TEST DRIVE MEME #5

[sailmods]

1. not subtle revealings

[you wake up.

it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.

the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:

Dear Passenger(s),

As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.

At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!

See You Real Soon!

Sincerely,
Gal Friday

you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.

you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]

Welcome! I'm very glad to have you aboard!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.

after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]

2. a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling

[the reflections are missing. all of them. in mirrors. in television screens. on the backs of spoons. nothing looks back at you.

then, figures do show up. not your own, like you'd expect. thin, wispy apparitions, people with pleading eyes and hands, reaching out to place their palms against the surface, from their own end. faces familiar and not, beckoning, mouthing words you just can't quite make out. help me, it might be. get me out, perhaps. just until you're close enough, until your skin warms the surface of whatever it is you're peering into. and then, those same hands wrap, all too real, burning-cold against your flesh, and pull, trying to drag you through the surface, making up for their lack of strength with desperation. any flesh unlucky enough to enter the reflection comes back bone-white and cold, all sensation dead, though it will fade within a few hours.

in retrospect, it looks a bit more like they were saying something different. something more like, better you than me. or maybe it's not even words at all. they look a bit more like they're laughing.]

3. complex mementos

[but, hey. sometimes changes are good! like, today, in Playback, there's a brand-new game available for all the children to play! it's an old-fashioned sort of claw machine, the type that's so large, a particularly dedicated kindergartner could wriggle their way inside. the prizes vary, and sit loose: bags of candy, stuffed toys, firearms, painfully early-00s electronics, actually that one just looks like a dead iguana, tiny ship-branded knickknacks... like all the other games in the arcade, the game starts up automatically upon being touched; lack of quarters shouldn't keep you from having fun! pro tip: they are loaded, and they will go off if you suck at claw games and let it fall.]

Comments

[woocas]

"Now hold up, a different world?" Lucas sounds skeptical but not accusatory. He always tries to meet people where they are, first. The truth always comes to the surface after that. "So this boat is in a different plane or do you mean, like...this Founder's City place is?"

His head hurts. Too bad Miles isn't here to make sense of some of this!

"I'm from Virginia, actually." He pauses, one eyebrow crooking up. "If you've got a Virginia where you're from? Or...hey, does IOPSA sound familiar at all?"

[treadwater]

"Never heard of IOPSA." She's ignoring the question about Virginia entirely for the moment, because it's easier than telling him that she's from the last city on Earth, as far as anyone knows. That Virginia did exist, but probably doesn't anymore.

"Anyway, the running theory is that this is sort of like...a mini-plane, created and sustained by the Captain. That's why there's nothing living in the ocean, and no bottom anyone's been able to reach. He didn't think to put any animals or seaweed or plankton or anything down there. Or seagulls in the sky. Or things like that."

[woocas]

"Hmmm." No IOPSA, at least as far as Undine knows. Lucas doesn't suspect she's lying, especially after the next bit of information. Who would think to make something like that up? It's weird she doesn't say a word about where he's from. Maybe she's not from Earth at all?

"So...it's just water out there? No land at all? We're just stuck in this boat?" Lucas sounds more curious than panicked, feeling out the situation as he goes.

[treadwater]

"There's land when the captain makes places for shore excursions, but those can be almost more obviously artificial than the ship is. He's not good with forests, I'm afraid." There's other issues with the excursions, but since they're just reaching the muster drill, she's going to shut up and watch him witness Gal Friday for the first time.

[woocas]

"I gotta be honest little dude, this is all making my head hurt." And Lucas would have gone a tangent but they're both saved by their arrival on deck.

At first all seems normal enough, Lucas settles in to whatever spot he's directed to. He glances around just as the cheery Gal Friday steps up to run through her spiel and that's the exact moment Lucas's brain shuts down. No face. No identifiable features at all. A blank slate. When Undine said she had no face, she meant it.

It takes longer than normal to realize he's staring. Flustered and embarrassed his gaze darts around Gal as if afraid to look anywhere, heat rises in his cheeks. Eventually he steals a glance in Undine's direction while Gal never misses a beat. Help!

[treadwater]

She did. She did try to warn him. Really.

"She's actually pretty nice. But like. The captain sucks at forests, and kinda at faces too, maybe, I think. At least, that's the best theory I have. He made her. She's his creation. But...she was made to care about us, and he doesn't."

[woocas]

It's fine, he'll adjust. Eventually.

"Maybe?" He whispers and resists the urge to glance at Gal in that moment. The Captain, whoever the hell he is, needs some serious educating.

"Okay, shelf this idea until this is done because I got like a bajillion questions right now." He follows that with an awkward chuckle. "I don't want to stick my foot in my mouth right away, you know?"

[treadwater]

"If Friday gets to you, some of the other passengers might also weird you out. I'm not saying you need a better poker face, but...you might need a better poker face."

After all, Skulduggery is a skeleton, and there's robots and Mizuki is a jellyfishboy...

[woocas]

"Listen, I work with spooks for a living but that doesn't ever mean it's not a little weird. Cut me some slack!"

Although Undine totally has Lucas dead to rights. He'll never win a poker tournament, that much is for certain.

Thankfully he does know how to reel it in. For the most part. Eventually he decides it's best to look where Friday's eyes should be and roll with it as best as he can. Friday doesn't seem to mind, after all!

Once the drill winds down, Lucas twirls his life vest around with a much more easy going grin than earlier. "So, that was sure somethin', huh? You like hanging around for drills or did I really look like that much of a fish out of water?"

[treadwater]

"Look, we've all been there. It's just a nice thing to do, to help out people who are scared and upset and lost. Right? You seem like the sort of guy who might do that for someone else someday, to me."

But she wants to see the best in most people.

[woocas]

"Once I get my bearings, yeah, you got me." Lucas says with a bright laugh. "We could be the welcoming committee or somethin'!"

And now that his legs work again, he picks a random direction on deck and starts meandering. "Right now, you're the expert though. Anything fun to do on this floating tin can?"

[treadwater]

"Well, there's an arcade and a library. And an ice cream shop. A couple of pools and a hot tub. There's places to shop. And some of the people are pretty alright. Not everyone, but some."

She falls into step with him. "Everyone's all from different worlds, too, so there's a lot to get to know about them, not just who they are, but what circumstances they come from. Though...no one I've met so far comes from a world that seems, uh. Good. Like, a good place to be from."

[woocas]

"Sounds like some good things to pass the time," But the whole concept of other worlds? Now there's a doozy of a thought.

"I mean, where I come from ain't perfect by any means, but..." He trails off, shrugging. "Does that mean where you come isn't a good place?"

[treadwater]

Undine doesn't answer immediately, internally kicking herself.

"I thought it was okay, until I got here and started talking to people. Apparently teenage girls aren't expected to fight monsters in most worlds?"

[woocas]

"I mean...Not exactly where I'm from, no." He shrugs, hands splaying out while he talks.

"Is it normal where you come from? Like that kind of thing would be some magical girl cartoon show back home." Which sounds cooler than it probably is. That much he knows all too well.

[treadwater]

"Ah, yes, a cartoon." She lets out a nervous little laugh. "I'm a magical girl. Alchemical Water, when I'm transformed."

[woocas]

"Woah, that sounds...really cool!" And from his tone Lucas genuinely means it, his whole face lights up like he's just met a celebrity.

"I mean fighting monsters, not so much I bet?" Speaking from a different kind of experience, the question is a cautious one. "Do you like it?"

[treadwater]

There's an immediate pivot to a public persona, eyes sparkling and smile almost plastic. "I'm proud to protect the city and the people in it. I see it as an important duty, and a great opportunity to work with my friends."

That is clearly a PR-vetted response, and completely and utterly dishonest.

[woocas]

"Uuuh..." Lucas stares, he can't help it. The tonal shift alone is weird but she's dodging his questions and he's beginning to pick up on it.

"Hah, you got that little speech down pat," Lucas follows this with an awkward laugh, trying to play this off and failing miserably.

[treadwater]

Right, that didn't work at all. She exhales heavily, shaking her head.

"Sorry. I just...um. I lost a bunch of my friends, a couple months ago. My team, but also the best friends I'd had since kindergarten. A monster pretty much ripped our team apart. And every time I tell people this, they're horrified and angry and they cannot believe that that's the kind of world I'm from. The kind of world that I have to go back to, if we ever find a way back home. And like. I knew it was a lot of stress and pressure for a girl my age to be under, but it's what I know. What things have been like in my world for generations. So I don't know how to feel about fighting monsters anymore. But I sure do know how to answer that question for reporters and talk show hosts and stuff."

[woocas]

'But it's what I know.'

That really strikes a chord in Lucas, his smile strained by knowing first hand. "I'm sorry...I know I've been asking some prying questions and you've been nice enough to put up with them. But I do get it."

He looks away, out over the water. Lost in thought for a few long moments before a quiet chuckle breaks it. The kind without mirth. "I mean, I'm no magical girl back home, but I know what it's like to be too young for some horrible stuff. It's hard for people to understand when it's what you do on the daily, and then losing your friends on top of it all. It's really...a lot."

Lucas's gaze drifts back to Undine, managing a lazy, fragile smile again. "I know we just met and all, but if I ever ask too much stuff you can just smack me or something, okay?"

[treadwater]

"I would never smack you. Or anyone. Which is kind of part of the problem. I felt a ton of guilt for soaking a reporter who tried to ambush me right after my team's funeral--I'm, uh. Not good at conflict with people."

It's one of her biggest flaws, but at least she's somewhat aware of it?

[woocas]

"It's not a conflict if you're allowed to do it, right?" He offers a dopey grin, hoping that's selling his point.

"On, uh...a more serious note," His smile softens at its edges, "I'm not like a therapist or anything, but I've dealt with death my whole life so if you need to talk about anything. Well, I'll understand where you're coming from. Okay?"

[treadwater]

She gives him a look like she's weighing him for a moment.

"What if I just really want a hug?" Look, shes a teenage girl, hugs are an essential part of her diet that she isn't getting enough of, here. And he seems like he might be safe enough to ask.

[woocas]

"Yo, how'd you know!? Hugs are the best kind of medicine!" Don't worry Undine, he's a good hugger! Lucas wastes no time throwing his arms out, waggling his fingers in a come here motion.

"Bring it in, little dude!"