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open log » ❝ The VR Program ❞

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.

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[ She ducks into what shelter there is with him and yanks it closed behind her, taking the moment of (relative) calm to assess the room and the people in it and then Stark's makeshift lab before she speaks. ]

No idea.

I was walking along the road minding my own business thirty seconds ago.

[ Her glance shifts to him, a quick check for injuries. ]

How long have you been in here?

[ He lobs another homemade grenade over the wall while she's talking - it thins out the herd a little bit and he stands up and pickes off another handful before dropping back down. ]

You know, not like, too long. Just enough to get grazed a couple times and realise that the Initiative is fucking with us again. [ yay. ]

[ Not hesitant about killing them, good at improvisation - now is not the time to be logging details and she stands for a moment, takes three shots before she has to drop down again for safety. ]

There's two doors.

If I can walk in here out of thin air, one of them might lead out.

Okay so let's go out the door, right?

[ He goes out the door, runs, finds himself in an antechamber. Stane. In his suit. Saying things. Fuck fuck fuck. Tony pulls back to the wall. ]

[ She follows, not quite as headlong, and even as she yanks the door closed behind them her gun is centered on the --

There is no way her gun is going to make anything of an effect on that. ]

Stark? Tell me that thing has weak spots.

[ He's taking a moment, because, okay, he needs a moment there, he wasn't prepared for that, those were all just lackeys and people he didn't know - this shit here, this is just rubbing it in. He's already had to kill a friend - effectively a father - who turned on him. Doing it twice, salt in the wound.

But it's just a moment. ]

I know how to take it down. Can you distract it?

[ Distraction, distraction - it's huge, she's going to be like a fly buzzing against a window. But she can do a distraction. ]

Good luck.

[ And a second later she's running, striking out across relatively open ground as she heads for what looks like possible cover on the other side of the room. The shots she fires are more for show than anything, aim on the run always more hit and miss, but she goes for joints as much as she can, hoping to get at least take some small amount of mobility out. ]

[ She sets off on the distraction - he can hear the clamor as soon as she's moving, and he curves around from the other side, resolutely ignoring the taunts coming from the inside of the beast. His saving grace - one last golden egg to give - will be if it doesn't play out how it did. If he doesn't have to open the suit to finish it. Come here, you little prick.

Tony shoots a little bit, at the optical sensors. He hasn't got flares, but he can make Stane put his arms in front of his face, obscuring his own vision, long enough to put something similar near them. I was worried I was killing the golden goose...

It works fairly well, blinded, Tony jumps up to the same place he did before - and man the double vision, present-past on top of each other, that's hard. Where are you. He yanks out the same bundle of cables - if you yank out that bundle on the Iron Man suit, JARVIS just insults you, because he likes his easter eggs. One last golden egg to give. He hops back off, sort of falling and sort of rolling to a safe cover, and glancing over.

I would have preferred that she live. Fuck. Stane, like last time. Tony turns to where he thinks Roslyn's gotten to. ] You can shoot any of the exposed wiring. Aim above his right shoulder to disable weaponry! [ He wants to just shoot him. This isn't real. This doesn't count. It would be cathartic, right? It wouldn't make him feel totally guilty. Hold still you little prick. ]

[ Alive, for now, which part of her wasn't entirely expecting. She holds her fire as Tony makes his move, crouched behind the first piece of cover she could find. He's good, moving like he knows exactly what he's doing, and for that she's thankful. She hadn't been sure what to think of him as a fighter, but based solely on this she'd have to say he's got it in him in spades.

And there, those are instructions she knows what to do with. She's been practicing, maintaining her sharp shooting, and her hands are rock steady as she aims and fires for above the right shoulder, the spots where she can see wiring already. If the weapons systems go off, it's only a matter of time before they get the rest of him. Hopefully. Right?

This is not the sort of situation she knows how to handle in the slightest and it isn't in her head either, so for now she's going to leave it to Tony to call the shots. It seems like the safest way to go. ]

[ He leaps backwards off the mechanoid just before he sees her take aim and shoot - because shooting at a weapons system can sometimes set off all the weapons and he doesn't feel like getting blown up. It doesn't, but Stane's complaining about not being able to shoot now, even now, while Tony crawls back up the back of the machine, hand over hand and forcing himself up - this needs to be taken of as quickly as possible, and as soon as he within position to do go, he stops, pulls out one of his cobbled together guns, and shoots Stane in the head.

The mech instantly becomes inert, and he slides back off of it. Calls out without meeting her eyes. ]

Thanks for the help. I can do the clean up. Be out in a minute.

[ She lets her gun drop, holsters it for a moment to shake out her fingers, wills the adrenaline rush back down as much as she can. Not realizing his reluctance, too caught up in tactics and what's the best move from here. ]

Better to stick together until we're sure it's safe.

People are a little too violent around here.

[ No thanks. ]

I can handle it. My- whatever all this is. Go ahead.

[ He's checking the hell out of his own gun, it works, of course it does, he made it, and he just killed someone with it, it still works, it's a good distraction. ]

[ There's a small hesitation, but he can clearly handle himself and the immediate threat here seems to be over. ]

If the dream sends me on further, good luck. You should be all right if you sit tight.

[ He nods, glancing up at her with a mask, a practiced grin. ]

Yeah, I'll be good. Thanks for the help. Hopefully you'll get out here soon.

[ Later she'll look back at that smile and wonder why it feels so familiar, but for now she just nods seriously and opens the door. ]

You too. Good luck.

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