TEST DRIVE MEME #6

[sailmods]

1. took a time-traveling ride

[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 aboard! I'm so happy you could join us!

[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. so many dragons lurking out in the fog

[the cabins closest to the laundry room door will notice first. the steady hums and thuds of the machines, muffled by walls, are growing louder and louder, until it almost sounds like someone is bashing them against the wall. soapy water leaks from under the closed door, drips from the sides.

until someone is dumb enough to open it.

it’s a flash flood of detergent, a wave of foam and hot water feet high spilling forth and bringing down and along anything caught in its path. you’d think it would be a quick burst, that once whatever had built up in the room was released, the torrent would subside. but, it doesn’t. and a river of half-washed socks overtakes the hallways.]

3. I need protection from the things in my head

[The Infinite Tommy Bahama, everyone’s favorite destination for laid-back island sophistication, is a bit of an odd duck on the Promenade. and not just because it’s seemingly shoved between two extant locales, or because it’s a clothing store among bars and restaurants. for some reason, the unseen spirits that attend the other bars and shops, doing the routine duties necessary to keep such places running, seem to avoid this one, and it shows. clothes that are taken off the racks are not put back on again, leaving increasingly large piles of floral print and polyester blends in every aisle.

and that is where he is born.

there’s just so many piles. and they all look pretty much the same, each as tacky as the one next to it. it would be hard to notice that one has moved while your back was turned to it. difficult to realize that a singular pile has started stalking you through the stacks and racks. until it’s too late to turn back, until you’ve lost sight of the entrance, and the piles of discarded slacks and blazers seem to conglomerate into one massive beast, which rises from the polished wood floors and throws its weight upon its hapless victim.

the bahamanal strikes.]

Comments

[perihellion]

Relief. SecUnit is here. Perihelion returns acknowledgement -- it can't triangulate the ping, but if SecUnit is here, the environment is nominally habitable for organic life. If SecUnit is here, its crew must be safe. Perihelion does the emotional equivalent of brushing itself off, though it's still floating in an inputless void of nonsense data.

// Something forced a catastrophic shutdown. My systems are not yet back online and my memory archives are in disarray --

Oh fuck no.

// Have I been compromised? Where are my crew?

[serialskiller]

// Complicated. Everything here is complicated. Your crew is not here. You have been...stolen. So have I.

If ART is here, it's in a form that can fit on the ship, and that's what's causing a lot of the errors, and it knows this, but that is the most frightening thing in the world to try to explain.

// Try to ignore the memory errors right now, and just pay attention to sensory inputs. I know this is going to be strange, but open your eyes.

[perihellion]

Stolen.

They have both been stolen.

Perihelion does not understand what is going on.

Perihelion does not like not understanding what is going on.

SecUnit, I am a transport. I do not have eyes. You're compro

Something changes in the flood of nonsense input. Perihelion hunts down the source -- something internal, a rhythmic expansion and contraction, a shift against its exterior --

// Fuck.

It's breathing.

[serialskiller]

// Compromised, am I? Look, this isn't going to make sense at first. None of this is. It's...beyond the scope of anything within our universe.

But I'm here. I've been here for more than 5,000 hours, and I'm willing to share my observations with you. But I need to find you, first. I want to see...

...what's been done to it, what form it's taken, that it's okay...

...where you've been put, for living quarters. We're on a vessel, right now. A transport, of sorts.

[perihellion]

// What do you mean, we're on a transport? *I* am a transport.

Never mind the "breathing" thing. Perihelion is the superior transport here! This is insulting. Also, having to admit that SecUnit is right is annoying.

But it broadcasts a signal beacon onto the feed. SecUnit should be able to triangulate its location.

// Any data you can share would be appreciated.

// "Within our universe." Then we are outside our universe of origin?

protection from the things in my head

[crushed_pearls]

Erin has taken lately to trying to explore the Infinite Tommy Bahama - not to map it, but to try and get a sense for how it 'looks', hoping to acclimate herself to the way it relates to the ship community and perhaps unlock the god-like power to fucking select her own clothing with any degree of confidence. This isn't the first time someone else has been here too, but this one's so goddamn excited to be here. Not even Johnny had been this happy to be here and Erin suspects that Johnny's relationship to fashion is not unlike hers to fencing. The sheer curious interest generated inside one (1) Erin Peters is enough to make her uncharacteristically shy, and to hesitate to approach.

But Erin Peters' momma didn't raise no bitch and neither did the Patriarch or King Arthur. She's just sucked up her courage to approach when she notices something wrong. There's a knot in this place, something of it but not the same as it. What is that -

- It's moving.

It's lunging.

Erin's boot and Wyrd move faster than her brain; she kicks a rack into the bahamanal with enough force to stop a speeding semi truck, an event the rack does not survive even a little. The beast goes tumbling, colors-over-whites, and scrambles for purchase on the smooth floor.

"Time to leave!" Erin calls out, racing to place herself between the new arrival and the creature.

[serialskiller]

// I know how this is going to sound, but we're in an artificial universe created by an evil quasi-omnipotent entity called the Captain.

Soon there's a knock on Perihelion's cabin door.

[perihellion]

Oh, it's fauna! Perihelion has never experienced fauna like this. On the outside, and not mediated through a video link, and on a very, very different scale relevant to its own body. It's camouflaged itself (adapted for?) this engineered environment. Fascinating --

By the time Perihelion thinks to consider this thing an antagonistic artillery ship rather than 'fauna', in terms of the relative danger it poses, it would already have been ... engulfed? Shredded? Whatever a Bahamanal does to its prey. Luckily, a human(? given its own circumstances, Perihelion can't assume) intervenes.

Unluckily, Perihelion hasn't mastered the whole 'operating an organic body' thing. Its attempt to retreat is mostly stumbling, especially since it's still more interested in the creature than escaping.

[perihellion]

// I have a captain. I'm not available.

Perihelion's feed-voice is sulky. Yes, the entity is probably calling itself a captain in relationship to its human and/or augmented human and/or construct captives. Perihelion still takes particular offense.

// The University of Mihira and New Tideland has a theoretical physics department. I am familiar with the concept. Pause. Irritably, I could say more if I had access to my archives.

It spends the short time before SecUnit arrives trying to integrate its new inputs. The knock gives it an anchor for its audio (it is extremely strange to receive external audio input). A moment later it pattern-matches the sound to the media it recalls (why that, and not any more pertinent information?) It's a knock, on a door. It's in a room. Inside a room.

Perihelion has never been inside anything before.

Limbs are an absolutely stupid way to move, Perihelion decides, as it hits the floor with a graceless thud. At least its body seems to have some internal subroutines for doing so -- enough, at least, for it to lurch to its feet (because it has feet), and catch itself on the wall next to the door rather than slam into it face-first (because it has a face).

... it doesn't know how to open a door that isn't part of it, either.

Ugh. SecUnit will never let it live this down. // How do I operate this?

[serialskiller]

// Press nearest appendage against handle until it turns downward, then pull the whole door inward.

It adds a quick video file from memory of it doing the exact motion it's describing.

// And you not being available really doesn't matter, here.

[perihellion]

It's a manual door. Now Perihelion feels slightly less embarrassed.

Slightly.

It's not used to feeling embarrassed, either. This is added to the rapidly-growing list of things Perihelion does not like.

When the door opens, SecUnit will see Perihelion's favorite human, Iris -- a slim, dark-skinned woman in her twenties, with tightly-coiled black hair. Her feed ID, however, is blank. Because this is a twin, or close enough; the consciousness in residence is a (greatly reduced) Perihelion.

Perihelion squints up at it. // You look very different from this angle.

[serialskiller]

Murderbot snorts and responds aloud. "So do you. I'd say to go look in a mirror, but you won't be able to turn around and go to the bathroom right now."

Thanks to that compulsory muster drill thing.

[crushed_pearls]

Ah fuck. Shit. Fuck. A lot of decisions get made in a split second. Erin wants to reach for her weapon but the new arrival isn't exactly running away competently and that makes covering a retreat -

Fuck it.

"Sorry for touching you," is all the warning the new arrival gets before Erin scoops it up in one motion while running past, in a move somewhere between getting tripped, getting dipped by a dancing partner, and getting snatched by an Ogre.

Erin leaps and lands stop a rack with Perihelion in a princess carry. There's no earthly way it should support their weight, and yet Erin is off to the races anyway, boots ringing against metal as she leans from rack to rack to rack.

The entrance. Get out into the narrow corridors where the big boy has to squeeze. Go go go go go go -

Theo Crawford | OC, Return Journey CRAU

[sanctus_dei]

[The Peregrine had docked at a station, wardens and prisoners alike lined up to transfer to different prison ships in the Admiralty's fleet. One would think that considering his big botched escape attempt not all that long ago, he'd step in line and stay there, literally and metaphorically. Instead, he panics. He'd gone through so much in the last six months, had come far in his own estimation, and now they were pulling the rug out underneath him thanks to the Navarch's mishandling of their situation. He can't start over. He can't go through all this anguish again with new inmates, new wardens. He wasn't ever going to get out of prison, he convinced himself, no matter how many times the wardens offered to work with him in order to make it happen.

So, he bolts. Again.

He picks a moment when the warden and crews look most distracted, and just runs for it. He doesn't know where he's going in this space station. Whether he is going to stow away on some ship, any ship that isn't a prison one, or hide in the station until the coast seemed clear. Problem is, while Theo was better off than he was 6 months ago upon arrival, he's still a stick-thin waif of a kid without an ounce of muscle mass who had been actively dying just months earlier, and who's currently in a panic.

He runs, and he runs. Light gets dim, his heart pounds a little too hard, and just as he ducks around a corner, he passes out.]

1.
[A slight young redhead in a tailored black suit stands on the deck looking both bewildered and exhausted. He's looking at the lei that was just thrown over his head, brow furrowed. A strange cruise ship that he's woken up on with no explanation, greeted by a strange faceless entity, compelled to participate in group vacation activity?]

I... I died again. This is Hell. Right? Hell.

2.
[Theo isn't dumb enough to open strange doors with suspicious noises going on behind them, but hey, maybe you are! And now you're headed down a rushing tide of water and laundry through this small hallway where Theo just happened to be headed down. You crash into all 110 pounds of him like a wrecking ball and are both tumbling out of control until you luckily catch yourself in a doorway. Theo is hanging on to you for dear life, while also looking furious.]

WHAT THE HELL--?!

3.
[Eww, colors. Hawaiian prints. Shorts! All this stuff is downright offensive to this boy's sensibilities. At least the sunglasses seemed normal, so he peruses the rack as behind him builds the sinister Bahamanal! He turns around only just in time to be faced by this monstrosity, and he's completely helpless. No weapons, no abilities, nothing. Theo used to fear little, but since the Peregrine prison ship locked away his spellcasting ability and never gave it back, he's defenseless. He glowers at the brightly patterned beast, but steps back while keeping his eye on it.]

Fuck. Just-- f-fuck off, okay?!

[Care to help out this lone skinny teenager before he's consumed whole by beach fashion?]

[ss_buttcrack]

Her level of understanding catches him by surprise and he's suddenly needing to clear his throat to remove the lump forming there.

"Yeah. It was. At first. But I made friends. You know, my crew. We've been through hell together and I couldn't have asked for better." Okay, maybe excluding Rygel, but still.

"I miss them now too..."

[ring_for_giles]

I do what I can

[ It's said modestly, but it's true nonetheless. It gives him great satisfaction to help others, so he does what he can, and a new arrival is one of the easier things to help with. ]

Mm, this is good. You certainly know your fish.

[ He'll take a moment just to enjoy the eel, eyes closing to focus on the taste. Once he's had a moment though, the curiosity is back ]

If you don't mind my asking, what's the place you come from like?

[not_the_last]

"That sounds nice," she says, unconsciously wistful. "Although, well. Not the part about missing them now."

1.

[makesomedeals]

Everyone says that upon arrival. It causes me to wonder why you believe you deserve such a fate?

[The speaker is behind him, a slender mechanical being wearing a black suit that cost more than most cars. His red eyes are trained on Theo, studying him.]

[sanctus_dei]

[If anyone looks like they might have been dragged back from the dead and dropped off here, Theo qualifies. The sad thing is that he looks a lot better than he did six months ago. A pale, gaunt slip of a young man, dark red hair combed back, and a style of suit that dates him to the 1940s. It's a fairly nice one, anyway.

He's not sure what to make of the being that just approached him, but he's seen some things in his short life. We can just add this to the pile. Theo's face goes through a few frustrated emotions before he speaks, but he bites it back for now. Mostly.]

Cuz, I passed out 'n woke up here. Cuz if this was Heaven, someone somewhere fucked up pretty bad. My guess is either I died or got kidnapped. Dunno why anyone would bother with the latter, so it's gotta be the former. How's that.

1

[stalksthedarkness]

Nah, this isn't hell. Hell is a place overrun with a bunch of critiques looking to forward to tearing apart your next, written material. With a side of a woman in her 50's that won't shut up about her ex. And no matter what you do, you're stuck in your cabin listening to her for the next several hours. Or being run off the road by some of Chicago's finest, and into a nearby ditch filled with manure!

[Spoke a very loud, and obnoxious looking, older man. The guy didn't look like he had much of a fashion sense going on. Worn out Adidas that looked like they might fall apart any second. And a ragged, straw fedora that looked last century, even by Kolchak's time.

Everything he said sounded oddly specific.]

Nah, where we are ain't hell. And believe me- Believe! Me! I've seen Hell, and this ain't it!

[sanctus_dei]

[Theo doesn't even know what to make of this. He's almost distracted by the way the guy is dressed - very 1920s, minus those sneakers. There'll be time for that later though.

The teen starts and stops saying something a couple of times before finally forming words. He sounds rather exhausted. This is a good thing, really. It means he's out of energy to be belligerent as usual.]

Then what is this. What is... [He waves a hand at his lei, then the boat around them.] If you ask me, Hell's probably big enough for this plus all the shit you mentioned.

2

[stalksthedarkness]

"You uh... you okay there?"

Great, another crazy. Or maybe he was the one that had finally went nuts, and everyone else is sane. Kolchak would be surprised. Not one bit. But, well, watching... whoever this is just kind of plop down into the soapy waters.

Waters that continue.

And continue.

And... alright, yeah this is not normal. Sanity be damned, this was a complete flood... a complete tsunami of laundry, and soap, and water! All soaking his pants (his good pants), his shirt (his good shirt), and his poor, poor, worn down shoes (his good shoes). He might be acting overdramatic here.

"Never mind. We should go, we should really get moving."

[teethoftherisk]

[Siffleur nods - he does. He struggles with many things, but food is something he has always understood well, be it caught in the wild, or served in a restaurant. Meat is what he knows best.

Giles' question makes him stop and reflect. He has already lived between two worlds, but they were the same place, just two different ways of existing in it. How to understand where he came from against other places? He no longer knows what other people would consider 'normal'.]

I don't know what ordinary is to you, but it felt ordinary to me. Cities full of people. Wilderness full of animals. I lived in both but mostly in the wild. Mostly as an animal. The only person who was ever like me was my mother. Everything else stayed in one shape. I read stories about creatures like me, but not me - werewolves, skin changers, shapeshifters. Never could be sure if they were real. Never met anyone who could do magic. Lots of technology - cars, computers, cell phones, planes - but nothing felt impossible.

What was your place like?

[stalksthedarkness]

How should I know? I just got here myself.

[Annoying, it was all annoying, and worrying, and scary, and Kolchak wanted to get to the bottom of it all. It would make for one hell of a story back home. Not that Tony would actually believe a word of it.]

One minute I was taking a nap during a slow day at the office. Next I know, bam, I'm here.

[It reeked to high heaven of a slip in time and space. That much was obvious. Because of course it is in his mind.]

'Side's, Hell's filled to the brim and overflowing. Why there's as many problems in the world right now as there is.

[He fingers his own lei. It wouldn't surprise him any if there was something... well, special about it. Perhaps he should get rid of it?]

[makesomedeals]

[Oh the patented face journey, Max watches with amusement as he tries to settle on an emotion. Humans are so entertaining.]

You've heard that the simplest explanation is often the correct one, yes? What seems more probable: that you're in Hell and I am Satan, or that you've been kidnapped and taken somewhere you do not recognize?