TEST DRIVE MEME: The First (Fixed Setting)

[thecrows]

TEST DRIVE MEME
HOW TO: Post with your character in what will be a fixed setting for the first round! Do a top level, respond to others! If your thread is substantial, it can be used as a first-person on your application! Remember that this is not game canon, and everyone is welcome!

You were just ushered into a large park by a murder of loud and insistent crows who somehow manage to get the gate shut behind you before they fly off. The park is awfully green for such a dead-looking town. It's dusk, and things are starting to get a little noisy at the edge of the tall iron fence that surrounds the area. There are gazebos, cobblestone pathways, gentle slopes, and of course, the lake and the island with the large, dead tree. It's full of crows, and if you stare at them, they'll all stare back. Feel free to take a load off on one of the many iron and wood benches, but the gates to the city are closed!

This does not, however, mean you are barred from ghost-watching as night progresses. Remember, they won't see you!

Comments

[syntech]

[Then there's this particular candidate, seemingly lost in the depths of his own world. And what a world it appears to be, nestled under one of the smaller trees and out of the sight of the crows.

Why out of sight of the crows? Because he's busy flicking through some tantalisingly shiny... well, bubbles? They look like bubbles, anyway, with data streaming through them. What he's doing is questionable, too, except that now and again very large, flashing red letters cross the screen, mirrored from any vantage point against his own.

NO MATCH. DATA INSUFFICIENT. VALUES UNSOLVABLE.

Things of that nature; it's only now starting to visibly frustrate FlickerFox, as he stares down at the ring set on his knee and inputs another command or twelve on the keyboard not-quite-resting across his lap. Nothing. No 'net access, no public data, none of it. Not that it isn't there - he can pick up the network's existence just fine. It's just getting into it that seems impossible, at least as current. What the fuck is this place?]

[plushcrush]

[Shiny tech. Bro is intrigued.

One moment, he's standing some distance away; the next, he's leaning on the tree beside Fox, regarding the bubbles with interest.]

They got a wifi connection around here?

[syntech]

[Very shiny. And one of the screens blinks when Bro approaches, though Fox doesn't react to it plainly. Maybe it does bother him a little, and the words bring a wry smile to his lips.

For a response, Bro will get the same as anyone - a not-quite-human (but markedly more smooth than 'typical' digital) voice, deep but feminine and pretty plainly outputting based on input on the keyboard. Excuse me, on the second keyboard, situated off to one side of Fox.]

"There's a network, if that's your connection. Its nodes are all throwing {AEDOS}." [There's a different tone when it reads off AEDOS, an indication that it's a specific, important term.] "And, of course, there's nothing in my databases to help."

[Go fucking figure.]

[plushcrush]

[Bro's expression is always carefully blank, which prevents it from becoming noticeably more so at the explanation that just makes things way more confusing. He's pretty damn tech-savvy, if he says so himself - and he does, sometimes unasked - but none of that made sense in any context he knows.]

The only Eidos I know made video games, back before Earth got wiped by meteors.

[syntech]

[Now that... that is interesting. Fox finally looks away from that screen of his, sharp green eyes traveling over the blond. Not too much has changed, stylistically, in the years forward - if he hadn't heard it himself, he wouldn't have even dug back into his memory of history to pick out that reference.

He could laugh, or crack a smile - or anything really. But for the most part, that neutral expression carries through, only the mildest bemusement sneaking into his brows.]

"Eidos went bankrupt quite a long time ago, I'm afraid I hadn't heard of any meteors hitting home. A-E-D-O-S is an All-Encompassing Denial of Service. Long story short, there's wifi, but it's not publicly accessible. At least not with my bubble HUD."

[That said, he dismisses two of the three screens with a simple flick of his fingers through them, climbing to his feet and picking up the ring on his knee.]

"It doesn't seem virtual, this place - that's a plus."

[plushcrush]

You're kidding. With timeless classics like Backyard Wrestling 2? How the fuck did they go wrong?

[This is delivered so deadpan it's hard to tell if it's uninflected seriousness or flat sarcasm, and Bro's completely unchanging expression gives no hints either way.]

So HUDs aren't just a FPS thing anymore, wherever you're from. [And, without asking for permission and zero regard for possible consequences, Bro reaches out to prod a finger at Fox's remaining screen, clearly just to see what happens.] It finally happened. Call of Duty took over the world.

Where do you come from that you can't be 100% on whether you're in a real or virtual place, anyway?

[syntech]

[If he interprets it as even possibly being a joke, there's equally little indication. He could recite the actual reason Eidos went out of business - even beyond its name-change to Square-Enix in 2009 - but that's not really prevalent information at this moment.]

"Call of Duty would have been a blessing in comparison to the Chaos Calamity." [Ah, but his eyes narrow just slightly when Bro reaches out to prod the screen. It's... strangely, it has weight to it, denting in and sort of molding around his finger. It's almost like jelly, by feel, even.]

... "I'm from Connecticut, in 3414." [Just a short leap into the future there....]