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

skye ( agents of shield ) | multiple scenarios!

[hacker]

[ simulation ]

Show me again.

[ Since she got back on her feet, she hasn't let herself rest. The compulsion to keep moving has Skye trying to mainline everything she can about bettering her in-Matrix training so she can escape the real. Not because she's too horrified by what humanity has become, but because she doesn't want to have to stop and think and question what that means for the reality she's known.

So in here, she feels better. She still dresses like a SHIELD agent in here—black tactical gear, leather hood that fits to her shoulder harness—and she likes it that way because this is where she can still feel like one. Anywhere else and she's just one more naked baby who was fooled for more than twenty years, one more to be told that none of that really mattered. ]

[ reality ]

[ Sometimes, she still wakes up from nightmares, scrubbing a hand over her face and remembering a temple that never really existed, remembering a father she'd never had. She has as hard a time accepting the loss of her reality as any of them, stubbornness always tethering her back to it.

That's why she has to go up to see it. Leave the ship, break away from the bleak desolation of the metal traps humanity has locked itself away in to climb up and check out what happened to the planet. It really sinks in then, staring out at the wastelands and darkness, feeling the wind whip at her face. It blows right through her, taking the bluster out, draining the last of her resistance to the very idea.

She leans her weight onto crutches helping her through the physical therapy, to get unused muscles into working order, staring out at the ashen desert. It doesn't make sense that she can look out and remember cities and skyscrapers, people buying coffee on their way to work, bustling through downtown L.A., squinting through sunglasses on the beach, can remember the news when Chitauri poured from the sky to invade, the stills from news footage that she'd overanalyzed. The days, weeks, months spent training, getting stronger, only to be too weak to even stand on her own feet now.

If she can remember all of it, how can it not have been real? Everything in her mind resists the image before her. Turning away, back toward the ship, she lets go of her crutches, leans over, and hacks up bile and some weird non-oatmeal that looks the same coming up as it did going down, shoulders shaking with the force of her violent gags. ]

simulation

[lostsoldier]

[ Downtime has been a difficult concept to adapt to, even before he’d been unplugged. Briefing, mission, debriefing, storage is a cycle ingrained in him as deeply as the metal ports that now line their spines in what they’re told is reality. Even the long quiet of a stake-out carried with it a certain focus that’s lacking here, a space that needs filling.

So he fills it with what he knows. And he doesn’t mind not being the only one. Black tactical gear is met with black tactical gear, even if there’s a little more leather on his than hers — and hers doesn’t come with a metal arm marked HYDRA red and a full face mask. Today at least the goggles are gone. At least you can tell where he’s looking.

At her feet, currently. Explaining is harder than doing. ]

Further apart, [ he says, with a nod to her stance. ] For momentum.

[ A shift of boots, and then he springs from the asphalt, metal and leather spinning in a mid-air corkscrew, impossibly fast and landed with a hard, rubbery squelch. Like so. ]

[hacker]

[ Training with Bucky Barnes reminds her of all the things that were never real, and gives her someone who seems to have equal difficulty accepting what is and what's not. Sometimes, she wonders if he's actually having an easier time with the real world than she is, but then they get here, and his arm's back and the insignia is HYDRA-red and she feels like she can ground herself in something.

And the fact that it maybe, just maybe, gives her a little more impetus to kick his ass in training, well. That's just a bonus.

Her heels spread further apart, feet settling just beneath her shoulders, which shrug and work on an axle like she's trying to loosen them up. Eyes search out every infinitesimal movement he makes while he springs upward. A heavy sigh drains out of her as he plummets back to the ground, boots driving in hard.

She shifts her weight, downright wobbles like a cat trying to brace itself for a jump to the top of a piece of furniture, and then she bends to a crouch, and vaults into the air. Limbs twist, her back bends, and her center of gravity turns up over her head. For a moment, her form looks perfect—and then she comes crashing back to the earth on her shoulder.

One hand slaps the asphalt, rolling out with a graceless grunt, and she remains there on her side, pressing one hand to her shoulder as she drops her head back, panting in a mess of dark hair that somewhere in her mind she know she doesn't actually have. ]

[lostsoldier]

[ If he is having an easier time of it, it's only because he's used to turning it off — where it is everything, whatever part of you has a past to miss or a future to mourn or an existence outside of the present moment. Seventy years spent ripping out the wiring to the parts that want anything more than the hell he'd been in, and he's an expert at not wanting anything anything at all. (Or- he used to be.)

He doesn't mind that she knows him as Bucky; she fights him like he's HYDRA, and that's enough. They don't train like HYDRA, though. He watches her hit the ground hard and thinks order through pain is— more effective, in certain ways. But not what's expected of him here. She's making progress. ]

Gravity is a lie, [ he says instead, stepping in to look back down at her through his own tangle of not-real hair. He doesn't offer her a hand up, but his head tilts in unspoken challenge. You gonna let it stop you? ] Again.

[hacker]

[ Rolling onto her back, she lets out a huff of breath, unsettling some strands of straight dark hair from her face as she stares up at him. From this angle, he's all dark and looming and HYDRA-y. He's doing it on purpose, and they both know it, reminding her of everything she hates because hate is the best motivator out there.

Mine it. Use it.

She counts to three, and at three, she forces herself to push back to her feet. Standing, she shakes dark hair from her face and back over her shoulder, with the exception of short, blunt bangs. ]

Anybody ever tell you that you're not much of a people person? Maybe if I was getting a gold star out of this … [ His methods are different than May's; he's harder. Beneath all of May's hard-to-read steel, there's always something warm and protective. Meanwhile, Bucky's freaking Siberia by comparison.

It's good for her, though. She digs her heels into the dirt, nods. There's an ache in her shoulder, radiating outward, warm from inflammation. Pulled something, or chipped something, or— None of that's any more real than gravity. Biting through the pain, she begins to lift the injured arm, rolling her shoulder to try and stubborn her way through the ache. Fire sparks in her shoulder joint, and the pain overwhelms her, but she bites through it.

Crouches.

Jumps.

This time, when she crashes, she lands on her knees. A step closer to making it onto her feet. But she's shaky on her knees, and she falls back onto her face a moment later. ]

[lostsoldier]

[ He is harder on her. Maybe in his mind, that is protective. When you believe pain is an inevitability, the only real protection is learning to push through it. To use it. To disconnect yourself from it, to stop feeling altogether is at one distant end of that spectrum, and there are things he could teach her that maybe shouldn't be taught, but when she grits her teeth and pulls herself up again his weight settles back on his heels. Approving, respectful, or just— comfortable with that response. ]

You get to survive, [ is his answer. There's your gold star. But he hesitates when she lands hard again, his face unreadable beneath the half mask and even affect. ]

Better. [ No offered hand comes to help her up this time either, but neither is she greeted with another Again. Not yet. Instead, he keeps talking. Multiple sentences, even. (Try not to faint.) ] Breathe. Don't shake; move. You have to direct it. Use it.

[hacker]

Wow. You really know how to sell it.

[ Raising one hand, she brushes dirt and gravel from her face. She tosses her hair back and pushes herself up one both hands, getting back to her knees. Begrudging in a way, she draws in a fussy breath and exhales it sharply, shutting her eyes to try and consider his feedback. He's actually giving it, after all, instead of a cold, blank stare that conveys creeping disappointment.

Annoyance twitches a vein in her forehead, and she lifts herself up to her feet a moment later, digging her heels firmly into the fake ground. Her eyes flash open and fix on him. ]

You know, I've had good SOs, and I've had bad SOs, but I've never had a bad-good SO.

[ She dusts herself off the rest of the way, sizing him up. Rather than move to try it again, she tries to take a stab through his spiny exterior. ]

I'm just saying, HYDRA really could have benefited from giving a reward cookie to its trainees now and again.

reality.

[polyphemus]

Here.

[ Possibly she had heard the sounds of foot steps before he's near enough to say anything, holding out the canister of water (tasting strange, saturated as it is with nutrients, electrolytes) for her to take, and a keep it gesture in the play of his hand if she does so.

A hazy presence during the early stages of her recovery, it's amazing how good Banner is it at keeping his distance since then, even in the confines of a hovercraft. He is all at once present now, though, the near-freezing wind ruffling his hair, grown in enough to denote the months he's spent in reality. Grey-speckled graininess is rough on his neck and cheek, his eyes button dark and kind, in their ever assessing way.

His hands come together, rubbing warmth into his palms. ]

You should step out when we dock at a coast sometime. You can pretend, a little. It's nice.

[hacker]

[ When she looks up at him, she's dragging one hand haphazardly over her mouth, wiping away the last ropy strands of bile to make it past her lips. The disturbance softens her because she recognizes him, even if only vaguely. A presence, more than a person.

Slowly, she reaches up to take the water from him with a look that's equal parts tired, grateful, and resigned. The presence of someone else reminds her just how trapped in this she is: she can't go back. Given what she left behind, she's not even sure she'd want to. Danger. Death.

While he makes himself at home in her presence, she sips from the canteen, swishing and swallowing. It's too thick to be normal water, but she doesn't question it. Maybe she just never knew what normal water tasted like. Maybe the Matrix— Better not get caught in that cycle. Skye shifts and turns to lower herself from a crouch to sit flat on the deck, resting her back against one of the railing poles and stretching out her legs.

Even stretching them still feels uncomfortable, like they're deliberately resisting any position that isn't curled up against her body. ]

You mean it's not all like this?

[polyphemus]

The ocean's not blue.

[ You know, granted. A glance up indicates the sky, its soft textures of black cloud, defined by the electrical storms that bloom within them. That's the colour of the ocean.

Bruce does not settle next to her -- he keeps a moderate distance so that she isn't craning her neck to look up at him, though, bundling his arms around his person as he shifts his weight back onto his heels. ]

But it's still there. Wet, the whole thing. How's dealing going?

[hacker]

[ It takes a moment after her eyes drift up for it to really process. Ocean's not blue, but why is he looking at— Oh. Lightning casts slightly lighter grays over the coal clouds as it cracks through them, and it sinks in. Black sky, black water. A nod follows, and she caps the canteen, holding it in her lap. ]

Last thing I remember before waking up here, I was zip-lining down into an underground temple. Suddenly, I'm trying to learn to walk again, except I know how, and my body just won't do it. I feel useless.

[polyphemus]

[ His smile is subtle, like he doesn't really mean to and can't help it. His sympathy is kept on a leash, one that reaches as far as bringing her some water, offering the question sometimes people need to answer.

Banner isn't that kind of doctor, but he was her doctor, briefly. ]

You're what, three weeks after waking up for the first time, I'd say you're doing pretty okay. Give your body some credit.

[hacker]

I don't bed rest well. Or I … didn't. [ As much as the Matrix can count as experience in the area. ] Simmons hated it, she'd— [ Well. She wouldn't do anything. Skye rubs a hand over her face, not sure how to finish that statement. Connections are hard to let go of. Imagining life without Simmons is probably the hardest next to losing Coulson. ] It just sucks. I joined SHIELD because I wanted to help people, to do something important. Now I'm just sitting around with nothing to do all day but stew.

reality

[bigfloppyhat]

[There is a hand on her back-- gentle, as though to comfort, but the fact that it just appears is startling enough. It belongs to a youth-- a teenage boy, really, lanky, taller than he has any right to be, like he's still growing into his shape. The barely-grown-in blond fuzz on his head declares him to be a recent rescue himself. How he managed to sneak up on Skye is anybody's guess.]

It's alright. Nobody else wants this, either. Everyone is hurting, wishing they were back. But we can't.

[...He says this like it's supposed to make her feel better. Look, he's trying!]

cw: hella spoilers

[hacker]

Wishing they were—

[ The repetition comes quietly as she faces way from him, eyes searching as she really processes the phrase. Then, she turns, defensive and practically recoiling as she pushes back to her feet, leaning onto one of her metal crutches. ]

You think I wanna go back there?

[ Her retaliation comes out sharply. There are a lot of things she misses from before she was unplugged. Coulson, Simmons, feeling like she was a part of something, feeling capable.

Having Fitz and May awake helps, but Fitz is a source of guilt (his insistence that the old world didn't really qualify because, philosophically speaking, none of what they did was real certainly doesn't help her guilt because she could have saved him from what happened, could have circumvented how he was hurt if she'd only been strong enough to let Ward die the first time), and May reminds her of all the things she'd worked hard and trained her body to do that she can't accomplish anymore.

But HYDRA? Her father, Ward, Whitehall, all of it. GH325 and Coulson's hypographia and her own weird immunity and the Diviner and whatever the hell happened in that temple to her and Raina? No. She doesn't miss that. She doesn't miss her destiny, or the people trying to sell it to her. She doesn't miss being betrayed and used and manipulated and lied to. ]

[bigfloppyhat]

[Cole's head tilts ever-so-slightly as he peers at her owlishly through sunken, too-blue eyes. His face is gaunt and pale, even for someone who spent their entire life in a pod of goo. Somehow, though, he manages not to be frightening-- there's something childlike about him that turns intimidation into curiosity.]

Don't you?

[There are a lot of things about his world Cole didn't like. So much pain and suffering, so many innocent lives cut short. Demons and darkspawn, starvation and blight. Corruption. Evil in the hearts of men. But there were friends, and freedom, and he could help. There's none of that here-- well, he's trying to help. Could that really be enough?]

What is there for you here?

[hacker]

Reality.

[ She blurts it out like she can't imagine another answer. It might not be pretty, it might not be easy, but that has to be worth something. Skye shakes her head, balking for a moment before she finds the right way to follow-up. ]

The truth. You'd rather have a bunch of machines lying to you?

[bigfloppyhat]

Everyone lies. The truth isn't always important.

[Cole is really wishing he had his hat right now. It still startles him that everyone can just see him, even when he doesn't want them to. Makes it hard to sneak, and harder still to help anyone without them noticing-- now he has to be noticed. It's still good, but... uncomfortable, somehow. His hands worry slightly at the hem of his dirty tunic shirt, suddenly self-conscious.]

Do you find purpose in it? In what you think is true?

[hacker]

What else am I supposed to find purpose in?

[ It sure as hell isn't what she thinks is false. The question helps her deflect whether or not she's actually seeking a purpose for herself; mostly, she's seeking a way to help, to do what she thought she'd been doing with SHIELD. ]

reality!

[punned]

[ Ellie is no stranger to the world being a wasteland. Back where she's from - or, well, the world she was apparently plugged into (she's still trying to wrap her head around all this Matrix shit, and she wishes Joel was around to help her understand it better, assuming he even would understand it) - her entire world is a wasteland, filled with disease, rot, destruction, people killing each other left and right, infected monsters trawling the land like lost beasts.

Not that Ellie knows any different. She knows her world used to be different, but she was born long after civilisation had already crumbled.

This wasteland here, though… It's fucking terrifying. It's so bleak. Not a shred of hope or beauty or anything seemingly worth fighting for in sight. It fills her with a roiling twist of despair that she couldn't put into words even if she wanted to. Makes her think about all those people who died because of her, people she cared about - what the fuck did their deaths even mean, what the fuck did her immunity to the parasitic fungus that's destroyed her world even mean if this is the world as it really is?

Ellie has been off crutches herself for maybe two weeks now. Her muscles are still weak but she's at least able to get around unassisted now. She's come up here to stare out at the world as it apparently really is because… Well, underneath the brave face she puts on, she's fucking terrified. She's alone, without Joel, the only person she trusts. And being down on that ship, with its narrow, dark corridors and bleak claustrophobia - she needs space, from people mostly.

When the woman on crutches appears, Ellie tenses up slightly, instinctively goes to reach into her pocket for her pocket knife, purely out of a sense of security - which of course isn't there. The woman seems pretty weak, though. Probably isn't a threat, or so Ellie hopes.

And so, she just looks away again, out at the devastating expanse of bleakness, chewing on her bottom lip - and glances sharply back to woman when she suddenly hears retching. Realises the woman is doubled over, vomiting. ]

Oh, fuck. [ Ellie says this with a kind of hushed concern, and she loiters on the spot uncertain what to do or how to help, if to help. ] Uh. Jeez. [ Her arms swing with a restless kind of nervousness at her sides before she wrings her hands together at her middle. Takes a hesitant half-step towards the woman. ]

Are... are you okay?

[hacker]

[ Another cough has her bones rattle, shoulders heaving. It's a yak, really. All bile and cellulose-oatmeal. Skye dips her head down, leaning with the blow to her pride at the little kid who's come over. She could handle this better than Skye could. Maybe, though, maybe it's not her first time up here.

She drags her hand over her mouth, wiping the ropy threads of saliva away and looking up at the girl. Normally, she has hair to get out of the way, dark and wavy. It still takes some getting used to, not feeling the weight of it shift around. The buzzcut feels as surreal as any of it. ]

Yeah. [ Her smile is tight, shaky at best. She grabs onto one of her crutches and pulls herself back to her feet. ] Overexerted myself. [ Physical inability is easier to swallow than emotional. She's been physically inept before, run only when chased. ] God, they told me they usually only pull kids, but you're— [ Phew. She exhales, staggered a bit by it. ] What's your name?

[punned]

[ Oh, jeez. If Joel was here, he'd tell her to stay back, let the lady sort herself out; probably tell Ellie it ain't any of their concern. But that's simply not in Ellie's nature, doesn't matter how much she deeply mistrusts people she doesn't know. And seeing people struggling, suffering, in pain, vulnerable - it sets Ellie's teeth on edge, makes her want to do something to help them.

What can she do to help, though? It's not like she's got any water on her, hasn't got anything to help the lady wipe the puke and the spit away. And so, she just watches with guarded concern. She lifts a hand, rubs her nose with the back of her knuckles in that unconsciously nervous way of hers when she's anxious or scared.

The tight smile the woman offers makes Ellie feel at least a slight bit of relief. She offers a tight half-smile in return, not quite friendly but not cold, either. ]

Ha. [A muted, humourless 'ha', there. ] Yeah. Happened to me, too, when I first… I dunno, 'woke up'. 'Got unplugged'. Whatever the fuck it's called. [ Hands come up briefly, give a small kind of dismissive wave as much to nonverbally say that she still doesn't understand any of that shit.

And then there's another small rub of her nose with the back of her hand before she drops her arms back to her sides with a small, listless, still nervous swing. She gestures to herself quickly with her hand. ]

Uh. Ellie. And… really? Kids? What, like me? 'Cause… I'm beginning to feel like I'm the only kid around here.

[hacker]

I haven't seen a lot; might be they don't put 'em on ships. [ She glances down towards the door, back inside. The ambivalent shrug says it all: she doesn't know enough to clarify. But she does know that party line she'd heard. ] Something about it being easier for people to accept while they're still young. [ A gesture towards Ellie follows. ] No offense.

[ It's easy to remember when she was a stubborn-as-nails teenager who didn't want anyone telling her that she had a different experience just because of her age. Her natural predisposition toward the nonchalant helped it roll off her back rather than stick in her teeth, but it was exhausting, at the time. ]

I'm Skye.

[punned]

Skye. Okay. Got it. [ And then a look of incredulity crosses Ellie's face. Easier for people to accept while they're still young? ] And, uhh. No offence? But that's total bullshit.

[ When Ellie began coming to her senses in this place, found herself surrounded by people poking her and prodding her, needles being injected into her, people doing tests on her, she'd been scared out of her fucking mind. What made things even worse was the fact that she was too weak to fight back. For what must have been weeks, she could barely muster the coordination and strength to speak, let alone scramble to her feet and defend herself.

And Joel had been nowhere to be seen. Is still nowhere to be seen.

Oookay. A stab of panic is trying to rise up her chest and throat like bile. She swallows hard, shifts on the spot, a tight expression crossing her young face. She throws a glance out towards the wastelands that spreads ahead of her, seems to go on and on and fucking on like a bleak nightmare, then quickly sets her attention back on the woman. ]

How about we, uh. Get the hell outta here. This place gives me the creeps.

[hacker]

Don't have to tell me twice.

[ One quick glance over her shoulder comes accompanied by an involuntary shudder. A moment later, she's limping towards the door on her crutches, ushering Ellie down ahead of her. It's easy to pass off what's indisputably an instinctively protective gesture as practicality when she's limping and Ellie's got more mobility: being stuck behind Skye on the stairs would slow her down. ]

How long have you been awake?

[ She's getting better at telling, the longer she sticks with it. Hair growth. Turns out, everyone comes out bald and naked, so those who don't opt for the deliberate buzzcut are at varying stages of porcupine to straight-up 70's shag. ]