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

[serialskiller]

[Murderbot stands a little straighter when gestured at with the reptilian corpse. This, this is the sort of behavior it's accustomed to from humans (yes, yes this isn't a human, but the Doctor is bossy like one). Informational questions, none about feelings or shit like that.]

Around four thousand hours. Yes, I did break into a slot machine to see its contents. Other machinery is likewise hollow--I'd guess that this claw machine wouldn't have any actual motors or circuit cards if you took it apart.

As for being shit at trees, they didn't have any rings if you cut them open, and the texture was off. Some of the others were talking about them not being any recognizable species, and the same for the mushrooms. They were too generic to be real. Set dressing.

[twelfthsong]

[The posture reminds him of many a solider and he raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment on it otherwise.]

Scarily accurate time keeping there. [It's a compliment, we promise.] But since we're here and since there isn't set dressing around how do you feel about helping me taking about this claw machine?

[He starts to move towards the claw machine, spotting the blue police box.] Actually let me try and win one more toy from the machine. No telling what it'll do if we pry it apart. [He moves back in front of the joystick but casts a glance over his shoulder.] Got a name, Frowny?

[serialskiller]

I could have offered the time in another format, but I don't know if months here match up with months wherever you come from. Hours are reliable across polities, usually.

[You know how it is, when planets and moons don't move at the same rate, and corporations take advantage of this to create 20-year labor contracts that are just about lifelong for those doing the working, if they don't read the fine print.]

You can call me SecUnit or you can call me Rin.

[Neither, of course, is a name.]

[twelfthsong]

Quite right. But then, it depends on the universe or planet you go to. Some of them don't even consider hours as a measurement of time. Time can be a soup on the best of days.

[His eyes are set firmly again on the claw machine and its blinking lights.]

SecUnit. Rin. Do you have a preference?

[serialskiller]

[It hesitates. It has spent a lot of time telling people it doesn't care which, and watching as people default to Rin because they don't want to call it by its designation, but...]

SecUnit. I prefer SecUnit. But you should know if you hear people talking about Rin, I'm who they mean.

How are you to be addressed?

[twelfthsong]

SecUnit it is then. No point calling you a name that you don't prefer.

[Him saying that just shows how far he's come; in the past he generally didn't care about people's feelings when he threw out nicknames. It still stands to be seen if 'Frowny' will stick. Maybe 'Sterny' might be better.

The claw whirs out and hovers over the blue police box.]

The Doctor. Or Doctor. Drop the 'The', it makes it very official sounding. Your name suggests you aren't human. Are you?

[serialskiller]

[Sterny's an awfully strong sentiment, when directed to someone who's still holding a pink llama plushie. Or maybe it's an alpaca. Either way, you may need to fight if you want it back later.]

I'm a security cyborg-construct, manufactured with 30% cloned human tissue. No, I'm not human.

There are other doctors on the ship. If you're a medical doctor, then you'll want to meet Dr. Watson and Tendi.

[twelfthsong]

[Maybe they could just call it a alpacama?]

Are you now? That's fascinating. [And he means it even if his Scottish accent makes it seem like he's being sarcastic.] That would make two of us not humans. But I'm more Time Lord and less cyborg-construct and medical doctor. What planet are you from?

[The claw dips into the plushies successfully grabbing a hold of the police box along with a little sheep plushie. With a little more maneuvering and a successful clatter later, he pulls his prizes from the chute.] Now we can take it apart.

[serialskiller]

I was manufactured on a space station, by an insurance company that leased me out as part of their contracts. I prevented loss of equipment and personnel for planetary survey teams, mining sites, and so on.

What's a Time Lord?

[Also, probably more important than matters of its curiosity.]

How did you want to approach disassembling the machine? I have a beam weapon, but that's not the most delicate method possible.

[twelfthsong]

The function begets the name. Time Lords aren't so much different at least when it comes to the naming convention. We - I'm from the Gallifrey and we're meant to look after the Web of Time. Normally we travel through space and time but I seem to be annoyingly grounded.

[He's turning his new prizes over his hand as he contemplates the claw machine.]

I'd normally take it apart with my sonic screwdriver but its been faulty. We could do it the old fashioned way. How did you dissect the other machines?

[serialskiller]

Beat at it with the metal parts of my arm until it gave way. I am not planning to do that again.

[Even if it can dial down its pain sensors, the needed repairs were inconvenient.]

[twelfthsong]

Good lesson to learn but also a shame. It'd be something I wouldn't mind seeing.

[He taps his chin thoughtfully for a moment before he just motions for SecUnit to stay where it is. Minutes later after rummaging around the prize counter the Doctor returns with a small toolkit in hand.]

That leaves the old fashioned way then. Although I must confess a part of me is keen to find out what would happen if I just took a hammer to it. The Captain seems to have thought that far ahead at least.

[serialskiller]

With the firearms in there, I wouldn't want to deliver too much of a shock to the cabinet, anyway. I'd bet you all the credits I have that they're all loaded.

[Not that those credits have any value here, of course.]

[twelfthsong]

So he's awful at trees and machinery but doesn't have a problem with guns? Says a lot about the man running the place.

[He finds a screwdriver easily enough and he's starting to unscrew the screws at the back.]

Is credits the monetary system here? Or is it pink fluffy alpacama's and other various stuffed toys?

[serialskiller]

There is no monetary system here. Credits would be useless until you get to the Corporate Rim.

[As for the stuffed animal, called out. Murderbot hesitates and then puts the alpacama back in the Doctor's pile of winnings. It doesn't really need a plushie anyway, it's a grown bot and certainly doesn't need to hug anything or anyone.]

[twelfthsong]

So you just take things? Is this cruise just a poor experiment in socialism?

[And oh, that's not what he had intended at all. It was just some good natured teasing...from a stern looking man.

The panel comes off pretty easily once the screws are off and he clicks his teeth. The inside is woefully empty with no hardware to speak of. In fact, the inside looks not so dissimilar to the inside of a cardboard box.]

Looks like you were right, come take a look.

[serialskiller]

You have to pretend to pay for things or Friday will bitch at you for stealing. But you don't use any real money to do so. It's weird.

[But unlike some people on the ship, there's no judgment in its tone for Friday herself. For some reason, it kinda identifies with her.

It moves toward the cabinet to peer inside the box.]

Yeah, this is what the slot machine was like inside. Hollow empty.

[twelfthsong]

Likely for the best. I was never the best with money. Too many worlds and currencies to try and remember. [Did he even have any money? He couldn't remember the last time he actually paid for anything.] And this Friday - human? Alien? Construct?

[He hums before hitting the back of his fist against the top. Despite it looking like brushed metal, there's a dull thud similar to that of cardboard.]

How do you feel about liberating the rest of the toys?

[Will it ruin the fun of other people? Potentially. Maybe. But he also just feels the need to take something apart with his hands.]

[serialskiller]

Construct. The captain's creation. He made her to care about the passengers, then forces her to watch us get hurt, to hurt one another. She's...very thoroughly programmed, and he causes her pain when she disobeys him.

[It sympathizes.]

And I don't care what you do with the toys. Though I'd rather the guns didn't just get left out anywhere.

[twelfthsong]

[Well that definitely gets a frown out the Doctor. And here he was thinking she was a plucky sidekick somewhat complying with everything going on.]

I'm assuming her programming doesn't allow her to disobey then? And has anyone tried to help her?

[He's saying all of this of course while grabbing an exactoknife out of the toolkit in an attempt to cut open the underside of the claw machine.]

You did seem to take a liking to the pink alpacama. You can take it if you'd like, I don't need that many toys. Maybe just the yo-yo. We can toss the guns overboard for all I care.

[serialskiller]

Helping her is going to mean releasing the captain's hold on her, somehow. Which none of us know how to do. But. I'm trying to be her friend, at least.

[It doesn't think it's very good at that, yet.]

I don't know what I'd do with the alpacama. I don't really need anything like that.

[twelfthsong]

And how is that going?

[The Scottish accent just makes it sound patronizing but it’s a genuine question.]

Do we ever really need anything though? I had a yo-yo once and I didn’t necessarily need it but it certainly came in handy in a situation you wouldn’t have expected it to be useful. Also you can want something for the sake of wanting something. Like the dead iguana.

[serialskiller]

[Murderbot definitely feels like it's being mocked, both for its attempts to help Friday, and for the plushie. It doesn't respond aloud to any of that, watching the Doctor's hands as he works, still as a statue.]

[twelfthsong]

[It doesn’t really register to the Doctor that Murderbot hasn’t responded and he continues to prattle on. He immediately cuts off mid-sentences though when the knife seems to make a breakthrough. Seconds later he’s pulling out assortment of toys and the like.]

Ah there we go! Not too shabby even without my sonic screwdriver working properly.

[And there are some of the guns. He wrinkles his face in distaste as he pulls them out specifically placing them away from the toys.]

Did you answer me before by the way? How is making friends with Friday going?

[serialskiller]

I don't know. She doesn't seem to be able to talk freely often, so it's hard to judge her feelings on anything accurately. But she did keep something I made her. So.

[It shrugs slightly.]