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]

Was that a fabulous ambush? Collette stuck herself out of the way, watching Barnaby and this Jake -- what was with that? Why the name Jake, huh? -- pull out moves better suited for comic books and science fiction films.

Whatever it was, she didn't have the big guns to back Barnaby up. Right? She glanced down to her hand, and the watch clutched in it. What exactly did her weapon do?

She looked back up. Keep perfect time, I guess. With a grin, she clicked down to start timing. Barnaby would have this Jake character down flat in no time.

Weird how everything seemed to slow down for a second...

[ex_bandai157]

Well, it was certainly a flashy one, in any case. It occurs to him all at once that he's not in his suit at all, that the burning smell is coming from the singes in his shirt and jacket where the blast hit him. There's a moment of panic before the illusion breaks and - no, this can't be real because it already happened more than a year ago, and it can't be a dream because - well maybe it is a dream because this is wrong, not how it went at all.

(He's sure he's sure he's sure, he knows that wasn't touched because it's all on tape and when he had his doubts he rewatched them, he did, because watching his past self be a puppet is better than wondering.)

Another blast hits him while he's frozen with the realization, but even as he's thrown back again - catches himself, skids, readies himself to move forward again - he remembers abruptly the power of these attacks and what they did to him while he had the suit, while this doesn't seem to match up.

"Say goodbye!"

And that's wrong too, especially because that doesn't come from Jake at all but Kriem, and he whips around to see her rushing out - completely wrong - with an entourage of those hideous Mad Bears.

[whatsupcroc]

Stuffed animals doing ninja style karate kicks. Collette didn't know what to make o fthe mental imagery, let alone the actual imagery flying her way. Kick-flying her way, to be perfectly honest.

Great, stuffed animals. Barnaby had the superpower guy under control. She could handle a few dozen stuffed toys and the one bizarre lady trailing behind!

Especially since here, unlike elsewhere, she didn't need to find her chair or morph before being free to move as she pleased.

"Take that!" Collete danced forward, kicking one of the bears with the artless grace of someone happy to be moving. When the bear went flying, she found herself smiling. Then leaping back from the ongoing bear attack. "Anyone else who needs a boot to th furry butt, come and get it!"

That she wasn't wearing boots was only a minor point.

[ex_bandai157]

He sees - and hears - Collette next, proving that his thoughts that the situation couldn't get any more bizarre were way off base. Especially with her standing and moving freely, and it occurs to him that she might have been lying about her condition, but -

- he's not quite convinced, and anyway they have bigger problems, as he's reminded a second later when he gets hit from a blast from behind ("Die!") that throws him on his face. Careless.

First things first, then.

He powers up, eyes and body flaring blue, and rushes Jake, giving him a very very satisfying boot to the face.

[whatsupcroc]

She doesn't spare energy to call out after Barnaby, confronted in mass quantities as she is now by bouncing, kicking, biting teddy bears. Collette had an active imagination. She's thought of all those stuffed creatures and dolls coming to life and having adventures before, and sure, sometimes the nightmares of them coming after people she cared about, or walking away from her laughing. Those had been easy to drive away.

These bears weren't all that hard. It was the sheer numbers!

"This is crazy!" Why she finds herself grinning as she says this to no audience in particular is anyone's guess.

Collette takes off at a run, jumping up onto the first reasonable ledge she fines, pulling herself up and toward the lower stands. Ha! She was the woman right now!

And batting a bear off her head. No fair! How'd they even do that? "What, can you fly or something?!"