test drive meme: november 2019

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Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

▶ Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

▶ All TDM threads can be considered game canon, and current players are welcome to either top-level on the TDM so prospective players can tag them, or use the prompts for logs or network posts on the communities. All threads on the TDM can be used for Activity Check.

a. the truth hurts.

As though everything happening in the past month wasn't enough, there's been a minor explosion in one of the labs. No one hurt, if you don't count the hapless maintenance bot that caused the explosion in the first place.

But there are gases drifting through the laboratories, some of them making their way into the air vents, invisible to the purifiers in the system thanks to the explosion. And those gases are leaking into the air around Anchor, little pockets of danger waiting to be breathed in.

Those who breathe the gasses in might be the unluckiest Anchorites of all.

They're stuck telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth for the next five hours, give or take. Good luck with that!

b. retromedia.

Oblivious to what's going on inside Anchor, the shift rages outside, bringing shadows of things and places from other worlds, those things flickering into existence and out of it again.

The bad news is that the Whole Foods is gone.

The good news is the shift left something behind in its place.

A long, squat building, with cement walls painted over with stucco and punctuated by big windows. A flat roof with slanted sides, painted a deep blue. In bold yellow letters bolted to the roof, a sign:

BLOCKBUSTER
The sliding doors are broken, bouncing open and shut steadily, but the inside is clean and well-stocked with rack upon rack upon row upon row of VHS tapes, all of them neatly packaged in plastic boxes. Some of them have the movie covers on them, but most bear the Blockbuster logo and tiny labels running down the back, declaring the box's contents. There's a giant, somewhat busted up standee of Tim Allen as The Santa Clause, flickering holiday lights strung unevenly from the ceiling, and symbols of various seasonal holidays stuck up along the walls and windows.

Any movie you could possibly want lies within, or at least any movie you could possibly want that was released on Earth during or before 1994. And don’t worry if you can't find a VHS player in Anchor! There are whole shelves of VCRs tucked into one of the closets, apparently part of an aborted plan to rent out VCRs along with movies.

Poor Blockbuster. They were innovators. And now they're lost to the sands of the red shift.

c. sweet sweet self-care.

While sickness persists inside Anchor's walls, those in recovery seem to be getting better every day. And while the health bots have been working overtime, some of their processes have gotten a little borked up from all the work they've been doing.

Along with medical care, they're now administering lectures to their captive audiences about the value of diet and exercise, the importance of personal hygiene, and the healing properties of massage. Some of them are forcing massages on people just to prove their point, which, y'know, could be a lot worse. At least they're good at massages?

The spa bots are getting in on the action, nagging the healthy to come for relaxation and decontamination in one gloriously bubbly swoop. They've converted several of their spa pools into sweet-smelling antibacterial baths, so you can make extra-sure you got those visiting-a-sick-friend cooties off!

No, seriously, go with them. Before they drag you there and make you take a bath like an unruly two-year-old.

Believe them, it's worth it. If you complete a circuit of the spa, including the antibacterial baths and the fresh and zesty decontamination shower, you get a shiny sparkly holographic sticker that says "YOU ARE FREE OF DISEASE" in little cheerful bubble-letters. They designed them all by themselves, totally from scratch. Are you proud?

d. the network.

Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to ask a friend which 1980s teen movie classic to watch at movie night? Maybe you need to hold your sat phone up to whatever crazy thing you're seeing and send out a recording to double-check if your eyes are deceiving you and what you're looking at is real?

Whatever the reason, the network is going strong, so feel free to include a post to it in your top-levels.

Navigation.

Comments

[nothinglikefather]

"This is not rough."

This is nice and friendly in comparison to how he could be acting. But he relaxes, just a little, setting the other back down onto the ground, his grip still tight.

"How long have you been here? How did you get here? Tell me or I swear, I will get rough."

Or at least, more angry and discontent and likely to hit someone. He doesn't want to resort to that if he can avoid it.

[izzetthough]

"See, you say that. But I've run into enough street thugs in my time to know that 'rough' isn't far behind."

It slips out between his teeth before he can snap them shut, but Ral abruptly has the look of a man who knows he's said more than he meant to. Scowling, he covers but reaching up to straighten his robes, clearing his throat.

"To be honest, I have no idea how I got here. Again. Which for someone who's used to doing this voluntarily is a little disconcerting, I'm not going to lie." One eyebrow crooks higher, observing Jacob's head of steam still threatening to pop.

"And I haven't been here much longer than you have, I'm guessing. Unless you've been wandering around looking that pissed off for a week or better. Though if you have? Well done, you. I didn't take you for one with that kind of stamina."

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob's scowl darkens, and the muscle in his jaw tenses visibly. He clearly doesn't appreciate the comments, growling watch it and showing a great deal more restraint than he had dine when they had met before.

For Jacob, weeks and weeks have passed since he was in the City, Starrick has been killed, he's technically a knight of the realm, and his sister is going to the other side of the world. He's had to mature, and quickly, but maybe some of it had already started, maybe Charles had tempered some of it.

"Do you want me to punch you. Because everything you're saying sounds like please Jacob, punch me in the mouth. "

He takes a breath, trying to control himself. "When did you leave. How long between... between us wrecking your laboratory and you turning up here?"

[izzetthough]

Oh. Don't think he's forgotten about that whole incident, Jacob. The days worth of research and construction that had to be fixed, after the assassins decided to drop in unannounced. He's not bitter or anything. Really.

Brow pinching, Ral's hands fly upwards.

"What a surprise! Jacob Frye can't understand an answer that doesn't involve punching things. I'd say I can't believe it, but I'd be lying," he counters, pressing right back into Jacob's personal space now that he's loose. "It's been a month. Grand total. Your gang? Fell apart, and last I knew Shantytown was a warzone over everyone who still wanted the scraps."

[nothinglikefather]

There's a growl and Jacob snaps. He doesn't care about the lab and he doesn't care that what they did was wrong. He hadn't cared much at the time and too much has happened since. He's angry and upset and desperate for news of his friends and his man, and he didn't need to know what had gone wrong in his absence. He had never wanted to go, he never wanted to abandon them and... There's guilt. Horrible, clawing guilt.

He doesn't care about the man invading his space, and doesn't move back as Ral advances, but he moves to meet him. Grabs him, forces him back into the solid wall behind. He wants to hurt someone, wants to punch and punch and punch until his fists are a bloody mess.

"If you think I will hold back from beating you into a pulp, you're wrong. You are going to get me back there. I don't care what you have to do to. Get me back there."

He wants to go back and save those people. He wants to stop them hurting. He wants Charles and Angel and Connor.

[izzetthough]

He could lie. He could promise to work on some sort of way to transport Jacob back to that weird little slice of nowhere they'd both wound up in, the anomaly amongst the planes of existence. Instead, what spills out is the truth.

"I can't, you idiot. You absolute child." He glares back at Jacob even from his position against the wall, fingers curling at his sides as static sparks between them.

"I'm only interested in getting back to where I belong. And that's what I'm going to do. You, and your friends? You're not Planeswalkers. If you go anywhere, it'll be back to wherever it is you came from. Maybe they already did, did you ever think of that? They could be gone. They could be dead, for all we know. You could be going back to nothing at all. I'm not wasting my time finding out."

[nothinglikefather]

He should be better than this. He should be able to resist the taunting and the mocking but he can't. He can't shrug any of those words off and they rain down like shards of ice into his unprotected heart.

And so he punches. Its sweet. Its textbook. It lands right where it should, flats of his knuckles impacting Ral's face.

It relieves momentary tension. But it's fleeting. And so he hits again.

"They. Aren't. Dead."

They can't be. He would know in his gut if they were. Poor Angel, he knows in her world she already is, because there was no way she could live. Connor, he's lost his father to his own blade, and his people are being killed in droves.

Charles. Charles has lost so many of his friends, all the people he had started to think of as family. He can't be gone, because he's a good man in a terrible world and without people like him, there's no hope.

[izzetthough]

He can feel the bones in his nose crunch with that first hit, before the pain spikes through him. He can't see for a moment, vision white, dazing him for a few seconds. Right, I forgot. Pain hurts.

Should have lied. Why hadn't he?

The second hit smacks him in the jaw, jerking his head to the side and splitting his lip, and he spits blood before jamming a hand up into Jacob's ribcage as hard as he can. He's not a brawler. He'd lose any hand-to-hand fight, and has on many occasions.

That's why he doesn't fight fair.

And Jacob gets a one-way ticket flying back across the floor, courtesy of a jolt of lightning that pulses out of Ral's gauntlet and through that closed fist.

[nothinglikefather]

He'd not forgotten about the lightning, he'd known it was there. True, it's been a couple of months for him, to get over the exact and immediate sharpness of all that current running through him, but thanks to Starrick, he can work through it.

He is up on his feet within a heartbeat, and feels...

He doesn't feel better. But he doesn't have to think about this. Not in the same way he has to think about his friends. This is a release, of sorts, and he'll grab it with both hands.

How quick can that thing shoot another blast? He supposes he'll find out, charging forward again with the express aim of trying to slice some of those wires, puncture the glass lightning container, or somehow put that gauntlet out of action. And then hit the bastard again.

[izzetthough]

Ral's not sure what's gotten into him but frankly? He doesn't care. His days of letting himself get thumped into the dirt over someone else's issues are long done, and he hadn't care for them much when they were around.

So, swiping the blood from his nose, his teeth flash in a warning grin, waiting for Jacob to almost get within arm's reach before the electrostatic accumulator whirred and crackled to life once more. He tastes the metallic-sweet against the back of his teeth, the familiar hum in his veins, and another blast centers right at the assassin's chest.

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob is too close to dodge away, and the blast this time knocks him completely off his feet and forces him across the floor for a yard or two.

He doesn't jump back up but stays down, a sharp pain in his chest, a shortness of breath that he knows is dangerous, the uneven beat of his heart he remembers from Starrick's use of the First Civilisation shroud. He does not want to run into that amount of force again.

He gets slowly, carefully, to his feet. His heart still thuds irregularly, and he doesn't dare approach Ral again. But running away isn't an option.

[izzetthough]

"You done?"

Ral's panting, but he looks ready to throw another bolt at him if he tries it again. And he might. Boy isn't much in the way of smarts, and strikes him as exactly the sort of guy who threw himself bodily at the problem until it broke or he did.

Wouldn't have done badly with the Gruul Clans. They're dangerous idiots, too.

[nothinglikefather]

The guy is a selfish arsehole. He only cares about getting himself out and fuck everyone else. It makes his blood boil but that doesn't help, not when he feels like he's been on a terrible bender.

"Anyone ever told you that you're a bastard? Have you never wanted to help anyone that isn't yourself?" He snaps back, trying again to shift and grunting with the effort.

He just wants them back. That's all he wants.

[izzetthough]

"Oh. This is where you try and claim the moral high ground? That's rich." He turns his head, spitting another mouthful of blood onto the floor before lifting his chin.

"Sorry to disappoint. But I've got a lot more riding on this than a handful of people I happen to like. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you? You just want to cling to whatever world will have you, as long as you get your happy ending."

"So I'm gonna make things really clear, right now. If it meant leaving you and your friends stuck here to get back to them? Yeah. I would. And I'd sleep well that night, because I know what's at stake is bigger than just me, or you, or them. There's an entire world, hundreds of thousands of people, that I have a responsibility to, and I'm not going to let them down."

[nothinglikefather]

"I've heard bullshit like that all my life mate. You try and do that alone, and you'll get kicked in the balls every time."

He manages to stand now, heart still besting hard and oddly, bruised against his ribs.

"I'd rather have them. You can't save the world or all the people in it by yourself. Whatever war you're fighting isn't going to end because of you. It probably won't end ever. That's the truth of it. I'd rather die with them than on my own."

He steps forward, but his fists aren't raised. He's angry and he hurts, but this bastard won't make that go away.

[izzetthough]

It wasn't so many years ago that he felt the same. Having someone you'd live and die and kill for? Someone you'd sell your soul for? He knows that feeling. He knows where that feeling gets you, too, the memory seared into his skin just under his ribcage. Jacob still believe in it, though, that's clear. Nothing but truth in that angry stare.

Which almost makes Ral laugh, lips twisting upwards. It doesn't last long.

"You've killed your fair share, right? How many of them do you think thought they were going to have their friends beside them, in the end?"

The lines around his face harden, tense. "We're all going to die alone."

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob has been hurt. He has been hurt by his father and his sister and by Pearl and by Roth. All people that he has loved in one way or another, or begun to love, and then been betrayed by. He knows that stab and twist and he knows that he will feel it again, most likely.

But not from Charles or Angel or Connor. He trusts them. He would fight and die for them, in the effort to get back to them. Like they would fight for him.

"If you think that, you're an idiot. There's a difference in being alone and being unloved." Jacob replies. He knows the people he's killed die alone. That's because he planned it that way, but there's a difference to being away from the people you love and being alone. He knows Pearl was mourned and missed, despite the evil in her. He knows that that prick Lord Cardigan was hailed a hero in the papers the next day.

So Ral is wrong. But the man clearly can't see that.