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test drive | 2
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.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.
Please put your character name and canon in your subject line, and indicate which prompt you are launching from.
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.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.
wildcard | choose your own adventure.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.
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.
alex bradshaw | oc
[ 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
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.
no subject
Her expression's neutral, eyes unabashedly tracking over the man and taking in the details. Slick suit, slick demeanor. Slick everything. If she's impressed, she acts otherwise. ]
Suppose it depends on your definition of boring. You have a job?
[ There's a lilt of an accent there, northern English, maybe. Her tone remains impersonal, if not unfriendly; it sounds like an interview question, if anything. ]
no subject
But he doesn't, always. Like now, when he seems content to come off as some asshole interrupting your day for no reason at all. ]
Sometimes Aries lets me shine her shoes. [ he answers with a faux-modest shrug. ] Why, are you hiring?
no subject
[ A quick answer, accompanied by a very slight lift of her brows. Also, not completely true; she's always hiring, in the sense of training operators.
But here, now, she's off duty. Sitting alone in this incredibly dull room is what taking a break looks like. It's obvious that she's at home here, all nonchalance despite the interruption. She watches him for another quiet moment before continuing, gaze sliding back to the screen that's now on her right. ]
I was going to suggest you find one, but not everyone takes satisfaction in hard work.
[ Based on his demeanor, she doubts work would make him any less bored. Not the kind of work you find in the real world, anyway. ]
no subject
Even you need more than that. [ With a pointed slide of his eyes to her many quiet little monitors - which she may not even actually see, as she's apparently and justifiably more interested in said monitors than his face, but nonetheless. Indulgence takes many forms, after all, some less flashy than others. ]
She has a request of you. [ Aries, presumably. ]
no subject
[ A simple statement, no pity or intrigue implied by it. As for that not-so-flashy indulgence, it appears to hold her interest; she doesn't look back to Jack, and the only sign of curiosity is the slight lift of her voice. ]
Oh?
[ She's curious. It's just that deadpan's kind of a default mode, and even her curiosity tends to come out muted. ]
no subject
One of the recently unplugged seems a good fit for you.
[ Or, she seems a good fit for however it is the Councillor would prefer this individual handled - quietly, perhaps, given the unofficial and at least superficially casual nature of the request, although there is a careful, weighted stare to accompany it, in the reflection of the nearest pane of glass. ]
If you can find the room in your busy schedule.
[ Of staring at nothing. ]
no subject
Come here.
[ Yes, she'll take the newbie, of course. Alex doesn't actually feel the need to say as much, because following Aries's advice seems like the obvious move. She sits back further in her chair as she speaks, making room for him to easily look over her shoulder as she reaches out and hits the flat keyboard in front of her.
The screen flicks on. A series of graphs, all in motion, charting what seem to be sounds. Her hand moves to her ear a moment later, removing a wire-thin ear bud from where it's been hidden beneath her hair.
Still not bothering to look at him, for the record. She's just assuming he'll follow suit. ]
no subject
What?
( --which is not especially gracious. )
no subject
Apparently you can.
[ Which isn't particularly sympathetic, either, just an idle note spoken out loud. There's a very slight hint of amusement in it that doesn't reach her features. ]
My name is Alex. Can you tell me my name?
no subject
Your name is Alex.
( she is familiar with coming around to people testing her cognition, anyway. or she thought she was. )
no subject
[ Gold star. Said with the passivity of a nurse making a checklist, something she's done far too many times before. She finally eases off the pressure on the woman's shoulder, but she doesn't back away from the table. ]
And your name?
no subject
the flicker of irritation across her face - unused muscles unaccustomed to guarding expressions - has more to do with that vulnerability than the question. )
Enfys. E-N-F-Y-S. Llewelyn. Born July 26th, 1975. My favourite colour is red and I like long--
( a brief coughing fit interrupts. )
--walks on the beach.
no subject
Good luck finding one of those.
[ She leans away for a moment, retrieving something off a nearby tray. When she next speaks, it's accompanied by the touch of her hand sliding around to the back of Enfys's neck — like one would cradle a baby, basically. ]
Sit forward, slowly. Drink this.
[ This being the small cup of water she's got in her other hand, which she'll offer up as soon as Enfys seems to have her bearings enough to take it. ]
no subject
or about how much thought has to go into getting her hands to respond to her - or the fact she has to use both, when she lifts them up to the cup. this is actually bullshit, she reflects, and-- well, it won't always be. it's the same body, if...not exactly the same, as it turns out, so this is temporary. this is just the first part.
she just has to get through this part, is all. )
I'm guessing they don't pay you enough.
( she doesn't imagine everyone's as cooperative. )