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

Simon Metzger | OC

[hellbrokeloose]

[ Engineering Level ]

-- should be awake by now.

[ Metzger’s voice stirs low beneath the heft and clank of great metal teeth grinding past one another in the middle distance. Acrid steam clouds the senses; flashes of heat bleed red through closed eyes. Water rushes below, chains rattle above, bound thick about the ankles, clicking bones together and tingling at toes.

Up is down.

A grumbled swear slants into German and then abruptly back to English: ]

Throw me that bucket. [ There’s a doppler fade of boot heels striking away over steel, and then a splash.

The next splash sends half a gallon of hot water smashing up through the sinuses.

On the opposite end of it, Metzger stands scowling, expectant, with bucket in hand: wiry, compact, greying at the fringes and distinctly familiar, for anyone who’s been in Zion long enough to know what bad news looks like. He’s also flipped one-hundred-eighty degrees at belt level and just out of arm’s reach, planted safely at the end of a catwalk that terminates some feet short of the girder he’s hung his victim from.

By their feet, of course.

Assuming one were to fall, it’s difficult to tell if they would land directly in an open furnace at the end of a quarter mile drop or into the massive pool of boiling water roiling next to it. ]

[retrofire]

[ He doesn't want to wake up. Peter's dimly aware of his head throbbing, of a stiffness in his back and muffled voices, and his first stupid thought is that he's hungover. Given the chance to think back over the past few hours, he'd come to a more accurate conclusion; but before he gets that chance, the raw sting of water in his sinuses snaps him conscious.

There's a harsh rattle of chains as he tries to shake his head, ends up twisting his shoulders only to be brought up short by his own weight. It's then that his eyes open, squinting against steam and the last few trickles of water as he blows out through his nose and shakes his head again, quick, like a dog trying to get dry.

Water registers first, chains register second, upside-down is last.

Looking down is a huge mistake. He still manages to look more annoyed than scared when his eyes fix back on the figure in front of him, narrowed through the collective haze of the heat and his own head, trying to place the face— ]

Aw, shit.

[ That'd be recognition kicking in. ]

[onyourfeet]

[ A couple feet past Metzger's shoulder would be Bill Cage, who has by now turned his attention back to the man hanging from his ankles. Not a great deal younger than the man in the fore. The usual news anchor swoop of dark hair is ruffled and damp from humidity and sticking to his brow, but the rest of him seems precise, including the crescent smile broadcasted to Quill, the stamp of lines that crease at the corners of his eyes.

Friendly, for all that he seems completely complicit in Quill's predicament. He is armed, relaxed, sharply watchful. ]

Hanging in there?

[ His tone manages to achieve a balance between wry and apologetic. It's a tone that promises we'll get you down from there soon.

Probably. One way or another. ]

[hellbrokeloose]

[ Mock intrigue takes hold in a twist at Metzger’s brows -- very nearly sincere, as if he can’t believe his ears. ]

Is that all you have to say for yourself?

[ Clank.

He drops his bucket from both hands by means of punctuation, wet scrap rolling to an uneven stop against the sole of his boot. Fresh steam twists away from the metal there; a bump of the same toe sends remnant water dribbling through the grating as he takes a step nearer the rail’s edge, sure of foot. The droplets fall, and fall, and fall. ]

‘Awh. Shit,’ [ he echoes, sympathetic, oafish accent and all.

Sweat prickles his hair and shines at his neck, greasy in the bristle of his whiskers when he leans to growl through his teeth: ] You have sixty seconds to convince me you’re worth more to me alive than you are as a dose of extra calcium in our drinking water.

[retrofire]

[ The terrible and slightly tasteless joke earns a disapproving look, brows pinching together even more than they'd been on account of the headache. There's a scowl, too, which is weirdly difficult to manage when gravity's working against it — or maybe that's just the concussion talking.

So good cop, bad cop. Or goodish cop. Peter's seen the other guy around, even if they aren't on a first name basis, and he wastes a second trying to recall useful details before looking back to Metzger.

The irritation's still there, casually impatient in the face of what's clearly a life or death situation. Because hey, he's been through worse. Maybe. Not really, actually, but panicking (openly) isn't going to accomplish anything. Instead he gives a more subtle tug at his restraints, sending a low rustle of metal on metal through the links. It helps disguise the mild, instinctive flinch away as Metzger leans in, trying to keep distance. ]

That'd be a hell of a lot easier to do if I knew what you'd strung me up for. Communication, man, first rule of running a successful business.

[ That said, he's like, 99% sure this has something to do with smuggling. The problem is, he has no idea which job, and blind guessing seems like a bad approach. ]

[onyourfeet]

[ Good enough cop, if not so much that he raises objection to the prospect of Quill being liquified in the boiling vat below. For now, Cage stands where he is, working his knuckles to click against the massage of his palm.

His smile skews crooked. ]

That's a good place to start. [ Query, in his voice. Isn't it? ] I'd think something about supply and demand might have a little to do about it too. Wanna educate us further?

[hellbrokeloose]

[ Peter leans back and Simon straightens, irritation worked out into a restless roll and flex of his shoulders while he considers whether or not their prisoner is deserving of further clarification. He’s not a large man -- no taller than 5’7” -- cropped further by the wide stance he’s wont to keep on slippery metal.

It’s the livewire tension that crackles down through the bones in his hands that makes him dangerous, hot in his eyes and in the way the wires in his neck bite down taut behind the undershoot of his jaw. Not his shiny, Metzger-sized boots, and certainly not the way the black cabling of his sleeves bags a little long around his knuckles.

He could stand to shave; he’s not as precise as Bill behind him.

He’s been here longer. ]

Imagine our surprise, [ he builds on Cage’s hint, left hand touched to his own breast -- our surprise, ] upon responding to a distress beacon and being fired on by an unfamiliar pirate vessel. We don’t know their names, [ he glances to Bill for confirmation, ] we’ve never seen their faces, but they are punching holes in our ship with Zion-issue ordinance.

[ He allows that to settle for a moment, short of any direct accusation. ]

I didn’t sell it to them. [ He opens the hand on his chest out -- half of a shrug. ] I’ve never even seen them. Bill, did you sell it to them?

[retrofire]

[ Adapting is Peter's thing. Rolling with the punches, improvising, whatever. But improvisation's a little more difficult when all of your blood's slowly draining into your skull, and the fact that he has to mull that information over is obvious, a pointed delay as he runs the words over once, twice— ]

That wasn't me.

[ Quick, kind of punchy, but that just gives the impression that he's stumbled upon the realization as fact. Fabrication would look less guileless, surely. ]

The job you're talking about, I turned it down. I'm not an idiot. [ A beat. The follow-up's got a sense of diplomacy to it, like he's making allowances for the fact that he's managed to get strung up over a goddamn meat grinder. ] I'm not a complete idiot.

[onyourfeet]

Okay.

[ That sounds like a generous allowance, that Quill is not a complete idiot -- Cage hand wanders out, hovers in place, as if to indicate to Simon that his deadline of sixty seconds should be put on hold. ]

But they approached you.

[ Handling Metzger is a different kind of scenario than, say, managing Rita Vrataski, which so many times felt like he was trying to tame a writhing live wire that could zap him as well as anyone else. Still, his nudge towards optimism has some practice to it. ]

Names, faces, flight routes, drop off points.

[hellbrokeloose]

[ Simon already has his mouth halfway open to argue to the contrary when Cage’s hand comes up. He closes it again with some difficulty, teeth shut off behind a sullen clamp, suspicion still hard in the stoop of his brow.

The look he has fastened to that hand lingers like a bad smell.

But it swivels back out to Quill swiftly enough, invested in his answers -- provided that he has any.

And even if he doesn’t: ]

Why did you turn it down.

[ On the tail end of more aggressive interrogation, this one question seems positively reasonable. Passive, even. Almost as if Quill isn't dangling upsidedown over a fiery pit. ]</small

[retrofire]

[ Thank god. Cage's response is good news, quick on the give and take, and Peter's completely ready to throw anyone and everyone under the bus if it'll get him out of his current predicament.

Well, low-life assholes. He'll throw them under the bus. He's got some standards, here.

But before he gets the chance, Metzger's cutting them off with another smooth — and kind of eerily chill — interruption.

If Peter weren't tied up and upside-down, he'd be making a lot of placating gestures with his hands about now. As is, he sounds like he's trying to talk down a woman who just caught him cheating. Considering the women who have caught him cheating, it's a fairly comparable situation. ]

Like I said, not a complete idiot. Anyone who runs those weapons is putting a target on their back — that isn't the kind of thing you just get a new paint job on.

[ No hiding the source, basically. After a steady beat, just to let the placating vibe sink in: ] And for the record, I'm not a gun running kind of guy. My people have a saying — make money, not collateral damage. [ Or make love, not war. Loose translation. ] Big difference.

[ Thief with a heart of gold. Super convincing, right. ]

switchin tag order w cage

[hellbrokeloose]

[ Silence. Then: ]

Tell him we understand that he couldn’t have known what was in the boxes.

[ Metzger addresses Cage in (German) aside, speaking quickly and quietly, his attitude flat on the fence. Outwardly, he’s clearly in need of additional convincing. He encompasses the whole of Quill with a dismissive gesture of his near hand, with particular attention paid to the groin. ]

'We’re not after him, but we have no use for him if he won’t tell us who gave him the product.' [ etc etc] Be more sympathetic.

[ With his far hand, he loosens up the knife on his belt. ]

[onyourfeet]

[ Cage doesn't look over at Simon at quiet German aside -- even though his eyes lose slight focus in concentration -- but he does when the knife is being loosened, a drop of a glance down that bounces right back to Quill's gentle pendulum above the vat of heat far below.

The presence of laugh lines aren't mirth, but as requested, sympathetic. ]

We get it, you didn't want to be that guy. Lucky for you, you don't have to be that guy. The one with the paint job.

[ The phrasing meanders, but the words are clipped. Efficient. Everyone's on a deadline. ]

We understand you couldn't have known what was in the boxes [ it's a heavy handed hint, slanted in tone, seeing as upside down communication steals nuance out of partially raised eyebrows, and he has no literal olive branches on him ] and as far as everyone here is concerned, it would be far more helpful to know who's doing the supplying in the first place.

Let's start there, before all the blood finishes rushing into your skull.

SORRY gonna pick up on the pace on this !!

[retrofire]

[ Luckily, Peter's pretty good at looking for olive branches. He's found them on far worse people than Cage, and so the message is received loud and clear; his own brow lifts in a look of acknowledgment as he follows the trail of bread crumbs back to source.

Then goes off-script anyway, of course. ]

I'd need protection. The guy — [ A beat, then very diplomatically: ] Or lady. Who set up the job, they've got a few lights out. I mean, obviously.

[ Because who crosses Metzger on purpose, right. It's stated like it's completely reasonable instead of a bargaining chip, or kind of like a kid trying to convince his parents that having ice cream for dinner is totally their idea. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. ]

[hellbrokeloose]

Naturally, [ Metzger agrees in close proximity; a single step has taken him in close enough to smell, if it weren’t for the stifling stench of oil and hot metal that fills the level. There’s a catch at the tail of Peter’s shirt where the tip of Metzger’s knife snicks in like a cat’s claw. A flick of his wrist sees the shirt felled downward (upward?) from the waistband, exposing Quill’s bare belly to the heat.

The steel of his blade touches cold up (down) the younger man’s midline. ]

Are you seeing this? [ He’s back to speaking German, in plain address to Cage, who he apparently very much wants to look at “Starlord’s” hairy man abs. Harder to see from Quill’s angle, Simon has his knife tilted out like a professor with a pointer, brow furrowed down into a steep drop off. ] My god, [ poke ] he’s like a marble statue. [ So sculpted. All of the rumors are true.

It’s a dangerous sort of look that he gives Cage to convey as much in that moment, private across the catwalk, but his next move is away, and he takes his knife with him. ]

If you want protection, Mister Starlord, you’re going to have to work for it.

We only invest in long-term assets.

[onyourfeet]

[ Cage is not too awfully worried when Metzger approaches their caught smuggler-fish with a knife, even though he watches the path said knife takes, a wrinkle stamping subtly at his brow. Eyebrows raise when Metzger hooks a look back at him, blandly tolerant. ]

Sehr gut.

[ He's not doing extra crunches, Simon. ]

I think Mister Starlord would prefer to be a long term asset over a long term problem. Gentlemen, can we shake on it?

i knew this icon would have its day

[retrofire]

Sh— [ —it. He cuts the thought off midway, keeping quiet as the cool edge of the knife trickles over his stomach. If his muscles weren't already tense from being strung up for so long, that would've done the trick.

Predictably, Peter has no idea what the hell Metzger's saying. And yet, somehow, this still isn't the least comfortable situation he's ever been in, so any signs of impending panic are kept to a minimum. His heartbeat ticks up a few paces and a more serious expression flickers over his face, just for one intake of breath. Then the tells are gone, eyebrows raising and features shifting back to appeasing and just shy of whimsical. Enthusiastically: ]

Yeah, exactly. What he said.

[ THANKS, CAGE. ]

:)/ touch

[hellbrokeloose]

Wise decision.

I don’t abide long-term problems, [ Simon explains to Peter in helpful aside as he seats his knife back onto his belt. That’s the joke. ] Cut him down. [ Crank him down, whatever. Metzger gestures, half-hearted, to pullies and chains. Having gotten what he was after, he has all the markings of being on his way out, content to leave any actual shaking in Cage’s capable hands. ]

If he speaks German next time we string him up, we’ll know he’s a keeper, [ he says, and then pauses halfway past, turning back to reassess at a second thought. It’s a look Cage will have seen before: one that involves math. This many kilograms of Peter Quill vs this many kilograms of his First Mate, long drops vs sudden stops, etc.

He squares the rest of the way back around, a hand turned out in (unenthusiastic) allowance for the fact that not having to promote Seoraj is worth the extra ten minutes of his time. ]

I’ll supervise.

[onyourfeet]

[ He's not doing extra crunches, Simon.

But he is going to let Quill down, no particular sadistic desire to stretch the moment out any longer; an efficient step forward towards the chains and pulleys to grip onto one of the former two-handed, heaving it down in such a way that makes the structure from which Quill is hanging shudder alarmingly before drawing him horizontally in.

(Look, he lifts.) ]

If he manages to get strung up again, we'll know he's not.

[ Once Quill is out of danger, the next motion sends him on a quick, if still controlled drop onto the walkway, feet still tangled up in the chains, but easier to get out of now that gravity isn't a factor.

Cage steps back, letting the other man sort himself out. ]

It's been a pleasure doing business with you.

[ Cage sounds sincere, which is probably somehow worse than being straight up sassy. ]