» TEST DRIVE #001

[reveriemod]

TEST DRIVE #001

( 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 3 . 1 ) » VIRTUAL

But the alcohol isn't even the most interesting part of your discovery (depending on who you are, of course). No, what catches your interest is a second, smaller room off from the main bar room, which looks to be some kind of arcade. There are a few VR sets lined up against one of the walls, and surely, they can't be working, right? Nothing is on this rust bucket. And yet, if you put it on, the display comes to life.

It's a pretty simple HUD, and when you move around in reality, you move around in the virtual world you've just entered. It's a luxurious world, full of brightly, saturated colors, making it just a little obvious that it isn't real. Ahead, there is a jungle, a temple, and a city. You can play around, slay some monsters, have some fun, but you can feel yourself growing hot, like the VR helmet is burning your forehead.

And when you try to take it off, you find that you can't. The HUD glitches, the sound cuts off to a blaring alarm, and an error message appears, in glowing, blinking red letters: FINISH THE MISSION. Will you, despite not knowing what the mission even is, or will you fight to get the helmet off?

( 0 0 4 ) » MALFUNCTIONS

(cw: body horror, bodily functions, gore, blood, death)

The fabricators function well enough, until they don't. One day, one moment, everything's all right — the food doesn't generally taste amazing and sometimes downright awful, but it's nourishing and filling no matter what your dietary needs — and the next, things go a little haywire.

In short, the fabricators are malfunctioning.

Oh, they're still producing food that looks and tastes much the same as before, but now there are some unexpected side effects.

NB: Characters may experience any of the following side effects: nausea ranging from slight to debilitating, the sensation of being happily and affectionately — but not overwhelmingly — drunk, bone-deep exhaustion and weariness that makes it hard to move, or repeated hallucinations of loved ones screaming for help, reaching out to characters and leading them down abandoned corridors or being killed by unseen forces.

The extent to which characters are affected is up to players, as is whether you'd prefer to play this more lightheartedly or tackling more serious themes. If the latter, please provide warnings in subject lines where necessary.

( 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 5 . 1 ) » NETWORK USERNAME

When you first turn on your communication device, it requests for you to pick a username to identify you on the network. It can be anything you want. However, as you try to input a username in your wristband to access the network, you get the following message, along with a small, but irritating, warming sound:

this username is already in use.

What does this mean? Is there other people around? Were there other people around?

( 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

[swill]

[His fingers fidget with the neck of his bottle as Frank works on his. The jokes about lesbian mothers and cute body parts are dead and he won't disrupt their peace, not if the other fella won't.

There is, though, a lukewarm disturbance in his gut... but Hawk figures he'll be okay.

He's done okay so far, even if it's a little hard to breathe and it, for once, isn't because of the old, stale air.] Crabapple Cove, we're on... we're right on the bay. Penosbscot Bay, y'know? [It's easy on his tongue and his memory- every line practically memorized off the script and

if he brings a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose again, as a guise to keep his voice steady and eyes dry, no-one's going to give a shit because they're going to get drunk anyway. And the point of getting drunk is to not remember.

And please, Christ, let him never get sober.] Everyone-- everyone's a fisher basically. It's a small town, th' kind where everyone knows everyone and we've got one... yeah, one schoolhouse. One post office. One pharmacy. One lighthouse. And you can always smell the pine or... uh, blueberry pies. [He's done with questions, but talking? He'll never be done talking.] It's like that. I would've had t-- to fly back to Portland. I think.

[oorah]

[ hawkeye talks as frank blankly stares ahead at the bottles on the wall. he's listening, memorizing each word because he doesn't know how to do anything else. the place sounds familiar though he's sure he's never been. it sounds like any new england town, quaint and quintessential. like his house in the suburbs had been before he'd burnt it to the ground.

the words wash over him pleasantly though, and he uses them as a backdrop for his drinking. he doesn't want to ask questions or necessarily contribute but it's as companionable a silence (on his end) as they come really. he closes his eyes and it's like he can smell blueberry pie too. did maria make it? she was more of a cake baker, maybe his mom or his grandmother had. for a holiday maybe. which then inspires a random blurt of his own before he can fuse his flapping jaw-- ]

It's Christmas. [ he clenches his jaw, staring down at the bottle now. ] I mean, it was supposed to be.

[swill]

[Panic is the word.

It's sharp, it's quick, it's like any regular flash flood he's encountered where suddenly everything in the world around him is too much and he's doing too little to make it out without a lungful of water. Without drowning. There's no bodies and there's no blood and he's focusing too hard on remembering how to breathe, otherwise he might just upchuck.

He remembers the feeling, is the thing. You know?] It's August. [And the feeling is out with those two words, and he can hear himself saying through grit teeth that he's fine again, in a gray room with gray walls and... and no booze. Because it was torture, you know? To not know what you're saying?

But Hawkeye's convinced anyway, convinced still, and he kind of wants to-- he doesn't know. Sleep? He scratches at the crook of his left elbow. It'll probably mark. He furrows his brows again and can't fathom an idea outside of one of them being wrong about this. Y'know?] It's August. It was the t-- it was summer, I mean, I know that. That's when the fleas are playin' circus on you the worst. I ate like fou- five flies on the way to the chopper pad, I... [He what?] What? Say it again, I don't think I heard you right. Chris'mas?

[oorah]

[ the first person he ran into here was from a post-apocalyptic 2025 and he was fighting monsters or robots or?? something before he came here. he told frank his story was "normal" and that's probably the only reason he's not freaking out with hawkeye right now. he's closer to plunging himself into willful denial so he doesn't have to think through the implications of a time-space convergence in space. it's way too much for his tiny dinobrain to handle !!!! at least until he has to anyway. ]

Christmas, yeah. That's what I said. My– friends wanted me to come over. [ but he couldn't. frank takes a swig and has to blink back the heavy blanket of vertigo that coats him suddenly. as if he was sober before the last shot and now he's very, very drunk. if he weren't he might hold off his next question until hawkeye wasn't visibly freaking out. ] August what? What year?

[swill]

[He doesn't want to get drunk, he needs to get drunk and black out and wake up to the sounds of the still bubbling lazily in the dark. But if he takes a drink right now, it'll very much look like some desperate-- like something desperate and instead Hawkeye's left casting a worried, hurried look at the booze. He still grabs for a fistful of gray-green jumpsuit where he'd been scratching before. Sidney would know whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. Hawkeye ignores it, casts the gesture into the steadily growing New Normal pile.]

That's nice.

[His voice is tight, clipped. It is a nice thought.

His hand releases the fabric of his jumpsuit, goes up to muss up his already messed more-gray-than-black hair. The room's spinning. Is it supposed to be spinning? Hawkeye snorts-- it evolves into a sharp, chuckle and chatter.] Yeah, I didn't-- see I didn't think we were doing that anymore. I was. I was. [He what?] Or at least make the question more... on second thought, no, I don't want you people taking my ideas. Are you wonderin' if I'll slur it? Because I will. I'm soused. I'm actually not convinced I'm not imagining this whole thing. My psychiatrist says I have a penchant for doin' that. But I'll humor you. It... It's 1953, fella.

[And suddenly that sounds really, really... stupid. Hawkeye flinches, like he's shied back from a flash of a mine.] I mean, it was supposed to be. Is that what I'm s'posed to say? You're... what? C.I... D? C? B? A? Suddenly this all makes a lot more sense: it really isn't making any sense.

[oorah]

[ ...and perfect. raleigh had thought he was a plant, too. or at least pointed to it being a possibility. he has no idea what hawkeye is trying to spell, but all he can do is blow out a long breath at '1953.' is this even worth getting into right now? ]

I'm not questioning you. You'd know if I was. [ something dangerous flashes in his eyes, a brief lucidity even as frank squeezes the neck of the whiskey bottle so hard his knuckles go white and the glass starts to crackle under the pressure of his hands. at least they can agree on one thing: this makes absolutely no fucking sense. ]

[swill]

[Oh, fuck off with that.

Fuck off with the deep sigh and the threat, with the need to show off strength like they're a pack of goddamn chimps. Herd of chimps? He's got his ears trained on the low, slow crackling of the glass-- it's an alarm warning his life might just take a turn into nonliving, just like mortars are an alarm of much the same thing. If the still cracks under the heat, then Hawkeye figured he'd be done for.

He always knew that bottle was going to end up cracked up against his skull and he can't be assed to try and stand up. He instead slides down on the bartop, rests his head lazily, dangerous eyes meeting dangerous eyes.

And he flips Frank the middle finger.

Because it made sense.] Yeah, yeah. ["Don't count on it."] Get in line. [...]

Besides, honey, I'm a screamer.

[oorah]

[ he's equal parts amused and annoyed and he really should be used to that given the company he keeps. as if just noticing himself, frank sets the bottle aside before it can shatter in his hand, closing his fist around a shallow cut on his palm he can't feel anyway. following hawkeye's lead, he leans his body sideways into the bartop, using it to hold himself up. ]

I asked you what year it is because for me it's 2016. Christmas Day. I was a tool and blew off my friends. Now I'm in space - with you. [ lucky him. what he wouldn't give to be sitting down to sarah's roast beast right about now. seeing david's smile. hearing about leo's next brilliant feat or zach's most recent deliquency. he longs for all of it, hating himself for squandering the opportunity. ]

[swill]

[This really isn't making him understand the situation any better. If he were in a better state of mind (i.e. not intoxicated) he'd ask to see that palm anyway, because glass plus human skin tended to equal something unsavory. As it is

Hawkeye sighs. Long-suffering and defeated like only he can do.] Please don't try and make me feel better. You're terrible at it. [Miserable, like he knows Frank is. Is supposed to be.

And then

it's like-- if he was a dog, his ears would be perking up, yknow?] Not the sharpest tool in that shed either, are you? [Rhetorical question, shut up, give him a second and... that dangerous gleam is back in Hawkeye's gaze. It might make a better impression if his face wasn't sideways on the table but whatever. It's the sort of look Hawkeye gets before he's about to say something incredibly brilliant] You know... [or stupid.] I bet I know why you do all those grunting sounds and all other ape-like behaviors.

[oorah]

[ that he can easily concede. he is terrible at making people feel better and generally doesn't try. he hadn't been trying here, but that seems moot when hawkeye goes on. ]

Oh yeah? Enlighten me. [ he's just going to let the rest go, looking a bit distant himself though the anger is still there, leashed just under the surface. he's unlikely to lash out at present company even so, but it doesn't seem like this squirrely guy would know that either way. ] Or at least replace the lightbulb out here. [ in his shed, you see. ]

[swill]

[He opens his mouth. Closes his mouth.

Considers.

Saying "fuck me if I'm right" hardly ever goes in his favor and this son of a bitch looks testy right about now, so Hawkeye figures he oughta just... get on with it.] All you're missing is the chest-beating, fella. [And his voices raises in volume and he speaks faster all the while, like his words are arrows and he's right on target and] You're a damn Marine, aren't you? You think grunting is an acceptable form of communication amongst your peers, you just-- loom there, you're doing it again, and your sentences never go beyond ten words of five letters.

[He bullies and inflicts self abuse and he really does reek of danger when he's staring at a guy like that. Hawkeye is very much not reminded of Flagg, but he thinks all that's needed is a gun to complete a very thoroughly detailed picture of

he shrugs. Or tries to. It's uncomfortable staying like this, having to put effort into looking up.] I mean if you're not C.I.A. or D then you need to be something equally attractive to me. [it r h y m e d]

[oorah]

[ he shouldn't be so surprised at the guess really. he flexes his hand and looks down at the blood pooling in his life line. he really is textbook, isn't he? he opens his mouth to retort, but it seems like hawkeye is never done, and he narrows his eyes at the 'cia' accusation. fuck that. ]

I can't be a Marine and a Fed. [ well, he could be. but then he'd have to kill himself. ] You want a prize, Army Boy? You're just as transparent with your jaw flappin' a mile a minute. [ he makes a chatterbox symbol with his good hand and rolls his eyes. ]

[swill]

[His eyes go to Frank's fist. It's natural. Really. To feel like he's about to get beat down and it'll make him think tomorrow's hangover will be tame in comparison. But that still doesn't happen and Hawkeye musters up enough strength to prop himself up so he's sitting far straighter than he'd been before any of this.

He wanted to go home and throw the dog tags in the river, or else try to burn or bury them or-- but now they're just resting in his pocket.

He wants to bristle, but damn if there's just no fight in him, nothing real.] I'm not in the damn Army; I'm a doctor! [Like they're incompatible. And he's tired. And he'll flap his jaw all he wants, he's got nobody to answer to.] So tell that to whatever mic I'm talking into. I don't give a shit. [--] I was drafted. [--] Get some al--

[He sighs, and that's it, it's over, he's

going to try to extend a hand to grab a hold of Frank's. He doubts it'll work.] Forget that, get some water running over that cut, for God's sake. We're not wasting alcohol on that but you just opened yourself up to whatever germs are running around here.

[oorah]

[ he was drafted. it's 1953. frank swallows, turning at the touch to his hand that he wasn't quick enough to shy away from. he would have been a few drinks ago. ]

Korea? [ he asks softly, the device suddenly wearing a hole in his pocket. he's sure it's picked up every conversation he's had today, probably even before he logged in to its stupid interface. but he's afraid to leave it behind too, he wants to know what secrets it holds. ]

[swill]

[He grins. First because he caught a hand and second, because it lets him snarl the only way he feels at home in his skin doing. Korea?] The one and only. [They did fuck-all. They did fuck-all in three years, plus mortars and firebombing and mines. He's never going to get the smell of blood out of his nose.

He turns his gaze to Frank's hand and has no doubt the guy could kill him with his pinky, but he moves his thumb across the palm anyway-- to get a good look at that cut. It's not deep. Good. His own hand is laughingly dainty, sporting callouses where a surgeon's hands should and small, tiny nicks and scars of grabbing for scalpels in the dark.] I'm serious, though. [And that's not concern, that's exasperation.] I didn't give up rabies and dysentery to deal with intergalaxy-tic [Oh, his tongue. His poor, inebriated tongue.] infections.

[And drops Frank's hand without fanfare. He's got no further professional reason to keep hold.] I don't have anything useful on me so find yourself a Mickey Mouse band-aid for that.

[oorah]

[ he swallows, watching hawkeye's hand move over his with a detached (drunk) gaze. it is like a doctor's touch, and the advice cements what the man had said before. but frank had never been one for listening when it came to taking care of himself, especially physically. he shrugs, drawing his hand back when the other man lets go at last and not a second before. ]

Won't kill me. [ a lot worse things didn't seem to, anyway. he pats the front of his jumpsuit with his other hand as if checking to make sure his dog tags are still there, and when he does his touch rolls over the knotted scar just over his heart. he blows out a breath and drops both hands to the bartop, palms up. he's still thinking about the draft, honestly, and it's fucking him up even more than he already was. ] I enlisted at seventeen. Couldn't fucking wait for basic, then for getting shipped out. I loved that shit -- I was made for it.

[ but he doesn't sound fond. he sounds bitter because he is. all he wanted was to serve his country and it did him dirty when it counted. ]

[swill]

["Won't kill me" and everything else gets practically ignored. Hawkeye scoffs.] Wouldn't that be simple. And suddenly there would be a lot less for us both to worry about. [Blunt; he doesn't want to do this. He can imagine Margaret hissing at him to grow a brain and not-so-gently swatting his arm, in that way she does that makes him think she's part cat. He carries on.] You know, that's the problem with you people? [He's not sure which "you people" he's meaning right now, and deep inside himself he hates that he's using that phrase at all. That's--

Oh, Christ. No wonder Margaret hisses and swats at him all the damn time.] You think because it doesn't bother you, it doesn't mean anything. How silly of me, I got fucked over by med school and its payment arrangements when I could have just let this bright line of thinking take care of everything for me. I'd've told that to the draft board [Because they're making a sport out of feeling sorry for themselves.] and I would have gotten off scot-free. Do you know what they do to a bunch'a dumb doctors in basic? None of us knew what the hell we were doing. A sentiment, by the way, that ages nicely and carries over to the war and doesn't ever really fade. I don't know-- I really don't know how else we're supposed to feel when we knit a kid together just to get him blown up again. [He reaches for his drink. Shrugs.] Times a hundred-thousand. [And it's a light-bulb moment.

Iraq.

Oh.

There's a reason he hadn't taken a swig in a good, long while, y'know? His throat is very vehemently screaming "No" at the rest of his body. Hawkeye drinks up, anyway. It's more of a clumsy little sip. He's a chicken, okay?] You were made for this? [Open curiosity mixes with an unintelligent desperation and. Well, for God's sake, man. Don't take the next dry words seriously. Or do. He's not your mother.] Then consider it an order. Unless you're above me. In which case, please do be gentle with me. I'm very enthusiastic about that particular proposal but I am delicate. I wasn't lyin' when I said I'm a screamer and you've a cute body. [Put two and two together and. It's almost fun. Like he's daring the universe to shut him up. What's the worst that can happen? (A lot.)]

[oorah]

[ you people earns a gritty snort, caught between amused and offended. yeah, marines are their own breed, he knows, but he wasn't really a marine. he's definitely not now. when hawkeye goes on about the draft, he forces himself to sit up though it's a true struggle to do so. every veteran deserves his respect, even an army boy. he shakes his head once to try protesting the gist of where hawkeye is going with his diatribe, but in the end his silence wins out and he lets the other man finish (what a gentleman, huh?)

he has to duck his head at the mention of putting kids back together again, thinking of curtis. thinking of that kid he got killed because he was too naive to understand the stakes just yet. he never made that mistake again, but curt lost his leg for his fuck up. he'll never forgive himself for that. frank reaches for his bottle again, checking to see if the structural integrity of it is safe to drink from. it wouldn't be the first time he'd swallowed glass, right? he doesn't try, though, he just wants something to hold onto, and the coolness feels nice against his cut which is finally starting to clot. ]

What was your rank? I'll tell you - if I was above you or not. [ he glances over, just in time to catch the tail end of cute body. he shakes his head, but the look he gives pierce now is soft, almost reverent. he feels for the other man and regrets ever putting them in the same category. ]

You're right. That's bullshit. You got the shit end of the stick so dickbags like me could romanticize the service. I loved it til the second I saw it for what it really was. Guess that makes me the dumb jarhead you think I am, huh?

[swill]

[He squares his jaw, tries not to fall for the rouse of soft eyes. He used to love reading Hemingway, back when war was just a hell of a good story and a way to make a name and] It's like nobody knows how to read. [It's not Frank his voice grows tight at the idea of.

The jarhead can punish himself for-- it's not Hawkeye's place. He hates everything about the game, but not the idiot men who never learned from their teachers to never pick up a history book in their lives. It's not even a war; Korea was a police action.

It's like nobody knows how to read and nobody will learn how, because no-one is going to teach them what they don't know themselves. It's infuriating enough that Hawkeye wants to give up on everything all over again. He isn't sure what he'll win if he doesn't. He breaks first- glances guiltily off to the shelves of booze and seems subdued and even a shade short of shy as he continues.] Captain. It doesn't matter. They just give us the bars in hopes some kids from the Midwest won't question us. It usually works.

[oorah]

[ all frank ever did was read. he knows it doesn't suit his (outward) personality, but he always wanted to escape. poetry, novels, anything that could get him away was welcome. and then later music-- he breathes heavily out through his nose and though he agrees with hawkeye, it doesn't matter, but it does. not to him, but in a nebulous way. he straightens up even more, at attention even, and brings his injured hand to his face in a perfect salute. guess who was a lieutenant? ]

[swill]

[Well.

There's a "fuck you" to his face if he's ever had one.] Oh, blow it out your ear!

[There are a million and one ways to answer this.] If anyone knows I tried to pull rank on you, I'd be ostracized by my peers. [As opposed to] If I ever hear a "sir" outta you, you'd better have a cute collar. [Please be enough to end this, is what it means.] Now cut that out. Jesus, it's like you- you really don't listen, do you?

[oorah]

[ he deteriorates into a laugh, though his salute goes down straight in respect. it's a harsh bark of a thing, but it's sincere, and soon his shoulders are jumping with peels of riotous laughter to follow. yeah, he's drunk. ]

You pulled rank on a devildog, son. What did you expect? [ but he winks and turns to slump back against the bar like it never happened. see, he can follow instructions, captain. ]