open log » ❝ The VR Program ❞

[initiatesnpc]

Date & Time: August 5th, mid morning.
Location: Anywhere characters happen to be/the VR.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: From August 5th to August 8th, characters are plunged involuntarily into the VR Program.
Warnings: Potential violence within the threads.

When the chance arises, she's quick to take it. The programming is incomplete, she knows; the simulation isn't ready — but she's not likely to get another shot at it. And so she moves, slipping through security codes to input the command. The machines hum to life with nothing but a flicker of a green light in a dark room, and it takes only seconds to establish connections. The signal is sent out; the weapons respond.

In a single pulse, reality drops away.

There will be darkness at first as the mind realigns itself to the signals being sent it. Slowly, the darkness fades, forms take shape. People take shape. The setting is terribly familiar, plucked from the user's own mind. It might feel like a dream at first, with events playing out as if predestined, the would-be dreamer moving through a familiar and unalterable route in them. But as things begin to feel more and more realistic, as more senses more fully connect to the simulation, awareness will change. This is not a dream. This is more than a memory.

Welcome to the VR.

Only 20 minutes later, in some underground quarters, Doctor Sponde is roused from an undignified sprawl. He's hastily briefed and shuttled toward the command center, looking grim. He knows the problem demands an immediate fix, but… well, this is some complex machinery. It could take some time. It could take days. He gets to work.

Comments

[healplz]

[ He hadn't stayed long in his own specially-crafted memories. Why should he? The enemies inside were no friends of his, and he was no fighter. He'd only teleported away from their attacks and began to explore, and pushing through to another world (a flash of something dark, wet, a man—and then gone again) had led him — here.

Ants. Giant-sized ants, as far as he can tell. He has no idea where he's landed himself, or how this is possible, even the monstrous ants of the Sograt Desert only came to the knee. He's not sure where he is, but, as he spins to slam the wood of his staff (no, the bone, this isn't his staff, this is the one the Initiative had given him) between the mandibles of an ant, he decides it doesn't much matter. Another place of war, another battle.

A battle between beasts, apparently. He scans the area grimly, searching for someone to help in the gloom, but all he sees is warring ants. His eyes fall on one of the black creatures, apparently in danger of death, but he does nothing. It would be one less creature for him to evade, if he saved it. ]

[gorillawarfare]

[ he can feel his midsection starting to split open and Marco screams at himself to demorph, to go human and avoid being stuck as a shredded ant-

and suddenly he smells something else. Something foreign. ]


We sense enemies. We will kill. Protect the colony.

[ Marco's not going to protect crap, thank you very much. He tries to ignore the pain, tries to get his bearings. But he has no idea what this intruder is so all he can really do is hope Jake or Cassie or, okay, even Rachel is demorphing. When he speaks, it's telepathically sent to the intruder: ]

< GET THEM OFF ME >

[ He has to demorph. He has to demorph or he's dead.

Pincers clamp down, ripping off three of his legs. Marco screams out his pain in thought-speak ]

< NOW >

[healplz]

[ Ashraf jerks, startled by the voice. It's not one he knows, although he recognizes it from the netbooks. A transport, but no one is in sight. Is it one of the ants?

He jerks away, casting a shield spell about himself. Ants begin to bounce off of it as he shoves through them, looking for — someone. A human? ]

I hear you. [ He sounds calm, grim. He refreshes his shield spell before the ants can break through it, and walks on. ] Where are you?

[gorillawarfare]

[ Human? The voice sounded human. But not like anyone Marco recognized-
-an ant tore away one of his antenna and Marco howled again. Okay, at this point who cared who it was. ]


< I'm the guy getting torn in half over here. > [ a beat ] < ANT, I'm the ant getting torn in half! >

[healplz]

[ He is an ant, then? That clarifies things. Ashraf scans until he again spots the ant being torn apart by reds, stretches out a hand, and casts his shield spell over him. A heal follows that, and he's about to add further strengthening spells, but his own shield runs out in that moment.

Mandibles tear into his forearm, another pair makes for his side. He cries out and instinctively heals himself, but the ants haven't let go, and are happy to recreate their undone work. His own fault for letting the spell lapse, he knows, and he begins grimly shoving at the attacking ants with his staff to get nearer to Marco. ]

[gorillawarfare]

[ a wave of something pleasant washes over him. Marco's pretty convinced that something is the absence of pain. It's starting to feel like a new emotion by this point. He breathes, mentally anyways because he's pretty sure ants don't come equipped with the sigh of relief package. ]

< Thanks man, I owe you one- >

[ the ground vibrates and Marco smells the scent of the intruder's blood. Not good. ]

< Hold on, I got you buddy. >

[ not sure why the ants have stopped attacking him for the moment being, Marco charges forward. He uses the ant's instinct to guide him as he clamps his pincers down on a red ant, tearing off a chunk of its abdomen. Ants are strong ]