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

[whatsupcroc]

Bodies, the enclosed space, all the chemicals rushing through her bloodstream pushed her into overload. Sheer willpower is what kept her in control, and even that was having trouble trying to balance the rest of the current situation.

Which seemed like walking in mid battle to something she seriously didn't understand.

Whatever sense that told her air, that way seemed like the best plan. Get out, get out of morph, how far underground was she, how --

< Collette? >

She half expected to hear James, but that wasn't James. Not even Timmy or Kelly, or either of James' lieutenants.

Really, it wasn't that they didn't fight with the Animorphs, but they had their own tighter operating circles. And wait... since when did she have an ant morph anyhow?

How did any of this make any -- < Yowch! Marco? I hear you! > She didn't get it, but she also didn't know what else to say. Though it was weird. He sounded so faint, like he was at the limit of Thought Speak range.

Or a different limit altogether. < Tell me you're outside of this mess, 'cause otherwise you're getting way too quiet on me there, buddy! >

Oh by all that was -- ants couldn't even turn the same way she was used to, so a chunk of her antennae went off along with a dig at her abdomen exoskeleton.

[gorillawarfare]

Relief flooded him, or maybe that was just his brain going into shock. After all the battles, it was beginning to get hard to separate the two. Collette was here. Good. More Animorphs. He had wanted more Animorphs, hadn't he? Marco was pretty sure he had chosen that during their vote.

Wait. Focus.

Marco tried to wiggle the legs he had left in a mockery of a wave. It was hard, seeing as red ants kept wanting to snap at anything exposed in an attempt to kill him horribly.

< Over here. >

[whatsupcroc]

Weak voices? Collette wasn't sure how she picked out Marco's ant-waving action over the antics of the ants on attack, but she had, and that removed the possibility of talking at a great distance. Which left --

< Demorph! Look, I'm coming, but -- >

Collette yelped, an odd, high pitched mental cry tinged with as much annoyance as fear. She knew she'd never, ever had an ant morph. Something about this entire situation was wrong. Even weirder, because that was Marco, and this was nightmare level not-the-kind-of-dream worth having right now.

Or ever, but particularly right now.

< Oh that is it, the next time I find a magnifying glass I might just use it! >

And there went an antennae. < Ants have soft dirt tunnels, demorph and tell me what the heck is going on! >

Mess him just demorphing, she wanted to get away from these tiny yet horribly effective intruders now!