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aftr_ooc2018-09-13 08:58 pm
lifeaftr_mods) wrote in aftr_ooc2018-09-13 08:58 pm
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TEST DRIVE MEME ( 015 )
Test Drive Meme #15
Hello, and welcome to LifeAftr! We’re pleased that you’re expressing an interest in the game. Here, you can test the waters, gauge how your character may fare in the world of LifeAftr, and even gain some in-game incentives, if you so choose.
Remember that Reserves will open on September 17th, and Applications on September 24th!
Two important notes:
Remember that Reserves will open on September 17th, and Applications on September 24th!
1. LifeAftr's test drives take place on the island of Mu, which exists apart from the real world and possesses a dream-like quality that characters are innately aware of from the moment they appear on its shores. No need to panic or fret. Dreams are odd things, after all - and anything can happen in them. Why would anyone question where their mind chooses to wander in its sleep?
2. Due to the nature of Mu, threads in our test drive can not only be accepted as thread samples in your application, but can be accepted as game canon as well. In fact, certain choices your character makes in Mu have the potential to bear in-game consequences, largely in the form of test drive reward items.
Drawn to You
The forest is dark, silent but for the snap-buzz of cricket song. Nearby, the soft babble of running water threads its way between the rough-barked trunks, though the origin of said water is difficult, at first, to pinpoint.
Granted, you probably aren't paying much attention to the forest, or the water, or the darkness. You're probably more concerned about the creatures flitting to and fro in sparse groups, most of them quite small. They tend to vary in appearance - some look to be totally benign, while others considerably less so - but all belong to the same species.
Scribblets are wily beasts, dream-haunters by nature, and they seem to revel in the idle torment they inflict upon those who cross their paths. You, dear travelers, are no exception. And while they are quite easily crushed into dust once caught, they are exceedingly slippery, agile creatures that are most difficult to pin down.
Fortunately, the solution here is very simple. Like any drawing, it can be washed away if you find water. You'd simply better hope that you're able to collaborate with whoever you must in order to access said water, whether it's working alongside whoever you might be tied to, or convincing someone to lend you a hand.
You'd better hope the scribblets don't go after them either, by the way.
Quarantine Breached
Whatever this place once was, nature has long since claimed it for its own. A darkened, secluded laboratory now nearly swallowed by thick snarls of overgrowth is probably not your ideal vacation spot, particularly since there's a dearth of any decent lighting sources here. Drenched in shadow as this place was, it might have been helpful if you had thought to bring a light.
Fortunately, that problem is soon to be solved! Twin smoldering points of light abruptly ignite several yards away from you, paired with the pitched mechanical hum of engaging circuits. Another pair of lights immediately spritzes to life just beside it, and another pair, and another...and another...and...
Well, there seems to be a lot of them, doesn't there?
You must understand, traveler: the island of Umui was nothing like this. The guardian units there were conscious nurse-bots, charged with caring for the sick and dying populace of a hospice island. Most did so with as much care as they were capable. But in the initial days of Umui's exploration, a great deal of explorers' anxieties revolved around these fallen automatons, and what possible purpose they may have served.
We invite you to imagine a scenario in which this went horribly wrong.
Consider these automatons to be shadowy, overzealous mirrors of their long-dead, real-world equivalents. They have learned to become hyper-devoted to their task of keeping their patients safe; so devoted, it seems, that nothing will stop them from fulfilling those obligations. They intend to catch and sedate you so that you can be...returned...to a place of safety.
Unfortunately, this place of safety probably entails an inescapable four-walled room or a hospital bed, and it's doubtful, to say in the least, that enough of their programming remains for them to remember to care for and feed you once you've been returned to whatever passes for a quarantine zone. In a decrepit, dilapidated building like this, it's probably not pleasant.
Our advice is to simply not get caught. If this means doing some inevitable destruction to all this complex hardware in the process, well...at least there's no chance you'll be billed for damages.
The New Farm Simulator Looks Great!
It is possible that you vaguely recall being asked to take watch this evening. By whom? Oh, please, that doesn't matter! With the pleasant hum of crickets in the air, and a backdrop of paddocks and grain fields around you, there are plenty of worse ways to spend your evening than this. All you have to do is keep an eye on passive livestock. The farmer's life is a simple one, where your biggest problem is trying not to fall asleep before your shift is over.
In theory, anyway.
For others, sweet grains aren't as appealing as that sweet, sweet taste of freedom. A word of advice: once the popo are over those hills, you won't be seeing them again. And they might not be terribly fast on their own, but in a herd, they can get to be as dangerous as a stampede.
Hope you weren't expecting an easy night, because in LifeAftr, there's no CJB cheats menu to save you.
SAFETY FIRST
[Don't think about it. The way the lab's darkened lighting casts his armor in a shade of blue, and how there are only so many people who can spew that panicked, furious falsetto.]
[Think, instead, about something more direct.]
Shouldn't you be armed?
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Well.
That's sure someone he, in retrospect, probably should've figured he'd run into. But whatever complicated feelings he has about Washington, first name Agent (David? is anyone allowed to call him David?), they are put aside for more pressing matters.]
Yes. Yes, I should be armed, but do you see a rifle on me? No! You don't. I don't know where the fuck it is. I didn't have it when I woke up in this BULLSHIT ASYLUM!
[Honestly, everyone should be very glad that he was not gifted the gift of bullets.]
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[Remember the pitched whine of engaging circuits before the E.M.P. rinses everything dry, remember counting the seconds to unconsciousness while you hemorrhaged into your armor from the bullet lodged in your chest cavity. Remember C.T. and the way her face twisted when she put together the pieces: he was my friend.]
[Remember the slow-burning realization burning in your guts when Carolina asked where Epsilon was.]
[Which one is it? Which one are you? Which one are - fuck, get it the fuck together, Washington, you're not scattering pixels over a digital soulscape, you're not someone else's fucking memories, you're years past it so stop acting like you're concussed stop acting like this is shaking you to your core stop acting stop thinking stop thinking goddamnit - ]
[Because that's given one of the automatons a window to try and disarm him.]
Fuck - [That's all he has time for before: stop. Wrench the ka-bar from the mag-strip at thigh-level, slam it into the thing's neck, in and out again, sever the cables and corroded metal, watch it spark and thrash and die.]
[Leave the ka-bar buried in the skeleton of the robot's chassis. Draw the M6D and toss the pistol Church's way.]
[(Which one?)]
[Leave it. Doesn't matter. Leave it. Focus. Later. Later, goddamnit, later.]
Then - here!
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[Thanks, in other words. Church knows how to use a gun, handles it with ease. It's just the...hitting things he shoots at part that goes awry. But he feels so much better with a gun in his hands, and much as he hates it, he sidles up next to Wash, almost but not quite back to back.]
Okay. Okay. So. Where's the nearest door? Preferably away from the stepford nurses!
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[He's losing it. He's losing it, losing himself, or - losing some part of himself he wasn't aware was still awake in the darkened parts of his brain, the angles and corners that he never that he never ]
[Control slips. Something grits out from between clenched teeth when he swings the butt of his rifle around, caves an automaton's head inward with the stock.]
Which...which one are you?
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[They're...relentless. Something in him wants to laugh, something hysterical. Don't these chucklefucks know he can't get sick? He shoots--he shoots three times, with each shot predictably missing the target he was actually aiming for. One bullet nicks a bot farther away, he can see the jerky motion the eyes make, and another bullet ricochets a few times before he loses track of it completely, and the third just straight up misses entirely.]
Which one what--this is really not the time for you to go crazy on me, Wash! God, this is-- [He shoulder checks the closest one to him, the one he missed several times, knocking it to the floor, and for good measure, he stomps on it, on its stupid head until it gives.] --the dumbest kind of zombie apocalypse!
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[So: Alpha. This is Alpha. Does he even remember that he's Alpha at this point?]
Never mind.
[This is how he knows it's Church: his aim is still fucking terrible. Kick the folded-over body into the cluster of the approaching crowd and, when it tangles their legs, open fire until the bullets blow the metal and circuitry out from the backs of what passes for their spines.]
We can't do anything backed into a corner, so move with me.
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He has no idea what Wash is thinking. Maybe something along the lines of 'great, we were both supposed to die, and instead, we're fighting robot zombies', only more pretentious and edgy. Maybe it's 'gosh I'm so ANGRY and CRAZY I sure hope I don't TEAM KILL!' Or could it be it's an actual plan going through his head? Hmmmm.
That'll be for later. For now is moving. Does he really have a choice than to go with Wash? (Did he ever really have a choice?)] I'm with you. Door? If we keep going through enough doors, we'll find one out, or at least find a room with windows to jump out of dramatically.
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[And it's a fucking terrible plan, but what's the other option here? Have a nervous breakdown. Listen to the premonition of your own death, your own gut-fuck insanity eating you alive, taking root in your chest and spidering out up your throat when you try and focus on the man who you guilted into his own death.]
[He was my friend.]
[Shuck the spent mag from the rifle. Slap in a new one. Unclip a grenade. Between the thicket of rustling metal, catch sight of it: a crooked-open door.]
Door, far right corner. On my mark.
[Thumb the pin loose.]
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But no. Of course Wash has a grenade that he's going to blow up a bunch of zombie robot nurses in an endless abandoned asylum hospital for sci-fi TB or something. And it's going to look awesome, except that they're cool guys who don't look at explosions, because they'll be running their asses off.
Church is still ready, though. Breathing heavy but steady. Even if he doesn't need to breathe, because robots don't breathe. He hasn't needed to breathe in...what, two years? Has it been that long since Caboose offed his fucking body? So he's ready when the mark comes. He'll bowl robots over if he has to. How much damage can they really do with this kind of armor slapped on them?
Maybe don't find out. Good plan. Or, the only plan that matters. Good thing he likes not being caught better than flipping out at Wash for being Wash for the moment.]
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[Calmly, as if he's not hard-scrabbling a fucking crisis in the center of his brain. Deal with it the same way you deal with everything else: by allowing it to marinate subconsciously without actually acknowledging one thing or another.]
[Instead: lob the grenade, make for the door, count down from three-two-one until the detonation rocks several of the things off their feet, blows the more unfortunate ones apart from the impact. Open fire on the ones that still have legs to book it for the escapees.]
[Remember that you're supposed to be watching Church's back.]
[You owe him this.]
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(Nobody can prove anything, so he'll thank you to think maybe some of them did hit just fine.)
Hurtles over one that fell in the way from the force of the explosion, punches another one--his fists sure don't miss, socking it right in the...where a jaw should be.
Smashes through the door, and this one leads into a hallway. It's good, because it gives them more room to go somewhere, anywhere, and not get backed into a corner. Bad because there could be nursebots behind any doors, and it's not a way out. But it is a way, and he'll take it.]
C'mon, c'mon! [The hallway does look blissfully barren, and he ushers Wash to turn a corner.]hide, they'll lose us!
[He assumes. After all that exploding and being riddled with bullets, there can't be too many actually keeping up with them. Maybe they're motion activated. Or...he doesn't know, and hiding might actually lead to a dead end and getting trapped again. But they'd have to be found again first.
Beats being on the run until they find a way out.]
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[But he doesn't say it. He simply sprints, every survivalist instinct that's kept him alive despite all incredible fucking odds and, in some cases, his best goddamned efforts, powering him forward at a dead run.]
[He rounds the corner and nearly loses his balance, one hand catching the curve of the wall to keep himself from skidding across over the corroded plane of floors made slippery with moss and age.]
If we can find a room, we can barricade it shut - keep them out.
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[This is stupid. They should be dead, these robohobos are old if tenacious making them only truly a worry with numbers, and this place doesn't make sense. It's starting to feel less urgent if only because it's starting to feel unreal.
Where the fuck are they, really?]
...An office or something, big filing cabinets and desk.
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[A door next to him bangs open, nearly thrusts him off balance, and an arm comprised of rusted metal gropes wildly out at the pair of them.]
[Out of panicked instinct, he discharges the remainder of the clip into the thing's chassis.]
- and not let any of them catch us.
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Not that room, then, but Church tries a door several down--locked. And the next one--also locked. The third one is rusting off its hinges, and the fourth is a bathroom. If the area around them had been dilapidated before, the further they go, the more apparent it is how long it's been. There are vines, mosses, and their feet splash through puddles. At least Command had been occupied, if creepy in the mausoleum of AI.]
We'll fucking bust through the ceiling if we have to, this place is a wreck.
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[He never did lose his instinct to debate semantics, even in battle. At least he's retained a sense of when to abandon debating them.]
They'll probably try and sedate you. Which - [Time to find out exactly when this Church is from.] - not a problem for you.
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Or he could look like the cousin of the robonurse.]
Yeah, no shit, they'd probably have to taze me or something, and then my ghost'll just walk right out of my body and--wait. Ha! See you're fucked cuz you're human, but I'm a ghost, so I'm fine!
[Or an AI. But still possibly fine. He can walk right out of this body if he has to.]
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[Incredible, isn't it, how this particular iteration of Church can effortlessly crack through the shell of imperviousness Wash has built up over the years, the calm dismissal and disregard for the countless neuroses of the sim soldiers that he'd assumed had, by now, allowed him some sort of immunity.]
[That was, apparently, too optimistic a thought.]
If you're fine, why don't you just save yourself?
[He knows he's not a human, then. Does he know what he risked to save the skin of some Freelancer asshole who didn't even have the grace and dignity to die in his act of attempted justice?]
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[He grabs Wash by the arm and barrels them past what looks vaguely like it once might have been a receptionist desk (or...well maybe some kinda desk anyway, if there are robots, do they need receptionists?) and through an ajar door.
To call it an office would be too kind what with the wear and tear, but there aren't any robots in here, and there do seem to be some heavier bits of what used to be usable furniture. Waiting room? No, not open enough. Or, who knows, neither of them seem to know where this place is. The ceiling is sagging with wear and moisture, but that's a problem for in the next few minutes, not now.]
I would totally save myself if I could, asshole.
[Not, in practice, true. Even if it took a lot of convincing.]
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[Especially when said arm is wired and taut from exhaustion, as always. Despite Wash's best efforts, he finds himself being yanked along against his will and into - some place that must have once been an office.]
Shit - that just - sounds like a hell of an excuse. [But seeing as said excuse is keeping Wash from getting taken down by a bunch of robotic nurses, he's fine with it.]
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[church now is not the TIME for FLEXING MUSCLES that are (probably) NOT THERE]
And I think bodies are good excuses, cockbite. We don't even have any more of these things lying around, and I am not walking around in one of those rust buckets. I'd fall apart the second you so much as breathed in my direction. No thanks.
[He sets to work in relative quiet after that, at least for a short time. The chairs seem like a lost cause, but the bigger bits of furniture, the rested out filing cabinets, a desk grown fuzzy with mildew, scrape across the floor in front of the door. At least until he opens his mouth again because he can't just keep it locked inside of his chest anymore.]
And I'm not spending any more time in your head than is absolutely necessary, if it's all the same to you.
[Did that sound bitter? Hm. That may have come out a little bitter. Bitten back. Bitten tongue. A sense memory of blood behind teeth, and he's not sure if it's his.
But they're not doing this--this, this right here--until they're safe. Or as safe as they're going to get.]
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[What is it that spools up in his guts, clenches like some writhing, squirming thing? Disgust, maybe.]
[Or maybe the taste of blood, from where his teeth have dug into his tongue.]
Feeling's mutual.
[Ignore it.]
[Focus, instead, on kicking over a table and bracing one shoulder against it to push it toward the door, to assist in the makeshift barricade.]
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He does not remember this. He does not remember why he feels everything so strongly, so on the surface of things. Only that he does, and that he's learned to shove a lot of those intense feelings in the direction of anger. No wonder Omega in his head felt right at home. He's spent so much time being angry because that was comfortable. Safer.
Getting his feelings out by exerting effort and strength such that he doesn't have the power to feel much will only work for a short while. It's enough for now. Because he doesn't know how he feels.
About what happened. About Washington. Everything happened so fast, and then it was over, and then he was here. Whatever he feels, he feels it a lot, but he can't do anything about it right now.
Except make a lot of noise scraping things along. Looking for another exit. Helping Wash barricade, as Wash helped him not be dismantled or stunned or whatever the fuck these things would have done. They're not enemies, they're just...
Complicated. It's always complicated. Just like Tex.]
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[So it leaves them like this: piling up old, broken furniture in front of a door so they don't get swarmed by robotic things that look like the automatons on Umui if they were developed in the complete opposite direction of where they actually ended up.]
Church, [he says, because it's what C.T. would want him to call him,] what's the last thing you...remember?
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