ArchivedLogs:Watchmen

Watchmen
Dramatis Personae Doug, Dusk
In Absentia	2013-08-07 '
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Rooftop - East Village
It tends to be windy, up here, but the presence of plastic table and folding chairs suggests that nevertheless building residents occasionally make their way out to this rooftop. With a good view of Tompkins Square Park less than a block away it's a good spot for city-watching. There's a railing around the edge, though it might be possible (if /unwise/) to climb over it to the narrow concrete ledges beyond and from there to the fire escape. Centrally, someone has broken down crates and constructed a small raised-bed garden up here, barren in winter but filled in three other seasons with a small assortment of herbs and vegetables. The concrete wall that rings the roof has been decorated, painted in vivid bright shades by some artistic hand to add colourful cheer to the rooftop. The mural shifts in terrain One wall sports a beach, flecked with grass and seashells and driftwood and shore birds. Beach transitions into meadow, colourful with wildflowers and butterflies and dragonflies; meadow shifts into snow-capped mountains, subsides into piedmont and sprouts into a verdant forest on the fourth, alive with animals. The weather is /amazing/ today, in New York City. Mid 70s, and partly cloudy, it's the most pleasant it's been for a while, and the Village sounds like it. City sounds seem magnified, with the extra people on the street, shouts and car horns and various background noise seem to snap with a renewed energy. Even here up on the roof of the Lofts, seven stories above, the noise is audible, albeit muted, seventy feet above the street level. It's the kind of day to be out /doing/ stuff, to be sure. Maybe that explains why Doug is up on the roof. Classes done for the summer session, the blonde has been more visible around the building, usually up on a ladder or checking something against a tablet computer as he peers into a nearby corner. Today, he is hanging over the railing towards the front of the building, a rope tied around his waist that's connected to the railing he's leaning waaaay out over. His feet aren't even touching the tarpaper of the roof, although he doesn't seem necessarily unstable. Dressed in jeans and a blue utilitarian shirt, all that's visible to the roof is his rump and dangling workboots, hanging next to a tool bag with several wires and fancy-looking tools poking out of it. Resting on top of the bag is the aforementioned tablet, providing cheery 60s French pop music for the teenager to work by. Dusk's approach is not stealthy; the heavy roof access door has a tendency to /creak/ and to scrape against concrete. It opens with a whine of protest and closes behind him with a heavy thud. The young man is dressed -- as casually as he often tends to be, around home. Vans sneakers and denim shorts that hang down over his knees; no shirt, to allow his wings proper movement. He's edging back towards his frequent unhealthy pallor, although his general /emaciated/ look has, of late, been replaced with a healthy sheath of lean muscle filling out his lanky frame. He is /stretching/ his wings almost as soon as he emerges onto the rooftop, with a soft sigh of relief as he finally has /room/ to extend them to their full length. They snap back in to fold against his back as he catches sight of Doug. His eyebrows raise, and he changes course to head towards the railing. "Hey, man. You're -- not gonna fall and die or anything, are you?" He leans against the railing beside where Doug is tied, peering down over its edge. "'Swhat the rope is for, my man," Doug replies, his voice sounding a bit strained from the combination of hanging over a rail and concentrating on his task. "Just in case I go over." He appears to be installing a small wireless camera to the underside of the cornice, pointing at the street below. He's got an odd-looking multi-tool in one hand that he uses to tuck some wires into a small open hatch before he spares a glance up for the other man. His face is reddened, making his grin a white slash across his jaw. "Oh, hey, Dusk. I didn't realize it was you." He bends back to use the plier tip of the tool to poke the hatch closed. Then he frowns as the tool proves to be the hiccup in righting himself. Eventually, he just tosses over his shoulder, away from Dusk, and puts his hands on the bar to push himself upright. "Whew," he says, grinning again as the color in his face begins to recede. "That was a rush." "Pssh, you go over and I'd catch you. -- Cameras?" Dusk's eyebrows lift; he leans over the railing much further as he watches Doug do the last of this work. He /does/ look kind of precarious in his balance, but it's likely the giant wings mean he cares somewhat less about anchoring himself. He slides back to the ground as Doug starts to right himself, extending a hand to offer Doug help back over the railing. "That what you've been up to?" "You probably could catch me," Doug says with a grin, his brows knitting briefly as he gets a better look at Dusk. "You look like you've put on some muscle." He moves to his bag to retrieve the tablet, skimming his fingers over the screen. "Yeah," he confirms Dusk's question. "Micah told me about the stuff that happened to him and Jax, and I figured it would be a good idea to get some extra eyes on the building." He grins as he pulls up the camera, and turns the tablet so that the fish-eye view of the street below is visible to the other man. "I've got cameras on every way in and out of here," he explains. "And now I'm working on getting the perimeter under surveillance." He lifts a shoulder, as if dismissing the project. "I figure it might not be /much/ help, but you never know." "-- That sounds like a lot of help, actually." Dusk looks down at the tablet with a newfound interest. "Where does this feed go? Who has access to it? Who -- /could/ have access to it?" He glances from tablet down to the street. "I mean, that's pretty great, really. Folks like Josh and Hive and --" For a moment something tightens in his expression; he dismisses it with a quick shake of his head. "It's much better, I think. Surveillance that doesn't rely on our resident telepaths having paranoia-brain all the time. With everything that's been going on --" He shakes his head again. "That's -- pretty awesome." Color blooms back into Doug's cheeks at the compliments, and his eyebrows pop towards his hairline briefly. "Oh, right now it just goes to my computer," he says apologetically. "I'm actually working on a variation of a network program I came up with a couple of weeks ago that will allow anyone in the building -- who has reason -- to be able to access it." He wrinkles his nose as he leans over the screen, his mouth tightening into a line. "I'm also working on incorporating some facial-recognition software, too." He nods at Dusk's recognition of the system's need. "And an early-warning system. Like, if the FRS catches someone with guns or whatever." He shrugs. "With any luck, I can rig it to alert those computers hooked up, instead of having to visibly check them all the time." "What constitutes reason?" Dusk wonders, with a small curl of smile that is a little bit thin. "And where /are/ all the cameras? Just -- in and out of the exits, and up to look at the street? Not -- in halls and all?" His fingers drum against the railing for a moment, his eyes focused on the screen, too. "Mmm -- yeah, I mean, that's -- probably pretty easy to rig. At least, if you get the recognition working right, the alerts should be no problem. Could probably even set it to text certain people if it catches something dangerous." Doug laughs, although there's little humor in it. "I guess everyone has reason," he says. "But I'm a bit loathe to put it on an open network. I'd rather create a sub-network and let people decide their need to know on their own." He smiles tightly, and turns the tablet to face him again, tapping at the screen. "I've got all the exits and spare ground-floor windows covered," he says. "I've got one in the laundry room, two in the lobby, one above the elevator door on each floor switching between the doors and the hall, and one /in/ the elevator. Stairwell, too, although I need to re-adjust a couple in there for blind spots." He waves at his bag. "There'll be one on the street and one in the air, watching neighboring buildings," he says, his eyebrows lifting as he opens a sub-window and enters some text. "Texts are a good idea," he notes. "That way, we won't have to be near a computer to get notified." His tablet beeps, and the window closes. Then he's looking back up at Dusk, and wrinkling his nose. "I might be a little obssessive with my projects." "I'm just picturing that nosy dude down my hall keeping the feed up at work all day so he can /scold/ me some more about how many people are in and out of my apartment," Dusk says with a flash of fanged smile. "But -- I guess some nosiness is an alright trade in exchange for not being shot in my sleep." He leans his elbows against the rail, wings flexing out to stretch wide behind him; the wide stretch arcs around past Doug, casting a brief shadow over the other man. "I think obsessive sort of comes with the territory," he adds, with a laugh. "I think I singlehandedly raise Bawls stock when I have a project to finish." Doug laughs. "I can work it so that it can't be accessed through anything other than the building's wi-fi," he says with a small lift of his shoulders. "Although, I can write in exceptions, if there's people on the outside you want to have access." He wrinkles his nose. "Hive's friends with that P.I., right? Jim? I can give him access, for example." He watches the flex of wings, coloring a bit when he's shaded. "Oh, gosh," he says. "I think I must have spiked Stark's stock this week. He's got the best spy tech." He grins, and wrinkles his nose. "What's your current project?" "He does have good shit," Dusk agrees, with a touch of amusement. His wings cast a brief breeze (it smells faintly of Old Spice) when they pull back in, draping against his shoulders. "Eh. Nothing particularly exciting. Building a new CMS for this marketing firm -- it's. Kind of boring right now." He digs around in his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes but not actually taking one out of the pack, yet. "-- Jim might be my current project," he admits in a heavier tone, "he's kinda --" His teeth clench, briefly. "Did you see the news about -- Nngh. About the woman who killed that asshole cop. Week before last." Doug's eyebrows lift at the mention of the project, although the flare of his nostrils indicates his catching that whiff of spicy cologne. They fall again as the real project is revealed, and his lower lip juts out thoughtfully. "Yeah, I saw that," he says. "She was killed? I don't really know if I understand what exactly happened. Was that the same night that Jax and Micah ran into those guys in the sewer?" The blonde's face screws up thoughtfully as he taps the screen of the tablet, closing windows and lowering the volume of the music. "What does that have to do with Ji -- " his eyes widen, for a moment. "Oh, shit. Was this about that damned fight ring?" Dusk exhales a slow breath, his expression settling down into a tired one. "It was that night, yeah," he says, "they almost -- /fuck/. Ian /already/ died for her and they almost did, too." His elbows still prop on the railing, his hand lifting to scruff fingers into his mop of dark curls. "I guess it all comes back to that fight ring. That sick bastard kidnapped her and everyone so she killed him. And then the city went fucking crazy because, mutant cop-killer. Some -- cops? Military people? -- /Government/ though, for sure -- were out hunting for her. Everyone else just got caught in the crossfire. They took Jim. Hive's kind of a mess over it." Doug's exhale is an echo of Dusk's, slow and weary-sounding. "/Fuck/." It seems the best he can offer, at the moment, other than a brief, encouraging squeeze of Dusk's shoulder. "Dude. I didn't know that they'd gotten Jim," he says, and he furrows his brow. "Why would they even pick up other people, if they were only after her? Just...opportunity presents itself?" He sounds kind of disgusted as he leans on the railing, glaring at the people down on the street. "You guys are going to go and get him, right?" he verifies, looking over at the other man. "I mean, isn't that what you and the others do?" Dusk leans into the squeeze, one wing extending in answer to curl fuzzy-soft against Doug's shoulders. "Yeah." That comes after the 'fuck', and then for a moment Dusk is quiet. His fingers clench in against his cigarette pack in slow mindless squeeze. "I don't -- we think they might be working with -- the same people. From the labs. I don't fucking know." The heel of his hand digs in against his eye. "We're going to get them. Her, too. I think she's -- not dead. They just said that on the news so they could vanish her off to this torture farm. But, shit, Doug, I -- feel like a /shitty/ person but if any /more/ of my friends die for her sake I'm --" His teeth clench, his weight sinking forward against his arms. He just ends this statement with a disgusted snort. "-- Imagine your cameras will be a blessing after /another/ strike against the government," he says, a lot more wryly. "I don't even know this chick, and I'm a little over the chaos she's caused for everyone," Doug says, with a tight pull of his mouth. "I mean, sure, she had good reasons for what she did, but /damn/. She couldn't have screwed up the city any more than if she'd killed the mayor on-camera." He shifts his weight, scooting a hair closer to Dusk. "It's not shitty to be mad your friends are getting shot at and carted off because of her," he offers. "I mean, you're still going to do right by her and get her free if she's alive, so you're already waaay ahead of the game, morality-wise." He grins, and leans to bump shoulders. "Hey, I should have thought of it a long time ago," he says of the cameras. "Especially after that last raid, when the building was refugee central." He's quiet for a long moment, flicking his gaze between the street and Dusk. Finally, he pushes up from the rail. "So, now that you're up here, do you want to help me get the other cameras installed?" He asks, waggling his eyebrows. "It'll go quicker with two, and with you here, OSHA won't be up my ass for insufficient workplace safety gear." Dusk grimaces. "Man, having been in them for a while -- I don't think there's /anyone/ I'd want to leave in those labs." His wing squeezes a little tighter around Doug's shoulder with that shoulder-bump, and then pulls back to tuck in at his back again. He tucks his cigarettes unopened back into his pocket, summoning up a quick, if tired, smile for Doug. "Yeah, totally. Maybe I can help you poke at the software afterwards, too, see if we can't get it set up and secured." He pushes away from the wall, drawing in a quick breath before pushing back other thoughts to focus on work.