jackin | test drive

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ 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.

[ It's the mature gesture that finally drags Alex out of herself. Her chair gives a low whine as she leans her weight against the back, spinning it on its stand with a smooth push away from the desk.

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. ]

[ Plenty of people don't like him. Which is funny, really, not because everybody doesn't rub somebody the wrong way, or because politicians in particular don't excel at making enemies, but because there is in fact a tiny nugget of genuineness beneath his carefully crafted exterior, and he's already good enough at becoming the kind of person people like, that it's not so difficult to capitalize on that center, if he puts any effort into it at all.

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.

[ 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. ]

[ His face scrunches in a You sound like my father and that's terrible sort of look, if looks could be quite that specific, or at least some kind of mild but animated revulsion. Alex pls. ]

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. ]

I'm used to less.

[ 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. ]

[ Truth be told, he does wonder if she could sound any less enthusiastic, but giving voice to that curiosity skirts a little closer to earning Aries's eventual ire than he cares to just now. This is business, and his demeanor adjusts accordingly, however minutely. ]

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. ]

[ It crosses her mind that this is all a waste of time. Waking people up, showing them the ropes. But saying as much would probably lack tact, so instead she says: ]

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. ]

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