Test Drive

[snowblindmods]

TEST DRIVE MEME

If you'd like to apply to Snowblind and would like to test the waters first or get a sample set up for your application, this meme is for you! We've even provided some prompts for you to use if you want (but feel free to make up your own). Here's how it works. ✭ Reply to this entry with a character you're considering apping into the game. You can include the name of your character and the fandom in your subject line. ✭ Comment around to others on the meme, whether you're in the game already or not. ✭ Now you have a sample ready for your application! ✭ So go reserve and apply when reservations and applications are open. ✭ Seriously, do it. Network Prompts ONE: YOUR COOPERATION IS APPRECIATED When you wake up, you find that a new application has been downloaded to your tablet. It's titled "SURVEY" and is exactly what it claims to be--although there's no explanation to why it's appeared or what it is for other than the note that claims the survey is not opt-out and that your cooperation is appreciated. And more troubling, the questions become more sinister the farther in you answer. Such questions as, "on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your stay?" and "have your needs been met in a timely manner?" become more akin to, "if you had to chose between the two, would you eat your hands or your feet to stave off the hunger?" and "are you sure you are not the last one still alive?" Perhaps someone on the Network would like to discuss what this could mean--and if there are any consequences behind finishing or refusing to take the survey. TWO: NOT SO HELPFUL AVATARS Every tablet has the option for a customizable avatar that will talk to you and keep your tablet in order. Maybe you set it up, maybe you never checked it. Either way, it keeps popping up unrequested and being sort of... Odd. Flickering, talking in strange, mechanical voices, offering advice that's unhelpful at best and actively harmful at worst... Maybe it's even telling the entire network some things you've been doing you'd rather everyone didn't know. Time to call tech support. Unfortunately, the best option is other people on the network. Good luck. Action Prompts THREE: SPIDERS IN THE WALLS Somehow you or your travel companion injured themselves. A quick call to the admin fixed this, but now you can't help but be gripped with the burning curiosity of where the helpful spiders she deployed have gone. You saw them scramble toward the vents, but by the time paralysis wore off they'd completely disappeared. Only now you can't stop thinking about them. Where do they go to? How can they be trapped or followed? You swear you hear little mechanical pattering inside the walls. Maybe you can find some sort of tool to help you break into a vent around the house. Or maybe your companion can convince you to rest before you hurt yourself. FOUR: SCHOOL DAYS You've ended up in the elementary school. Maybe you're grabbing more food, maybe you're exploring. Either way, this place is creepy; the atmosphere is the sort that gets the hair on the back of your neck rising (potentially metaphorically, if you don't have hair or a neck). It's not long before strange things start happening. The sound of running and screaming children, doors slamming in far off or nearby hallways, pianos playing... What's going on? It's hard to tell what's really happening from what isn't happening. Maybe someone who's also exploring has some idea.

Comments

[oh_negative]

[Wilson scoffs, turning back to brandish his hammer at House] Living it up? I wouldn't exactly call "mourning Amber" to be "living it up. [He scoffs again and stomps over to the vent.] Unbelievable.

And no, you haven't been gone. We grabbed dinner the night before I woke up here.

[He's about to start hammering again, but he pauses first, perplexed.] Are you saying you've been here for months longer than I have? How does that work, exactly?

[rubikscomplex]

[Amber is a name that means nothing to him. One of Wilson's later wives? Mourning means she died. Okay. So why did he quit? Taking a sabbatical makes sense... but just outright giving up his practice? It means Amber had been more important than the others.

More important than staying.]

You know what I mean. [It's said dismissively.]

And your guess is as good as anyone else's. Time machine? Sling shot around the sun? Magic. [The last his said with deep contempt.] That's what half the people here think it is.

[oh_negative]

[Wilson just crouches down to begin work on the next vent.] You've got a problem with magic but you're willing to buy nanomachines? If you don't think it's magic, how do you think we ended up here?

[rubikscomplex]

Because nanomachines exist already. [Come on now, Wilson.] It's just a matter of making them smaller, more efficient, and more widely available. That's a time and resource problem, one I'm confident some idiots in a lab could work out.

As for how... still gathering data. Best theory right now sounds like a bad sci-fi flick. You really wanna hear it?

[oh_negative]

[He whacks the vent with more gusto now. At least House is giving him the motivation to really lay into these vents.] Sure, they technically exist, but technology like this is decades away.

[He finishes and moves on to the next without waiting for House.] And, why not? Lay it on me.

[rubikscomplex]

Dude. What year do you think it is? We've got evidence it's at least 2050, planted or not, the level of tech here combined with everything we've seen... either the military's seriously been holding out, or this ain't Kansas anymore. Or the early 2000s.

[With Wilson not being noticeably older, he's banking on it being maybe 5 years separating them, at most.]

How do you explain your tablet that never needs charging? And if you're going with the 'it's all a dream' theory, I'm shoving snow down the back of your shirt tomorrow.

I think, somehow, our brains were mapped and their pathways copied and stored. Maybe... an MRI? Maybe another test. However they got ahold of our brain waves, they've reconstructed us, altered our memories just enough to remove the memory of the scan, and put us into substitute bodies for some kind of experiment to test whether the Earth is still habitable.

Except. Oops! All of that's an automated, pre-programmed process. And the experiments been running on a loop for long enough that the hardware's breaking down. Maybe the software too because some virus or an AI from another country's broken through and started trying to take over the system, screwing up the experiment and changing the parameters.

[oh_negative]

[Wilson frowns.] So you're saying that I'm not really me, and you're not really you, and we're just... [He pauses, searching for a word, and then throws up his hands in a big shrug.] Copies? And we're wandering around in this hellhole as an experiment, totally unaware that our bodies aren't actually ours, and the "real"--[he employs some mighty sarcastic airquotes here]--James Wilson and Greg House are off gallivanting around back in New Jersey?

[He's about to start hammering again, but then he holds up a hand. Excuse him, he's left out an important deal.] Ah, but then it's 2050, so we're wasting away in some, pfft, retirement home somewhere. Or, I am, at least. You, I doubt you'll make it to 55.

[rubikscomplex]

As the great philosopher Joel once said: Only the good die young. Fifty bucks says I outlive you. And like I said - bad sci-fi plot. Don't give me that tone. You knew what you were getting into.

And it's probably closer to 2200, or something. They've run this experiment hundreds of times. We've found the deleted logs.

[oh_negative]

[Wilson stands again. One vent left.] 2200, huh? I suppose if we make it out of here, we'll be able to settle that bet pretty quickly.

What's the likelihood that this is all some big scam and those logs and whatever other evidence you've found were just planted?

[rubikscomplex]

[There's a long pause, and House runs a hand through his hair.]

Ask me that a 100 days ago, I would've told you 98%. We're down in the 30s.

[oh_negative]

A rather dramatic change of heart. What changed 68% of your mind?

[rubikscomplex]

[House ticks it off on his fingers.]

The rat chick who actually was a giant freaking rat who could talk, the other chick that's a literal Frankenstein's monster, getting healed by the spideybots more than once, symptoms when the wireless recharge shut off, the nanobots we found in our blood, the memory alterations, the server 'maintenance' literally slowing down time... I could go on.

[oh_negative]

[Wilson's brow knots together as he bangs away at the last vent. He spends some time considering all of this. None of this sounds possible and there's still a fifty-fifty chance that House is messing with him, at least to some degree... But he does have a point. The spiders magically fixing his hand is enough to make him question whether or not there's a larger scheme at play.]

So... say we are copies, then. What exactly is our plan for the future? If, somehow, we manage to get out of this place... What then?

[rubikscomplex]

We don't get out. We shut this craphole down so no one else ends up in it.

[And then they die miserable, but relatively swift, deaths from massive doses or radiation exposure without the Admin recharging their nanomachines.]

[oh_negative]

[Wilson swallows, deliberately training his attention on the vent in hopes that House won't see how much that thought bothers him. What did he expect, though? That plan makes sense. It's the type of plan he'd come up with too if he was as seasoned of a veteran as House.]

That's awfully noble of you.

[rubikscomplex]

Well, I was thinking about taking the underwater basket-weaving classes instead... but the nuclear apocalypse sorta put those on hold. You know how it is? They just can't get an instructor. I'm filling my time in other meaningful ways.

[oh_negative]

[He sighs. Of course.] So you're saying not living is more interesting than living, even here? Or would it just cease to be interesting once you solve this little mystery?

[rubikscomplex]

Well, dying doesn't mean anything here at the moment, so... yeah. Guess that is what I'm saying.

[oh_negative]

At the moment, sure. But what happens when we do "shut this craphole down"?

[rubikscomplex]

Ever experienced acute radiation exposure at levels that would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like blips on a Geiger Counter?

[oh_negative]

[Wilson pauses for a beat.] No, as a matter of fact. Have you?

[rubikscomplex]

[House just stares at him, giving him a Look that says Wilson shouldn't ask stupid questions.]

[oh_negative]

[Wilson throws up his hands and steps out of the way so that House can get to work with the plastic wrap.] Okay, then back to my original query: How is that more appealing than the alternative?

[rubikscomplex]

So... your alternative is living in the desolate snow hellscape and slowly dying of starvation as we let the evil AI take over the town and delete everyone to start the experiment over again?

I mean, I'm not judging, dude, but totally judging your preferences.

[oh_negative]

[Hm. Okay, he's got Wilson there. There's no point in arguing.] Well. I suppose when you put it that way. [Wilson lets out a long sigh.] Can we at least agree in the meantime that living is good? We'll worry about the other details when and if we actually find a way to heroically spare anyone else from this waking nightmare. [There's a heavy dose of sarcasm in those last few words.]

I know you're not the slack-cutting type, but I did just arrive here. It'd be nice if you could at least let me agonize over my own existence through a few sleepless nights before you drop these moral dilemmas on the table.