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

[paragon]

[ he doesn't jump at it, at least, perhaps some sense of near invincibility still lingering, though the truth is more likely that he never would have, his sense of self-preservation having long yielded to the need to stand his ground before he was ever able to make anything of it. instead he frowns down at the jacket for a moment, letting it lie in the dirt as he looks back up in the direction it came from. he's not too far off, gaze skipping over the shape of the ridge like a pebble before it lands, still.

he stares.

then he reaches for the bundle of cloth, leaning over for it and deliberately taking his eyes off of him to do it, though the need to look back, to make sure he's real, is written clearly in the motion, in his continuing movement as he pulls the jacket on.

he doesn't look up again until he stands, though his eyes triangulate on him in a way that has more of Cap in it than the scattered search of a few moments ago. he starts picking his way up the rocks toward Bucky, the wind threatening to buffet him onto them bodily; a stiff breeze would do it nowadays. ]

[lostsoldier]

[ To say that this isn't how he wanted to do this would imply that he wanted to do this, that he knows what he wants at all. Dust kicks out from under him as he scrapes to standing, quick enough if inelegant, a shadow moving further into view only in preparation to disappear again. But the next gust pulls him back into Steve's line of sight again like he's tethered there, not quite able to turn his back. ]

Don't. [ Called out over the wind, it's ambiguous at best. Don't come any closer, don't follow him, don't do anything stupid. His weight teeters on the balls of his feet.

He looks different this close, even under the gloom of perpetual twilight. Dark hair barely past the stubble phase rivals the scruff of his chin, but there's a sharpness to his cheekbones, a knife's-edge shine to his eyes that wasn't there in 1944, if the glimpse of folded sleeve where his left arm should be wasn't indication enough. Jacketless now, it doesn't leave much to the imagination. He keeps the opposite arm raised just so for balance, poised to bolt, but backward or forward? ]

[paragon]

[ he stumbles slightly when Bucky speaks, though it's not just the momentary distraction that does it; nearly the entirety of his attention rests on Bucky rather than his own feet, those only afforded the occasional glance, and it makes him clumsy. he looks down again instinctively to catch himself, a line of irritation between his eyebrows, then quickly back up, feeling that tether of keeping him in his sights just as keenly. he doesn't step forward again, though. ]

Please.

[ he's managed to get close enough that he doesn't have to shout over the wind, his voice even if out of breath from the brief climb, and it belies the way it's been a constant, pulling entreaty as he looked for Bucky in the months before all of this. it also belies everything after: that he knew exactly when and where Bucky was unplugged; that he'd fought with Natasha about being there when Bucky woke up (Steve's hair is only slightly longer than his); that her being there instead had been a compromise, and one that settled stiffly on his narrow shoulders.

it's not why he shrugs them now, though; that's to pull at the sleeve of the jacket, tugging it off. apparently he only put it on as a convenient way to carry it back to its owner. ]

You dropped this.

[lostsoldier]

[ A frown pulls at the corners of his mouth as he hovers there, unmoving, undecided, working out all that the other man's reaction implies. When Steve starts pulling at his sleeve, though, that frown deepens with a flinch and a stubborn set to his jaw. This time it's him closing the distance, a long stride that stop short of quite reaching Steve. (What's he gonna do, put the jacket back on him? He doesn't know. It's instinct. He's just moving. He hasn't quite worked any of the rest out.) ]

You need that.

[ More than him, he means, and it's true at least that he doesn't seem to notice the wind chill, but that doesn't mean his skin isn't already prickling. His brows screw up as if trying to place his own reaction, identify the source. ]

You get cold.

[ –He remembers. ]

still using this journal bc at least it has some usable icons oops

[paragon]

[ His eyes are wider on Bucky after he's moved closer, but it's— hope, if Bucky's able to recognize it, and a certain amount of looking him over while he has the chance, like he's trying to make up for a few weeks (months) of not being able to see for himself that Bucky's okay — but none of it is fear, no matter Bucky's warning. That's already as good as forgotten. ]

Used to. Everybody gets cold up here, though.

[ He doesn't know what he's looking for exactly. Some evidence that he really is okay, maybe, that Steve did the right thing. It delays his removal of Bucky's jacket, at least, one arm freed and the other holding the rest on him by an absent grip on the lapel, because god knows the width of his shoulder isn't doing the job. After a few moments he looks down at it, brow furrowed thoughtfully before he pushes his arm through the too-long sleeve and again shrugs it onto his shoulder. ]

Come down with me. Then I can give it back to you and neither of us has to be cold, Buck.

[ It's calculated, but in the way Steve calculates: clearly laid out, the sequence of events apparent and prioritized. ]

[lostsoldier]

[ Used to. That small confirmation seems to take him aback ever so slightly — a minute drop in his shoulders, a pulling in at the chin. (That was real. He remembers, and Steve remembers — that makes it real.) But the reaction disappears in the next instant, squirreled safely away in a nervous shift of the eyes under Steve's scrutiny. Hope he recognizes only as a foreign language; he knows what it is, but doesn't know what it means.

He's listening, though, the set of his spine going wary and still. If he recognizes the clear progression of events is tailored to him, that doesn't keep it from being— simpler. Action, reaction, result. Neither of them has to be cold. Steve won't be cold. Steve will keep the jacket on longer.

He nods. As much as a sign of agreement, it's a gesture, ahead and beyond Steve. Alright, but you first. ]

[ex_paragon697]

[ It's the scrutiny that allows him to see that reaction, though he can't say what it means any more than Bucky can speak to Steve's hopes. It's hard to let go of the last few months of brooding (not his word, though he can't deny it's what all the wondering and worrying and unhappiness amounted to), and even with Bucky here, finally, that small lack of his own understanding catches him at a bad angle.

It doesn't show too much in his expression, though, or at least not for very long, no more than an uncertain breath inward. He's well aware that he's a terrible liar, so it's not so much that he tries to hide it as that it's simply not important. Bucky's agreement is important, and Steve's relief at receiving it is real and profound.

He doesn't bother to nod in return, just turns back the way he came — his back to Bucky so he can make his way down again — and hopes that he doesn't disappear on him again. ]

[lostsoldier]

[ He doesn't disappear. It's tempting, maybe, to slip back into familiar shadows, to go back to being nothing and no one who ever was, but Steve had woken up something more all those months ago, something small and lost but fierce and searching, and being dragged naked and screaming out of one world and into another hasn't put that back to sleep. It just needs space to breathe.

Climbing down is a start. Putting boots to dirt, hand to rock, settling into the certainty of the goal ahead. In that dust-blown silence, his eyes wander, from tracking Steve's movements to watching him, this living, breathing person walking right in front of him, like he's something out of a dream made flesh. A thousand questions he's had knocking around in his head, and a thousand more reasons not to get close enough to ask, but here Steve is anyway, solid as the earth under his feet.

He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what Steve wants, or will want from him, or if he can even give it, but when they reach the hatch, when he sets a rail-thin arm to yank it open, he hesitates, heavy metal door hanging on its hinge. ]

I thought you were smaller.

[ It's an offhand comment, a gravelly echo crossing half a century, but his intonation — on thought — is subtly different, among so many other things. Tentative, but almost– satisfied.

(He remembered that right, too.) ]

[ex_paragon697]

Of all the things.

[ It's said half under his breath, so no wonder the wind snatches some of it, carries it away from his own ears so that his voice is just a muffled resonance in his head, always deeper than anyone ever expected from his size. His posture is rueful as he faces the hatch, head ducked down nearly to his chest, but when he looks up at Bucky again a moment later there's a smile and some amazement.

It's a very present, alive expression, an unintentional answer to Bucky's observation of him, like maybe he's let himself believe Bucky is real in turn, and not just a haunting, hunted shadow. Of all the things: the ways and times and places he'd imagined finally seeing him again — what they would say to each other, if Bucky gave them half a chance — that one hadn't factored. It should've. If Steve could've shed a hundred-plus pounds that day on the helicarrier to jog Bucky's memory, he would have. The discrepancy must have been confusing. Hard to believe.

Steve thinks it might sound too much like chastisement, though, and as he reaches out to lend his own unimpressive strength to keeping the hatch open, he searches for something else to say, comes up only with confirmation. ]

Turns out you were right.

[lostsoldier]

[ It’s important. That tiny confirmation is more important than he even feels safe showing, a spark of warmth in his eyes and a funny, fragile flinch in his brows poorly masked by another duck of his head. It’s been so long since he’s been able to trust his own mind that the thought of finally being able to just– hurts, the way Steve’s smile hurts, a good, solid sort of ache in his chest he doesn’t know what to do with but isn't sure he wants to do without.

Steve is looking at him the same way he'd been looking back, though, and where Steve breathes life into every rough sketch his own memory has provided, he knows he doesn't. He hesitates at the threshold of the hatch like he might not cross it. ]

–There isn't much else.

[ In his head, he means. There isn't much he remembers.

(What does much even mean, compared to nothing? But it isn't enough, he thinks. It isn't what Steve's looking for.) ]

[ex_paragon697]

[ Enough is a pretty complicated concept when you've lost everything, though. He'd be a bald-faced liar if he told Bucky he didn't want him to remember — to be remembered — and despite Bucky's claim to the contrary, maybe he still knows enough that he'd know Steve was lying if he tried to say otherwise.

But here— it's not a fresh start, not for him. He doesn't know what it is for him, just that he needs to keep moving forward. Needs it with an urgency he keeps to himself, because it feels familiar and he knows what it got him last time. But the past has become painful in a way it wasn't even when he was fresh out of the ice, when he hadn't wanted to let it go. Now it hurts just to touch it, like it's something ephemeral that he's not sure could stand up to it, when it was made up of so much code.

He knows the grimace shows on his face, but he doesn't duck his own head again, knowing what it will look like if he looks away from Bucky right now, even though his arm is beginning to tremble minutely from helping keep the hatch open. ]

One step at a time, huh?

[ It's a request as much as an attempt at reassurance. They're both here, and now that he's seen him Steve doesn't think he can stand any more of this awareness of Bucky constantly in his peripheral, lurking at the edges of his life here, such as it is, and stop himself from turning around to find him. ]

[lostsoldier]

[ That grimace is, at once, a better and worse reaction than he'd expected, but maybe that just means it's real, too. Not an outright rejection, not another too-good-to-be-true lie. Just Steve, hurting.

He doesn't want that. Of the next-to-nothing he knows for sure, he knows he doesn't want to hurt Steve anymore, and that had been one of a hundred reasons it seemed better to just keep his distance — but he hasn't been, has he? And they're here now. Doing this. Trying to fit together again, with their sharp edges and mismatched wounds.

He exhales like a punctured valve. A nod. Alright. One step at a time.

Through the hatch first, giving it a good shoulder-shove to keep it open for Steve. ]

[ex_paragon697]

[ Next is letting go of the hatch, not protesting Bucky holding it for him and instead making his way down. He doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the ladder, though, instead curving himself around the side and hooking one arm through the rungs so he can reach up with the other, make sure the hatch doesn't come down on Bucky's head when he comes through. It's a good thing, right now, that he doesn't take up much space. ]

They sure don't want people comin' out here on their own, huh?

[ The somewhat rhetorical question is punctuated by the involuntary trembling in his arms, his legs, his voice. But he won't let go until it's closed. ]