Test Drive Meme 016

[voidtreckermods]

Welcome to the Test Drive Meme! Here is the place to see how your character might fit the setting, grab samples and have fun!

1. Post with your character, including their name and series in the subject. We’ve written out some prompts but feel free to make up your own, you have a whole train to play with!

2. Assume they've been around long enough for threads to jump right into the action.

3. Have lots of fun. Mandatory, mod-sanctioned fun.

Happy testing!

Silence in the Library

The library is a double carriage. Downstairs is brightly-coloured, with cover posters across the walls, tables and chairs in the strong colours of the team uniforms, and a wooden model train placed as though winding its way through the carriage with carriages of shelves in tow. The walls are shelving, and beanbags litter the floor. Upstairs is quieter, rows of nonfiction shelves with private desks at the end of each row; the sound up here is muffled.

You don't know who, you don't know why, but someone or something has had a bad power day. How do you know? Well, the fact that the characters of any book you read keep coming to life as tiny versions of themselves and running riot around the carriage... that might have been a clue.

You just wish you'd picked a different book before realising it.

An Apple a Day

Medical is another double carriage, though it boasts one of the few person-sized lifts on the train as well as stairs. On the bottom floor, two of the three rooms are examination rooms, with simple beds, equipment and first-aid capacity. The third is a surgical bay, albeit a simpler one than some passengers may anticipate. All three rooms have ICPs with instructions and manuals for all equipment and a number of medical procedures.

Upstairs, there are four private recovery rooms, with a medical bed and an accessible en-suite. It's possible to check a passenger into one of these rooms, at which point they cannot leave until discharged by the person who checked them in.

Which, unfortunately, you are entirely aware of. You've been here for three days, and you're climbing the walls. But that'll teach you to get injured in such a stupid way. Or so they hope.

Sprockets and Skysong

In which a train arrives among the smokestacks of Little Underpool with some unexpected visitors.

Little Underpool is a township on Void world #30630687444. Caught up in the middle of what appears to be a series of industrial revolutions, the world is in a state of constant, chaotic innovation. Currently, that means that there is a power struggle going on between the skywhaling megacorporation Scrimshaw Inc and the Zephyr Company, an airship manufacturer, over control of the skies above Underpool, and the rapidly diminishing population of skywhales, whose bones are used in most modern airships, and whose blood is a key fuel source for a great number of new devices and engines. The voidtreckers are, this mission, to rescue the whales, rather than any humanoids.

Team One

Infiltrating Scrimshaw Inc, this team's job is to sabotage the tracking drones used to locate the whale pods, to allow the great beasts to migrate successfully away from Underpool. The offices of the corporation are in a series of spiralling brass and bone towers in the centre of the town, connected by exposed cable bridges that run to dizzying heights. Their clockwork guards are numerous, but often faulty, and highly vulnerable to tinkering.

Team Two

This team's job is to hijack some of the Zephyr Company's airships, and use them to defend the whale pods closest to Underpool. Several pods contain whale calves, and cannot evacuate as fast as the larger bachelor groups. The airships are light, and handle well, but their oddly organic design can be rather unsettling. The primary weapons are harpoons and short-range bomb slings, both as deadly against other airships as they are against their original targets.

Team Three

The final team's task is less direct - they must go among the populace of Underpool and spread unrest, redirecting the attention of the people towards the plight of their nonhuman neighbours in the sky, and the wrongdoings of their resident megacorporations. The people are not aware that the whales are an entirely sentient species, which appears to be a deliberate obfuscation by the town's council and sponsors. Your job is to change that.

Comments

[consider8]

"Mn.." She murmurs. She's not sure how to handle fur, but she does think it could use some dressing.

"Stay here." She stood up only to return briefly with some alcohol, cotton swabs, gauze, and elastic bandage. "Hold still."

[sparkoflife]

“Hold still...? O-okay...” Nicole said, a little worried. She knows those things can sting, but she never experienced it herself...

[consider8]

Eight dips the cotton in some alcohol before dabbing it on Nicole's exposed wound. A hand is offered for Nicole to hold on to because, yes, this is going to sting a little.

Finally the cotton is pressed against Nicole's injury. Eight is practiced, but a bit rough...

[sparkoflife]

Nicole hisses as the sting, the fur across her body standing on end. Yep, that hurt, the lynx girl squeezing Eight’s hand

[consider8]

"Almost done." She's rough because she doesn't want to prolong the pain if she can help it. Once she's convinced the wound has been cleaned, she pries the fut back so the gauze is allowed to make good contact.

Satisfied, her left hand reaches for the flexible bandage, wrapping it gently around the leg. Once she's convinced that everything is secure she opens her mouth and her razor-sharp beak clamps down on the edge, making a clean cut.

"It'll hurt for a while, but give yourself a chance to get used to it."

[sparkoflife]

“I will... haaa...” Nicole uttered before pulling down the legging. “Yeah, this is going to hurt awhile longer... but, thanks to what you did, it shouldn’t be too bad...”

[consider8]

Eight nodded. "Bandages don't really help healing, but what they will do is protect the injury for getting worse. In a day or too, it will be better to remove the bandage and give the wound a good cleaning."

[sparkoflife]

"I'll keep that in mind, then." Nicole said, nodding. "I know we kinda got off on the wrong foot, but I'm glad we met."

[consider8]

"Okay." Is what she will admit.

"You seem good, too." But how far would that go? Didn't the Phone seem good too, at first? And C. Q.? She was glad to help, but a part of her is scared. And a part of her wondered... is this what Cuttlefish felt when he helped her?

...she wished she could have been so welcoming to Nicole as he was to her.

[sparkoflife]

Nicole tilted her head a bit. "...you're scared of me, aren't you?" she asked. "I understand completely. The madman in my world used to be able to turn everyone into robots. Even when they could regain their freedom, they were still not trusted fully."

[consider8]

...okay. There was nothing wrong with telling her her worries, right?

"An AI was disappointed with how Octolings and Squidlings were advancing, and set up a facility to test us. It wanted to extract the DNA of the ones who passed its tests to create an ultimate lifeform. And then destroy all life in the world."

"I was subject 10,008." Which means there were 10,007 subjects that... didn't make it. "I stopped it."

[sparkoflife]

Whoo, boy. If Shadow were here, he'd flip his lid at that. As it stood, this made Nicole's... something... boil. An AI who thinks itself better than others again? Another Phage?

"You did the right thing." Nicole said. "I promise I would never go that far and if I ever do... stop me. Please. I don't care if it breaks Sally's heart, stop me."

[consider8]

Eight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was scared, but... yeah, no.

"You are different." And only time will tell if that difference meant she could trust her. But its a start.

She suddenly felt very tired thinking about all of this and retreated to her own room. She let the door open, though, in case Nicole needed her for something.

[sparkoflife]

"Oh, wai--" Nicole tried to call out, but it was quite obvious she might have triggered her badly thinking about all that.

She did peek in real fast. "If you need me for anything, please, don't hesitate to call me."

[consider8]

That was enough to get a soft smile out of her. "Whoopy..."

She nodded and slid her way back onto the bed. That's one thing she could thank for a blessing. Laying in beds beat sitting on cold subway seats. "You, too." Her gaze turned to the location of Nicole's voice. "Call me Eight."

[sparkoflife]

"I'm Nicole." she replied. "It was nice to meet you, Eight. I hope this is the start of a wonderful friendship."

[consider8]

"Mm!" Eight muttered through a smile. She was sleeping in an unusual way -- upright, with a pillow against her back and a blanket pulled over her shoulders. A new AI huh? A fuzzy AI... hmn... Maybe this one was okay. Maybe.

As she drifts, a old tune humming from her chest, reminding her that sometimes things change. Sometimes you need to give the other side a chance. Who knows what the next dawn will bring?