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

[aphonetic]

[ Grey grit his teeth. He wanted to punch the floor, but even his fingers hurt. It didn't seem fair, mostly because Grey remembered this. He'd already done this part. When he was a kid and still weak and growing, he'd been in a constant state of strength training. Agility. Speed. And now he was starting all over. This was his first time using his muscles this way, he tried to remind himself, but it felt like starting over.

It was different for Curtis. Grey leaned up on his hands, breathing hard and just glaring at him. Grey wans't angry. Not at Curtis. He was grateful for Curtis trying to help him, though sometimes he wondered why. Maybe he thought he owed it to Gilliam to look out for Grey, or maybe it's because they were from the same Matrix. But Curtis had never really paid attention to him then and Grey didn't understand why he would now. Except that he was probably waiting for Grey to be useful again.

Grey understood that he was tryng to be encouraging or something, but it wasn't the same. Curtis had been strong in the Matrix, everyone knew that, but it wasn't what made him important. He was smart, good at planning, at understanding people and ideas. Curtis could beat most anyone on the train, but they trusted him not to. And for everyone he couldn't, that's what Grey was for.

For some reason Grey wanted to hit him. He settled for sitting on the floor. Shaking his head. And looking at Curtis with something between exhaustion and exasperation. ]