( MEMES ) TEST DRIVE >> 7

[contagio]

THE TEST DRIVE



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. Pet Adoption. Maybe you have the perfect genetically engineered pet in mind. Maybe you found a stray little escapee--do you keep it or turn it in? There's a reward if you let Bifrons know where the potentially dangerous little bugger is at, after all.

3. Alterations. Feel like you need an edge in the city? Find yourself injured and looking at options? Why not consider genetic alterations or, better yet, upgrading to a better, healthier you? Be warned, some of the side effects can be a little unpleasant.

4. Network Glitches. Strange garbled messages keep trying to come through in audio and text, but no way to track where they're coming from. Do you try to make contact? Compare notes with others? Surely it's nothing to be concerned about, right?

5. Dome Glitches. What was that in the window? There, again, in the bathroom mirror! Is that another you, living another life? Or maybe you spot an ominous shadow lurking around in the corner, something like a dysthrope but...worse. You're not going crazy, are you? Others see it, too, don't they? Oh, I wouldn't touch that reflective surface if I were you, or you might end up thinking you're living in that strange other world.

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.

Comments

Booker DeWitt | Bioshock Infinite

[amonglions]

5: And where did that other dog come from? Who is he?

[Well this place was certainly no Columbia - at least, before Booker showed up and did a number on it. But he was pretty sure there were no undead monsters running around Columbia because of him.

...Okay, there might have been three if you wanted to get technical in your definition of undead monster. But still. Here he was just as normal as the next person who was sent here for lab rat reasons. Nothing separated him from the crowd. Which was how he liked it. He was actually even enjoying the fact that he didn't have vigors anymore. All that hand deformation or possibly hallucinating was starting to get to him.

Among other things.

So when he was minding his own business, walking down the street looking through shop windows, he was surprised when he saw something...familiar. And yet not.

Booker stopped dead in his tracks, staring into some kind of business's lobby - really he was focusing on the more immediate reflection staring back at him.

...He could have sworn...

Suddenly looking incredibly nervous - which was odd on a guy like Booker DeWitt - he tried to get the attention of the nearest person; it didn't matter if they had been accompanying him or just passing by.]

...Did you just see that?


7: Or WILDCARD if you want idc

[tearmeanewone]

See what?

[Elizabeth frowns, ice cream in hand, and looks at where Booker is looking. She'd just gotten off her shift at the Order, and the frozen yogurt place a block down the road had chocolate-cherry this week. She'd insisted.]

[amonglions]

[Booker takes his own sweet time answering her...mostly because he's still trying to figure out what he saw.

And trying to convince himself it wasn't what he thought.

Because that bastard was dead. He knows because he killed him.]

I... I'm not sure.

[He doesn't want to worry Elizabeth. But there's the greatest urge to wipe at his nose and see if there's blood. Just in case.]

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth looks up at him, then back at their reflections in the window. She's happy with what she sees, and she laces her arm through Booker's and rests her head on his shoulder.]

How about now?

[amonglions]

[Booker doesn't protest her linking arms with him. He actually appreciates the closeness, even if he doesn't usually initiate anything like hugs or the like. But it's nice to sort of make up for lost time.

Still, he's going to act accordingly when you're being a smart ass. Albeit a sentimental one.]

Ha ha.

[He'll smirk, mostly to hide how shaken he actually is. Especially if it makes Elizabeth feel any better.]

[tearmeanewone]

[It does, really. She grins back at his smirk-- Booker lets her get away with so much-- but it sobers after a moment.]

The dome can play tricks on us, you know. I don't know how, but sometimes these glitches just know what will hurt us the most. I once saw you playing with Anna.

[amonglions]

[His smile fades at the mention and Booker honestly tries to think of a time he actually played with ..

with Anna. It was still hard to even think of her. He didn't think it'd ever actually be easy.

Honestly, he was incredibly drunk when Anna was first born...and for the twenty years following. Of course, the odds of him actually remembering weren't that great. Even if he had been sober.]

How did you -- [Okay, that was a stupid question and he realized it halfway through it.]

Nevermind.

[tearmeanewone]

[Yes, it would be a stupid question if that's what Elizabeth had been suggesting. But it isn't. She smiles at him, squeezes his elbow a little.]

No, not like that.

She was six, maybe seven. Pretty white dress. She wanted you to pick her up, and you still could even though she was clearly getting too big for it. I saw it in my shower door a few months back. I thought it was a tear for a moment, but it only happened in reflective surfaces.

[amonglions]

Oh.

[Well now he's glad he didn't ask. But he seems nostalgic for something that never happened to him. This version of him, at least. In the millions and millions of worlds that exist - that was real in one of them. Maybe more.

Booker is hesitant to say what he thinks. That it sounds rather nice.]

Well. Sounds better than what I saw.

[It's not a contest Booker.]

[tearmeanewone]

Sounds better for you. [Elizabeth arches an eyebrow and smirks faintly at him. It had been heartbreaking for her-- the amount of intense jealousy she felt was overwhelming to the point where she just sat there and watched it for hours. Wishing it could be her, hating Comstock again.]

What'd you see, then?

[amonglions]

Comstock.

[It was pretty pointless to lie about it. Especially after they'd clarified that she knew everything there was to know. Certainly took the pressure off of keeping up pretenses.]

Or at least, I thought it was.

[He knew it was Comstock...but at the same time...he wasn't really sure...

Nevertheless, Booker wasn't going to be looking at reflective surfaces anytime soon. ]

[tearmeanewone]

[Elizabeth looks at Booker in the window, her face getting stony. Yes, Comstock was never a good topic of conversation, but she knows how Booker feels about him and his relation to him.]

You're probably right. But if he actually was right here, I wouldn't be hanging on his arm eating ice cream.

[amonglions]

[Booker's first instinct is to argue. That he is technically the one in the same and that Elizabeth shouldn't look at him with different colored glasses just because he personally didn't lock her up in a tower for her entire youth. But he's had this argument with her before, could probably tell you exactly what Elizabeth would tell him in response.

So he just smiles. A little bitter, perhaps but he still smiles and squeezes her arm for good measure.]

Small favors.

[Because really he's happy she differentiates them. Booker doesn't want to live in a world where Elizabeth hates him. Completely. He'll always doubt that, somehow.]

[tearmeanewone]

[She does more than differentiate them-- Elizabeth practically worships Booker. Her dearest friend, her only friend for the longest time. Her family for now. Even if he doesn't belong in Proles, even if he has a baby daughter waiting for him somewhere, Elizabeth wants this to be her second chance with him. However long it lasts.]

I'd do it with you every day, if we could. [She grins and squeezes back, then tries to pull Booker away from the window. No more visions of Comstock.]

Come on. It's my only day off this week, we shouldn't talk about him.

[amonglions]

[Booker has no idea he has a second chance at his life with Anna waiting for him. For him - this is it, the second chance he truly didn't think he'd be getting. But here he is, living in a strange city and walking with Elizabeth on her days off.

It's pretty surreal. But that doesn't mean he won't milk it.]

Alright. What do you want to talk about then?

[Honestly, he likes hearing Elizabeth talk. It makes him proud that she's so smart. In a really roundabout way.]

Aradia Megido | Homestuck

[deathsadorablehandmaid]

waking up

It's not the first time Aradia has woken up in an unfamiliar setting, wearing unfamiliar clothes, with hazy memories as to how she's gotten there. What is interesting, however, is that she can't understand why. The chains and loops of time, which she was once able to read like a book, are closed off to her. She can neither hear the voices of the dead, nor does she know what role she'll play in this new awakening. It's disorienting, to say the least.

Aradia's attention falls on the transmission, the only other sound in the room besides her own breathing. Death and destruction? It sounds like the end times.

Perfect. She can't wait to explore.

network

[Time to try out these communication-glasses. She's set up a handle and is sending messages out to the network, eager to meet new, maybe alive, friends. Messages from apocalypseArisen appear in red text, without any accompanying images or audio.]

hello!
i must say the ambiance of your planet is very nice
although everyone here seems so sad
why?

Natasha Romanoff | MCU

[pickingup]

When Natasha wakes up, she looks over what she's been left with. It's all suspicious. She leaves the glasses, but takes her clothes and slips out of the building as quietly as she can. From what she's gathered, it's not HYDRA, but that doesn't mean it's any better.

Once she's outside, she looks at what people are wearing and does her best to fit in.

She slips through crowds like she knows where she's going, like she has any idea what this place is, but the more she walks, the more strange this place seems and she finds herself keeping an eye out for anything familiar.

As she walks, she comes across stores selling clothes and food and she spends a good amount of time perusing and listening to the conversations around her. After a while, she finds the casino and its bar and continues her watching there, carefully casual.

Sorry to be so late

[complicatedliar]

And there, as luck would have it, is Loki, cutting through the crowd like a well-dressed shark. This is where he "works" after all, for a certain value of working. Fleecing the sheep, so to speak. His gaze fixes on Natasha as he passes by, one eyebrow curving up in curious invitation.

<33

[pickingup]

Natasha raises her eyebrow right back at him, pushing away from the bar to approach him. She'd like to say she's surprised, but she finds that she's not actually all that shocked to see him.

"Is all of this your doing?"

<33

[complicatedliar]

There's a pause as he simply looks at her, forcibly shifting his perspective. Well, this isn't Natalia, not the one he got to know here. And considering the attitude... He sighs. "Wrong Loki, Agent Romanoff." Time to mentally retreat to a more defensible point. "Though I'll take it as a compliment, really."

[pickingup]

"How many Lokis are there?" She's calm and collected, but not without caution. It's difficult to forget what he's done and his subtle manipulations. She remembers their exchange on the helicarrier vividly. He'd tried to tear her apart with words, even if he hadn't really succeeded.

[complicatedliar]

"Mathematically? A potentially infinite number presuming an infinitely branching multiverse. Though a relatively small infinity, compared to others." He shrugs one shoulder. "Here? Currently only me. The others haven't stuck. Thankfully. Tiresome little shits."

He doesn't use foul language often, and doesn't like it since it normally means a lack of creative vocabulary. But maybe the colloquial term will get her thinking. He's been around humans enough now that he can ape their mannerisms with ease.