tampered | Log (ongoing)

Log (ongoing)

When; February 3, afternoonish
Rating; PG-13 for various "don't do this at home" exploits
Characters; Dr. Horrible (

horrible_phd ) and Carl (

somekindofsin ), with Karrin and the illustrious Captain Hammer later on.
Summary; The elevator in the City's laboratory is unwilling to take orders. Attempts to fix it lead, naturally, to mayhem and plans to destroy the carousel for the good of humanity. Or whatever.
Log;

Carl shuffled about the laboratory's lobby, waiting for his associate (well, they weren't really associates, as they worked independently and on different levels of the laboratory, but Carl was in the habit of thinking about all other scientifically-minded individuals in his general vicinity as associates), Dr. Horrible. The friar didn't usually collaborate with anyone with "horrible" in their name, but the City hardly allowed one to be picky. Anyway, Carl suspected Dr. Horrible was more of a Dr. Morally-Ambiguous.

From what Carl had learned from personal experience, the elevator that they were going to attempt to fix refused to allow any one City citizen access to more than one floor of the laboratory. There was undoubtedly a reason for it, but the arrangement made it rather difficult to visit associates on other floors. Carl was almost certain that whatever odd 'magic' infested the City controlled the elevator's movements, making the contraption rigged rather than broken. This didn't faze him. Neither did the fact that he had virtually no experience with lifts of any kind. Carl had no doubt that scientific ingenuity could overcome virtually everything, supernatural forces and general ignorance included.

Of course, Carl also had every intention of trying to destroy the City's carousel at a later date, which, he surmised, threw a fair amount of doubt on his convictions and sanity.

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Dr. Horrible? Well this was a little embarrassing. She still couldn't think of what her seventeen year old self said to him without wanting to punch herself.

"Now just hold up!" Karrin snapped, stepping between Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. She didn't like the tension she was sensing between the two men. "If you don't mind...sir," she realized she didn't know Captain Hammer's name, "I'd like to hear the explanation from the men themselves."

She turned a dark look to Dr. Horrible and the friar. Their explanation had better be GOOD.

"Freeze ray? It isn't a--" Billy forced himself to shut up because Murphy was standing in his way and he was now unintentionally pointing it right at her. Not that it was actually loaded anymore, but she couldn't know that and there was no good reason to act threatening towards her even if he did want to.

"We were trying to see if we could do something about the clock. Sure, people have tried, but it was about time someone made an attempt with new approach. People here get complacent really quickly. And, okay, if it had worked it would have involved the destruction of the carousel, but it's not like any of us put it there in the first place, and besides, as you can see, it isn't damaged at all, so really it's like there wasn't anything going on here whatsoever at all." That was logical, right? Billy took a much needed deep breath.

In all honesty, Carl was more intimidated by the woman than by Captain Whichever-Tool-It-Was. The latter seemed content to ignore him in favor of confronting Dr. Horrible; the former looked like she would readily punish them both if their explanation wasn't convincing.

Billy's logic was sound, but, perhaps, not terribly helpful. Carl was quick to supplement his explanation with his own.

"This was my idea, actually, and I assure you that this course of action is entirely justifiable." He paused nervously, hoping that what seemed entirely justifiable in his head was to their company, as well. "I've been researching the workings of the City since my arrival, you see, and I've come to the conclusion that the clock beneath the carousel is integral to its functioning. Whether it controls the deities, or the deities control it--it really doesn't matter, but the City places a good deal of symbolic importance on the concept of time, and it only seems natural to suppose that this is due to the clock's role in... erm. That is to say, it's very likely that the clock plays some part in our presence here, and moderates the curses in some way. At the very least, the clock's excessive underground protection implies a desire on the part of the deities to keep it whole, which likely means that the destruction of the clock would be beneficial to everyone trapped in the City.

"That's my theory, anyway, and the carousel has some sort of... potentially meaningful connection to the clock, which is directly under it. While there have been attempts to stop the clock, I don't believe anyone has bothered approaching the mechanism via the carousel--or, rather, via the carousel's destruction..." Oh God, he was rambling. Worse still, he didn't know if he was even rambling coherently.

[ooc: Karrin-mun? Did your headache ever decide to leave you alone?]

It did, thanks. Sleep cures all. :)

"If you so wish. My name is Captain Hammer, incidentally." He was also quite interested in why they would do this sort of thing, but mostly so he could gauge what type of person this other one was. Plus, he always liked to be one step ahead of Horrible. Even if this particular plan failed, he'd know what he was up to in that head of his.

Nope, not a good enough response for him, he turned to Carl who, while certainly more eloquent and logical than Doctor Horrible's, could not be allowed to do such a thing. "Really? Beneficial to everyone in the City, based on just a theory? Maybe the destruction of them would have destroyed the City, if it's such an important part of it. Did you ever think of that instead of just running around willy-nilly throwing things at public property?"

[OoC: I actually meant to ask, but I forgot to write an ooc note. Glad to hear it! :3]

The five dollar superhero had a point, surprisingly enough. Karrin, somewhat grudgingly, had to up her opinion of him.

"Captain Hammer has a point," she said. "Did either of you bother getting permission or even discussing this with the appropriate authorities before embarking on this harebrained scheme?" She highly doubted that. The friar's arguments made some degree of sense, even if they were foolish, but Dr. Horrible's justification was completely idiotic, and Karrin gave the young man a look that conveyed the full measure of her disgust.

"There are no appropriate authorities," said Billy, which wasn't an answer and he knew it. Why should he even care about asking permission? That was one of the benefits of being a villain. Only he couldn't say that because this wasn't actually one of his villainous schemes--or at least Carl hadn't seemed to thing it was particularly villainous.

He glared at Murphy, partly because she was glaring at him and partly because she was standing between him and Captain Hammer. If she just got out of the way, Captain Hammer could beat him unconscious or whatever and they could be done with this ridiculous charade. "Who would we even ask for permission? Did anyone ask me if I wanted to be brought here? Or attacked by zombies? Or turned into a woman?" He gestured wildly to emphasize his outrage, which meant he was unintentionally waving his weapon at Murphy again.

"It's not harebrained," Carl replied, fully intent on talking until they could all agree that it was a sensible enough experiment. Dr. Horrible, however, was doing a good deal of talking himself--rather irate talking, and waving around a weapon to boot. Someone was going to lose an eye.

Praying that Captain Hammer and Karrin were both reasonable people (or, barring that, unwilling to beat clergymen), Carl attempted to gain some control over the situation. "I can understand why this might look like some kind of ill-conceived, insidious plot, but it's not, really. Surely we can all... take a moment to calm down, and discuss this rationally? Without weapons?"

The last bit, of course, was directed at Dr. Horrible. Captain Hammer didn't look like he needed weapons.

"Now," Carl continued, trying to justify their actions, "I based my theory on a good deal of research--very thorough research--and I did consider all possible outcomes. Truthfully, the outcome that I considered most likely was the one you've just witnessed... that is, that the carousel is indestructible. No one was consulted, of course; as Dr. Horrible said, there's not anyone in the City to consult on this sort of thing, and the only decent way to get an answer to a question is to experiment.

"Furthermore, I should think that any tool that the deities use to control and pull God-knows-what from the City's citizens would be held suspect and not considered cherished public property. We're not the first to try something of this nature, you know. Before I was here, I believe there was an attempt--a well-supported, well-intentioned attempt--to destroy the clock from the Underground that met with no success. I thought that, perhaps, there was a slim chance that the deities hadn't bothered protecting the clock from attempted meddling from above ground. This didn't work, but we've at least learned something beneficial." Carl stopped, although he knew perfectly well that he could go on indefinitely. Hopefully, that had been enough of an explanation.

If not, he was willing to elaborate further.

[ooc: ♥]

Let's be honest, here. Doctor Horrible's arguments were terrible, Carl was sort of wordy and technical, and he was rather distracted by the fact that Doctor Horrible had been turned into a woman. He wasn't quite sure if he thought that was amusing or-

No, he just thought it was amusing. Either way, he was starting to get frustrated, and was getting a little tired of their explanations. He went back to the basics of knowledge he was comfortable with. "You didn't get permission which means that you were breaking the law. What if innocent little children had been playing around, or birds flying over had been caught up in all of it?" True enough, he didn't really look that deeply into it, or care so much about those things at his core.

But let's face it, caring about children and small animals was a huge plus in people's opinions.

Karrin did not like having weapons waved in her face. "Just DROP the weapon, Dr. Horrible," she snapped, "before somebody gets hurt." That somebody would probably be him, as she planned on breaking his wrist before he got a chance to accidentally fire.

"This is also a popular spot for new arrivals," Karrin added to Captain Hammer's point. "A lot of people could have been hurt. Especially since you didn't bother posting a public warning on the Network."

As for the proper authorities... "There IS a police force here," she said. "You could have at least spoken to them. I don't have the authority to take you in, but rest assured, I will be reporting your behavior to them. And if this crazy student is illegal, you'll be suffering the punishment for it."

"It's not even--fine, whatever." He lowered his weapon--he felt no need to actually drop it because the fact that Murphy seemed to think it was capable of firing again was all the leverage he had--and spoke around her to Captain Hammer. "I do not hurt kids, okay? We did make sure everyone cleared the area beforehand."

Dr. Horrible just sort of rolled his eyes at the threat of being reported. Like the police had been much use during the kidnappings. "Report whatever you want. I don't care. In fact, tell everyone all about it," he said, before realizing that while he totally had a backup plan in case he ever needed to go on the lam--and it would be cool to go on the lam at some point--Carl probably didn't. Also, this whole stunt had been enough of a failure that he didn't really want everyone knowing all the details.

[ooc: No, they only came up with the idea while being stuck in the elevator an hour or so prior to this. Not so much with the thinking ahead. Also, last tag for a while. If you want, go on without me.]

Carl could only stare at Captain Hammer. Children and birds? What kind of an argument was that? Since Karrin at least appeared to have more than a handful of sickly braincells at her disposal, he chose to address her. "As Dr. Horrible said, we ensured that the area was clear. A forewarning wouldn't have been practical." And not, Carl mentally added, only because it had been a spur-of-the-moment action. "The deities may have been alerted somehow. As for the police force and the law--well. I don't know if you've noticed, but there aren't any strictly defined laws in the City."

[ooc: I miss you already! ;-; And no, no preplanning. At all.]

Well, well. This was something. "No laws in the City? This is an outrage! Something needs to be done about this. If not there might be more" and he chose his words carefully here, "attempts at making the City a better place gone awry."

[OoC: And I fail guys. *headdesk* I'll try and check this more regularly.]

Karrin rolled her eyes. This was bordering on the absurd, and she was honestly tiring of debating with stubborn idiots. She wasn't an officer of the law anymore; this was not really her problem, whatever her instincts told her.

"Regardless, the police will be hearing about this," she said. "I would appreciate it if you would go home now and avoid any future attempts at 'heroism.'"

"Believe me, I avoid that whenever possible. We're going." It felt a little like backing down to try to leave without a true confrontation with Captain Hammer, but on the other hand he was getting used to not having to do things like treat his own concussions.

He tried catching Carl's eye, turning around, and calmly(ish) walking off. If he got away with that, he'd count it as a wind. It's definitely not that way Captain Hammer would want things to end right? Every step seemed terribly slow and exposed and necessitated a lot more conscious will than usual.

"Of course there aren't! Have you seen the deities handing--what's all of this about attempts? It was an experiment, and it succeeded remarkably as an experiment, I'll have you know... none of this attempts gone awry nonsense--"

Carl was just starting to work himself up to a good rant when he registered Dr. Horrible's words and the fact that the other scientist was indeed leaving. The two of them wouldn't have lasted more than a few seconds in a fight--and that would be if it went well for them, Carl suspected--but facing the vigilantes alone was far less appealing than being pummeled in good company. As such, the friar lost his train of thought entirely and trailed after Billy.

"I'll be writing both of you stern letters outlining our reasons and defenses in a slightly more coherent fashion," he said to Captain Hammer and Karrin in parting, hoping that the thought of reading tedious reprimands would intimidate them at least a little.

He considered going after him- briefly- and decided against it. A hero always gives the villain a second chance, didn't they? Although in this case he'd already formed his opinions on the matter, and really, it would look so much better on him to let Horrible go.

After all, letting him go now only to destroy him at a later time made Hammer all the better. "We shall meet again, Doctor. And your little friend, too. So you'd best be on the look-out, and watch yourselves." He almost smirked, they were pathetic, really. A letter? Hardly the toughest thing he'd have to go through, even if he did wind up writing them. The other man didn't look like he was the type to do much more than empty threats in this sort of situation. He'd scarcely be more worried even if he'd made a threat on his life.

End? :3

I think so.

I declare this log a success! I <3 all of you.

Yay! /o/

We ♥ you too!

That was lovely. ♥ Thank you! And you. And you.

ALL OF YOU KICK MUCH ASS~ \o/

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