SCIENCE BROS [closed but flexible]

[youbarium]

Who| The ragtag group of scientists and doctors in the planetarium. Current headcount is Dr. Zoidberg, Julian Bashir, Dr. McCoy, Mouse, and Carlos. Technically the log is closed but if you want in on the science slumber party message me!
What| Fortifying the planetarium, food raids, swapping stories from home, cooking, doing science -- basically this is a mingle log for the science pack. Feel free to start your own subthreads!
Where| Fifth floor, planetarium.
When| Week 1
Warnings/Notes| Caution： exposure to science may cause permanent eye damage.



The planetarium is one of the crown jewels of the museum, a large circular room with a domed roof. It is vast and dark, with a telescope that can view up into pace and an interactive computer system that can display constellations, past and present.

Currently, the system is down, and it doesn't look like they're too interested in fixing it. The Tributes' efforts have mostly been to get the lights working (still dim at best but at least they can see the whole room) and fortify the two entrances that lie on opposite sides of the room. They have a small pile of food stored up, stale pastries from the cafes and miscellaneous soups, sandwiches, and dry goods from the cafeteria. It'll last a few days.

Comments

OTA!

[crabulous]

It took Zoidberg awhile to make his way up to the planetarium, having been thoroughly distracted by the chaos and carnage of the Cornucopia run. The violence around him had made the situation real at last, and the poor crab man was frightened by the idea of his own impending demise. Being a lesser male, he would surely not last long in the Arena, meaning he'd do well to find a place to hide and wait out the fits of murder that passed over the building.

It was with a sad whoop-whoop that he at last scuttled into the planetarium, sticking close to the walls in search of shelter. He seemed utterly oblivious to the camp already in place on the floor, until he caught the scent of the food.

[youbarium]

Carlos had been set to guard the door, but the sheer speed with which Zoidberg had burst in had taken him by surprise. His metal club is out as he approaches the intruder, keeping between the crab-man and the camp.

...wait. The crab-man?

He stares at Zoidberg in silence for a long moment, then takes a careful step forward. Carlos wants to determine how much of a threat Zoidberg is before he launches into scientific inquiry.

[crabulous]

Wide, glassy eyes looks up at the startled scientist, and for a moment Zoidberg stared at him in complete silence. Slowly, his senses began to return to him and he left out a sharp cry for mercy, "Please! For the love of Benji! Let me liiiiiiiive!"

Throwing himself at Carlos' feet, he attempted to make himself seem as small and non-threatening as possible, appealing to the mercy that few humans ever seemed to possess. "I'm soooooo hungry!"

[youbarium]

Carlos was not a cruel man. Actually, underneath the brusque professionalism and stressed-out irritability, Carlos was a very kind one. He found himself moved to pity by Zoidberg's display of pathos -- slightly disgusted pity, but pity nonetheless.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Carlos said, trying surreptitiously to get a better look at Zoidberg's face and form. "C-come on. Calm down. Get back on your feet. Then we'll talk." He hadn't put the mace away, but he wasn't menacing Zoidberg with it anymore. Carlos had no intention of harming the crab-man, but wasn't entirely sure Zoidberg could be trusted.

It was strange, Carlos thought. He was very used to hearing people scream for mercy and beg for their lives, but it had never been directed at him before.

OTA: Carlos Talks About Night Vale

[youbarium]

It's evening now. They know it's evening because the museum has been proclaimed closed. Carlos is sitting on the floor near the telescope, leaning against one of the planetarium's chairs.

He picks up a slightly stale pastry and turns it over in his hands. "You know," he says, "it's been ages since I've eaten anything with wheat in it. Over six months, I think."

I'm sorry

[pointandclickme]

"Ever try Tasty Wheat?"

Stale or not, Mouse has been positively delighted with the bounty they had managed to gather. At the moment, however, he's less 'eating food' with the group and more 'consuming packages of artificial sweetener for fun' while he examines a circuit board. Because while the grey gloop of back home may have all the nutrients, sweetness was a flavor he rarely got these days.

"Not that I- did that even have real wheat in it? Or just some kind of by product..."

don't be. also oh my god stop eating packets of fake sugar, jesus boy

[youbarium]

Carlos shakes his head. "Never heard of it," he admitted, trying not to be bothered by the boy knocking back packet after packet of aspartame. "Even if I had, it would have been banned in Night Vale. Wheat and its by-products were outlawed in Night Vale after an incident last November." He hesitates, not sure if he wants to go on. Talking about what happened in Night Vale feels a little bit like tempting fate -- not that Carlos believes in fate. But he does believe in Night Vale and its unpredictable weirdness, and since there has been no real weirdness so far, he's not sure he wants to remind the world that it's being less terrifying than usual.

neveeeeeer

[pointandclickme]

Maybe it was the slowly building artificial sugar high talking- which was just starting to manifest in the fact Mouse's leg was bouncing so fast it may was well be vibrating as he worked- but something about the banning of an essential food group just didn't seem like the kind of thing people did. Not in the artificial world of the Matrix, anyway. But who knows. He didn't visit every inch of the program in his few years there.

"Fad diets?"

Re: OTA: Carlos Talks About Night Vale

[nunpunching]

"Who needs wheat?" Punchy asks, flopping down onto the ground next to Carlos. Punchy seems to have the phenomenal superpower of being able to subsist off a diet consisting solely of sugar, cheetos and artificial flavoring. Right now he has his arm up to his elbow in a bag of potato chips from one of the cafes and a gummi Iskierka hanging out of his mouth.

He's been going around meeting his peeps in the planetarium, and hasn't yet gotten to introduce himself to Carlos. He pops a chip into his mouth and swallows both candy and salty snack whole, then holds a hand covered in crumbs and grease out to shake Carlos'. "What's cracking, homie?"

[youbarium]

"Have you ever had a pizza without wheat?" Carlos asks in reply. "It's just a bowl of hot tomato sauce and melted cheese. It's kind of disappointing, especially when you're municipally mandated to go out for pizza at least once a week."

Carlos shakes the hand -- then wipes it on his pajamas. He's not sure what he thinks of this kid yet.

[nunpunching]

"I ain't seein' a downside to that." Punchy has less than zero idea what a 'municipally mandated' means, but to him that sounds like some cracker speech.

(Punchy, pale as the driven snow and 100% Irish-American, still hasn't received the obvious memo.)

"What's your name, dawg?"

OTA!

[pointandclickme]

They were going to need more supplies. And to do something about this dim light. It was wreaking havoc on his jerry rigging skills. The bits and pieces he'd collected from his brief explorations into the museum- car keys here, some stripped wire there, odds and ends all around- were spread out before him on the floor, with him sitting cross-legged in the middle of it. Trying to puzzle how to best make them into something could do something. Cause injury, help them get out of the stupid building, disrupt whatever neural signal his real body was currently being fed by the Matrix so Morpheus could find and rescue him. That kind of thing.

He scratched the port on the back of his head , partly covered by his hair, and tried to ignore the same sick feeling in his stomach that came up every time he touched it. That one little detail that meant this really should be the real world...

"I should go back for the gasoline."

[asklepian]

"Not alone you're not. And assuming someone didn't already take it."

Julian was taking this alliance thing seriously, and he knew better than to let someone go off on their own. It was just asking for trouble. Five floors down, through tight stairwells? Death trap.

"What is that, may I ask?"

[pointandclickme]

"Keys!"

The cheerful smile and presentation of the car keys were an, admittedly slightly sad, attempted at acting like he didn't know what the man was actually asking about. Because how did he even answer that? That whole song and dance had never been his problem.

"And you never know. Some people don't like fire. Or being momentarily flammable while they carry the stuff. It could be there."

OTA

[googledox]

A green young man showed up a the door, looking incredibly confused by what he was seeing.

It all looked vaguely scientific. That was promising.

It also looked a bit like a fortification, which meant the people inside might be hostile to outsiders. Less promising.

"I should warn you I don't intend any unwarranted hostility - as it's not worth the trouble - but I will defend myself if necessary."

Your move, science bros. Let green jeans in or turn him away?

[asklepian]

Well, one of the faces turning towards him is promising, anyway--since Julian had told him he didn't fight unless pressed. But he does have a weapon--a bow, and an arrow in one hand. He hasn't yet drawn back or aimed, though--he's just cautious.

"And we'll do the same. I don't believe I got your name, on the network. I'm Julian Bashir."

Because you best believe he remembers talking to you, friend. He literally can't forget a face.

[googledox]

"Brainiac 5."

He eyed the bow and arrow distastefully.

"I supposed that's something I'll have to get used to - primitive weaponry. They can't even bother with letting people kill one another with phase rifles like civilized sentients. It's far more entertaining to the masses if we beat one another bloody with rocks like cavemen."

His entire manner seemed to speak to the fact that he felt above all that, but at the very least that probably meant he also felt above pointless aggression.

FINDING CECIL'S SPONSOR GIFTS, WEEK 2, OPEN

[youbarium]

Carlos walked through the planetarium door, waving a large canister triumphantly over his head. He also had a couple of full bottles of water under one arm, but it was the sponsor gifts he was excited about.

"Look! We've got gifts! At least, I think they're meant for us. The elevator doors opened as I went past, and there was no one else there, so...I took them."

He set the fresh water supplies down in the center of the room, then sat cross-legged and began to work the large metal can open. "Let's see, we've got -- a first aid kit, some food -- I think this is meant for starting fires -- and there's a note." Carlos pulled it out and unfolded the paper, holding it up to the dim light. "It says, For Carlos and his team of scientists -- Cecil?!"

It would be clear to anyone looking that whatever Carlos had been expecting to read, it wasn't that. "Cecil is here?"

[asklepian]

"I'd give you an answer, but I've not met anyone by that name." Julian looks up from where he's been looking over the map he'd gotten from Timaeus, for lack of anything better to do. He wasn't even truly looking at it. He'd already memorized it long ago.

He's not going to put up much fuss about being lumped in with the 'team of scientists.' He just doesn't have the energy to care.

"Friend of yours?"

[youbarium]

Under ordinary circumstances, Carlos would have shaken his head at the "team of scientists" thing, too -- this wasn't his team, he wasn't leader, this wasn't formally organized, but it was the phrasing that caught his attention.

"Well -- not exactly," Carlos says, slowly. "He's more of a -- a contact, a radio personality who would help me get the word out about anything particularly dangerous that was happening in Night Vale. That is," Carlos adds grudgingly, "when he remembered to do it. Anyway, he always referred to the researchers involved in our project as Carlos and his team of scientists. Every time. This has to be him. He must be here -- somewhere, watching the Games."

[googledox]

"Who?" Brainy inquired from where he was rooting through some of the planetarium's equipment.

He drolled, "And for what precise reason are we supposed to care? Food is food."

Despite his temporary alliance with people, he had to make sure it seemed properly contentious, as befitting the persona he was putting forth.

[youbarium]

"But," Carlos said, still staring down at the note, "I know him. From Night Vale -- from where I came from. If he was brought here too, why isn't he in the Arena?"

Not even his verdant companion's apathetic attitude could keep Carlos from thinking aloud.

"How is Cecil Palmer in a position to send sponsor gifts?"

late week 1/early week 2

[swill]

His work in the basement was through, and he gravitated towards larger spaces if he could help it, if he could determine the surrounding was safe enough using his terrible judgement.

He wasn't made for this, the bloodlust and hiding.

And so when he wandered to this spacious little floor, Hawkeye felt some spark of life return to him. He moved with confidence despite knowing he was more often than not lost, and he made himself comfortable in one chair at the theater for longer than he'd care to admit. Now he found a door to what promised to be a planetarium, and it took him a long minute to work up the mentality to stride in. He wasn't an idiot- he didn't want to die by turning the wrong door- but if there were instruments he might know how to use or modify around, this would be somewhere to get an idea at best. A rest, at most.

He just hadn't expected a trap to go off the moment he cautiously swung open the door, the instant he set foot on the floor inside. And why hell did this place look so lived in? Suddenly a deep voice all around boomed about the wonders of space- the gorgeous and mystical constellation of-- and Jesus Christ, if that wouldn't tip someone off that he'd come in, he didn't know what would. He shut the door, he shuffled off to one side.

"Son of a--," he cursed. "No."

No, no. No, no.

No, not again. He tightened the belt on his robe, staying near the door. If someone came with an axe, he'd bolt. If not-- he'd stay and learn about Big Dipper in his sleep.

Re: late week 1/early week 2

[youbarium]

It was Carlos's watch when his makeshift alarm went off -- and he was pleased to see that it worked.

Well, that wasn't quite true. Carlos would actually have preferred that the activated alarm was a malfunction, but he hadn't missed the light from the door or the muffled swearing. The whole science pack would be up now, so Carlos took a moment to break the circuit and cut off the booming planetarium audio track. Then, he turned the lights up. The place wasn't exactly flooded with light, but it would let them see.

Carlos padded down the aisle in his bare feet, toward the intruder.

"Let's go over the facts," he said, stopping about twenty feet away. "I mean you no harm. None of us do. We're all here together because we're mutually interested in not harming anyone. But there's six of us and one of you. I'll let you draw your own conclusion about how it will end if you try anything."

[swill]

This was every bad mafia film he'd ever seen after sneaking through the back of the movie theaters, and Hawkeye for a moment wonders if the set-up is inspired by a movie he never saw when he had napped at the IMAX. There was the hideout and the intruder, the rattling cans or hollow clap of wood as the saloon doors swung open. In front of him was now the gunslinger, or, as the man kept talking, Hawkeye thought he should peg him as a deputy, though he wasn't sure when he shifted from mafia to westerns. Theatrical or not, the intimidation factor was there, and was higher than anything he had to his name to share. Hawkeye's hands go up- palms forward- like they so often do.

He wondered who's bright it idea it was to rig the door so intricately. One, because it was a bonehead move if the camp was supposed to pass for being hidden. Eyes wandering past Carlos as he spoke, Hawkeye figured being hidden wasn't a priority. Two, there's got to be a big brain in the gang, to get something like that going flawlessly. He wondered if he'd been the first test rat, or the third.

But still- "There's a whole half dozen of you?"

The question was curious, awed, pressing. It was like someone had said some fantastical thing instead of a simple fact the man had pretended it was. He stammers, bringing his train of thought back on track for the meanwhile. He shouldn't piss off the guy who boasted to have five goons behind him, and who was more than easily believed. "I'm a doctor, don't worry. How-" see, he was going to say something else but the disbelief was hanging on too tight. "How the heck'd you get six of you in here?" Why the hell wasn't there a flashing sign outside that read 'Peace'? "I can hardly find one of you out there!" Now, he doesn't think he's complaining. But he thinks he's doing just that.