TEST DRIVE MEME #0

[capitalm]

A TIME VORTEX has opened in downtown LA! Some magic folks have been contacted to close it, but they haven't gotten here fast enough for the vortex not to spill out a HECK TON OF DINOSAURS – all kinds of dinosaurs of all kinds of sizes. There are theoretically gentle herbivores among the fierce predators, but they are all pretty pissed off about their sudden, startling relocation, and a lot of them have spikes.

(The vortex is both temporally and spatially unstable, which is why the dinosaurs emerging onto the streets of LA are constrained neither by specific prehistorical era nor geographical location.)

What you do is up to you. Here are some suggestions, though:

Fight some dinosaurs. You might be trying to herd them back to the vortex, or just trying to stop them by any means possible.

Flee or hide. If you're lucky the dinosaurs won't work out how to open doors and you can spend your entire thread hiding behind the bar in a Starbucks with some other hapless civilians without having to confront any of them.

Try to capture the dinosaurs on camera. If you can get some really good photos you might be able to sell them to the local paper in order to supplement your elderly aunt's meagre income. Or just use them to get a bunch of notes on Tumblr, either way.

Take advantage of the chaos to do crime. The forces of law enforcement are preoccupied with all these prehistoric reptiles.

Or pretty much anything else you think your character might be doing. Any location in LA is game, although there's no real need to meticulously look them up – you can just assume a generic street, rooftop, store, etc. (You don't have to look up the dinosaurs, either.)

If you have a character who you'd like to assume is part of a team, but that team hasn't been named or brainstormed OOC yet or anything, feel free to indicate in your opening post that you're assuming your character is operating alongside others and encourage others to tag in as if they are part of the same team! Or just handwave it and assume they got caught without their usual teammates or separated from them. Whatever way works best for you.

Events from this test drive are not automatically assumed game canon, but individual threads can be if you and the people who you thread with end up mutually wanting to keep them.

Comments

RIELLE "KIT" PEDDLER | ANDROID UNIVERSE

[liberaition]

[Kit doesn't need to get close to the dinosaurs to get great pictures of them, she just has to technopathically steal the pictures from the phones of people who are stupid enough to get close. She's totally holed up in a coffee shop with about a dozen other terrified citizens, sitting cross legged on the bar and posting the best photos to an anonymous twitter account with her brain, looking remarkably relaxed considering what's going on outside.]

[baelhat]

[ Baelheit's been trying to get back to his lab, but for now he's stuck in the same coffee shop, staring impatiently out at the ongoing ruckus outside. If he could just get out there and get to his lab... A velociraptor scampers past the coffee shop window, stopping only to glare and hiss at the citizens inside, and Baelheit clenches his fists.

He glances back at the girl sitting on the bar and he pulls a grim face, almost annoyed. She doesn't seem fazed by what's going on. It makes him suspicious. ]

Do you find this amusing?

[liberaition]

[It takes Kit a second to refocus herself on meatspace, and her left arm whirs faintly as she reaches up to touch her temple, toggling a tiny button implanted under her skin.]

Amusing? Definitely not. [okay, it's a little amusing.] But I don't see how panicking will help anything. Besides, it seems to be safe enough in here.

still need to make bael icons beep boop

[baelhat]

Perhaps for now -- [ He jerks his head back to look out the window as a stegosaurus's huge tail swings around and smashes into a row of parked cars. It's a little close for comfort, and instinctively he draws closer to Kit, to the side of the coffee shop farthest away from the window. ] But it would be naive to expect anywhere this exposed to remain safe for long.

[ If only he could reach his lab... As he gets closer, he can make out the details of Kit's left arm. It's...certainly not organic. He narrows his eyes, and looks at her with a look of intent inquisition. ]

Your arm... What happened to it?

Re: still need to make bael icons beep boop

[liberaition]

What, is it malfunctioning? [she runs a quick systems check, but everything seems to be in order. And then she realizes he means her meat arm.] Oh. I had an accident. [which isn't remotely true, but people don't react well to "I had my perfectly good arm replaced for no medical reason." And then Kit looks up and focuses on who she's talking to, and holy shit it's Julius Baelheit.]

Oh! Wow, it's-- it's you. I mean, I knew you were based out of LA, but I never thought-- [GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF KIT] Ahem. Mr. Baelheit. Hello.

[she extends her hand- the organic one- for shaking.]

[baelhat]

[ He is given over by mild surprise -- he may be something of a public figure, but he isn't accustomed to being recognized by teenage girls. Baelheit gives her an appraising, almost scrutinizing look, far from distracted from the matter of her arm. He is intensely curious. ]

Ah -- you know of my work, I presume.

[ He takes the proffered hand and shakes it after a moment of hesitation. ]

Might I ask who designed your arm?

[liberaition]

I follow cybernetic advancements closely, yes.

[play it cool play it cool] Actually, I designed it. And wrote the software. And assembled the components.

[she extends her arm with just a faint whir, the movement looking almost completely natural. The silicone skin is high quality and the limb looks reasonably realistic, other than the metallic section of the forearm and the faintly glowing blue light embedded in the palm. Kit can't help but smile faintly at Baelheit. She's proud of her work.]

[baelhat]

[ Even with his generally taciturn demeanor, the astonishment shows plain on Baelheit's face. He gives her another look over, apparently reassessing his initial impression, and leans in a little closer to study her arm. It doesn't blend in nearly as seamlessly as Milly's limbs, but then, he supposes Kit isn't going so out of her way to conceal the fact that she has cybernetic implants. ]

That's quite impressive for someone of your age. I hope I'm not being too presumptuous by asking if any of this was based on my research. Ah, may I?

[ He gestures, questioning whether or not it's alright to touch her arm and examine it more closely. She certainly has his rapt attention now -- Baelheit isn't paying much mind to the chaos rampaging outside anymore. ]

[liberaition]

[Kit nods, waving her meat hand at her arm.] You can look inside, if you like.

Your research was very helpful for the initial design process, but I use a different neural interface. I had time to lay the groundwork and really preserve the nerves from my hand, not like with traumatic injuries, so I get feedback when I touch things. And I think you'll find some of the mechanics are different, as well.

[She shrugs, shoulder making a slight click as it settles back into place.] It's a work in progress, anyway.

Re: RIELLE "KIT" PEDDLER | ANDROID UNIVERSE

[againsthope]

[That Kit's anonymous hasn't stopped her most persistent follower's advances. Another anon has dutifully starred and retweeted the whole of her timeline from the beginning. They're weird and creepy, but they're probably a spammer. Except-- except!

For the very first time, they tweet Kit. It's in reply to someone's picture of a little raptorish thing, trailing the handle-end of a dog leash from its mouth.]

o(｀ω´*)o...ŚРĂĞĤĔŤŤĨ

[That's... it.]

[liberaition]

[well that's... weird. Kit sends out a few pings to search out where the tweet is coming from, and on a whim, tweets back.]

mëätßälls? (◡ ‿ ◡ ✿)

[againsthope]

@kit ゛☆⌒o(*^ー゜) ｏｎ  ｔｏｐ  ｏｆ  ｍｏｕｎｔ  ｓｍｏｋｅｙ. ａｌｌ  ｃｏｖｅｒｅｄ  ｗｉｔｈ  ａｓｈ.ー♪
@kit ゛☆⌒o(*^ー゜) ｉ  ｃｈｏｋｅｄ  ｏｎ  ａ  ｍｅａｔｂａｌｌ. ａｎｄ  ｓｔａｒｔｅｄ  ｔｏ  ｔｈｒａｓｈー♪
@kit yes! yes! ａｓ  ａ  ｐｏｅｔ，  ｉ＇ｍ  ｈｅａｒｔ  ｔｈｕｍｐｉｎｇｌｙ，  ｄｅｓｐａｉｒ  ｉｎｄｕｃｉｎｇｌｙ  ａｗｆｕｌ！

[A response.

Their profile is bare of name or location, except for an avatar of a cartoon bear. Kit might be familiar. It's called Monokuma. It'd be cute, except four years ago a group of Japanese terrorists started using it as their mascot. At one point they held the coasts of east Asia from Kamchatka to the Phillipines, and Japan today even operates under a provisional emergency government. The group has mostly disbanded; rogue cells got busted, there were arrests and executions, and the organization's leader killed herself on live television.

In America, Monokuma's the kind of symbol a gross, edgy teenager scratches into his desk. As far as rebellion goes, it's about as tasteful as calling Charles Manson your role model.]

[liberaition]

[aurgh no]

Despair inducingly awful indeed.

[time to trace the IP.]

[againsthope]

[There's not much to it: a proxy proving itself to a proxy proving itself to a proxy and so on all the way back to a small resort island in the south Pacific. Some kid bitter that Mom and Dad paid for him to enjoy it, probably.]

. . . (✖╭╮✖) u didnt like my poem
(︶︹︺) do u feel delicious disappointment. . . ? really real despair. . .?
i spent so much time writing it for u. . . ZZzz(_ _*).｡o0Ｏ○ and u would rather count electric sheep.

[liberaition]

[Kit definitely doesn't actually believe that IP is right.]

[private tweet:] Who are you?

[againsthope]

[The response is swift.]

Doraemon. Clearly.

[liberaition]

[METAPHYSICAL EYEROLL.]

Of course. Why do I bother.

Re: RIELLE "KIT" PEDDLER | ANDROID UNIVERSE

[tetrodotox1n]

[GLaDOS has been downloading each of Kit's photos as they've been uploaded, with hardly any practical delay. She only stops to draw up an anonymous twitter account of her own, and tweets at Kit:]

Get closer.

[liberaition]

[GLaDOS is rewarded by photos lifted from the phones of even more reckless/unlucky people, including a great closeup of the inside of a velociraptor's mouth.]

Better?

[tetrodotox1n]

Excellent.

[She takes the lot - they all go straight into a folder labeled "To-Do List". It's a shame everyone's too busy fighting them to gather scientific data.]

[liberaition]

What's your personal interest in the dinosaurs?

[tetrodotox1n]

It's for science. I can't believe you're all wasting perfectly good data.

[liberaition]

"Science" is a pretty broad field. What kind of science, mysterious anonymous twitter user?

[tetrodotox1n]

I think Science is good enough for my fellow mysterious anonymous twitter user.

[GLaDOS starts poking around Kit's twitter account for telltale signs of human carelessness - it's always a good idea to keep track of people who might object to her... projects.]

[liberaition]

Ah. But how do I know you aren't creating some kind of Mesozoic Park? We wouldn't want cell phone shots of these dinosaurs to fall into the wrong hands. [Kit isn't very good at jokes.]

[There's definitely no sloppiness - if GLaDOS tries to trace Kit's IP more than once she'll realize that it leads back to a different country every time. But there are other traces, something a regular human wouldn't be able to pick up, almost like technopathic fingerprints.]