contagio | ( MEMES ) TEST DRIVE >> 8

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. Bifrons Annual Gala. All the creme de la creme--and the Immune--are invited to the Bifrons annual gala, filled with food (real meat!) and drink (sunshine in a glass!) and expensive clothing you could want. Do you have anything to wear? Are you going to use this opportunity to schmooze, to sneak around to find some answers while everyone is distracted, or be an awkward wallflower? Or scoff at home about how everyone is so concerned with these silly events instead of cures?

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. Down with the Sickness. Something's going around. Is it a cold? The flu? Something worse? Are you immune to it, or just lucky? Are you sitting in a hospital waiting room, hoping to get seen, or just holed up in bed with the sniffles? Someone should bring you some soup and keep you company! Or complain with you.

5. Sewer Run. There's something (or somethings) lurking beneath the streets of Proles. You and other lucky people have been picked out, given a gun and a flashlight, and told good luck. What do you find down there? What finds you? Was that a cot and some discarded tablets in that alcove?

6. Outside the Dome. You're out and about without an armed escort, suited up against the atmosphere and dysthropes. Nothing could possibly go wrong...until it does. Was that a dysthrope moving...or a person?

7. WILDCARD. Choose your own adventure or create a cocktail from the presented options! The choice is YOURS.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(If you would like to tag Wanda but want me to avoid spoilers for Age of Ultron, just let me know in the header!)

1) A rude awakening

The screams could be heard from the hall. They were loud, shrill, and barely even words. Then, there was the sound of glass breaking. The screen that played the message hadn't even been able to get past a few words before it had been bashed against the table until it shattered and fell silent. After that, there was silence.

A few moments later, Wanda Maximoff stalked out of the room.

She was still dressed in her hospital gown, but her rings were on her fingers. At least the people who'd done this to her had given her that much. But she still had too many questions. Someone would have answers for her.

Which was why she had a long shard of the monitor in her hand, wielded like a knife.

She walked the hall silently, looking for others. If she happened to get behind someone? They might soon find her makeshift weapon at their throats.

3) A better you

To say that Wanda embraced the idea of upgrades was a major understatement.

If she didn't have her powers, then she would make herself something stronger. If she wanted to survive, she had to make sure of it.

So, her third month in the Sanctum, she was undergoing her third enhancement. Her first had been accelerated healing, and she'd followed that with a fortified skeleton. This time, it was the injury body weave. After that, she had plans for others. First, she'd make herself more durable. Then, she could make herself a better combatant.

She looked over at one of the other people waiting for the employees to be ready for them.

"What are you getting?"

5) Watch where you step

Wanda was happy for the assignment. The gun in her hand felt strange, but she'd learned to use one. She just wasn't used to carrying it, to actually having her life depend on it. At the very least, she had something to do.

Which meant something.

It gave her a purpose, a focus.

She moved around a corner, just like her partner had the last one, holding the flashlight with one hand and the gun with the other, only to find nothing. Which made her both irritated and relieved. She hadn't wanted to come face to face with something, but she also didn't want to be just wasting her time.

"Clear."

That this wasn't the strangest thing to happen to Rush, nor was it the first time she'd woken up in a strange facility bewildered (nearly) out of her mind, was a rather sad thought. She was, in fact, thankful that she didn't wake up in a water tank this time. That would have been a nightmare. At least here she could think.

There was a gathering of supplies, watching the video, an itching at her brain she kept trying to scratch--something like...surgery, her hair draped down in front of her, facing the floor. Pressure, but pain, no, no pain--

Also wasn't the first time she'd had something unfamiliar and metal stuck on her, but at least that she could rip off. Ports embedded into her back...worrisome. She waited, for a time, at first patiently, in case someone was to come. It allowed her to fully wake up and take stock in what she was given. Novelties, it seemed. Things that had meaning to her, but nothing useful as a weapon straight up. Nothing that seemed actually hers. Memory reading? Exactly what she needed, more mental invasion. And she hadn't been able to fight this time.

At last, she gathered herself up. Out the door. She hadn't broken the glass, no, but she had broken apart one of her novelties, jagged edges a hopeful deterrent. Not enough, however, to protect her from a surprise attack from behind.

She did not drop her makeshift weapon, only clutching it tighter. "You aren't going to kill me," she intoned, trying to keep the panic down. "So you might as well drop the threat." She was betting on a guard, a captor, although a fellow escapee worked just as well.

"That," Wanda hissed, her pronunciation making her Eastern European accent clear, "is something I have not decided. I may not kill you. If I like what you have to say."

Because she could lie to her. Anyone could lie. Wanda herself, though not spectacular at it, was, in fact, capable of falsehood. After Strucker and his assistants, she thought she was pretty good at telling liars apart from others, but it was possible she might miss something. And they'd taken her powers from her. Powers she'd suffered to get. Powers that had made her able to take revenge for what had been done to her.

"Who are you?"

Ah. Fellow captive, then. "Someone, I imagine, who is in a similar position. Someone looking for answers." She breathed a laugh. "Which are in terribly short supply around here thusfar."

"Then you're of no use to me, are you?" Wanda half growled, keeping her grip firm and the piece of screen securely where it was.

"Even less to you dead. Though, I doubt you want the hassle of taking a hostage who wants to know what's going on just as much as you do. So why don't we do the sensible thing and go our separate ways? Might find answers faster."

Steve didn't visit the facility often, but when he did he always came through this area, checking the halls for new arrivals with no clue what to do next. Many of them took off soon after awakening, but there were always a couple left wandering the halls with uncertainty. Steve usually dealt with them by giving them a quick rundown and answering any immediate questions before offering to take them out for a cup of coffee. Dealing with alternate realities and zombie viruses was really best done while drinking coffee.

By now he figured he's seen every type of reaction a person could have to their situation. Blistering anger, fear, confusion, carefully composed calm...but not this. This reaction was new to him, at least under these circumstances. He held himself completely still under the shard she held to his throat and silently cursed himself for not sensing someone come up behind him sooner.

"If you think I'm one of the ones responsible for you being here, you're wrong. Why don't you drop that and we can talk?"

"We are talking," came the accented reply, sharp and bitter. The makeshift blade never moved. It didn't press in or retract. Her voice was even, but there was a definite off-kilter tone to it. "Where am I? And why am I here? What did you -- or they -- or someone do to me?"

She'd been a lab rat before. Volunteered for it, even, but this...

She wouldn't forgive this. Someone was going to pay for this. If it was this man, then it was this man. She wasn't going to let herself worry about a few causalities. Especially not an American.

He didn't like the tone of her voice. There was something off about it, something off about her. He's seen some people have pretty violent reactions to waking up here, but nothing like this. They had only been dangerous towards whatever objects they could find around them to throw. But she had been looking for someone to take her anger out on. Unstable, definitely.

Steve strove to keep his voice calm as he answered her even as his body braced for a fight. For now, he would need to wait for her to move the shard away from his throat just enough so that he would have the room to wrench her hand away without risking damage to his throat. Until then, they could have a little chat.

"This city is called Proles. This world has been devastated by the outbreak of the Dysthrope virus and this city is one of the last remaining refuges for the uninfected. You were brought here thanks to Project Immunis which pulls people here from other worlds. They believe us all to be Immune to the virus so they need us to fight the dysthropes. And if they also get to take samples of our blood for experimental purposes, all the better for them. All of this would have been in the introduction video. Did you not watch it?"

( MEMES ) TEST DRIVE >> 8

Wanda Maximoff - Marvel Cinematic Universe

1, gimmie those sweet spoilers

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1. spoilers are fine but Steve hasn't canon updated yet!

totally cool! ...Wanda's not in much of the 'recognizing' state, so.

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