TEST DRIVE #002

[reveriemod]

TEST DRIVE #002

( 0 0 1 ) » WAKE UP

Were you asleep or were you unconscious? It doesn't matter: when you come to, there's an odd taste in your mouth and there's a low-level mechanical hum in the air. Your head hurts and you feel nauseous. You aren't anywhere you know: everything around you is metal, from the floor you lie on all the way to the ceiling. You are dressed in a jumpsuit you definitely weren't wearing before.

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

The message repeats on a loop. If you look for its source, you find a comms device on the floor next to you. The logo on its wallpaper says REVERIE TERMINAL. Upon closer inspection, you find the same logo on your jumpsuit.

Welcome to your new home. What choice do you have but to explore your surroundings?

( 0 0 1 . 1 ) » WAKE UP WHERE?

When you wake up, you find that you're not alone. But more importantly, you find that you're in a closet. An empty closet, bar you and your new companion. It's small, cramped, and there is no door that you can see. The ceiling is low, there is barely any lights, only some coming from the tiny flashlight clipped to your suit's shoulder. You cannot be sure that there is any air coming in to the room.

Are these grooves in the wall supposed to mean something?

( 0 0 2 ) » OBSERVATION DECK

There were no windows in the corridor you woke up in and no windows in any of the crew quarters you might have checked for occupants — but there are plenty of windows on the uppermost level of the station, deck 1. In fact, there are windows from floor to ceiling all along the circumference of the station's circular deck, and it's possible to walk along it all. What it shows is a strange solar system you've never seen before and a planet that might resemble one you know, but certainly isn't the same.

You're in space. You don't know where you are. Neither does anyone else.

( 0 0 3 ) » BAR

On deck 3, you find the bar. Tucked away from the crew quarters, it's dimly lit, there are bar stools thrown down on the floor and what looks like some very old drink spills, crusty and dark against the bar top. But there is alcohol here, or at least, what you think is alcohol, in bottles with faded labels, most of them indecipherable. Take a drink, get drunk, start a fight, or start a party? You're stuck on this station, might as well make the most of it, right?

( 0 0 4 ) » SPACEQUAKES

One second, you are is walking. Magnetic boots are on, the ground feels solid enough, for a metal deck in a space station. Everything is perfectly fine, or at least as fine as it can be, given that you still don't know where you are or how you came to be here.

The next moment, it's like everything explodes around you. You're thrown against the wall as sparks erupts from electrical panels, as the whole station rumbles and shakes around you. You fall to the deck, earning yourself scratches from the grating. When you look up, it's like nothing has happened. No wires hanging from open panels, no flickering lights, no more shaking. Like an earthquake in space.

( 0 0 5 ) » NETWORK

The comms device you found next to you when waking up connects to a station-wide network, REVERIE NET. You have the option to post video, voice or text messages.

What will you share?

( 0 0 6 ) » WILDCARD

The station features a variety of locations, from sleeping quarters free for the claiming to a dirty swimming pool and a bar that still holds alcohol (though some of the bottles seem to have been opened a while ago).

Go wild, but don't wreck the place. It's your home for the foreseeable future, after all.

Comments

jack | oc

[improbablelie]

o2. one hell of a view.

[ Jack has never been in space before. There were space stations, of course, rumors of missions to Mars and the ever hopeful believing that they would be colonizing the moon any day now, but only people with money and security clearances got the chance to walk on the space stations.

Jack definitely didn't have any kind of security clearance, and money had never been much of a priority.

Is this what the space stations were for? Some kind of weird, experimental prison where they just -- let her walk around? She hadn't sensed any power nullifiers yet, or minds that felt the way guards minds felt, but it had to be a prison, right?

The view is beautiful. Hesitantly, she reaches out a hand and flattens it against the glass. It's beautiful, and it isn't Earth.

She's not quite shaking, but the hand not on the glass is clenched at her side to stop the trembling. If it's truly not Earth, if she's truly somewhere else, it still has to be the government. And if they can send her this far away, what are they doing to Marlowe? ]

I've got to get out of here.

[ Quiet, mostly to herself, but uncharacteristically for her she's not paying much attention to her surroundings, her focus fixed on the stars and planet out of the window. ]

o3. something to numb the system.

[ Jack hasn't had alcohol in -- however long it's been since she was captured. Being on the run doesn't make that much of a safe option, even if sometimes she had desperately wanted the numbness it brings to her empathy, dulls the ever present hum of feeling.

Keeping Marlowe safe had been much more important, but he's not here, and now there's an aching gap where there had been something warm growing and a sinking sensation of failure.

So once she finds the bar, and realizes that nobody is going to stop her, she throws caution to the wind and slams back a drink before wincing and coughing.

It really has been a long time. ]

Fucking foul.

[ That does not stop her from taking another shot. ]

network. testing, testing.

un.nyx

ok so i'm going to skip past the what am i doing here and so forth bc apparently nobody else knows jack shit either

i found the booze and the beautiful windows

still looking for somewhere to hit things really hard and/or other ways to not go stir crazy, open to suggestions

and if anybody meets a guy named marlowe wandering around looking lost/mad send him my way

un: gunny

[marineris]

if you want to hit things, i'm your girl, and i can get you caught up on the rest.

[improbablelie]

i do like efficiency. still getting my bearings about me with this place.

it's not small.

[marineris]

it's smaller than most of the stations i've been on. have you ever been in space before?

[improbablelie]

not unless you count getting drugged enough to think you are.

it sounds like you're used to it?

un: rocipilot

[donkeyballs]

Haven't met anyone named Marlowe, but 'looking lost/mad' ain't that narrow a description, it has to be said. Not here, anyway.

As for hittin' things - Bobbie and I tend to do a bit of trainin' in the mornin', down in the fitness room, and I know she trains up with a few others, too. You're always welcome to come on by.

[improbablelie]

yeah, i'm getting that sense. still, i figure the name and newness combo should be enough. he's definitely not here yet.

orienting myself from the quarters, which way should i head to find the fitness room? still learning my way around.

might be interested in taking you up on that offer of morning training.

[donkeyballs]

Depends what floor your quarters are on, but if you make your way to the observation deck, I could give you the tour, if you like?

[improbablelie]

i could do that. seems like knowing where everything is would be a good idea.

sure you don't mind taking the time out of your no doubt very busy day?

[donkeyballs]

I ain't busy, don't you worry.

You'll find that life here is either far too fast or far too slow and ain't a lot of in between.

Helpin' out newcomers is half my gig.

[improbablelie]

i'll be honest - both that pacing and that gig sound like total shit.

you'll have to tell me what you mean by far too fast though. meet in twenty minutes work for you?

network again; un: tokumei

[neuralnet]

There's a gym on Deck 4, if you want to exercise.

[ That's not quite... what they said... ]

What does your friend look like? I can try searching the station's camera feed for him. [ Or, he can ask Hank to do so for him. ]

[improbablelie]

I guess that works.

[ The second offer she hesitates on how to respond to -- there's no polite and non suspicious way to say "people knowing what our faces look like is dangerous and I don't trust surveillance" and she's not willing to admit why she's so sure he's not here at the moment, and she's out of practice with the niceties of conversations. ]

I appreciate the offer, but I'm already certain he's not here yet. He'd have responded by now.

You have access to the station's surveillance feeds?

[ Nailed it. ]

[neuralnet]

Sort of. Not any of the archived feeds. But there's an AI named Hank who lives in the station's network. He was brought here like us, and he can pull up the feeds of all the station cameras to areas we've unlocked.

[improbablelie]

There's an AI who lives in the station's network? That seems like it has the potential to be quite dangerous.

When you say brought here, you mean that he also seems to be an unwilling arrival?

[neuralnet]

That's right. He's as much a prisoner here as any of us.

Do you have a problem with AI? If so, there's something I should probably tell you...

[improbablelie]

AI has a wide range of categories. Some of them I'm not fond of, others I have no issue with.

Why? What would you need to tell me?

Wildcard

[impossibletruth]

[ He woke up with a sharp intake of breath, almost jolting out of his skin as he sat up, mild reeling.

Well, reeling was a word for it. He felt - incredibly sluggish, in a strange way, like each thought wouldn't quite fit neatly into his head. He shook it, roughly, before trying to take in his surroundings, and--

And he felt his stomach lurch in something quite close to fear. No, no, no, no, this wasn't right, nothing was right, not even the gravity--

The communicator kept repeating that phrase on repeat and he scrambled to turn it off, lights flickering around his head in odd, fizzling ways as his brain tried to make up for the fact that he suddenly couldn't think quite as fast. But he didn't need to think fast for the first word to leave his mouth: ]

Jack??

the pleased yell was VERY MUFFLED so as to not wake people

[improbablelie]

[ Her empathy here is -- lessened. Not in the way that means power nullifiers at work on her or others, that is an emptiness that is endless and unbreakable. She hates that feeling. It's still unsettling to not have what she knows she should be capable of available to her, but it's actually easier to not have the constant cacophony in her head. This many people, this close.

She shudders to think what it would be like to have her full capabilities, especially as broken as her shields are, in this close quarters.

But she feels it, the moment something in her mind snaps into place. It's faint and thin, the gentle threads of something that had only been beginning to be understood, but it is to her absolutely unmistakable. Marlowe.

She's on her feet a moment later, sprinting only a few seconds after that as she searches for the exact position, tries to pinpoint where he is, sending her mind ahead of her to reach out to him, let him know that she's here. ]

Marlowe. [ She turns a corner and he's there and she almost laughs but doesn't quite, heads directly towards him with every intention of wrapping her arms around him. ] You're here.

[impossibletruth]

[ She reaches out, the pulse of her being reaching him from wherever she is, and the relief is so instant and overwhelming that he almost literally sags with it. He hadn't been able to feel her at all - not quite like the connection had been severed, but almost - so he'd been filled with fear that he was completely alone.

If he thought about it, he would think it was strange that now, after all this time, he could barely think of being without her.

It means he has a few seconds to let the panic subside as she comes to him, able to mold his expression into something a little more laid back than he could have managed before, as she comes around the corner.

There's no hesitation as he steps forward, pulling her into a tight, hard hug. The kind of hug a year ago he was not particularly good at, but now was almost natural. He hadn't even gotten a good look at her, his sluggish brain not doing as instant a read as it normally should have, and now his eyes were closed as he held her tight. ]

You really should know better than to wander off. [ Just a little bit of false bravado, considering the panic he'd been in a few seconds ago. ]

[improbablelie]

[ The response from him is strong, it's -- stronger?

But in the immediate relief of his presence, the knowledge that she could still protect him, keep him safe, bring his mind against hers, that isn't something that fully translates yet.

The hug does confuse her a little, if at the moment she's also entirely willing to just sink into it. She'd expected more surprise from him, honestly, given how most of the time she shied from physical contact, how recent it was that she'd even been willing to sleep in the same space as him. But after a few days of separation, it's enough for the moment simply to wrap her arms around him and hold on tight. It shouldn't mean this much, she thinks, but it does, it does, it does.

He's here, and he's alive and safe and warm and she can keep him that way now and for the time being, while she can enjoy this moment, that's all that matters. ]

Yeah, well, I didn't walk into a snowstorm this time. [ Mumbled into his shoulder, teasing a little. ] I just went into space this time.

[impossibletruth]

[ He doesn't hold on for too long, regardless, though when he pulls back his hands linger on her shoulders as he checks her over. Little lights flicker and fade, a hundred computations a minute which feels incredibly sluggish as his brain automatically runs comparisons to what he knows.

It hasn't even finished its full set of computations before he starts feeling uneasy, but for the most part it's still overwhelmed by relief. ]

Do you remember how you got here?

[ A pause, and then very solemnly, considering that he could remember every detail of his entire life otherwise: ]

Because I don't.

[improbablelie]

[ She lets his hands linger, does a quick once over of him to make sure he's still all right. The shoulder should be mostly healed by now so there's no lump of bandages under clothes to determine anything from, but she doesn't see any strain in his movement. That's good, means that whatever brought them here didn't aggravate the injury. ]

I have no idea. I can only assume they found us, but --

[ She gestures around them even as mentally she brushes against his mind, reassurance.

And then she skips a beat, because that's not the same link that she had searched for only the first time a few days ago. Well, it is. But it isn't. There's more to it than she had seen in the cabin lying in bed together. That had been new and tentative and confused, neither of them certain yet and him not even knowing it was there. This is bigger, a deeper running current, one that could pull her in and hold her captive with ease. Her voice is slower when she speaks again. ]

I've been here a few days and haven't seen any sign of the usual suspects. Why do you feel different?

un: sweetie

[retrorsum]

That depends on what your limits are for these suggestions.

[improbablelie]

Fairly open. The limits are decided by me upon reaching them.

Why?