test drive | 1

[unplug]

test drive

Welcome to the first test drive for Systemwide! We are excited to have you. All prospective players are welcome to tag in and test out their characters, be they unplugged or free born. We would like to offer a range of scenarios that can be expected during gameplay, which are also useable prompts for app samples, and of course, if something else about the setting strikes you, feel free to come up with your own!

Please put your character name and canon in your subject line, and indicate which prompt you are launching from.

simulation | maybe this is your first time. perhaps you've been here countless times. it's a room, as confined as a boxing ring, as expansive as a battle field, whatever you need it to be, whatever you're here to train for.

1.

Before you is a city of rooftops, empty of human life. This is a safe place, because while it may hurt you, at least it won't kill you. Perhaps you are practicing your influence over reality, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Are you successful, or are you failing to free your mind? Perhaps you're helping someone else overcome their fear of heights.

And of course, an operator can always load up some Agent-like training programs to make it interesting.

2.

Congratulations, you know kung-fu, or maybe some other system of combat, like crazy parkour archery, cartwheeling with guns, or sword fighting on horse back. Perhaps you're trying out something even more fantastic, a magical skill or a superpower.

Show me. Or a friend.

mission | whether on board a ship or with your mind sunk deep into a Matrix, you will have to join the battle eventually. sometimes things go terribly wrong. what are you gonna do about it?

3.

Something's gone wrong with this extraction.

There's a lot of information to process. Your target's been extracted, and that's the good news -- your ship, in reality, is heading to their location now -- but the bad news is your team has been scattered. You could be anywhere within this Matrix, deep in the jungle, or lost on a subway train, or staggering out of the crashing waves of a night time beach, and the operator needs a minute to figure out your exact location before they can direct you to a port out of here, or send another operative to collect you.

All you have to do is stay alive for that long. Easy, right?

4.

You were warned of this. You've been prepared in endless simulations, with a dozen cautionary tales, training sessions with the EMP. Still, it's nothing like you imagined, when the operator shouts: "Sentinel closing in at seven o' clock. It's gaining."

And then the shriek of metal.

reality | as much as many Matrixes are designed to be a comfort, you have to face the real world sometime. or maybe this is the world you have only ever known.

5.

Annual celebrations are rare to come by, but the anniversary of Neo's Truce is one that always draws in the crowd. The event takes place in a massive cavern in Zion known as the Temple, and there is music, and there is dancing [a little NSFW].

Everyone is there.

Where are you?

6.

The wind on your face, up here on the desolate surface, tastes bitter, different to what it feels like in a simulated reality. It's freezing cold and always dark, but sometimes, you need a reminder about what it is you're fighting for. Or maybe you're seeing the wasteland of Earth for the first time.

Either way, you shouldn't be out here for too long. The machines might find you.

wildcard | choose your own adventure.

7.

Perhaps you're riding with the Dothraki, or sitting under the Sorting Hat for the first time. Maybe the pleather bodysuit is pinching under your armpits as the traffic of the 90's roars by, or the Nova Empire's sprawling city glitters, towering above you. Maybe you're showing someone around the place you called home for your entire fictional life.

Or perhaps it's nothing as fantastical as that: the Council meeting droned on for two hours, and you're just happy to be home, even if it's a tiny enclosure with rust-edged furniture. Maybe someone's coming over for lunch, and there are real greens in the protein slurry today; maybe you're about to ask to join a crew.

There are infinite worlds to explore, but try to remember that only one of them is real.

Comments

[ex_spins462]

[ Natasha sits down beside him with the kind of grace that belies the way her muscles are still mildly atrophied, her hair barely more than a ginger fuzz. Nobody sees the way she forces herself through physical therapy with sweat and tears and self-censure to be able to move with her usual fluidity. She may never forgive her rescue team for seeing her so weak. ]

Is this a suicidal thing?

[ She's dressed warm, but doesn't offer to warm him, or any sort of assistance, just intrudes placidly on his solitary trial. ]

Waiting for a machine to hear your teeth chattering?

[paragon]

[ her presence comes with its own warmth, though he has no intention of saying so. there's been a fragility to her here, one he thinks he understands in some ways, if not in others, but he doesn't know if she'd welcome the comparison. he doesn't want to intrude on something so personal without her permission (at least not yet), but he's glad to allow her to do the same. his experience of the real world so far would've been very different without her. ]

Isn't it always?

[ he gives her a vague smile even as he glances away from her again, back around toward the surface stretching away from them on all sides, the two of them forming some sort of unintentional center. he lifts a bony shoulder slightly as though to indicate it, without removing his fist from his knee. ]

You know I like to know what I'm fighting.

[ex_spins462]

You can't punch the cold, Rogers.

[ A little dry, because ostensibly he should mean the machines, but she doesn't think that's really why he's out here. He's testing this small, broken body — and Natasha gets that, because she does the same thing. Every morning, waking up to go another round with a body she's determined to remaster. That probably makes her a control freak, but whatever. ]

So, you're really buying all this? The robot uprising?

[paragon]

Don't tell me you're havin' second thoughts now.

[ but he looks at her, waiting for the answer, expecting her to give him an honest one. he knows it's not exactly what she asked, but she's not the only one who knows how to cut to the heart of the matter. ]

[ex_spins462]

It's just not what I was expecting.

[ What was she expecting? Hard to say. When she'd first started investigating she thought maybe this was HYDRA, or something like HYDRA. Finding out everything she knew wasn't real isn't that much of a leap either, because its not the first time the rug has been pulled out under her. But the explanation for the real history of the world... that's taking her more time to square with. ]

I don't want to go back in.

[paragon]

Don't see how I could, even if I wanted to.

[ it could be moralizing, but it's not; he says it more like a confession, under the whipping cover of the wind. he'd tried his damnedest to find his place in that world, and the fact that his inability to do so was what ultimately freed him doesn't exactly make him feel any better about it. but— ]

It's not what either of us expected.

[ Natasha had come to him with it, and he'd thought, if she was right, it could lead him to Bucky. maybe even bring an end to HYDRA once and for all. he still believes that, even if the how is nothing like what he would've imagined, so he can't regret it. ]

[ex_spins462]

[ In an unprecedented moment of physical affection, she leans into him, presses her shoulder tighter against his. Doesn't lean her head there, or touch his knee, like she might if she were being dishonest with her body. Instead she just stays solid. ]

Been back in yet?

[ Because she thinks that's going to be the real deciding factor, the slick temptation of the fake world pulling at everything she understands about reality. She tried one simulation, doesn't want to try again. ]

[paragon]

[ they're about the same height now, the circumferences of their limbs not so different either, and her arm presses a straight line of warmth down his own. he lets his hand relax from its fist. ]

Not yet.

[ he hasn't told her that in his own simulations he's still in supersoldier form. it's not necessarily a secret; he just doesn't know what he'd say. besides, she'll find out soon enough, and he suspects it will be plenty revealing then in all the wrong ways, if he understands correctly and the serum doesn't truly make any difference at all. ]

I want to soon.

[ex_spins462]

Why am I not surprised?

[ Her amusement is cut short by the cold. She's wearing a jacket, but sitting still and open and exposed is a tactical idiocy she wouldn't continue if she was alone, especially without the muscle to resist it. A shiver, and she rubs at her own arm, glances at Steve. ]

Speaking of going in, I don't feel up to finding out how tough a Sentinal is just yet.

[paragon]

Yeah.

[ Steve looks out across the surface, a little doubtfully, like maybe he's having a hard time sharing the sentiment — despite his words, fighting the enemy in a world of its own making seems counterintuitive at best, and someday (also soon) he'll want to see them here — but it's agreement just the same. he smiles at her, a small, private press of his lips: he learned amusement through the cold a long time ago. ]

Can't imagine why you dragged us out here.

[ he pushes himself to his feet, holding his hand out to her as he straightens like he's still the same man who pulled her out of the rubble of a bunker, like he can still carry her weight. ]

[ex_spins462]

[ Natasha takes it. She's lighter than she was then, and all she really needs is a steadying hand to haul herself up. She shakes out the pins and needles in her cold feet, drops it once she's steady. ]

Yeah, what was I thinking.

[ They pick their way back across the uneven ground, cold wind sneaking fingers in under the new shifting gaps in their clothing. Natasha wonders if the air she's breathing ever tasted the way it did in the Matrix. Before the sky was darkened and the world scraped clean. ]

So I'm thinking of learning how to knit.

[paragon]

[ he doesn't react to the non sequitur, just tilts his head, turning the idea over for a few seconds before nodding. easy enough to imagine her making quick work of dangerous implements. ]

You should. You'd be good at it.

[ he won't get caught up in the neverending cycle of wondering how much they can get back of what they had, if they never really had it in the first place. she still made choices, and got better, and if she wants to do it again she will. ]

What'll you make first?

[ he leans over to open the manhole for them to climb back through. ]

[ex_spins462]

A warm sweater.

[ Without hesitation, like she's been thinking about it. Natasha slips through the hole onto the ladder. Wraps her palms in her sleeves and puts her boots on the outside, slides downwards rather than risk her weak muscles on the climb. ]

You'll have to give me your measurements!

[ She calls back up to him, and then waits once her boots meet the familiar sharp impact of the metal grating. ]

[paragon]

For— oh.

[ he's not sure how much of it gets lost to the wind, but it doesn't matter. he climbs down the ladder the traditional way, trusting his coordination to pull off her maneuver even less than his strength, though he also covers his hands with his sleeves to avoid touching the freezing metal directly. he steps off the last rung winded and weak-kneed for his efforts, his response curt in his need to draw breath. ]

You don't have to do that.

[ex_spins462]

[ Natasha watches him pant pitilessly, because she knows he wouldn't want her pity, and it's not as though he's any less Steve in this, the real body. So no pity, but also no impatience in waiting for his thundering heart to calm. ]

I will if you keep going outside.

[ As though the cold is the worst thing out there. But finding him out there today had been more of a lucky coincidence than she'd like, and she can't babysit him all the time. ]

[paragon]

[ as to waiting for his heart to stop beating against his ribcage like it's trying to free itself: he doesn't. instead he starts to lead them through the winding path back toward the ship's quarters. he may not be what he was, but he needs to push himself to gain as much strength as his body will allow — more than he had when he came out of the tube, at least — the same as anyone. ]

I'm not planning to make a habit of it, Natasha.

[ he's not sure how true that will end up being in practice, but it's honest enough in spirit to let it stand for now. ]

Make one for yourself first. [ and he adds, less solemnly: ] Then you'll be better at it when you make mine.