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

[twiceadays]

Shepard pauses at that admission. A memory from twenty years ago? There's a grimace that takes over her face. All she can do is be thankful that this memory is of fighting Saren and not of... Not of Mindoir or Akuze or...

Virmire.

A shudder threatens to run through her, and she ignores it, aiming her gun instead and shooting the husk once Kaidan throws a Reave at it. It rolls across the ground, limbs flailing out before its back on the walls and ceiling.

"All I can figure is that we're trapped in the VR program the Initiative was making for us."

[majoring]

He can't help the faint smile that crosses his lips despite the situation, when Shepard shoots the husk. Even if things have been awkward, it's still good to be like this, fighting at her side. They fall back into old patterns easily, even if they're both stronger and more jaded than the last time this was a regular thing for them.

"That's the theory I was working with." More biotics follow up her shooting, unrelenting. "Which, I get it pulling from our own memories, but how the heck are we getting into other people's? "

[twiceadays]

That's something they've always been good at: working off of each other. It doesn't take a lot of thought to pick up where Kaidan stops, and that's just something that works for them. They're good soldiers, good teammates.

Maybe it's better to stay that way and stop pushing. It's not something that Shepard really wants to lose between them because she can't get her head on straight.

"It's gotta be a malfunction in the machinery. As much good as some technology can be, I don't trust anything that's taking us out of the real world." Too many problems that could arise, too many human fallacies.

[majoring]

The husk is slowing down a little (maybe), but neither one of them has been able to stop it yet. That doesn't stop Kaidan from trying again with the biotics; he can feel himself starting to lag a little, but it's not enough to be concerned about. Not yet, at least.

"What I'm concerned about - watch out!" He breaks cover to avoid the husk coming right at him, finding another vantage point almost immediately. It's not like he doesn't have their surroundings engraved in his mind, after all. "What I'm concerned about is what happens to our bodies, if we're trapped in here. We don't even know how long it's been."

[twiceadays]

Kaidan yells out the warning, and while he breaks cover to move, Shepard keeps her position. All the shit she has dealt with since this fight happened, one hyperactive husk isn't going to bother her. She aims her biotics as the husk jumps, pushing it back onto the platform as it writhes with the Warp. "Kaidan, now!"

She's breathing heavily, feeling exhausted and pushed to the limit, hands shaking slightly as she lifts her rifle in case Kaidan isn't able to finish off Saren.

Only vaguely does she catch what he's saying to her about their bodies, how long it's been. But that's a question to tackle later and hope that they're not wasting away in the real world.