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

[bestials]

[ Hank raises a blue eyebrow at that assessment. ] Well, you're not wrong.

[ The jumpsuits-- tattered as his may be-- do feel a little "prison issue." The boots, however, are not. ]

I was honestly just going door to door looking for something to change into that, well... [ He looks sheepishly down at the state of his jumpsuit. ] ... fits.

[raverie]

Right.

[ Seeing as how he's the only other person she's come across in this place, (non-hostile, to boot), she'll just be inviting herself along. ]

Do you mind company? Not to change. [ Obviously. ] I was just thinking - safety in numbers.

[ And then, because she has the luxury of hiding when he doesn't: ]

I thought this might be another Trask prison.

[bestials]

[ Trask? So she's a mutant after all. Hank hasn't heard about Trask running any prisons, though. ]

No, by all means.

[ She's right in that there's safety in numbers. He doesn't want to judge a book by its cover, but he could probably defend her if she needed it. ]

May I ask, [ Because of her comment about Trask prisons, and his experience the past few days with Logan, ] What year do you think it is?

[raverie]

[ She's relieved when he doesn't dismiss her, preferring not to dig in for an argument. Her powers can be useful, but they're more for stealth than combat.

He's very polite, when he asks. It takes some of the edge off the question. ]

Last I checked, it was 2016. [ The look she gives him is wary, almost bracing herself for the worst. Then, remembering her own manners, ] I'm Sonya, by the way.

[bestials]

Sonya. [ He repeats, extending a large blue hand for her to shake. ] Call me Hank.

[ Niceties out of the way, he starts back down the hallway in search of someplace that might have larger-fitting clothes. ]

You'll have to excuse my confusion, then. Because before I woke up here, it was 1973.

[ Distantly, he wonders if the 2016 she comes from is in the same timeline as Logan's future. Sounds like it, from the mention of Trask's prisons. ]

oh cool in the ou hank was murdered in 2015 that's fine

[raverie]

[ The clues collect like rain on a window until they gain enough momentum to drop. It was his youthfulness throwing her off. Until he tells her what year it is.

Hank McCoy. ]

Oh, no. Nothing to excuse.

[ She takes his hand, can't help but marvel at how young he is. Keeping her eyes on his face, of course. She can't help but be a little relieved, actually. Someone she's heard of. ]

...The X-Men disappeared in my world around 2013.

[bestials]

[ The namedrop doesn't get much reaction out of Hank-- though to be fair, he hasn't heard the term "X-Men" in about ten years. Once it clicks who Sonya is referring to, however, the comprehension becomes clear on Hank's face. ]

Oh. Right. [ She must be from Logan's future after all. Or one similar to it. ]

I hear I, uh. Die, around 2015.

[raverie]

[ She's so relieved, for a moment, that she doesn't have to tell him. It takes precedence over the niggling weirdness of the statement. One hand pressed over her mouth just for a second - she needs a second - before she collects herself. Slides her arm through his like it's ye olden days, or the way you'd help an old person cross the street, or like she's one of those people who believes in bringing back platonic touching, or all of the above.

Humans continue to disappoint. Assault their best and their brightest. There aren't any words for what she wants to say, which is that Dr. McCoy did so much for so many, and then when push came to shove, the system he'd worked within didn't protect him.

Then it hits her. She'd been so worried about his reaction, and then so saddened by the knowledge that he knows and has to live with that knowledge, that it took her a second. ]

...Where did you hear that?

[bestials]

[ He stiffens slightly at the touch, not used to getting any physical closeness from anyone. Especially not in this form. The only person who'd cared to get close to him looking like this was Raven. The memory of their conversation in the mansion felt so recent, and yet so far away, now. ]

There was this guy. Another mutant. Logan. He, well. [ They come to a T-intersection, and Hank pauses briefly, considering which direction to choose, before finally going left. ] He was sent back to 1973 from the future, to help stop the terrible things the Sentinel program would go on to do.

[raverie]

[ This close, she can't help but notice him stiffen, and she leans her head to his shoulder before subtly withdrawing. It's cool, her BFF isn't very cuddly either. She just meant to tell him she's sorry - that the world's so crappy. ]

Oh my god! [ She'd told Clarice before that their situation felt hopeless.The idea that there's something in the works to undo it sends a rush of gladness through her. Following Hank left. ] You're helping us? From the past - and the future?

[ Welcome 2 life with the X-men, Sonya. ]

[bestials]

[ His lips twitch at the affectionate head touch, his free hand coming to rest over Sonya's where it's tucked in his arm as they make their way down the halls. ]

Well... We're trying to, anyway. It wasn't exactly going according to plan, before I was taken here.

[ Trask had Raven's blood from the bullet wound on her leg. He had been filmed on live television and beamed to every household in the world, looking like this. There'd be no hiding now. ]

[raverie]

[ Cool, so, that response shouldn't actually make her smile, but she does, because the alternative is a rabbit hole of thinking about how things are terrible for mutants both past and present (and future? How far?) ]

That's what we were trying to do, too. [ Is that a comfort, or not? Gesturing with her free hand. ] Not the time travel stuff. But getting to the bottom of Trask experiments on mutants.

[ So you could say she knows how he feels. You're not alone, Hank. #TeamX feels a little grim rn. ]

It wasn't exactly going according to plan either. I hear that.

[ In that they were all arrested by Sentinel Services and transferred to Trask. ]

[bestials]

He's still experimenting on us?

[ Makes sense, he wouldn't be satisfied once he had his hands on Raven's blood. Hank shakes his head sadly. ]

I'm sorry that we couldn't stop it. For... whatever that's worth.

[raverie]

It's not your fault.

[ How could it be? ]

Trask Industries did shut down, about ten years ago. And the guy himself is definitely dead.

[ But research has a way of being found and people keep on hating mutants, so maybe it shouldn't have come as such a surprise. ]

I guess - they started it back up again.

[bestials]

[ Hank shakes his head sadly. ]

Humans will be humans, I guess.

[ The hallway they're in has several doors on either side. Hank palms open one of the doors, leading them into an empty apartment. Hank heads for the closet, rifling through the identical jumpsuits. Luckily, one of them is a larger size. ]

Finally. [ He turns to Sonya. ] Um... Give me a minute?

[raverie]

[ It kills her that she doesn't have a good response to that. Humans are the same as they ever were.The X-Men said a war was coming. Let's not get into that! ]

And we just keep on being mutants.

[ Which the humans are not hyped about, at all. Sonya follows Hank in through the door he's opened, not wanting to lose sight of the only other real tether she has to reality in this place. But of course, once she snaps back to what they're doing here, she immediately does a helpful u-turn. ]

Of course. I'll be in the hall.

[bestials]

[ It doesn't take Hank long to change, making a few more unfortunate tears in his original jumpsuit as he pulls it off. Soon enough, though, he rejoins Sonya in the hall, fiddling with the zipper at his collarbone. ]

There. How do I look?