TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[sailmods]

1. now it's fun to wake up in a strange chateau

[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! We're so glad to have you!

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

2. messing with my mind was fun at the time

[freshly lei'd, your legs are forced to lead out onto the deck and towards your muster station. the same woman is there, carrying a clipboard. this time, she introduces herself as Gal Friday, the cruise director, before immediately going into the muster drill spiel. it is very boring, and you are not allowed to move, except when you are required to show you know how to put your life vest on. you could try to not do this, but Friday will move to stand in front of you very closely and just. look in your direction until such a time that you decide to do it. and I'm sure your fellow passengers want you to just get on with it, too.

but, once it ends? she reiterates her desire to welcome you aboard. and, then, you're free.

well, free to move about the ship at your own leisure, of course. which is a kind of free, and probably the best one you can hope for. you could try to escape, maybe, if you have the means to; Friday certainly won't be one to stop you. that's what the barrier is for, after all.

but, wouldn't you much rather have fun?

the buffet is full. the pool is open. the casino jingles and chimes.

welcome aboard.]

3. lots of mystery in the history of the devils I knew

[you were never alone.

a few days have passed since you first arrived on the Serena Eterna. perhaps you've made yourself a little routine, and settled in a bit. or maybe you haven't done that at all. either way, you're here, and it looks like somebody is pretty pissed off about it.

it starts small. sometimes nearby plates skid off tables, or a pool chair upends while you're walking next to it. and sometimes that chair is aimed right at your head. objects are moving with quickly increasing frequency, and a wide variety of styles: some are dropped, or pushed, and others and others are tossed, but a few of the items are thrown, with great force and odd accuracy. if Friday is around during the lighter moments, she simply titters and cleans up whatever mess is made. if a pot of soup sails off the buffet line and nearly drenches you in boiling minestrone, she simply walks away.

and then there's the voices. hundreds, maybe thousands, calling out. not all are intelligible English, but you seem to understand them anyway. some sound scared, or angry. some are screams, others whispers. some sound entirely strange, while others are achingly familiar. and they're all saying the same exact thing:

Get Out.]

Comments

[skaikru]

You said leaving is one of the few impossible things to do around here. So what are the others?

[palfriday]

Oh, but isn't it better to think about all the things it isn't impossible to do...?

... I suppose it is pretty hard to die forever. Some people manage it, though!

[deathroadtocanada]

But-

But I'm not with them.

marshmallow gals

[withsadness]

That sounds perfect!

[The voice comes from below him, where little Mary beams back upward. She might have not even been the one he'd poised the question to, but she sure is the one who answered. With absolutely no ulterior motive, she adds:]

You should make one for her to say hello and be nice, and then make extra for me!

[No hidden agenda whatsoever.]

[neverreallyalone]

She's closer, and a shiver races down his spine in answer, but he's being ridiculous. Paranoid in the wake of being home again. She's dressed far too old to not be a ghost, but then if he's in limbo that only makes sense, right?

"I haven't, no," he answers, offering a sympathetic smile. "But I can help you look for him if you want?"

[yourotherleft]

[consider things satisfied, as Zoro completely switches gears and flops onto the nearest booth with his drink]

Busy chasing women. [snort] Nah, I just sorta woke up here right after that, so if anything else happened, I dunno. I mean, this could all be a dream and I'll wake up again with Chopper next to me or something.

[deviledlegs]

[Sanji blinks. That sure is a cute voice, but where could it be coming from? Slowly, his gaze drops, and he meets the sparkling eyes of a little girl not yet blessed by puberty. He kind of wants to sigh, but then again, she just asked to try one of his drinks, so maybe he can forgive her for being a tiny.

A calloused hand reaches down to ruffle her hair.]

Right, right? I knew I had this figured out. Then all that's left is to find the nearest grocery and get to work!

[Do cruise ships even have groceries? Well, he's seen the dining hall. He knows the place serves food, so they must be getting supplies from somewhere.]

You up for a treasure hunt, kid?

[deviledlegs]

[He can't argue! Even though, technically, he was busy chasing a mouse for a woman. Same difference.]

Hm, so even marimos engage in wishful thinking from time to time. [He exhales a wispy column of smoke.] It may not have been a pinch, but those swords of yours packed a serious punch. Hate to break it to ya, but this shit's real.

Someone's picked us up and shipped us off during the fray.

[myagic]

[The name on its own doesn't explain a thing to Rita, though she does commit it to memory.

Far more important is Clarke claiming they're old discoveries--just how old, Rita wonders--and somewhere between disbelieving and stunned, she's probably making a pretty weird expression when Clarke even says she was born on a spaceship.]

What...what do you mean, what year? Don't tell me you're trying to say you're from the future or the past or something! This isn't a fairy tale!

[Before she even knows it, Rita's letting her frayed nerves get the better of her. This all has to be some...delusion, right?]

[myagic]

What?

[She knows it's the calamity they found out about in Myorzo, but she doesn't understand what he means, exactly--which spikes her annoyance.]

What do you mean, disappear overnight? Or about stopping it? As long as we find a way to keep the aer from going too far out of balance, it shouldn't even appear in the first place!

[myagic]

[Okay, that's distracting as hell because Rita keeps wondering how Friday even knows where to look. It's also annoying that her magic isn't working as a threat, because she isn't going to actually torture someone for answers.]

If I don't agree to it, that's called kidnapping! And you still haven't said why! And where is this boat even going?!

[myagic]

[It's his fault for being in the library! Somehow. Rita turns to glower at him, hands on her hips, and automatically retorts-]

Shut up, it's obvious I wasn't talking to the books!

[Or shouting. None of the other mages in Aspio get so annoyed that she notices when she makes a fuss in the library.]

[lightconductor]

"Incredible," Watson says, with a disbelieving shake of his head. "I would never have... Now, see here. Water. Eat some of the nuts. We cannot get distracted on this matter, no matter how many other fabulous things might be in front of us."

There's a touch of his Stern Doctor Voice, there, which of course has a bit of Stern Army Surgeon mixed in. Just a bit.

"What does one do with a photograph that is on your telephone?" he asks. "What if you want it in a frame, or do people of 2013 not do that anymore?"

[yourotherleft]

[Zoro eyeballs him over his glass. Hmm. Interesting conclusion, although the path to it seems reasonable. Gotta think. And drink.]

Yeah, and how'd they manage that? Were you out cold, too?

not a typo; GenRex renames all big companies

[pineapplesalmon]

The Stern Doctor Voice is adjacent to the Stern Parent Voice, for which César has a trained response. He sits up a bit straighter and puts away his phone, but it's the questions that almost distract him from taking up his water again. César manages a bit of a laugh.

"If we want me to eat and drink, we'll need to table this discussion until after." He pulls out his phone and speaks. "OK Goggle, set me a timer for eight minutes."

As he puts his phone back into one of his front pockets, it speaks in a woman's neutral voice: "OK, setting a timer for eight minutes."

Which means he can now reach for his water bottle again without worrying he'll forget to finish the conversation.

[lightconductor]

Oh. Oh, it talks. Watson's eyebrows raise in surprise, because it's not as if an object that small can hide a phonograph cylinder, but if César is the type to need to not be distracted in this situation, so be it.

"Then the conversation will wait," he agrees. "It won't be any less strange to me in eight minutes time."

Murderbot - The Murderbot Diaries

[serialskiller]

1. Systems Initiated...

The sensation of being stopped from moving in the 'wrong' direction reminds Murderbot of when its governor module was still functional, ensuring it strictly followed the orders of the human clients. But as it checked its internal systems, there was no malicious code, nothing internal causing it to be funneled in the correct direction.

So it made its way to the muster stations--a figure in thick armor and a helmet with an opaque faceplate, easy to mistake for a robot (that is its preference, to be seen as just a robot), corporate logo stamped on its shoulder-plates and the upper lefthand side of its chest-plate. There's definitely a weapon of some sort strapped to its back--a projectile blaster. It looks very out of place, but who doesn't, here?

2. Situational Awareness
Murderbot still doesn't know why it's here or what this is about. What it does know is that it can't find the feed to download new episodes of its favorite serials, and that is a problem. Really, that alone is incentive enough to figure out what's going on and try to get home.

One may find the armored cyborg out stalking almost anywhere in the ship, but for specific examples:
- In the infirmary, it seems startled by the lack of 'modern' technology. Here's where it gets a sense that it's really out of its own time.
- At the buffet and dining rooms, it doesn't seem to even consider eating, instead watching the people from a quiet spot at the side of the room. It does not engage in conversation until someone speaks to it.
- On deck at night, looking at constellations and trying to figure out if anything's familiar enough to determine what planet it's on.

3. SecUnit being a SecUnit
As the hauntings begin, Murderbot considers just hiding in its cabin, alone, avoiding everyone and everything. But being assigned a roommate means even the cabin isn't a safe having as its cubicle was with the PreservationAux team. So it tries to stay out of the way, unengaged, and merely monitor the situation.

However, when shuffleboard disks on the sports deck begin throwing themselves around violently, that thing happens--the thing where it finds itself acting without completely following the guidance of its threat assessment system. Just as someone's about to be hit with a disk, they'll feel a tug, as Murderbot pulls them back and places itself between them and the disk. The disk clunks uselessly off its armor.

"Are you alright?" The voice is calm, quiet, and doesn't actually sound metallic or stilted as some might expect from a bot, though gender is impossible to determine.

X. Wildcard
Hit me up for anything else you want. Find me at darkersolstice or darkersolstice#9463 if you wanna talk anything out.

[pineapplesalmon]

Not only that, but one that can adjust to say eight instead of just a generic response.

"Precisely." César takes up his water bottle and starts drinking. "Also, the bag of mixed nuts are another form of plastic." Back to drinking! Honest!

[neverleave]

[It's not an end, she says, when an end is all he wanted.]

So it's a beginning? Or means to something?

[lightconductor]

"Good to know. Apparently it's a very versatile material."

He sits back in his chair, trying to assess César's condition. There's probably some improvement already? Well, he'll make sure, either way.

"You really ought to not make a habit of this, you realise. There can't always be a convenient doctor passing by."

[pineapplesalmon]

"It's also a part of your phone." César adds.

He looks a bit guilty as he holds his hand out gently for the bag of mixed nuts. "I try not to. I have a medical condition that messes with my sense of time, especially if I get involved with something. Arriving here has thrown me completely off schedule, and the... part of my phone I use to track time is unavailable since it can't communicate with something back home."

3

[worthallthis]

Murderbot will find itself shoved violently away from the poor soul it grabbed, as the thing formerly known as the Winter Soldier reacts badly to being touched. The disc misses them both, and it's erstwhile protectee is breathing harshly with wide eyes and otherwise no expression, metal arm raised as if to fend off further grabbing.

[withsadness]

[Mary laughs when his hand musses her hair. She wonders if this is what Ib felt like having Garry around. She had never really experienced this kind of encouragement from him. Just a terrible, insidious jealousy.]

Yeah! A hunt for the golden marshmallows!

[Actually being golden not required. Instinctively, she reaches up to grab his hand.]

Do we need a treasure map with a big X?

[serialskiller]

"Good reflexes."

It's more an observation aloud than a compliment, before Murderbot takes a step away, moving to help someone who needs more help with the attack of the shuffleboard pieces--though he tries to keep an awareness of where the human with the metal arm is.

[lightconductor]

He hands the nuts over, glad to have delivered them.

"Ah, I see. Rather like a man who needs a cane being without it. I understand." That's... difficult, and requires a solution. Watson taps his fingers against his knee, thinking. "Do you think we could approximate something similar for you here?"