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

[initiatesnpc]

[ He watches her, considering. She's used to the tricks of this world, whatever it is that lay beyond the confines of the prisoner's cell. There's no fear of the sword, he hardly even seems to notice it. ]

No. I would free you, if you would do the same for me.

[payback]

[He's not one of the killers. Not spitting out those rote threats. That automatically makes her trust him more. Her stance relaxes, though she keeps her hands on the hilt of her blade.]

How do I free you?

[initiatesnpc]

Not from here. There's nothing we can do in here.

[ His eyes narrow, suspicious, and out in a rush: ] You're the result of the Initiative's work with time, aren't you? All of you are.

[payback]

Time? I thought it was space. Worlds. The world I came from is nothing like this one. [...] Not much like it!

[initiatesnpc]

They bend time, space is a simple matter after that. [ He waves a hand, impatiently dismissive, which balls into a fist shortly afterward. ] Find me, outside of this construction. Find me. Before they do more damage.

[payback]

Well where are you?!

[initiatesnpc]

I don't know.

[ He doesn't seem to like his own answer much-- nor the fact that she seems to be wavering around the edges. That means that he only has a few seconds left, and too much to fit into them. ]

It's dark, sometimes I can hear machines flanking my cell.

[payback]

[She can tell, too, that he's fritzing in and out of focus, like a picture won from a bad signal. Reaching out to him, automatically:]

What's your name?

[initiatesnpc]

Mud. [ He smiles for the first time, but there's no warmth in it. It's wry, weary, but just short of resigned. ] If you think you can remember that.

[payback]

- is that a joke?