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

...well that's new. Those teeth are only slightly less scary than Sehkmet's, and that's only because Luci is just about certain this kid's teeth aren't getting anywhere near her-- anyway.

"So I hear. Someone told me it has the tendency to stand dead still if you look too hard at it."

Aradia has to snicker at "dead still." Oh, lady, you don't even know the half of it.

"If you really wanted time to go faster, you could just ask nicely." Aradia shrugs. "But why would you? Look at all the different people." She points at one of the guests. "See that guy? He's been chasing after the big man in the armor all night. Doesn't know that armor guy's got a girlfriend who could rip him apart! Soon, he'll make his move, and then chaos."

There's a certain satisfaction in watching things fall apart, tangible or not.

Ha ha.

Ha.

"That's the last thing I want to do, kid," Luci says with a wry smirk, and pats her jacket for her fake-ass cigarettes.

"Really?" Luci looks, interested, at the aforementioned guy, raising her eyebrows and sticking a synthetic smoke into her teeth. "'Ow ya 'igure 'at?" she asks while looking for her lighter. She'd had to start carrying the damn thing after figuring out she had zero firepower, and sometimes she still forgot it in all her other jacket pockets.

"You listen," Aradia explains. It's obvious. "Everyone here has had too much to drink, and that makes them talkative."

Aradia's had years to hone her observational skills. Seems like this woman hasn't put the same amount of time into it.

"Of course, if you're really, really bored you can always make your own fun."

She gives up on the lighter and takes the cigarette out of her teeth. "Sure it does, but I don't have the patience to listen to someone talk about nothing for minutes on end. I mean, literally nothing. It's obvious they're only filling the silence, if they don't care why should I?"

Luci watches the man some more, contemplating. Is he really gonna go for it? Is he that oblivious and will the girlfriend really get that mad? If she knew the players, she'd know how the game was going to go. No wonder she usually just stuck to the Pantheon and let other mortals just do their thing.

She considers that for a moment and shrugs. "Maybe some other time. I'm not really equipped for it at the moment."

"You shouldn't care, not really. Everything that they say, every decision they make, is pointless anyway. You should be entertained. They're alive, and there's a creativity in being alive that you just can't beat anywhere else."

Not equipped? That's a funny way to put it. "Were you stripped of any powers you might have had when you came here?"

"...you got that right." Hell's bells, she wished she could light her blessed fake-cig. Talking about being alive is stressful.

"Got it in one," Luci twirled the cigarette around her fingers instead of smoking it. One way to feed a nervous habit. "I could've lit this thing minutes ago if I hadn't forgotten my lighter."

Aradia nods sympathetically. "It's hard, at first. They took mine too." Her grin's back now. "But that doesn't mean you can't make them pay."

Really, it's not so terrible. After all, she'd made it all the way to 17 being powerless, essentially. But there had always been delight in watching those Catholic fanatics try to pump her full of lead and letting the bullets just burst into flame before they hit. Was she even who she was supposed to be without her power? How could she inspire without it?

"Somehow, I think rolling into Bifrons to make them pay when I have nothing up my sleeves is ill-advised." Look at her being all reasonable and stuff-- Ammy would be proud.

Aradia has to laugh at that one. Her laugh is high-pitched, slightly maniacal, and probably shouldn't last for that long.

"Oh, I'd never just roll into Bifrons. That would be suicide! The first death was bad enough. No, what's far more effective is learning about their past, their secrets, and then using it against them. That's definitely something up one's sleeve."

Luci waits.

And silently judges.

Because wow kid. Wow.

"First one, huh? And how many times have you died so far?"

Aradia does a quick finger-count to make sure she's got the number right.

"Three. Third time really was the charm! I'm feeling more alive than I ever felt in years."

That's normal, right?

"Lucky number three. Everything comes in threes, right? Parts of deities, celebrity deaths, poison ivy..."

Everyone else, Luci's pretty sure, has only experienced one death. Except for her and this kid. "What was your name again?"

"You could call it luck, or you could call it fate. My deaths were set in stone long before I even began my existence."

Silly her! Aradia's gone this long without sharing her name. How rude. "My name is Aradia," she replies. "What's yours?"

"I guess your calendar is pretty complicated then. Horn polishing Tuesday, dry cleaning Thursday, can't go to Sam's birthday next Wednesday though, I'm dying early Monday."

It isn't unlike her situation, though. Loved, hated, dead within two years. When and how, though, that was always the variable wasn't it?

"Call me Luci, everybody else does."

Unless they guessed her name.

"Ooooh, I don't think I've died on a Monday. That's probably a good thing, everyone hates Mondays."

Luci. That's a nice name. It reminds her of something, something the kids told her about, but Aradis can't quite remember what. Oh well. Must not be that important.

"Also, what's dry cleaning?" As a maid, Aradia needs to be on top of all the new techniques. You can clean without water? Amazing!

( MEMES ) TEST DRIVE >> 8

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