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]

"Not a damn thing," he replied, flat, sounding almost patronizing. "If you're looking for refreshments or a break, you're in the wrong damn place."

[ex_bandai157]

Not a member of the Initiative, if he has to guess. Certainly not a shade of someone else's dream or memory from the way he's acting. Possibly a fellow transport, even if this place doesn't seem as busy or populated as the others.

"Who are you?"

[initiatesnpc]

"Not a junior of anything," he said, and the flatness finally filled his voice. "What's it matter? You'll be popping out of here in a second or two anyway."

[ex_bandai157]

"Curiosity," he says even if his own voice is far from light. "I want to know more about the situation with the Initiative, the United Earth, and my fellow transports. If you have any information, I'd appreciate hearing it and would make it worth your while."

[initiatesnpc]

The man's mouth quirked — a quick, grim smirk.

"I highly doubt that."

[ex_bandai157]

"Is that so?"

His look in return is exceedingly mild.

"A hero always keeps his word, if that's what you're worried about." Somehow he says this with a straight face and real earnestness before going on. "Besides, I wouldn't want to hurt my image by heartlessly reneging on my word now."

[initiatesnpc]

The man blinks slow, his expression unmoved by the hero's appeal. Whether as one who's heard too much talk of the like with no payoff or it's just too unbelievable a thing to say is uncertain. All that is...is the flat stare. Unimpressed.

Image? A snort.

"Right. We wouldn't want that."

For a second, his gaze flickers away to somewhere beyond Barnaby. His eyebrows lift a little.

"Oh, good. Not much more of this left."

[ex_bandai157]

Truthfully, he'd been trying in some way to reach at something more practical to say - human vanity, which can be more reliable than ideals about keeping one's word - especially with no image to speak of here (which isn't to say he isn't trying to carefully, carefully cultivate one).

"What?"

He follows the other man's gaze despite himself.

[initiatesnpc]

"Oh, you know," sighed the man passively, tilting his leaning weight to one elbow to sluggishly shake an arm. He'd been sitting, hunched like that, for a while. "The part where you are magically whisked away to whatever fresh hell's next. I'm sure it'll be fun. Hero-types are all about that, right?"

The sneer was oozing all over his explanation, though his expression remained fairly free of contempt.

[ex_bandai157]

Two base possibilities: either the man has a way of knowing that Barnaby'll be seeing somewhere else and soon, or he's faking it. If he's not faking it, either he can see things Barnaby can't (because that look away wasn't exactly illuminating) or he has a totally different way of knowing and was trying to throw him off the scent.

"Heroes are about saving and protecting people," he says, shrugs somewhat theatrically. "But of course, that only does them good if they want to be helped, too."