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

[warranter]

[ she hums as though thoughtful, replacing the toolbox in its niche. ]

Find our evil overlords; discover what they're up to; kick some ass; go home. [ she turns to face him then, eyebrows raised. ] Enough of a plan for you?

[ finding a weapon worth a shit somewhere during all that would just be icing on the cake, really. ]

[jettisons]

[He crosses his arms over his chest, shaking his head.]

That's it? Sounds easy.

[Oops, listen to that dripping sarcasm.]

[warranter]

Plus room for improvisation along the way.

[ SHRUG. ]

Listen, I don't care if you believe me if not, but I'm very good at what I do. And right now? What I do involves getting the hells off this space station.

[jettisons]

I never said I didn't believe you.

[It's just his default state.]

What is it that you do?

[warranter]

[ there would've been different answers to that, at different times of her life. what is it that she does? assassin. killjoy. leader of a war against the hullen. which is she now? not the last. she can never seem to get away from the first, the blood on her hands old and deep; her skills, her choices always coming back to the kill.

but the answer she goes with is, ]

Reclamation agent. People across the J put out warrants for things or people they want, things they want to get done, and we get them done. I've been doing this for seven years, and I always complete a warrant.

[jettisons]

Sounds useful.

[And then Bellamy seems to realize he's a big rude jerk, which is a revelation.]

I'm Bellamy. You?

[warranter]

We are.

[ at least he got there eventually ]

Dutch. Seems to me you know more about me than I do about you, now. Fair's fair.

[jettisons]

There's not much to tell. I grew up on a station a little like this one, but I wasn't anyone important. Just a janitor.

[There's just the slightest hint of bitterness there, whoops.]

[warranter]

A janitor? [ looks him up and down tbh. ] Pretty boy like you?

[jettisons]

[That catches him off guard, and he snorts.]

I didn't realize they assigned jobs based on looks.

[warranter]

[ she cants her head, archly. ]

Oh, there are plenty of jobs where looks can get you places. Sounds like you were in the wrong line of work.

[ which, especially given his tone when he told her, sounds like a story. ]

Your space station -- what was it called?

[jettisons]

The Ark. The job was a punishment.

[warranter]

[ well then. ]

The Ark? Never heard of it. [ much like she's never heard of reverie terminal. this is a trend she doesn't like. ] Where were you located?

[ and -- ]

Punishment for what?

[jettisons]

[Bellamy crosses his arms, expression closing off.]

Population control was strict on the Ark. My mother had a second child, and we had to hide her. When the council found out, they floated her, imprisoned my sister, then demoted me and halved my rations.

[warranter]

I'm sorry.

[ she's never heard the jargon float for spacing someone, but it's not too hard a guess. ]

Resources must've been tight.

[ a guess, but -- there are only so many reasons for population control on a space station. ]

[jettisons]

That's an understatement.

[Wow, so bitter!]

[warranter]

And the case here, if we're unlucky.

[ she glances past him briefly. it goes unsaid: they probably are unlucky. ]

What happened to her after that? Your sister.

[jettisons]

She was supposed to have a hearing when she turned eighteen, but they decided to send a hundred of the prisoners down to see if Earth was survivable, so I went with her.

[He is skipping a hell of a lot of the story, but whatever.]

[warranter]

Where?

[ some undiscovered planet??? ]

[jettisons]

[He frowns at that, a bit thrown off.]

Earth.

[Isn't that what he said?]

[warranter]

Not familiar.

[ planet?? other station?? star system?? ]

Somewhere outside the J?

[jettisons]

[The confusion definitely doesn't leave his face.]

The J?

[warranter]

The J star cluster. Home of the Quad -- Qresh, Leith, Westerley, Arkyn. Ringing any bells?

[jettisons]

...No.

[God, he is so fucked.]

Are those colonies?

[warranter]

Not Qresh.

[ the others....well. yeah. ]

That's a planet. The others are its moons.