test drive | 2

[unplug]

test drive

Welcome to our bimonthly Systemwide test drive. Please feel free to use this venue to test out any prospective character you may have, whether they're unplugged or free born. Comment below responding to one of our scenarios, or invent your own, and make sure to tag around. Note that any test drive tag can be used as an in game sample for application. Reserves are open, and applications will open on April 25.

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

the matrix | the air feels real, but you know it's not because you have been told as much. due to the fractures of the matrix, you could be standing in a landscape familiar to you, or one that's intensely alien. this could be your first time, or your thousandth time. this could be the real deal, or just a simulation. either way, all you are experiencing now is coding.

This is a familiar battle to you, with familiar demons. An extraction mission gone arwy, or simple spying and recon -- either way, Agents -- either of the suit and tie kind, or something more monstrous -- have detected your presence, and you're going to have to fend them off while looking for an escape route (in the form of a pay phone, or an invisible backdoor of your imagination). But this time, you're among friends in the form of your crew.

Alternatively, you're out of your depth, in an alien landscape, but you're better, faster, stronger than you've ever been before. Or at least, maybe someone on your team knows what they're doing. Either way, you are advised to run.

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.

A new recruit has opened their eyes. What was your involvement? Perhaps you're simply staying out of the way, and you're seeing the expanses of the human field towers for the first horrifying time since you were blind and helpless yourself. Perhaps you're acting as guardian angel, holding the unconscious quarry's hand, or tending to their medical charts.

Perhaps you're the new recruit, feeling the metal floor of the hovercraft beneath your feet, stepping out to explore this new world while still aching muscles protest from all this new strain. You almost don't believe that this has happened, but nothing has ever felt so real before now.

wildcard | choose your own adventure.

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 you're just practicing in the simulation stations.

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. Perhaps you're participating in key events, whether it's something to celebrate, or something sad.

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

Comments

KORBEN DALLAS | the fifth element

[aid]

MATRIX
[One way or another, Korben thinks, things will always come down to this: him, one or two guns with fast-depleting ammo, and at least two-dozen bad guys rolling in on his position. Experience and the ability to think on his feet only has him pinned under heavy fire for a minute before he's shot two between the eyes, smashed a window and made a leap for the fire escape on the building opposite.

Boots on pavement, he bolts for the main street, swinging around into the crowd as he fishes a cell out of his pocket and makes the familiar call. The click of answer and operator would be a relief, if it wasn't for what he hears next.]

Couldn't be on the next block over, could it? [Voice pitched louder from the exertion of running, but the complaint's really only meant for his ears. Maybe his operator's.] No. They've always gotta be half a damn city away.

[And in these situations, he can never tell if he misses flying cars or not.]

REALITY
[It's an unfortunate habit, getting attached. Korben's spent a lot of his life trying to get over it, but it never quite shakes loose. Extractions are the worst, layers of responsibility that anchor down heavy. He shouldn't get involved. Who wants to hold themselves indefinitely accountable for someone's introduction to reality? Their integration to reality. Most times, saving a life stops at a one-off action, but most of the time saving a life didn't involve fishing someone baby-bald and limp-limbed into the real world.

So he sits. He watches. He holds any tools the docs think he'd be useful in holding, trays of those creepy acupuncture needles and weird instruments for the cleaning of recently ripped-free plugs. He doesn't muscle in on being the first face new eyeballs open on, but when they're released to a regular cabin, he's there to wake them up for their first morning, protein slurry breakfast on a tray.]

Time to rise and shine. [He says, dry, setting the tray on the end of the bed.]

matrix;

[a_lister]

[They don't have flying cars, but it's then that he hears the sputter of chopper blades growing louder as they cut through the open air.

On cue, a helicopter charges into view. Around the corner of the apartment tower down the block, the shiny bulbous shape comes veering on a sharp arc, sketching its shadow against rows of tiny building windows. Its nose is down, aggressive like a charging bull, tilted at an angle against velocity and wind shear. Through the tinted and fortified glass of the windshield, it's impossible to tell who's piloting. They kind of drive like a crazy person by most people's standards, but not Korben's, probably !!

His operator connects the call.]

Need a lift?

[He might remember her. Long hair, real short, cute, stupendously curly eyelashes despite the shortage of proper cosmetic products in the Real. She's made eyes at him on the docks before, in a short-lived, nearly off-handed way that looked like games, but not insincere ones. A couple different ships were assigned out in the area, the Shangrila one of them, but they wouldn't have that new kids in, not with Agents out.

Maybe he can ask her later. Right now, she's barrelling toward a rooftop three jumps ahead, at a hundred miles per hour.]

[aid]

[It's showy. Maybe a little too loud, especially judging by the reaction of the pedestrian crowd around him. But Korben's never personally excelled at subtlety, and he isn't going to make any complaints about a lack of it now. This mission had already gone to hell, and he doesn't care how much more mess it takes to get out of there.

He's only still (staring up at the helicopter a little gormlessly) for a second before he's moving, not actually needing the disconcerting sounds of digital demonic possession behind him to compel him to start running again. The operator rattles off a series of instructions, and then Korben's throwing the cell, boot landing solidly in the centre of a building's back door, bursting in on a disused service stair. It's doubled as storage for who knows how long, leaving him a convenient number of boxes and other supplies to tip down the stairs behind him as he climbs, for all the obstruction they'll offer.

He doesn't make it to the roof. Cut off a few storeys away by a sudden rain of bullets, he dives sideways into a corridor, through into the next apartment. It's a nice place. Pictures on the walls. White rugs on hardwood floors. Balcony. He throws an overly-sculpted metal chair into the sliding door, glass crunching under his boots as he braces his hands on the railing, head craned up at the sky.]

Come on, come on,

[Is a slim prayer offered up for his operator to instruct on redirection, for that lovely voice on the line to manoeuvre the chopper around quicker than the Agents pursuing him can catch up.]

ay ay ay | matrix

[paracosmic]

[babydoll's already on the run herself, but to her, this is nothing. glass shatters in front of her from above and she halts her run, looking at where the glass came from. which is where korben comes into play. they don't know each other, or at least-- never got to know each other. she's not exactly easy to miss in zion, but maybe their paths never crossed, or they never had an excuse to talk to each other. she hardly recognizes him, all she recognizes is the possibility of an ally.

she pauses long enough to watch him drop to the ground before she catches up to him. she sticks out, a gun in her holster and a sword being slipped back into its sheath as she makes her way over. she's small, but quick. he may have longer strides, but she's determined, and she's certain that he's trying to find a phone as fast as she is.]

If you don't know how to hotwire a car, I do.

ezio auditore | assassin's creed

[dominus]

matrix
“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli

Home for Ezio, in some minute way, will never ever be his cramped, metallic quarters deep in Zion. They are where he lives, where he counsels others released from Matrixes similar to his own--so modern to their inhabitants, so ancient and outdated in comparison to reality--but they are not quite home. Home is, was, might always be Roma, and the handsome corridors of the hideout on Tiber Island, fixed deep in the heart of the city that swelled with life. He drank in the sight of it on arrival, the city of seven hills and each one filled to the brim with memories that were only as real as his deepest dreams.

It's not a pleasure visit: his small team had work to do while they were there, mapping out the streets and avenues with careful precision, carrying on an average day-to-day and avoiding detection. Kid's play for a Mentor who trained men and women how to run, how to hide from danger and how to blend in with a crowd in this very city. Ezio took point on this mission, coordinated with their Operator on their drop point, on the access ports in and out of such a world without technology.

Things...went wrong. Agents alerted on his partner sometime after midday at the foot of St Peter's, the basilica dome held fast like a giant's eye in a skeletal frame of scaffolding. They sent human soldiers first, men sweating in their heavy armor under the hot summer sun, easily dispatched; a city guardsman pelting hell-for-leather on horseback for the pair of operatives. Ezio, taking the lance from a fallen soldato, brutally unhorsed the man, and took his horse by the reins to swing himself up into the empty saddle. He thrusts a hand at his teammate, while Papal guards, Agents, in their sumptuous black livery are beelining for them with a machine's efficiency.

"Get up." He gestures again, reaching out for his partner, to pull them up into the saddle behind him. "Andiamo, let's go!"

reality

Ezio tends to get out of the way of the extraction teams in the real world. The nitty-gritty graphic details of the whole process don't faze him, not a man with a history like his, but he's not a medic by any stretch of the imagination either and so he waits. Bides his time. Scuffs his hand through his short hair while he reads the latest dispatches from Zion and gets on with whatever needs doing on the ship.

Once the new recruit is up and relatively fighting fit, well now he can get to work doing what he's always been good at, getting them settled in, assessing them for training, running them through the Construct so they might acclimate to their new skills. Here it's not much different than what he did in the Matrix-- minus pointing them at a target and letting them loose. Here, that isn't his call, and he's had a few years to adjust to the change.

Now, he's rapping his knuckles on their door at hellish o'clock in the morning, because today is a favorite day. Today it's time to Jump.

"Rise and shine," he calls, with the sort of cheer that any night owl would rightly throttle a man for. "It is your big day."

reality UvU

[cockade]

Sleep, perhaps, is one of the very few things that hasn't drastically changed since his extraction. Meaning that it's not something that happens as often as he likes.

He's been out of the Matrix for almost four months now, but Arno still finds the whole situation of reality to be overwhelming at times. From roaming the streets of Paris during the French Revolution, out into a world so advanced it seems as if even the buildings can walk, he's at a loss at times with what he should do.

Ezio, thankfully, has been understanding and encouraging in Arno's recovery, going out of his way to make sure things progress and he can still feel comfortable doing so. It's been rough, at times, but stability is one thing he's found that he has far more, now that time has passed. Speaking with others has lead the Frenchman to understand the different worlds and their cultures, and many share a story similar to his own. Ezio has made sure to talk with Arno when he wants, as their first encounter... wasn't exactly pleasant. The legendary assassin was the idol of many fanatics of the Brotherhood, Pierre Bellec among them. It took a month to even coax more than a simple conversation out of Arno, the man still so wary of falling into old habits.

Nowadays it's the exact opposite. The two of them are like peas in a pod, getting both in and out of trouble all around in Zion and out of it. Soon enough he'll be able to join the crew- but that would come later. For right now, working on his assimilation into the modern world is enough work as it is.

Which is why now, perhaps, he's jolted awake by the sound of a knock on his door, body still trying to be awake as his mind is. His eyes open and he stiffly sits up, not completely coherent.

That is, until he hears the words being said outside. He knows that voice. There's an audible over-reactive groan and Arno just speaks in French, rubbing his face and tossing his short hair into a mess, teasing the other right back.

"I'm beginning to wonder if you ever sleep, old man!"

LAVELLAN ( dragon age )

[clannish]

matrix

The entire ramparts moved slightly to the left and she wanted to pretend otherwise. Already she could feel trouble creeping up on her like an itch. It would always be her right eye that started to twitch. The slightest muscle spasm noticeable only to her whenever she paid too much mind to her surroundings. Her own subconscious raging war on itself when she concentrated for too long on the subtle yet wide of the mark details of her environment. Her home - in all its near perfect imitation.

First, she had to ignore the fractures; even one so jarring as the bridge running over the Skyhold bailey fading in and out of existence before settling in the wrong place. Experience told her once you started paying attention it was then trouble followed. Secondly, she had to stay on script. Come in and out of Skyhold and map out the surrounding area. Deceptively simple a task.

She looked sideways, across the courtyard to her assigned teammate and nodded; a curt and short gesture as not to draw attention. They still had work today and even so familiar a place was treacherous and liable to change.

"Right." She whispered under her breath as she reached back to feel for the feathered fletching of one of her arrows. Anchoring herself to the weight of it in her hand before stalking off towards the stone staircase leading up into the heart of castle.

[berserkergang]

He's been told before that these kind of worlds should suit him better than others, because of the way he spoke, the way he described the things he missed (simpler things like drink, food, song; not Jane, not the Avengers, not his family). Assumptions. Impressive though this castle of stone is, it isn't the gleaming golden towers of Asgard.

Still, Thor carries himself in a way that suggests he belongs, in clothing appropriate to the world of Thedas, his hair pulled back into a braid, and a battle axe strapped diagonal to his broad back.

He allows for a simple, slight smile when the Inquisitor glances back at him, acknowledgment equally subtle.

And shadows her, the grit of stone quiet beneath his boots.

"Was this always your home?" he inquires, his voice pitched quiet, unobtrusive.

bruce wayne | the dark knight

[overkill]

matrix (tw blood and death)
There are a lot of reasons why this man is not often sent on extractions (anymore). Most of them are the same reasons why this man should not have ever gone on any extractions.

There is not enough time to make a list.

It was a splitsecond hesitation - barely a fraction. But it was enough. The kid they were running with is falling to his knees, s l o w m o t i o n, his head a perfect holiday firework of blood, grey-matter, bits of bone and cartilage. The remnants of one brown eye splatter outward like a wet marshmallow peep caught in a blender. The agents they were running from - he, no longer they, they is dead now, their virtual representation's brutal end terminating the real - are quicker than that slow fall, already pressing through the fine mist of gore, inching closer. Like an iceberg. Like downhill a freight train with no brakes.

Cold horror and hatred devour the ingrained brainwashing (gunsmurderyouaretakingalifeyourparents). Wayne finally pulls the fucking trigger

but let's be honest. It's too late.


reality
Zion makes him uneasy. Part of him - a bigger part than he wants to admit - had hoped he'd get rejected at the gates. But his codes worked, no matter how disgruntled the supervising guard tech they had to call in was. Old codes, old ship that shouldn't be making the trek from the surface (or anywhere), but some shit you just can't get from trading from the littler outposts and flexible pirates. 'Some shit' usually involves information, but runs the gamut from medical attention down to washers half a centimeter larger than he can find anywhere else.

It's too crowded, and he's never been able to adjust to crowds in the real world. He has no reason to slip through them unnoticed, and he's certainly not treated like a prick celebrity socialite, all eyes and flashing lights pointed in his direction. The utterly normal mixture of curiosity, disregard, courtesy, all just rubs him the wrong way. At least the regulars on the docks know to leave him the hell alone. For the most part.

ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ

[ironwork]

When Seoraj catches sight of him in the crowd, he's surprised-- but not that he hadn't heard he was coming, or heard from him since he's been here. For how long? Well, not long, at a guess, due to his still being here and not having already fucked off to somewhere with less of that human interaction bullshit that Bruce conscientiously objects to.

He falls in beside him, heedless of that as ever, and strikes up as if it hasn't been nearly so long since they last saw each other--

"Hey, sailor."

Dude.

matrix

[lostsoldier]

They're people. He must have asked that once, in the beginning, his skin still cold and crawling from the slide of the needle, what happens to the person who used to be, once an agent takes over? Nothing. They're still in there. They're still people.

(He hasn't forgotten how to kill people.)

It is too late. Bruce's shot launches in one direction and another of the agent's has already left the barrel, a trigger efficiently pulled, a muzzle flash marking its exit, crossing the distance from machine to man with that same relentless speed — until between them, a ripple of steel plates cuts a path through red air and sets the latter bullet to ricochet with a tink. (You're welcome.)

That metal forearm continuing on its smooth hook across Bruce's midsection is not the gentlest of Let's get the hell out of here yanks, but Wayne has the gun and Barnes has the momentum

(and the grappling hook, hopefully)

to take them straight over the edge of this rooftop before the next shot catches Wayne in the head, because it's only too late for one of them.

matrix

[berserkergang]

He's counting down in his head, distilling the sharp, increasingly frantic voice of the operator tinny in his ear to units of time as he charges across the rooftops in long legged, thunderous lopes. This isn't a reality where he can simply fly, but he does as best as his feet can manage as a hefty leap carries him across the open space from building to building.

The target is down. Emergency rendezvous is drastically simplified. Single-minded focus does not come without feeling; Thor is all feeling.

There's no hesitation in his next leap -- launching off concrete earlier, plummeting down for the scene below. He is a big man, all wild blonde hair, the same elemental energy he bore when he was a Nordic god, but he is in armoured black, a coat, a gun strapped beneath his ribcage. He lands on top of an empty box truck, denting metal, pistol already in hand and firing only a second after Wayne.

Return fire puts a hole through flip of coat as he rolls, landing hard but stable.

Simons | Powers

[clonings]

A. reality

[He feels itchy. He knows it's a castoff of programming but he feels like he's still not quite himself. This is reality, he has to remind himself, and he rubs his hands together, as if the feel will jar him out of things.

He's never been fond of green-ish light, courtesy of his home world, but he knows he can find some peace here if he tries. He's whole here, there's no danger of losing himself, figuratively and mentally. Simons' is leaning against a railing, watching the people of Zion bustle about. The sound of feet on metal is calming, at least, though he'd still kill for something he can mentally hold on to, here. He's yet to adjust. Especially to the lack of cigarette smoke courtesy of one Johnny Royalle.

Something shifts in someone's footsteps and he glances over just in time to see someone nearly trip. Simons has always kept to himself (or himselves), yes, but he's never been an asshole. He snaps his hands forward to catch the person--or things they were about to drop--with expert reflexes, quietly tilting his head to the side. It's his way of saying, 'are you okay?']

B. matrix

[ His appearance here and the real world never changes--he prefers a shaved head. The only difference is that he has his powers here--much like he did in that fabricated reality he called home. The problem is that, while there are multiple copies of him, he still feels their pain.

It's just three of him this time, two with their guns firing, the third running to grab his teammate that just fell. ]

Get up. [ It's the clone trying to drag him upwards. ] We've got to keep moving. [ They've got to get to an exit. ]

reality

[a_lister]

I'm fine.

[It comes across as a snap, but it's not bad as it could have been, nothing truly toxic in the resonance of her voice. Zora pulls her arms back to herself, straightens, shouldering the heavy duffel bag over her shoulder again. Back in the Matrix, it had never mattered that she was slight and thin. Indeed, it had been fashionable. It kind of sold her whole image.

Here, though, it's far from useful, and she doesn't have her power to compensate. It's discomfitting, the part of her that made her a superheroine gone now. And worse, even if the part of Simons that made him a supervillain is gone too, he's faster, stronger. And she has little doubt he's done things. She doesn't know exactly how she learned of his reputation, but she does remember:] You worked for Johnny Royalle.

[Recognition had shocked her into tripping over her own damn feet a moment ago, but she's more composed now. All the discomfiture and powers introspection in the world can't stop her from stopping to gawk at someone from home.]

Jonathan Teatime | The Hogfather (Discworld)

[elegance_guaranteed]

reality
[ Teatime pushed the grayish slop around with a spoon, expression tinged with contemplative displeasure. He could appreciate it in its utilitarian simplicity, but the taste could only be described in simile-- without a doubt, the slop tasted like sadness. Some part of him recoiled with the knowledge that he was beginning to understand poetry. Reality was a harsh thing indeed. ]

---
matrix: simulation
[ Eyes mostly closed, Teatime swayed slightly from side to side, settling into the body that felt more real, more natural than the weak shell he'd left in the real world. Dressed stylishly in layers of black, hair coiffed, he once more looked the part of an esteemed member of the Assassin's Guild.

His eyes snapped open abruptly, one inky black and the other little more than a pinhole of a pupil. A smile lit his boyish face, but there was a cold-blooded wrongness to it. ]

So, what happens to someone who dies in a simulation?

reality!

[aphonetic]

[ To Grey, on the other hand, this was a marked improvement on what he was used to eating. Or at least it was a decent alternative. Even the spoon was a novelty. Grey wondered if front-enders used to eat with spoon. It felt fancy and very unnecessary. He could picture Mason eating with a spoon, if Mason even existed. So this. Grey could easily get used to this.

He gripped the spoon with his fist, and was halfway through his portion when he noticed a man nearby wasn't eating. Grey frowned. Maybe he was sick? That's what it usually- that's what it used to mean when someone wouldn't eat. It was none of Grey's business, he knew that. Most things weren't.

So he turned back to his bowl with every intention of finishing his meal. Too bad he forgot about the spoon. Accidentally knocking it with his arm, it flung through the air as Grey cringed and watched helplessly. Yeah. So unnecessary. ]

Grey | Snowpiercer

[aphonetic]

reality.
[ It's been about four weeks since Grey woke up. No, unplugged it was supposed to be. Or maybe it was almost four weeks. He was finding it as hard as ever to keep track of time, even though he wasn't on the train anymore. No. Even though this was real life and not a trick. The train wasn't real. Grey was still getting used to it.

At least that's what he was supposed to be doing. For the past few days, or maybe a week, or maybe longer, he'd been spending most of his time in a training room with some excercise equipment. He wasn't prepared for how useless he felt here, or how much he hated that. Things that used to be second nature to him on the train were not almost impossible now. And if he couldn't fight, or protect anyone, then what good was he?

Also. Grey had to admit he liked that the excercise rooms were enclosed with four solid walls. The city was so big, and so open, and so unsettling. When he was here he didn't have to think about that for a while. So his hands gripped a horizontal bar that was fixed above his head and dis pull-ups. Or he tried. Every time he managed only a few before his arms gave out and he ended up on the floor again. Shaking his head in frustration, he straightened his shirt, pulling the sleeves down over his wrists He didn't like looking as his skin now that it was so... blank.

Another reminder of everything he could no longer do. Wiping the sweat from his hands onto his pants, Grey reached up for the bar again. He needed to do this.]

[engined]

[ curtis couldn't really believe that they'd managed to unplug grey. no matter that it had been one of his goals when he himself was unplugged, he hadn't really thought they could do it -- there were billions of people in the machine farms, and looking for three people was like looking for one specific needle in a stack of other needles. and yet... here grey was. it was strange seeing him without his tattoos, or gilliam at his side. curtis was keeping his suspicion that gilliam was an agent to himself -- telling grey would just hurt him, or drive a wedge between them, and that was the last thing curtis wanted. they were from the same matrix, the only really familiar people here. they had to stick together.

the two of them spent most of their time together in the gym, and curtis was doing his best to help grey, but it was clear that grey was getting frustrated with his body's limitations. it wasn't as though curtis hadn't been there himself, back when he was first unplugged, so he knew how grey felt, he just... didn't know what to say to make him feel less shitty. he hadn't ever really spoken to grey much on the train, mostly just saw him as gilliam's guard dog and not much more, so curtis didn't know how to talk to him. he was doing his best, but he had to wonder if he was just making things worse.

the next time grey fell to the floor after doing a few pull-ups, curtis came over to him and crouched down next to him. for a while he was silent, trying to think of what to say, and then he gave grey a small, lopsided smile. ]

You know, when I was first unplugged, I could barely manage one push-up before I collapsed.

alex bradshaw | oc

[intercourse]

REALITY

[ Maybe it's your first day in the real world, maybe it's your second week. Either way, you're still fresh, weak — figuring out how to cope. The sound of an electronic whirring registers in your ears before the warmth of a handprint presses against your shoulder firmly. ]

Can you hear me?

[ "Soothing" isn't exactly the right word, but the voice is smooth and even. A little rough around the edges, maybe, with just a hint of curtness. Not overwhelmingly concerned, to say the least. ]

MATRIX

[ It's the kind of silence that becomes overwhelming, given time. The white walls are mostly clean, lit by a soft blue light without any obvious source. Fairly standard space station material, if you're familiar with science fiction.

Utilitarian piping and panels are all that same off-white, running the length of the hallway that opens up onto a small octagonal room. There are monitors at the front, but they're quiet, too. The only sounds are your footsteps and the growing throb of your own blood flow in your ears, but that's all broken by the sound of a sharp hiss from one side of the room. ]

Shhh.

[ The woman's sitting in front of one of the consoles, leaning forward onto her elbows, chin propped up in one hand. She looks like someone parked in front of a television set, though there's no obvious source of entertainment. Either way, she doesn't bother turning around to face you. ]

matrix

[mightyfallen]

[ Jack Benjamin doesn't shh.

Two years unplugged may have roughened a few of his sleeker edges in the Real, but in here his residual self-image isn't at the mercy of a narrow fabric selection and cultural aversion to excess. If years at war in his own matrix hadn't made sliding into a suit again any more difficult, nothing will; today's is dark and clean-cut, modern enough not to clash with their surroundings while still very much a suit. (Tradition and expectation have their uses, after all.)

As he rounds the room, however, he neatly undermines any illusions of maturity with an exaggerated cluck of disappointment. ]

And I thought reality was boring.

[rhyfelgri]

( it's been a little less than a week since she was unplugged; long enough that she's alert and tense before alex's hand finds her shoulder, but not long enough for her to be able to do anything about that awareness, and the frustration of that is palpable as she says, hoarsely, )

What?

( --which is not especially gracious. )

dr "roman fell" | nbc's hannibal | contains no S3 spoilers

[ex_ligature983]

(( cw: implied cannibalism. possibility of lingering descriptions of violence in narrative depending on the thread and cr. the character is a serial killer, pm me if you want to play but avoid certain topics. feel free to handwave cr, pick an earlier point in the narrative, or write a different starter. ))

I.
[ Hannibal Lecter always knew that God had a sense of humor, but he lacked strict confirmation until six years ago, when the truth of the Matrix was revealed to him. That humanity could be harvested like crops to feed their own invention was not the great joke, of course, nor was the absurdity of clinging to a hard truth like a mollusk clings to the bottom of the boat rather than accepting a life of dreams. It was — his own role, his own truth, the humiliation of the sight of thousands of pods like the kernels of a cob of corn and his own abject crawling from the muck.

Perhaps the unremarkable life that followed could be considered a sign of a man whom, confronted with his own mortality, resolved to turn to the next blank page, a new leaf over, as it were. Certainly Doctor Roman Fell demonstrated no interest in Zionite politics or the Zion Defense Grid, the two clear ladders of ambition set before the newly unplugged. He read diligently, and exercised his frail body, spoke to others mostly of language and the arts, and visited the catacombs. Then one day he left for Etham, claiming a desire to devote himself spiritually.

There are limited places in this new world, everything huddled together, and Hannibal visited each outpost in turn, spending a small measure of time learning the culture, making contacts, collecting resources. If perhaps he carried less prosaic goods in his briefcases than simply his clothes, surely there was no harm in a little personal purchasing, to be redistributed as "gifts" to friends. Smuggling was the practice of Irkalian pirates, not polite middle-aged gentlemen in a fading three-piece suit.

It is only today that he has stepped off a hovercraft back into Zion, churned along with the other refugees from the ravaged outpost of Olympus, where the roof of the church has finally fallen on its worshippers. Despite his best efforts, being swept up in the conflict has left him slightly less presentable than he would like, and there is blood under his nails that he desires to wash off as soon as possible. It is with relief that he is waved through processing, so much easier without papers and passports and fingerprints to concern oneself with, and soon he is knocking on the door of an aquaintance he once made, or at least, the door of where they used to live, years ago. ]

II.
Good evening, Zion.

I have decided to offer my psychiatric services in private practice. Within the Matrix I was highly qualified and maintained a select list of regular patients who visited my offices: here, I will offer home visits until my own space can be established and furnished. There will be no bias between those who have or have not been unplugged from the Matrix, however my counseling focuses on overcoming psychological distress — should your interest in therapy stem from a desire to adapt more adequately to the loss of your previous life, I advise you first try the clinicians of the Zion Defense Grid who specialize in assisting the newly extracted. My rates are negotiable.

My sincerest apologies that my first opportunity to utilize the network so kindly provided for us has resulted only in advertisement. If you would prefer a more personal dialogue, I am also interested in discussion of the recent appearance of the Oracle, and her prediction of the strife we are still, as a community, attempting to recover from. Do you believe the issuance of a warning before an attack it represents further schism between the machines? Did anyone speak with her directly?

Finally, I am looking to hire a temporary guide. I have never in the past spent much time in Zion, and would appreciate someone with better knowledge of its levels and functions to show me around.

My sincerest thanks,

Doctor R. Fell.

ok here you go

[ascendency]

[It's possibly one of the worst times to be extracted. Or at least, that's what Jupiter's been told. The grim underlying war of reality had already been laid out to her, and maybe she would've accepted situations like this were the norm (and wish, fleetingly, that she hadn't touched the red pill), if the sudden and unusual circumstances hadn't been explained to her.

It still hasn't made it an easy transition. But with all the focus on the refugees, the casualties being brought in, she can at least slide away for a little while, away from attention. She'd moved to a room as soon as she was physically able to, unwilling to take up a clinic bed when there were more needy still trickling in through the docks. She's still shaky, clumsy and weak, spends a lot of time resting - not that her new lodgings allows that much. The knock on the door isn't the first, but she bites down on any irritation as it interrupts her second cycle of exercises.

She calls through a coming! as she sets the small weights down and makes her way slowly to the door, a slight sheen of sweat on her skin, dark eyes large with only a short fuzz of hair, no fall to frame her features.]

I'm sorry. [She says on not recognising the man, an apologetic smile at the corners of her mouth.] You're probably looking for someone else, aren't you?

winks at

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty isn't, by her nature, particularly shy. Reserved, yeah, sometimes. Or - more accurate to say that she's someone who likes action a lot better than she likes words, for all that she's playing the part of a chatterbox here in Zion. But it rarely happens that she feels shy, that she shrinks back and considers her words before speaking and second-guesses herself before engaging with someone. Generally, she's of the opinion that people are people and nothing more than that - what's there to be scared of?

For some reason, though, she's shy in the presence of Dr Fell. The doctor is apparently an acquaintance of Chef's - someone whom Chef, who's ridiculously stuck-up about his tastes, considers to have an even more discerning palate than his own. And Chef's got such an ego - So Chef invited Dr Fell to come and cook a meal for the staff of the restaurant. And of course Lizzie, who was wounded in the line of duty while going and spreading Cafe Modak's commerce, who's been treated like something of a hero in spite of her infuriating clumsiness ever since she's returned to work, gets seated right across from him and gets served, if not first, then at least fourth.

Why is she tongue-tied in his presence? She guesses it's just how...composed he acts. She's never met anyone who seemed as sure of himself as Dr Fell seems of himself. There's something about that sheer calm that's sort of hard to deal with, especially given how awkward she feels - fumbling with her soup-spoon, struggling to maneuver around her teacup. It makes her so intensely self-conscious.

So it's with an extra dose of awkwardness that she says to him, forcing polite conversation - ]

This is really, really lovely. This, erm - This food. [ Clumsily, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and, with a self-conscious little smile: ] You've actually managed to make the meat taste like actual meat.

ii.

[byheart]

i can help .

should i find you ? or will you find me ?