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

[businessorlibation]

Yes. The ghosts are almost always upset and acting up in one way or another. But this is a new manifestation of that.

[Six's mannerisms remind Johnny of veterans of the Platinum Wars. There's a certain sort of hypervigilence one learns to recognize. He finds himself quietly certain that this man could be dangerous.]

[sixthdeadliest]

[You didn't get ranked "sixth most dangerous man on Earth" by being unaware of your surroundings.]

Where would you expect them here?

[He's not going to claim "there's no such thing". A hand tried to drag him through a mirror not too long ago. At this point, he assumes all the rules of his world don't necessarily apply.]

[businessorlibation]

There's ghosts working all the restaurants and bars, we know that already. Usually, they're fairly calm about it, though.

[sixthdeadliest]

And when they're not...?

[businessorlibation]

Flying plates and silverware at the buffet. Sushi knives being tossed from inside the sushi bar. Poltergeist behavior.

[He hardly actually knows what he's talking about. Johnny's world is mostly mundane. Mostly.]

[sixthdeadliest]

[A mundane world where nobody has to worry about randomly becoming a monster, most likely. Six had no idea how much he took it for granted until he "woke up" six years later.]

I thought that was the conveyor belt on the fritz.

[businessorlibation]

Things on this ship don't break on accident. It's either the captain trying to make us miserable, or it's the ghosts acting up.

[Okay, he doesn't actually have proof of this.]

[sixthdeadliest]

Given things fix themselves when our backs are turned, that doesn't seem entirely unreasonable.

[Jamming a steak knife into the conveyor belt's mechanism hadn't stopped it from being fixed, after all. Therefore, a "guest" sabotaging the equipment was next to impossible.]

[businessorlibation]

Never a dull moment, here.

I'm Johnny, by the way. Johnny Summer. I'm from an Earth, but considerably earlier in the timeline than most others, and a divergent timeline as well.

[sixthdeadliest]

Six. Also from an Earth but from a timeline where every living thing has been infected by nanites for the past five years that could transform anything they've infected into a rampaging monster without any warning.

[businessorlibation]

There is a pause, a look of recognition in Johnny's eyes. After all, this is not the first time he's heard of nanites, or their effects. Or, for that matter, Six.

"Ah." Well, he doesn't manage to hide his reaction. That's for sure. "Certainly after my point in time, then. Nanites, they don't exist in my world. We've barely created the first computing engine."

He tries to casually pull out his phone to text César.

[sixthdeadliest]

The attempt at subtlety is a red flag in Six's brain.

"If that's a weapon you're going for, think very carefully."

[businessorlibation]

"Phone only. I wanted to let someone know you're aboard." Ironically, this is the second Very Dangerous Man named Six that Johnny's made the acquaintance of on this ship. "I don't flatter myself to think I'd be able to win a fight against you, and I'm not about to start one."

[sixthdeadliest]

"Who?"

Behind the sunglasses, Six kept his eyes locked on to that hand. Just because he said it was a phone didn't mean it was one. After all, his magna blades and special shuriken folded up.

[businessorlibation]

"César Salazar. You're from the same world as him, right?" Johnny doesn't move further, yet, not wanting to provoke Six. His eyes are almost catlike golden.

[sixthdeadliest]

Six relaxed a hair. "He's aware I'm here. We met at the sushi restaurant when the conveyor belt was hurling steak knives."

Which was why he'd made a comment about it being on the fritz.

[businessorlibation]

"You should know, there are people here who care about him very much."

Yes, he knows he can't actually threaten this guy, but at the same time...there's 'teacup poodle growls at German Shepherd' energy here.

[sixthdeadliest]

Six didn't respond to that right away other than to raise an eyebrow and give a slight smirk.

"I take it he's already mentioned me."

[businessorlibation]

“He has. He doesn’t like talking about the state of his world, or himself before arriving here, but you were mentioned.”

Johnny remembers how César was, early on. Functional, self-denying, broken. But with the proper application of a glass of champagne, Johnny had broken through some of that in one fell swoop.

[sixthdeadliest]

"What did he tell you, Mr. Summer?"

Because Six needed some groundwork of what he was dealing with here. If César had been talking about him, there were a lot of potential misconceptions he was going to bump into.

[businessorlibation]

"That you're one of the people who cares about Rex. That you fight EVOs alongside Rex. No personal details or embarrassing secrets, if that's what you're worried about." There's always been a sense that the people who care for Rex had iced César out, and Johnny's priority is making sure no further emotional damage is dealt to his partner.

[sixthdeadliest]

Oh yeah. A ton of misconceptions to correct. And not just about himself. (César, you are one of the smartest idiots Six knows.)

He blew out a soft sigh of frustration. Here we go...

"Based on our earlier conversation, it seems César has been under several very serious false impressions for quite some time now," Six said, trying to be diplomatic but probably not succeeding. "I'm not about to start singing the man's praises any time soon, but he's not as hated as he might have let on. Especially not by his brother."

[businessorlibation]

There's a visible pause. Johnny needs a moment to do some deep social calculus.

"Have you corrected these false assumptions? That's. Something he's been carrying as a weight in his chest for months. No, longer. The man not only thought he was unloved, he thought he was unlovable, to a degree that was completely and utterly unbearable for him."

[sixthdeadliest]

"We discussed it. Particularly after I pointed out that this was Rex we were dealing with." Six folded his hands behind his back. "It was...awkward."

Which was the nice way of saying that César burst into tears and Six had no clue what to do.

[businessorlibation]

"I imagine so. You upended his worldview and reframed his self-image all at once." Johnny can just about guess about the crying. He's cried on César over similar sharp reframings like that, moments that made it clear he wasn't broken, just different.

"I am going to pull my phone out and text him now. Alright?" He doesn't wait for a response before grabbing his phone.