maskormenacelogs | I don't wanna be the center of anything [Open]

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I don't wanna be the center of anything [Open]

WHO: Daryl Dixon, Mako Mori + Open
WHERE: Porter Cities & The House
WHEN: All November
WHAT: Catch-All!
WARNINGS: References ~~Zombies~~ Walkers, Kaiju, Abuse, General Violence and Gore are likely in a few threads.

Convention Circuit - A porter city near you
Having finally said goodbye to his Government assigned job, Daryl now had the free time to pursue projects he wanted to. For the most part. He was, however, still a contracted spokesman for Bow-Man Hunting and Hunting Season was well underway. With it came a convention circuit.

Daryl hadn't given much thought to the clause in his contract that had to do with personal appearances. He figured that he might have to make two, maybe three in a year because how many conventions could there be? 70. There were 70 conventions that Bow-Man Hunting had booths at. Every. Year. 26 for just the hunting and fishing industry. Not the general populace and 'enthusiasts', just the industry. The other 44 were the 'fan' conventions for the rest. The people that liked to go out like Daryl used to, for a weekend or a week in the woods. Or who wanted to prepare for a disaster, called themselves 'preppers'. Or for the rich asshole 'survival enthusiasts' who treated it all like a game. Gun shows, even, since families were often dragged along and left to 'ooh' and 'ahh' at whatever was in the dealer's hall and they could make a quick buck selling older models there along with their knife lines.

The only good part about the personal appearance clause was that he wasn't required to be at any shows (barring health or other negotiated absences) that weren't at the Porter Cities. The bad part was that he was required to be there for conventions in the Porter Cities. Which was why he could easily be found (looking very uncomfortable and grumpy, with shoulders hunched and arms crossed) by his adoring fans (Dear Lord how the hell did shooting one guy in the ass and posing for a couple pictures get him this much attention?) as well as people who actually wanted to talk shop.

Please, please, please, for the love of whatever you find holy or sacred or just downright okay, give him a 'business' reason to walk away from those fans crowding the side of the booth, taking pictures, and generally harassing him with a barrage of half-shouted questions and attempts to get his attention.

Enchilada Night - The House - November 3rd (open party for The Group, tag around/threadjack as you like)
Official purchase date had been October 23rd. Keys were handed out starting on the 25th. Official move-in date hadn't really been decided, as Daryl was still figuring out if he wanted to live on the property 'full time' or stick to the De Chima place. Mako's increased presence in day to day activity was pulling him closer and closer to Nonah as they'd have an easier time working their own personal touches into a new place than one of them taking up space somewhere the other had already established. Plus the De Chima house didn't really have space for the ravens Daryl was only a week or so away from formally adopting. The House did. And more they could add on to, as well.

Hell, he had already decided to move and just hadn't emotionally accepted it yet. He liked his housemates. Clark was quiet, but friendly enough. Betty always showed an interest in him and he was going to worry about her like crazy with Bruce still gone and her not knowing what to do with herself. And Catherine? He'd made her one of his almost as soon as he'd met her. They were kindred spirits from worlds where life as it was known in this one had ended.

Daryl wasn't really able to do a 'clean cut', but he could try to make the move-in more concrete. No better way to do that than with food. And free food, to boot. His last day on the job at the Cantina he'd been assigned to became something of a welcome-home move-in party. The restaurant was sad to see him go, but the employees had liked him well enough to fudge a few numbers on the books with 'remakes' and 'expired product' to send him packing with a good two dozen fresh enchiladas, a pile of tamales, and a few elotes.

Made for a great mini-feast with the family that none of them had to do the work for.

Wildcard/OOC
Daryl will largely be around Nonah and De Chima during November. Heropa will become less of a haunt the further into the month we get. If you've got an idea for a thread, you can post it or PM me to work it out beforehand so we're on the same page. And if you'd like a specific prompt, PM me and I'll set it up in the comments.

Also, feel free to tag in whatever style is most comfortable for you, I have no problem matching!

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Of all the ways to be introduced to a fellow imPort, he never expected it to be via a call from one of his assets. The guy had been approached about moving construction materials discreetly, and figured Midnighter's Door technology could be of assistance. Curious about the concept of a discreet building project, Midnighter agreed to meet the guy and gave a time and a place.

Okay sure, perhaps a cat cafe was a strange place to have a meeting of this nature, but the owner was an asset of his known for her discretion, and the back room where the cats eat and get away from the patrons was perfect for its privacy.

The owner ushered Daryl inside the room, where Midnighter was seated on a nearby bench. A mostly white tabby cat was sitting in his upturned cowl on his lap, nibbling at a chicken breast attached to an extremely sharp knife in the leather armored man's hand.

"Daryl Dixon, I presume?"

Daryl frowned at the use of his name. He'd been avoiding saying it, or giving an alias so people wouldn't immediately connect him to anything going on. But if this guy knew it and it'd been passed on, it meant he'd been recognized even with the stupid trucker hat dipped low and oversized jacket that hid his vest. Stupid adverts and stupid job giving his face that much exposure.

"Ain't the name I gave your boy," he growled out, not bothering to hide his annoyance. He crossed his arms and started pacing slowly in front of the door. Kept himself to his side of the room while he eyed the man. Eyes moving under his shaggy bangs between the cat and the chicken and M himself.

"How much it been tossed around by him?"

"No, it's not." Midnighter doesn't move, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room. His focus seems to be on the cat. "But this cat is smarter than Oscar can ever dream to be, so I never take his word for anything. I had him give me a description and I eventually worked it out from there. I don't like dealing with aliases."

The tabby's nibbling gets too close to the blade's edge for M's taste, so he rotates the knife, allowing it access to the uneaten half of chicken breast.

"Whatever it is your planning, you want plausible deniability, right? So long as you aren't planning on hurting anyone, I'll respect that. Your name will never leave my lips again."

Daryl didn't quite relax all the way, but his shoulders did lose some tension at that. At least he hadn't been recognized off the cuff by the contact.

"I don't want it connected to me at all," he corrected. Plausible deniability meant there were still strings that led to him. He wanted to avoid that as much as possible. He tilted his head, eyes narrowed as he watched the guy. Not exactly the sort he'd thought he'd be introduced to, being that he didn't want to get involved with anything that was gonna hurt anyone. And that he was so careful with the cat. But it was the better outcome if the man was being honest about that.

Daryl took a moment before he lifted his chin, "What do you think of Helix Station? You think it's safe?"

Not a completely unreasonable request, one which hinges entirely on what exactly it is the man's planning. But for now at least, M will acquiesce that request with a small nod of his head. There was plenty of time to go back to that point once he has details.

"You mean the diet Justice League's base of operations?" Midnighter will probably never be a fan of superhuman groups, but to be fair RISE wasn't the worst of them. They at least pretended to make a difference outside of merely punching each other in the face and leaving random bystanders to pick up the pieces. "Never been in it, but I've seen it before. The whole thing seems like security theater. It looks like a fortress, sure, but most buildings built to look tough usually aren't."

"You don't think it's safe?" It came out like a question, but the answer was obvious. "If shit hit the fan again and Russia or someone else pulled what they did last year, would it be a place you'd tell others to go to? Or would you tell 'em to run for the hills and dig in deep?"

"I don't think it's as safe as it thinks it does. There's a difference," M quickly countered. Regardless of his thoughts on the design, the building wasn't completely without value. No reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Though M's attention had shifted to the imPort across the room once the topic of the Helix Station came up, he somehow knew without so much as glancing down at the cat that it was coming close to the blade's end once more. He put his free hand between the cat and its dinner so to pull the knife away as he continued to speak.

"It would depend on the situation. In some cases, poor protection is better than none at all, but in others gathering so many people in a place with poor security could wind up getting them all killed."

"What about having a place to go no one knows where it is?" He ventured a little more cautiously. He knew it would make the project he was planning obvious enough to figure out with a modicum of thought. Following the logic and all. But he felt safe in doing so, seeing as how M's assessment of Helix Station followed his own pretty closely.

Well that certainly helped narrow down what this was all about. He'd certainly had several ideas before agreeing to the meeting, ideas that the computer in his head kept updating the odds of, and now one just took the lead by a long shot. Still, after being so rude as to digging into the man's true identity, he decided to play coy out of some attempt at politeness.

"That's most useful in the case of an invasion or the government finally turning on imPorts. The secrecy of the location could potentially make up for any flaws in its design, making it a better safe house than Helix Station." They were still talking hypotheticals, yes?

With the chicken freed from the tip of the knife, M held the piece out for the cat, while the other hand he wiped the knife off on the side of his coat.

"But." M looked back up from the cat to the man across the room, spinning the knife in his hand across his palm. "At the same time its secrecy can be used to only save a 'chosen' few. Only someone's friends for instance, or the highest bidder. Depending on who ran such a facility, it could be used as extortion; their life for a price they either can't afford or can't bear to."

He stopped the knife spin mid-rotation, and slipped it into a hidden pocket inside his coat. "Of course, secrecy by definition means that not everyone would be privy to such information, and to make such knowledge public would cost such a location its added security...depending on the form of attack. My concern would be simply the method of how someone would be granted the knowledge of such privileged information."

The way the guy kept playing with the knife, Daryl was assuming he was trying to be casually intimidating with it. So instead of looking at it - though he was very aware of it just out of habit alone - he continued to look like he was ignoring it. Or any real threat the other man might pose. Better to appear like he wasn't worried than to give away more about how nervous the fact that he'd been found out made him. Even if he did think M was up for helping with the project.

"A lot of words to say you wanna know who's on the list and who ain't," he answered. Confirming the hypothetical without outright doing so. "Place can only fit about 100, maybe 120 people. Can't make it bigger without drawin' unwanted attention to it. Spots go to those I trust and the people they vouch for. Word of mouth if and when shit hits the fan."

It wasn't entirely meant to be threatening, the knife was in his hand and he found himself fiddling with it more out of habit than anything. Still, it was always interesting to see people's reactions to his antics. Body language often told far more about a person than their words, especially to one enhanced to see every microexpression.

"The most practical option." It was always nice to have a confirmation of character. "And now that we've got all of that out of the way--What kind of help were you looking from me, Mr. Doe?"

"Need a door," he said it plainly now that all that extra bullshit had been dealt with. Glad the last question about who would benefit was apparently the last 'test' he had to pass to get where they both needed to be: on the same page. "A place to store material that don't got any connection to me and a way to move it without it bein' seen to the place it's gonna be used. Heard you might have the kind of door I need for that."

At mention of a door, M can't help but break out into a smile. Oh boy, does he have a door. Outside of breaking people's faces, Doors just so happen to be his specialty.

"Would this kind of Door work for you, Mr. Doe?"

As soon as the man still holding the kitten utters the word "Door", a golden rectangle appears in front of Daryl. It doesn't seem like much, beyond a golden rectangle appearing with no warning, as simply looking at it from a distance just shows a shimmery golden color and not much else.

Edited 2017-01-03 04:20 (UTC)

Daryl swayed back on his heels, head lifting as he eyed the thing. Then went to walk around it. It looked like a door even if he couldn't see nothing through it.

"Depends on if you can make it go where I want it to go and when," he answered, voice honest and sounding impressed. "I got a schedule I need kept to. You think you can match me for it?"

"It looks solid, but you can walk through. Take a peek if you're curious."

Midnighter finally stood, the kitten still perched inside his upturned cowl now tucked under his arm. With a few steps he crossed the room to the Door, and then he stuck the cowl through the portal for a few seconds before pulling it back out. Once back in the room, the kitten looked up at Midnighter and purred.

"So long as it's within fifty miles of the first Door, I can send things anywhere instantly. Anything further than that you or whoever's moving your things for you is going to have to sit in my apartment for a couple seconds so it can move."

Normal is not a word in his vocabulary.

"Gonna be longer than fifty miles," Daryl said immediately, reaching out to touch it and watch his hand go through. "Warehouse the supplies are dropped at is in Maurita Falls. Place it's going to is on the Tennessee/Carolina border."

Whatever's on the other side of the Door is warm with a slight breeze. Somewhere outside, most likely.

"So anywhere between 300-700 miles, depending on where exactly along the border you're building this thing." M replied the moment Daryl had finished speaking. Math might be one of M's fortes. "In that case you're going to have to give me a little bit to build an extension on the apartment. I can't keep moving back and forth, I've got a life, but I can stay in Maurtia Falls for a bit until you get most of your supplies stored, and I'll make the move then; take anyone along for the ride that needs to go. The room'll be separate from the rest of my apartment, so none of my guests will accidentally stumble upon it. As for the apartment, well... it exists between cities so no one gets in without my permission."

Daryl could work with that. He nodded and pulled out a small pad of paper, scratched out the first two dates on the list he had and then tore it off to hand over.

"This is my timetable and the days I want deliveries done. Crew'll be rotating out on the weekly with the deliveries. One in, one out. I'll be with 'em to organize and make sure things go down okay. If you can make your extension this big," Daryl pointed to one of the storage container size listings, "We can do it with two round trips each time and take maybe two hours at most with loading and unloading between."

He was already organized for this. The door he actually wanted wasn't available, but this was a damn close runner up.

"We stick to this, should be done with the build in about six weeks, maybe eight if there's a problem or two. First trip in gets the first crew there."

Mostly because the on site crew was set up for round the clock shifts and there was never any 'down time' that was fully down. Daryl was going to visit it often enough to make sure the foreman he'd hired kept things moving.

M can't help but snort as he read over the paper handed to him. He glanced at the numbers, and they seemed reasonable enough to him. An accelerated timetable, sure, but not so much it would inconvenience him.

"Somehow I'm getting the feeling you've done this before." He said as he folds the paper up and sticks it into an inside pocket. "Sure, you could just be overly organized, but no matter how hard someone thinks about logistics, no one gets this sure without a little experience."

He gave a dismissive wave of his hand to show it was a rhetorical statement. Daryl already made it abundantly clear he valued his privacy and it was something M intended to honor.

"I'll make the dimensions a bit bigger just to be on the safe side. And I'll have Oscar run either you or one of your guys a time that I'll open the Door for you exactly one week before each of these dates. Give you time to make sure there's no prying eyes around before you do your hush hush work. I'm assuming that works best for you?"

When you had to secure a prison in short order to support a good 100 new residents, you learn how to do a build fast and dirty. And since he was keeping it relatively simple, outside of the planned defense system, it would got much faster than places like Helix station might have. Or a lot of other buildings.

"Yeah. That works," he affirmed. "What's this going to cost me?"

As the conversation seemed to be nearing it's end point, it was time for the kitten to go back to the cafe. After all, it wasn't his. He gingerly plucks it from his cowl and places it on the floor by the cat door to the cafe, and nudges it through.

"It's going to cost you your word. The part you said back in the beginning of this conversation when you told me this wasn't going to be your private little clubhouse only for you and your buddies, or for the highest bidder. Like I said before, I'm not saying that means stick a neon "Open" sign on the front of it, but if people need it and there's room, they get in." With his cowl now cat free, he slipped it over his head for the first time since they started their conversation. "After all, I'm a man who dresses up in leather armor and beats the crap out of very bad men for a good time. I'd say any sort of 'normal' request went out the window when you saw me."

Daryl couldn't help the snort or the roll of his eyes, "There's only one person on the list of those I don't wanna see there. Anyone else is first come first served if they know about it and it's needed."

That was what Dooku sounded like he wanted, so that's what his money bought: a hidden shelter for some of their own that wasn't the de-weaponized Helix Station. Daryl let his hands slide into his pockets and he made an after-you gesture toward the door. Assuming M would use that one and not one of his own, Daryl was fine leaving second.

"Then you have my services."

M was in fact planning on using the normal door, if only to alert his asset he was done with the room.

"You'll be hearing from Oscar real soon."

With a brief nod of his head of good-bye to Mr. Doe, he headed out into the cafe area.

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I don't wanna be the center of anything [Open]

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I'm so sorry for such a late tag, holidays got hectic

It's okay. I've been sick for the last few weeks and slow as a result, myself.

And then I disappeared again. My apologies x.x

not a problem at all! tis the season to be swallowed up!

tis tis. I should be back though!

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