![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
( MEMES ) TEST DRIVE >> 6
Like it or not, you've been dragged from your world into the sanctum. It's a pretty nice city, all things considered--sci-fi, high-tech, glamourous.... Except, of course, for the giant dome encircling it, and the threat of glitching, contaminated zombies at your door. Looks like humanity's built itself a fortress that looks suspiciously like a cage, too. Toss in the odd memory blanks and the everpresent logo of Bifrons incorporated and it's enough to make someone paranoid.
The object of this meme is to get people familiar with the world of the Sanctum, and to try to see if their characters would fit in a sci-fi utopia such as this. Here are your options:
1. Intro: Waking Up. Make your intro post, folks. You wake up in a strange place, and get a strange transmission to go with it. There's a pair of glasses connected to some sort of communications network, but otherwise not much else in the room with you. What are you going to do?
2. Environmental Glitching. You know the story of Noah? No? Now you're living it. Sealed portions of the districts are overfilling with water, flooding streets, fields, and select city blocks. Do you climb up to get to safety, shut off the water, or find a way to break down the barrier to the next sector over?
3. Genetic Altering. What it says on the tin. Except...it's not quite gone right, has it? Are you supposed to spit acid when you hiccup? Are your insides acid resistant? No? Oh dear. Warped experiments gone wrong, your augmentation has twisted around on you for horrific or hilarious results.
4. Memory Glitch. No one knows your face. You don't exist on the network. In fact...you're not all that certain you are who you think you are anyway. Haven't you always lived here?
5. Military Training. Everyone's got to start somewhere. You're training the green folks, maybe you're one of the newcomers yourself. Maybe you haven't even touched a gun before in your life. Either way, you'd better start now.
6. Outside the Dome You're out and about without an armed escort, suited up against the atmosphere and dysthropes. It's supposed to be a green sector in this run down shell of what used to be a suburb, right? Nothing could possibly go wrong
7. Wildcard. Choose your own adventure or create a cocktail from the presented options! The choice is YOURS.
no subject
He looks exactly where she intends him to, eyes flicking down to her neck and the line of her shoulders and back up, and then he laughs.]
I'm not actually blind. [A teasing remonstrance; of course there aren't a lot of people here prettier than he is. He knows that. That much he can prove.
There are three more shots in his clip and he takes them, sending one apparently haphazardly to each side of the target, and then clipping off just the very top left corner with the last one. It is getting boring missing every time after all, and lets him crow like an idiot.]
That one's for you.
no subject
[Best not to say anything about it. Not yet. Because to look at him, he could easily be from somewhere sharpshooting isn't a requirement for survival. He could easily just be some boy, not extraordinary in any way.]
[It's just that Lila doubts it at this point, that's all. The ego's a little wrong. Or maybe she wants a reason to watch him shoot some more.]
Thanks, but I don't want it. I don't accept gifts that aren't bulls-eyes.
no subject
He considers the target for a moment, then the empty gun in his hand before holding the latter out to her with an impish smirk.]
Show me how to reload it, and I'll see what I can do.
no subject
You can't follow the instructions? It's not so hard. More importantly, I'm not your kindergarten teacher. Do it yourself or you won't learn.
[Or he could ask her very, very nicely, and she might consider it. But her instinct that he's full of shit is edging up to around 25% now, and besides, she hates being surrounded by inept people.]
no subject
[Which is the truth; he didn't need to, he's been loading this type of weapon since the stock of it was almost too big for his hands, but that's the trick. Pick and choose what pieces of a lie, of a truth, to tell so that the words that actually come out are believable.
He turns it over in his hands, frowning at it, careless with where the muzzle is aiming only because he knows for a fact that it's empty. Even the chamber.
He doesn't know what kindergarten teachers do, either, but he can figure it out from the context and her tone.]
Show me on yours, then.
no subject
You going to pay attention to me?
no subject
Almost. Even so, he lets his expression and his tone do more of the talking than his words.]
Don't know why anyone wouldn't. [He doesn't actually wink, that would be too much, but it would be easy enough to imagine. Instead he transfers his own gun to mimic hers.]
no subject
[None of this stops her from rolling her eyes, but it does stop her from digging the heel of her shoe into the fleshy part of Alec's foot. Lucky man doesn't know what he's avoided.]
[She unloads her gun with no verbal cues whatsoever, trusting Alec to follow along. Once she's got her bullets in one hand - two left to his none - she nudges him.]
Yours is a little different, but the principle's exactly the same. You shouldn't need to be shown again.
[She drops one of her bullets into the chamber, displays the mechanism, does it again. Then nudges him again.]
Get more bullets and do it yourself. Then bullseye.
no subject
His empty clip clicks back into place with a satisfied nod, both affirming that he's heard and that he accepts the challenge, teeth flashing again when she touches him.]
Yes, ma'am. [He can't help the way the words sound in his voice, engraved there through repetition when he can change the rest of himself to suit whatever he wants, so he slathers on the cocky tease of it and leaves to get more ammunition before he can be called on it.
By the time he returns - successful, in fact, at loading it himself - he's looking down his impromptu lane at his mostly untouched target, eyebrows raised.]
So. What's a bullseye get me?
no subject
[Maybe better to call him nothing at all for now and see what happens.]
[She raises her eyebrows right back at him.]
It gets me talking to you ever again. What, were you expecting something more?
no subject
[This isn't so much a cheapening of her attention as it is an elevation of his own opinion of himself; even if he just annoys her into interacting with him, he doesn't think for a moment that this will be their last conversation.]
I just need to know how hard I should be trying.
no subject
[She tosses her hair over her shoulder and shrugs, a gesture of uncertainty, of her own lack of devotion to the outcome.]
I might respect you. I can't guarantee it. I don't even know if that's something you'd want. But that's what it is.
no subject
But even he can see that respect is not something someone like her just hands out. I'm not your kindergarten teacher, her own neat line of shots down her target, and he wonders if it would be helpful or hurtful to that end goal to expose himself now.
Sometimes, the most disarming thing to do when caught out in a lie is begin to tell the truth; but Alec hasn't been caught out yet, and he doesn't intend to be. He nods.]
I can work with that.
[At which point he walks down to his target, shoots the bullseye pointblank with the handgun, and tears it down off the post to bring back to her.]
no subject
[The unfortunate fact is he gets a little bit of it anyway when he brings over the target. She doesn't smile at him, but it's a different kind of not smiling from before. The measured look she gives him indicates some level of taking him seriously. Brand new. A little worrying.]
You're a cheater.
[Cheating she respects probably more than anything else.]
no subject
[He meets her unsmiling face with a casual but blinding smile anyway, completely satisfied with himself but with eyes somehow bright, young, eager. He holds the target out between them, unwavering despite the less than warm reception he's earned himself so far.
Of course he's a cheater. Everyone is. Anyone who says differently is also a liar - which is also something that everyone is, himself among the best.]
What, did you think I was going to somehow miraculously improve, like I've been faking it this whole time or something?
no subject
Yes.
[Totally serious here. Yes, she mostly did think he was going to suddenly miraculously improve, like a big fake faker. She still doesn't know what she believes about him. She thinks she's going to keep this, though.]
At least you're not as coarse as you look.
no subject
He is a big fake faker. He's pleased to know she's noticed, but nt enough to call him out. Yet. This is points on both sides of the scoreboard as far as he's concerned.]
Well you do know how to build a guy up. Do I get to know a name, or does being anonymous help keep this entire thing clandestine?
no subject
Clandestine? We've just been shooting really loud bullets repeatedly in the open. There's nothing clandestine about this interaction.
[Which is a total lie, but just because she knows and he knows and they each know that the other knows that they've got lies in common doesn't mean she has to voice them out loud. Lying about how clandestine things are keeps them clandestine. Perfectly simple.]
It's Lila. And you're . . . Brock or Sam or something.
no subject
Everyone is shooting really loud bullets repeatedly in the open. The only way to be clandestine is to do it too.
[It's confidence logic, sensible on the surface, nonsense just below but he doesn't leave enough space for that to be discovered, repeats her name instead with approval -] Lila. [- and doesn't react to the dismissal of his own name being forgettable.
Instead, unruffled:] Alec.
I'm Alec, and you should let me buy you a victory drink.
no subject
Here's the caveat about a victory drink, Alec. I love victory. And I love drinks. And generally I have nothing very strongly against boys who look like their name is Brock or Sam or Alec or something who get me a target with a hole through the middle.
But if you buy me a victory drink, what you're actually going to be buying are two very expensive victory drinks. Get it?
no subject
Well. He's worked to get this far, he may as well do whatever it takes to close the deal. He holds out a hand, palm up, fingers bent.]
Lemme see that target.
no subject
It's mine now. What are you gonna do?
no subject
[His hand is still outstretched, expectant, both eyebrows raised, the corners of his mouth perpetually curled.]
no subject
Okay, what?
no subject
He snatches at it with his free hand, though, touch and go for a moment before his fingers close on it securely and he's grinning again.
The target goes back onto the post - the nearest one this time, not where it originally start - and the safety comes off his gun so he can fire more bullets into it, still operating close enough that the muzzle flash of the gun leaves the paper scorched.
When he hands it back, it says "Y".]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)