TDM 002. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

[headandhand]

» 01. I LIKE TO PARTY AND BY PARTY I MEAN NAPS.

Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces, but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

This month’s event is held at the brand new RoCocoa Cat Cafe, a sparkly new establishment that caters to children and the young at heart with iced and hot cocoa drinks of all kinds, delicious pastries, age-appropriate live music, and of course many friendly kitties who love to lounge in laps. The cats are of all shapes, sizes, and colors, including some who may look a little different from what you expect, or may look like an ordinary cat but are actually anything but ordinary underneath that adorable fur coat. All cats in the cafe are adoptable, of course, for those who meet a new furry friend and just can’t bear to go home without them!

So pull up a chair, get to know your new neighbors, and enjoy a sugary treat or two with the resident furbabies. You might just meet your new two- or four-legged best friend!

» 02. TO TAG OR NOT TO TAG, THAT IS THE QUESTION.

Welcome, one and all, to a long-running time-honored Dualis tradition: the annual city-wide Dualis Marker Tag Competition! For this entire month, all participants who accept the challenge will be given a marker and set free to tag any other participant in the city by making a mark on their skin, while attempting to avoid being tagged themselves. Careful, though - the ink marks last a very long time, so you’ll have to wait until the competition concludes to wash everything off.

Markers come in all colors, even fluorescent, glitter, and glow-in-the-dark, and you can use however many markers your inner child’s heart desires. These markers will leave marks even on people who have chosen not to play, but you can easily purchase an armband, headband, or similar accessory that says NONPARTICIPANT if you so desire. Marking nonparticipants is considered extremely bad form and wins you no prizes, but "misfires" do still happen sometimes. It’s usually considered polite to offer a mistaken nonparticipant that you’ve marked a small reparation, like coffee or a more adult beverage.

Safe zones do exist! Any establishment can put out a sign that marks it as such - signs in shop windows, chalkboards outside bars, and the like; many do this, just to keep the general chaos and injury/property damage liability down. Tenants of private residences typically agree that their spaces are also safe zones, but that's up to y’all to hash out.

Have fun! And maybe try not to put anyone’s eye out, yeah?

» 03. TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT, THE BITTER AND THE SWEET ...

Looks like the Head’s been clued in to the quaint alien custom known as trick-or-treating. Is today Halloween? Who cares! You get free candy! Free candy for you, free candy for you, everybody gets free candy!

And rather than make citizens work for that free candy by traipsing around in costumes, the Head’s decided to cut everyone a little break and just have bowls of wrapped sugary delights placed strategically throughout the city. You never know where you’ll find them, or what types of candies the bowls will contain - chocolates, of course, and jellybeans and hard candies of every flavor you can think of, and treats you’ve probably never seen before now. Ooh, is that a snoobloo-flavored truffle? Only one way to find out! Eat it.

The treats are not poisoned or otherwise dangerous, but some do have a trick up their wrappers. Candies may cause temporary side effects: minor appearance changes, enhancing or reducing senses, sudden mild development of extranormal abilities, or loss of control over abilities you already possess. Some sweets are just regular treats and produce no effect except maybe cavities, if you don’t brush your teeth. Effects will remain until another candy is consumed that either induces a different effect or nulls the current effect and simply tastes nice. Enjoy!

Comments

[be_notorious]

Hope that doesn't catch up with you brother. Luckily this is a place where you can pick up a set of new lungs if you take the notion.

[Which is bizarrely true, and Drifter sees no problem with someone taking the weight off themselves.]

Alright, you got me. You look like a Harry. Got a mountain range of a name to climb over in that second one. Tell me which do I seem like to you? A Wu Ming? Or an Eli?

[Because he's pretty successfully gone by both. Appearance carried one. Voice carried the other.]

[hobocop]

[Fuck. FUCK! Why did he bring up Raphaël Ambrosius Costeau again? Nobody thinks he can pull it off. It's like he's a glutton for punishment or something. Of course he looks like a fucking Harry. Harry's a gym teacher name.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Failure] — You should say "cool" so he knows you're not obsessing over this.]

Cool. [A beat.] Cool, cool, cool.

[Ignoring the heat that's climbing up his neck, into his ears, he takes another quick drag of his cigarette.]

Eli's better. [He's not sure it is, but it has that three letter snap that Kim does, so maybe?] You want me going with that, or are we sticking with Drifter?

[be_notorious]

[Harry's also the name for a guy with an impressive mustache. Costeau is the name for a guy with a monocle. He should revel in the name Harry.]

Drifter. Eli's not my name, nor is Wu Ming or Germaine. But they worked when I needed somethin' for somebody to call me.

[Drifter never picked a name for himself. If anything, Drifter's one of the more natural names he has, a true identifier, because he didn't fashion the thing himself. It's a name that came from wandering, when people would remember seeing him every ten or twenty years, wandering through with wares or looking for mediocre work; unheard of among his kind.]

[Risen aspired to bigger things, right? Honestly Drifter was no different. He just didn't show it to just anyone.]

[That was a lot of 'cool's though. How the hell do you even read that? Ah, well.]

So, another one o' them theoretical questions. You got a devil you can make a deal with. You'll never feel a day of pain again, but he gets to take your voice. Not your soul? Just your words. You'll never speak to another person, nobody'll understand your writin'. But you wouldn't starve, you'd always be clean, you'd never be wantin' for comfort outside of the need for conversation.

[hobocop]

[Harry dips his head, acquiescing, maybe. If Klassje taught him anything, it's that if someone really doesn't want you knowing their name, you're usually better not hammering them for it. Not unless you absolutely have to, anyway.

Besides, he wasn't buttering this guy up: Drifter is a badass name for a cat with badass scars on their face.

He's in the process of putting out his cigarette — a quick lick of thumb and forefinger tapped against the end, like he's saving the rest for later — when Drifter opens with the next question.

Congrats, pal. You've defeated "the Expression". Harry's frowning.]

Why? D'you know a guy?

[A quick wave of the hand as if to say, "that's a joke, please don't reply to that." The hand stays up. He's pointedly not looking at Drifter.]

...Hooo.

[Drifter can't know he's tried for the low budget version of that already, can he? Surely it's not that obvious. He feels absolutely exposed. And worse, Harry can picture it, too. The void, but warmer. No sad songs in there, baby. No—

Yeah, he's just gonna barrel forward and straight up fucking lie. The pain bubbling up in his chest all the sudden needs slapping down again.]

I'd say thanks, but no thanks. The ol' conversational skills are pretty much the only reason I solved any cases up until now. [Sniff.] Sometimes you gotta talk folks down, too.

Besides, not to out myself as a karaoke god, but — [He winks, tapping his adam's apple] — I don't wanna deny people this.

[be_notorious]

Nah, don't know no guys unfortunately. [He knew something else that very much wasn't a person, though. Something that, somehow, could still reach him. He'd have liked to make it a further reach than he is, but at least his poor head's a might quieter than it was. A whole Nine less of that chattering.]

[That's a whole other can of beans.]

So you're the type of investigator that talks his way into details, huh? Alright, alright. Then who's your favorite type of informative company?

[He spares the man's dignity, won't bring up he can recognize old wounds in Harry's expression as bold as the scars that line Drifter's cheeks. Seems inappropriate to drag the guy out like that.]

Me? When I was behind a bar, it was always the best place to see someone come in and show their true selves. Bar's the place where people wanna let go and just be them.

[hobocop]

[Oh, okay, so now they're moving into the much safer conversational territory of drunks, huh? If he didn't know any better, he'd think Drifter had been handed a list entitled "subjects that make Harry's heart do that worrying clench thing it does sometimes". He'd take another emergency drag on that cigarette of his if only he hadn't just put it out.

He's just going to... tuck that bad-boy behind his ear for now.]

Ex-bartender, huh? [A beat.] Makes sense.

[There's no insult there, just... a slightly resigned familiarity. Barmen all over Revachol have been stuck as Harry's unwitting confessors for decades now. It figures the first guy he's actually warming to here would be one, too.]

Outside of a bar, drunks can be pretty hit or miss. No "advanced interrogation" techniques necessary, sure, but everything they say's gotta come with multiple grains of salt.

[A small, sly smile.]

You know who's super underrated? [He spreads both hands in front of himself, wiggling the fingers.] Cryptozoologists.

[be_notorious]

Yeah, well. I ain't ever had to solve no crimes with mine. But even the tallest tale got them grains of truth. Just gotta figure out how to wade through 'em.

[Drifter often has his tall tales that he gives to others. Stories of distant parts of the galaxy, mysterious treasures, showed them the etchings of ominous alien runes and the products of eerie Golden Age splicing. His tall tales hide sheer truth in that other people tell tall tales full of lies, and his can hide neatly among them.]

[The stories Harry is getting today, though, are a might milder than what he could tell.]

[Except.]

I dunno, Brother. I've seen some things. Way out there in the deep. But my big fish stories ain't better than no one else's.

[hobocop]

[If Harry was wearing glasses, he'd be peering over the lenses right about now. Instead, he fixes Drifter with his closest facsimile of Kim's authoritative eyebrow raise.]

I'm not 100% clued in on how the whole RCM jurisdiction thing translates over here... but I'm pretty sure you got a legal obligation to not leave ol' Johnny Law here hanging with: "I've seen some things."

[Like a coked-out Guillaume, he leans back and gives a kingly little flourish of one hand.]

C'mon, man! Hit me with that cryptid shit!

[be_notorious]

Johnny Law's a lot more strict than you'd expect here, to be truthful. [Even people that don't seem likely to raise a ruckus beyond drinking or maybe a little fighting should be warned.]

You see, the guy in charge, he doesn't like things goin' differently to what he takes a notion to.

You know. If you can call a big ol' computer a 'guy'. Never did quite catch a choice of pronoun, but considerin' it leans toward bein' a dick I made some quiet assumptions. [He jokes harshly, before moving on.]

I'm from a place with four armed aliens and buglike aliens that smell half dead and angry robots. All of 'em range in size to 'able to kick one across the room' to 'well that fella sure is three stories tall'.

[hobocop]

[Evrart Claire had made it abundantly clear that he'd secretly bugged every conversation Harry had made with White Pines. If that whale of a fake-socialist could afford to listen in on him, it makes sense that the mysterious guy in charge of a technological marvel like Dualis could, too.

So, figuring that, Harry merely nods along, making a mental note this time. Police may be corrupt, something is afoot, etc. etc. The notepad remains untouched, but hopefully Drifter can read the quiet interest in his eyes there. There's even a little squint as if to say, "I hear you."

Then:] Aliens, huh? [Yeah, he's deliberately keeping things on topic, here.] So... less cool cryptids, more sci-fi horror. Gotcha.

[He doesn't seem to know how to follow that up. There's a pause, before he gestures to Drifter's scars.]

They do that?

[be_notorious]

Can't the world have a li'l' bit of both?

[Aliens and cryptids go hand in hand, right?]

[Though the mention of his scars makes him pat one of his cheeks.] Shaving accident. [The standard answer from someone with facial hair and impressive facial scars.]

Couldn't actually tell you, Brother. Woke up one day with 'em. Figured they added to my rugged good looks, contrary to popular opinion.

[hobocop]

[Shaving accident, memory loss and evasion, oh my! It's almost like Drifter doesn't want to talk about this.

Oh.

Harry frowns a little.]

...That was insensitive of me. [Which is not quite an apology, but it's apology adjacent.] I like 'em. They're, uh — [He can't say cool again. He's said cool at least five times in less than ten minutes. His volition is banning use number six. And now all he can think to say is "macho", but that feels worse somehow.]

Hey — [the sound of an apology train changing tracks, folks] — I got a slew of my own I don't wanna talk about!

[be_notorious]

Aw, sweet of you to think I'm sensitive about 'em. Shows you're a good fella. Truth is, though, any man alive that knows somethin' about survivin' has scars.

[Even if, technically, he's no longer alive.]

But hey, if any of 'em are good stories? I'm all ears. [He reaches down to pick up a particularly small cat, a black one that looks more like a void creature than usual. In fact its fur doesn't seem to be reflecting light at all. Damn.]

[hobocop]

[Harry spreads his fingers in front of himself like a little makeshift barricade.]

...Noooope. No, sorry.

[He can't remember how he got half of them, for one thing, and as for the shiny new additions — his pre-scars, if you will? To quote Cuno, "Everyone says you started crying in the middle of a firefight and bled like a pig."

Another well of shame has sprung up somewhere in the pit of his stomach.]

Let's leave the scar talk for the second date, okay? Keep this last section light. [The barricade breaks as he throws his hands into an unenthusiastic finger gun display. Pow pow.] Quickfire round!

Khm — [That's not a question. He's clearing his throat. Loudly.] Favourite kinda music?