( MEMES ) TEST DRIVE >> 003.

[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.

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. What are you going to do?

2. Failed Upgrade. One of your upgrades is more wrong than right. How will you cope? What exactly is different? Who will help?

3. Mission outside the dome. You've come under fire. The strange things are coming towards you. Luckily, you have your suit, your teammates, and a lot of firepower. Or are you stranded on your own, looking for someone to come to the rescue? Perhaps you're the rescuer.

4.Infected Something bit you. Now you're turning into them, and all you can hear is a high-pitched squealing in your head, like a frequency you just can't quite hear. Do you tell your loved ones, or do you wait? Do you trust your doctor?

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. Chance encounter makin' my way downtown walking fast, faces pass--you get the point. You bump into someone! Shopping, or strolling in a park? Maybe just lunch in a cafe?

7. Glory to the Network! Network post. Text with general queries, say what you have to say to the entirety of the whole city.

8. Wildcard: Whatever you want. Mix and match, switch and swatch, make something else up entirely!

Comments

[sklent]

Forgive me. I'm tired.

[ She looks down, away. Disorientation. His or hers?

She's so shocked he's here she thinks she might cry and then what would he do?

Instead she takes several slow steps towards him, hands at her side, palms loose. ]

Sanctum, formerly a city called Proles. Roughly nine thousand natives, plus...several dozen who aren't. It's a different planet. They've been reality tampering in the hopes of finding people who are immune to the virus, the reason for the dome. [ She gestures at the sky. ] District 4.

If you're something I've conjured up because I am on my way to a massive mental break, please tell me now.

[theasset]

[His first instinct is to slap her. It's instinct and it's the way they handle one another's different realities.

No. Dissent between the ranks will destroy them.

If you must look at it as something, consider them your cubs. Who's voice was that, Zola's? The maker? The handlers?]

Nearest HYDRA base.

[She is his, and no one is getting in his way.]

It's past time we go home.

[sklent]

[ She'd asked...demanded, really...for people to tell her about HYDRA when she arrived. Something so flagrant it would get someone's attention. Instead she got a handful of people confusing her for some other woman, someone who had a choice where she had none.

She shakes her head. ]

There isn't one. I've looked...I've asked. We are the only remnants of HYDRA on this planet.

[ We're free she thinks but doesn't say, because they are but they aren't. They're only as free as he decides they are to be, really. Only as free as the bonds in their minds allow them. ]

I have been here for almost two weeks.

[theasset]

[Only remains of HYDRA.

The words ring in his head and for a moment he can't look at her because it makes no sense.

HYDRA is everywhere.

It's everything. Every tortured moment...

Then They have to be HYDRA. Don't they?]

We wait. For extraction.

[sklent]

[ He looks away and she moves closer, standing toe to toe with him, reaching up, touching his face. He's real. He's solid, he's real, he's here and she lets out a breathless noise somewhere between laughter and a choking sob.

He's here, and she's crying, and she hugs him, because what else can she do? ]

In the meantime...

Can we live? Just...can we learn to be more than assets?

[theasset]

["Go on then. Because I'm with you til the end of the line.Dim ghosts, a grim golden god and a girl with bright red flame colored hair. It's too fast.

He grabs her shoulders like a lifeline. Freedom? Freedom isn't free. None of this is free]

We have a mission...

[He reacts first to the man coming up behind him, snapping his neck with a deft motion. Assets? No, no trying to be more then that will get him killed. Hurt. He's a bad dog! He's lower then a dog. Less then a dog.

His gaze scans the world around them, stepping over the body] We have to go home.

[sklent]

[ She wants to argue. This can be home. It's horrible and it's wrong but there are no wipes, no statis, no cryo. She will take zombies, insane politicking, over that.

Instead she steps over the body and takes his hand. Again, feeling like a child on a playground. Has she ever even been one? ]

I don't know how to get us home.

I don't know what to do. I've been trying... [ To be human, to infiltrate, to mimic. To sing, to dance, to fuck. She's been trying to be human and it feels all wrong but being what he is now doesn't look much better to her either. ]

But I know how to get us out of the open.

[ She begins to head off, still holding his hand unless he pulls away. ]

[theasset]

[No wipes, no stasis, no cyro would be good. It would be nice but he's spent so long doing this...

He lets himself be led like a child.]

Current operational status. [He meets her gaze, taking her shoulders in his hands and staring at her. That same blank gaze, lifeless. Seemingly lifeless.]

[sklent]

[ Her brow furrows and she puts her hands on either side of his face. ]

I'm surviving. I don't know if that means I am being efficient, or functional. I can't sleep. I don't sleep. It's making things difficult. I hate being without you. I hate it. There are people here who think they know my name because they know a woman named Natasha, a spy, a SHIELD agent, but I'm not her, and now? She's gone anyway.

I've made alliances. I've demanded they call me Natalia. I've been drunk; that was difficult. I went outside the dome and saw what happened to the people of this planet. I can't sleep.

I am not fully functional but I am alive and I want that. To be alive. To remember, even in pieces, even in thinly sliced cuts that make me feel like I'm bleeding emotions all over everyone. Because I want to remember you. Because I was afraid you weren't going to come.

[theasset]

[That is a lot of emotions. It's a lot of words and it hurts trying to think through all of that but his hand is stroking her hair.]

I'm here. I'd never leave you behind.

[Not like others. Not like people had left him...He draws her forehead to his lips for a delicate trembling kiss before his gaze scans the entrance.]

They'll come back for us.

[There's a nervous edge to the words] They'll come back for us...

[sklent]

I don't think they can. And if they do. We'll deal with it.

Until then... [ She looks at him, hoping he'll understand. That he'll try this with her. ]

I want us to live. Please?

[theasset]

[His head aches. Between Captain America and the rest of it his mind hurts. There's a subtle crack in the impressive facade they've built over the remains of James Buchanan Barnes.]

...Take me somewhere safe.

[sklent]

[ Thank you she thinks but doesn't say. He can always change his mind later, and she will obey, because that is what she does, what she has been programmed to do. Some part of her chooses to, she knows this, whether or not the option presented is a real one.

She leads him out of District 4 and into District 2, to a small house at the edge of a farm she'd bought as a base of operations for her work for the Callsigns. It's...sparse, in it's way, but there's a warmth to the space that she enjoys.

A family lived here, she thinks, and not so long ago that she feels like she's haunting a once-full space.

Two floors, though the second is empty and she's been living out of the kitchen/living room/dining room area instead of setting up in one of the bedrooms. There are maps, and printouts, and a pair of glasses set up to a complex monitoring system she isn't entirely sure works as it should, but she built the thing. ]

This is safe. There's another place... [ On one of the monitors there are several doorways that look near identical and she taps it with her finger. ] Assigned. They'll have assigned you one as well. Probably not in the same building.

[ She'll need to deal with that. ]

[theasset]

[he? He is prowling.

For all of the training he's had to think of himself as less then then an animal he is very animal like in behaviors. Up the stairs into each bedroom, then back down and staring out the window.

He bares his teeth and the scenes outside]

I'm familiar with it. It's good you have a split base of operations.

How many SHIELD agents are here?

[sklent]

[ She is aware of his prowling, his growls, and she feels like she's pretended too long at not being a monster. He probably thinks two weeks have made her too soft.

He will either despise her for it, or be more driven to protect her, and she isn't sure how she should feel about that. If she feels anything.

She feels something. ]

Two. [ A pause. ] Fury and Rogers. Three if you include Banner, though I do not believe he considers himself to be one.

I have an agreement with Fury.

[ To rebuild SHIELD here, if SHIELD is to exist. ]

[theasset]

An agreement with our enemy?

[He's offering as much surprise as he can.] tactical advantage?

[He sounds panicked, or as panicked as he can be]

[sklent]

He is unaware of any ties I have to HYDRA, and SHIELD will be more invested in the protection of the 'immune' than the company that brought us all here.

[ She frowns, and looks away. ]

I needed orders. I can burn my contacts at any point.

[theasset]

[what about him. His hand clenches] ...Infiltration from within. That's good. [she's thinking better then he is. He puts his hands on the sink and stares out the window]

....You've done well.

[sklent]

Thank you. [ Her voice shakes but she means it. How long had she stayed up wondering what his judgement would be about her actions? She still wonders.

It hasn't all been lying, infiltration, but it's been mostly that. If only because she doesn't know how else to be. She has, at least, been honest with most about that. I am doing this for a reason. It's just that those reasons have, to this point, included the fact that she enjoyed their company. ]

I... [ Hngh. She should probably stop overwhelming him with intel and her own emotional instability. ] Earlier, I didn't mean that I wasn't your responsibility. It's just the name, Romanov, that's...someone else. A woman who made other choices than I was given. Than I would make.

[ Her hand comes up to his shoulder and rests there. ]

I will do whatever you order. You know that.

[theasset]

You're being compromised. [his voice is full of scorn.] You've been compromised. Hydra was good to us.

[But the words are said far too fast. Like he's trying to convince himself, to put it out there.

And the worst part is you're saying you wouldn't have chosen me? because that's what it sounds like.

And then it's there, like a physical hit to the face. Memories of a different man entirely. Smiles and whispered words.]

Do you regret the choices you've made?

[sklent]

Good to us?! [ It takes everything in her not to slam her fist into the countertop. ] They kept us alive, barely that, but that is all they've done for our betterment. There is nothing good about HYDRA.

[ She looks at him, really looks, tries to get him to turn and face her. ]

The ones I've made with you or without? [ Frowning, she shakes her head. ] No. I only regret that I've had to spend two weeks not knowing if I would see you again.

[theasset]

[his gaze is stone cold and if there's fear...it's buried deep. But it's still there, dug deep within him. He can't respond to that last part.

Instead he raises a hand to her cheek, staring her down before lowering his forehead to hers.]

And have you lived little Natalia? Have you lived a good life without me?

[sklent]

[ Her breath comes out shaky. It should be a threat, she thinks, but it isn't. Or she doesn't want it to be. ]

I've...tried. I've made...friends. A lover. I don't know. [ Shutting her eyes. ] They knew my voice, they called me by her name, and she disappeared. There was one like you, if you were his distant past, and he disappeared too. My hand was called before I had even drawn cards. I didn't know what to do.

[theasset]

[A lover.

Why does that make his stomach hurt.]

Where are your medical supplies.

[sklent]

[ Because they need to discuss it. Because they need to discuss what they are to each other now. ]

Beneath the sink.

What do you need?