an effort to get his attention and keep him awake, and when she manages to meet his eye she gives him a smile. The facade is failing fast.

"Do you remember your party?" It's the first thing that comes to her head. She has to keep them awake. Keep them talking. "Cisco, you should have seen this party, it was a couple of years ago when Tony and I first met. You remember that, Shellhead?" This isn't looking good. No one is coming. He's going to die. Natasha is about to watch her friend die beneath her hands and she's not ready. "You let me wear one of your gauntlets and you taught me how to shoot it. The blowback," she gives a watery laugh. It's not convincing. She needs help. She's not a doctor. She can't fix this. "It almost bent my elbow back, I wasn't even a little ready for it. I acted like I was, but my shoulder was bruised for a solid week. You should have seen it, Cisco," she looks at her roommate, still holding pressure on Tony's chest while trying to keep Cisco's attention. "His suits, you would love them. They have these... arc... photon... blaster things in the palm - I have no idea what they're called. Tony, what are they called? They could put a hole in the side of the Pentagon, Cisco. And the thing can fly, I've always wanted to try it out. Tony is going to build me one, isn't that right, Stark? As soon as we're out of here, as soon as we're home? Right?"

Her hands are soaked in the blood that the cloth absorbed but the pressure is helping, at least, because he's not bleeding out anymore. It's the internal damage that she's worried about, and her bottom lip is quivering before she turns her head to wipe her eyes on her one remaining sleeve. She's scared.

Natasha is terrified.

She's about to try and keep them talking again before she hears something behind her, and her heart jumps in her throat when she assumes that it's a med-bot until she looks; it's Clint, and although he's no doctor either, she still gives a wavering sound of shocked relief. She needs him here, and with how long Clint has known Natasha, he can probably see that. "They're hurt bad, Cisco Ramon has bad burns on his hands and his face, we need to get him under some water but I'm afraid to move him even if there's a chemical shower somewhere in here. Tony-" she stops when her voice cracks and then pushes on, more firmly than before. "There's something in his chest, I don't want to remove it, medical hasn't arrived. I haven't scouted the room." Because the most important problems are right here in front of her. She's staring at her friend - brother - with desperation. "It's not looking good, we have to get them out of here, they can't stay in her but we can't move them without risking injury" or death "and medical still hasn't fucking arrived."

It was almost impossible to miss the blast, no matter how far away someone was.

Clint had been sent to pick up some new parts from the R&D sectors and was on his way there, enjoying the short time of being out of the testing facility (even if he did like being there more than was probably healthy, a break was always appreciated), which was the only reason he got there as fast as he did. The ground had shaken and the air had imploded around him and nearly knocked him off his feet, shock waves rolling through the sector and out to the city at large, and without even thinking about it he was running full-force in the direction the blast had come from as the screaming and panic started. He'd been around explosions too much, he'd been in explosions too much to know better than to think that no one had been hurt in that, and the sirens that started up warning of an emergency only confirmed that. He had to get there, had to find the epicenter, had to get the people out-

Medical was likely delayed because of so many people trying to get the hell out of there, not an unreasonable reaction given what was going on. Clint was just boneheaded enough to be going in the other direction, but he paused for half a minute to grab one of the machine-covering sheets in a section of R&D that was rapidly emptying and rip it into pieces with a multitool left on a table, running a good number of them under a water tap to wet them and then tying one over his face. He'd be no good to people if he started suffering from smoke inhalation and ended up needing medical attention himself, after all. Once that was done he pressed on, the corridors mostly empty now, but someone had obviously gotten there before him (or people had gotten out), because some of the debris - which was getting thicker the closer he got - had obviously been moved, pieces pushed out of the way to clear a corridor. A lot of them were still unstable and so he took care not to touch them and overbalance them, but that only made it more imperative to get anyone who was left in there out.

"Hello? Anybody here?" The outer areas of what was clearly the blast radius were clear - except for blood splashed around in a few places. But there were no people there, and so Clint dismissed it and continued on. Further in, there was obviously one person trapped under a collapsed section of wall - and there was just as obviously nothing he could do for them given the amount of blood spilled. He'd seen more than his share of bodies in the past; Clint averted his eyes and continued on.

Only to see the one thing he didn't want to see more than anything here, Nat - and of course it's Nat, that hair can only be Nat - Nat on the floor of where it was close to the origin of the bomb blast, or at least one of them, and there was blood, why was there blood, Nat didn't even work here, what was she doing - and without his conscious control Clint was running over to her and skidding to a stop next to her in a full-on rockstar knee slide, and his knees landed in a puddle of blood and it was starting to soak into the fabric, and he spotted-

He spotted nothing, not on her anyway, nothing except panic. The blood was coming from the body in front of her, a body he knew all too well, and maybe had wanted to see bleed some, but not like this, never like this. He's shocked still and silent for exactly half a second before his mind locks down. Response to crisis first, panic later. Save lives, don't lose them. Fortunately S.H.I.E.L.D. involved basic trauma care, but just as clearly Nat wasn't capable of thinking straight right at that moment. So, priorities: calm Nat down so they had two sets of hands. Get wetmasks on all of them to stop smoke inhalation. Get more pressure on Tony's wound to keep him from bleeding out. Get the other guy - Cisco Ramon - on his feet, he could walk and those burns were severe enough that he shouldn't be in pain doing so (though that was because those nerve endings had probably been scorched past the point of working which was less than ideal but would at least be enough to get him out of the immediate danger zone; better alive and scarred after all). Get Cisco out the door. Get some sort of stretcher for Tony. Transfer Tony to the stretcher. Get him out of there without jostling his wound too much. Hope and pray medical arrived before they could complete all those steps. In the case medical didn't show, hope and pray someone else did because moving Tony was going to take three people.

"Nat, стоп. Фокус. Теперь. Мы должны помочь им, а не потерять его. Medical's gonna have to fight the people panicking to get here so it's on us right now. On three, switch out with me, take one of the strips-" he sort of shrugged the shoulder he'd thrown the wet strips of sheet over, "-put it on, then get him propped up. He needs to keep the burns over his heart. Get a mask on him, then come back and help me stabilize Stark. You got this - go." Whether Nat followed his directions or not, Clint pulled a couple of the dry strips off his other shoulder, wrapping one around each hand and then counted down quickly. "Один два три!" With that, he shoved his hands and the cloth padding under hers, replacing her pressure with his own and some more material to keep the blood in Stark's body. "Damnit Stark, you've always got to be a drama queen." No time now to think about how sour his feelings on the man had been left after the Raft; Clint had never wanted him dead. Maimed a little, but not dead. But keeping him alert was the way to go right now; with the place the wound was, it was possible - probable - that Tony had a punctured lung or bronchial tube, and he didn't need to be speaking right now. "You can hear me, right? Blink twice if you can."

After all, an explosion was how he'd lost his own hearing. He didn't want that to happen to anyone else. Thank god for S.H.I.E.L.D. R&D.

But at that moment, Clint heard heavy booted feet pounding down the hall towards them, and he absolutely didn't hesitate in yelling. "In here! Two wounded - burns and bleeding from shrapnel fragments!" And while it wasn't medical showing up in the door, considering the situation, he'd take what he got. "Cap, Barnes, we need a stretcher! We need to get these guys out of here before the whole place falls apart, some of the structural beams are getting ready to go!"

Edited 2016-10-04 01:07 (UTC)

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Daycycle 110 [ October 2 - October 8]

daycycle 110

[Oct 2 - Oct 8]

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1200: Bot Processing (Open to Cisco and then those that will be going to help)

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