TDM #1

[glencolans]

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Welcome to Glencola Reef's first Test Drive Meme! This is a place where anyone interested in applying a character - or just curious to see how their characters might interact with the setting and others in the game - can mingle with one another. General prompts are provided below for inspiration.

TDM GUIDELINES

• Please read the rules before posting to the TDM. These still apply here and will be enforced, up to and including deleting tags/toplevels and prebanning.
• Posts from a TDM are required to apply. At least three tags across any number of threads within a TDM, posted within the last 6 months, must be provided in every application.
• TDM threads can be used for AC. Note that new characters only need to check in for their first AC cycle, but established characters can use TDM tags for their AC.
• TDMs are not considered game canon by default. This is mostly for logistics reasons - due to how characters travel on the map, it's unlikely that non-network threads that take place here will actually happen in-game. However, I won't stop anyone from working out how to make parts of threads game canon if they really want to.
• New TDMs will be posted every three months. Keep checking back into the current TDM for new toplevels!

I. ARRIVAL

You awaken on a tropical island beach, soaking wet, powerless, and without any idea how you got here. Were you carrying something important, or wearing powerful armor? How unfortunate - it looks like only the most basic clothes, items in your pockets, and simple weapons managed to make the trip with you. Are you even physically the same as you remember? If you had superhuman abilities tied to your physiology, you might be stuck in a completely different body that lacks your usual senses. You might've been whisked away from a tense battle or a near-death experience and wake up delirious, or even injured.

Thankfully, against overwhelming odds, you're not the only one to wake up on this particular stretch of beach. You and your companion have a lot of puzzling out to do.

II. NETWORK

Even if you weren't lucky enough to wake up near someone else, at least you've arrived with a military-grade radio transceiver gripped tightly in your hand (or mouth, or other vaguely opposable appendage of choice). The clunky walkie-talkie will start buzzing and crackling for every public message that starts coming your way. Answering them back is as easy as pressing the "talk" button on the side of the device and either speaking into the receiver, or using the keypad to type into the message box that appears on the screen, then pressing the button again to send. A list of ongoing conversations with responses that are less than 24 hours old can be found by scrolling through the menu, identified by the callsigns that are participating in them. It seems that you've been assigned a callsign, too - it shows up in the top right side of the screen, format AB123C. The letters and numbers picked are...probably random.

This is your easiest avenue to communicating, or coordinating with, or complaining at the other people stuck on this island; how you decide to use this tool is up to you.

III. EXPLORING

For a place that appears, by all signs, to be an equatorial island in the middle of a tropical ocean, the local environments are surprisingly diverse. Beaches range from idyllic white sand to storm-swept pebble crags to cliffs with waterfalls cascading off the edges; the interior forests can be thinned from sandy soil or dense jungles full of prickly underbrush and with towering canopies; and the central mountain peaks, perilous enough to climb on their own, terminate in ravines and sinkholes that are hidden by thick foliage until you already have one foot over the edge.

The animals that make their homes here are equally as varied, and sometimes just as dangerous. The standard Earth fare of tropical fish swim right up to most shores, especially where reefs have grown, and a multitude of seafaring and jungle birds make their homes in ocean-facing cliffs and trees. Any one of these creatures would make for an easy snack. But you're not the only opportunistic hunters here; sharks prowl the waters, big cats stalk the jungles, and feral boars raid any camps that smell enticing. And that's just the stuff that looks like it came from modern Earth. Your improvised fishing rod might have captured a trilobite, or maybe that deer you were stalking has rounded on you with a set of alien mandibles full of sharp teeth. Or maybe, among the plants and animals completely foreign to you, you've stumbled across one that's strangely familiar to your home and no one else's.

There's a lot to figure out about this place. At least, in this instance, you aren't doing it alone.

NAVIGATION

Comments

shannon moss | the gone world | ota.

[2199]

a. NETWORK.

[American, vaguely East Coast, female, an adult voice with a harsh cadence; she speaks in the dull tone of someone accustomed to terse military communication.]

Alfa-Bravo-One-Two-Thee-Charlie, calling in. This Alfa-Bravo-One-Two-Thee-Charlie. [Or, like, whatever her callsign is; let's just make this a placeholder.] Awaiting hail from unknown station, over.

[...]

Requesting information. Requesting verification from unknown station. Requesting location. Requesting year of departure. Requesting information in compliance with Protocol 172. I say again: verify year of departure.

In compliance with Protocol 172: Alfa-Bravo-One-Two-Thee-Charlie is one-niner-niner-seven. I repeat: year of departure is one-niner-niner-seven

Until further instruction, all rescue precautions will be assumed. Locating high ground, shade, clean water. Please respond if in need of assist.

Alfa-Bravo-One-Two-Thee-Charlie, requesting verification from unknown station. Requesting... Libra. Terra Firma. Quantum foam. Grey Dove... Courtney Gimm. Libra. Requesting Libra. Alfa-Bravo-One-Two-Thee-Charlie, over.

b. ON THE BEACH.

Shannon Moss makes her way across up beach at a slow, determined pace. She hasn't fallen yet. She won't. The prosthetic, a hard plastic nub sticking out under the cuff of her jeaned leg, barely takes purchase in the sand, and sinks low. She walks slowly, precariously, but she makes it further from the waterline, until the sand becomes packed enough to sustain her more easily.

Moss stands comfortably once she can stand. Wearing casual clothing, she's immediately pulled up her sleeves. Things were bleak and bleary, back home. Cold, but she could have dressed warmer. Should have. There was a cold, an eternal cold...

(1.) Something scurries in the brush. Moss pivots on her heel, and draws a government issue service weapon from her hip, a Smith and Wesson 4506. She does not speak into the dark between the trees. She waits.

It's a deer, an adolescent white tail, bounding onto the sand. It skitters briefly on soft wet earth before it stumbles away, and Moss watches it go.

"Fuck."

(2.) No, when she falls, it's not because of her leg. Even with two feet reaching down from two knees, the way she was in the darkness of 2199, she would have fallen to see this. A trilobite, a monster dead in a time before history or love or penicillin, lies dead in the sand. Some kind of tabby raccoon dragged it into the dirt, and Moss watched it die after she shooed the rodent away. This is an ancient beast. This is a tremendous underwater cockroach. This is something so forgotten by time that it only exists as mineral footprints, and it's died.

When Moss recognizes it, she falls to her knees. Tears do not fall, she does not wail or cry, but she doesn't try to get up. She does not move. She stares at the ground, and barely breathes.

c. LATER THAT NIGHT.

Just beforethe sun begins setting, a plume of smoke rises from the highpoint of a hill. Visible from multiple angles, it's easy to see and track. The smoke is dark and reaches high, but doesn't seem to be spreading.

Occasionally, the smoke stops briefly, before resuming. Those familiar with Morse Code may notice three short pauses, three long pauses, three short. SOS.

Those traveling toward the fire will find a Moss standing over a controlled burn bonfire in a large clearing. The ocean can be seen, the sun setting on a silver sea. The light of the fire combines to make the darkness bright and warm.

Moss keeps her distance, but doesn't stand warily. She walks slowly toward any newcomers. "How long have you been here?" She asks, "how many suns have you seen?"

d. WILDCARD.

[I'm up for basically anything; ask if unsure! PM this journal as needed.]

network | callsign: SC072B

[nervouslaughter]

[ The voice that comes over the walkie in response is also American, also female, but chipper and upbeat despite the circumstances, if a little unsure. Young adult -- early twenties or maybe late teens; not a child, but still young. ]

Hi, um, Alfa-Bravo-One-Two-Thee-Charlie! This is Cheyenne! What's, um, what's one-niner-niner seven?

[ A confused beat. ]

Uhhh, I think I am in need of... of assist? I don't know where I am. There's trees and a river. [ Very helpful, Cheyenne. ]

[2199]

[...A civilian. What is a civilian doing here?]

[Her tone changes, not quite in the realm of condescension, but it does bear similarities to how nurses talk to patients, how first responders talk to witnesses.] Please stick to callsigns; we don't know who's listening. You can call me Alfa-Bravo. Okay, Sierra-Charlie?

Repeat your- [Sigh.] Could you look around and try to find the tallest landmark? A hill? Is there anything someone could see from a distance?

[nervouslaughter]

[ They don't know who's listening? That makes a pit start to grow in Cheyenne's stomach. Who could be listening who might be bad? Were they kidnapped? Is that how she got here?

It makes sense, she realizes, but then why did the kidnappers just leave them? Cheyenne swallows hard. She nods, but then feels a little dumb, realizing that - duh - of course the woman on the other end can't hear her nodding. ]

O-okay, Alfa-Bravo. [ Cheyenne takes a deep breath, and looks around. She is trying, but she's just not used to this. It'd be hard to understate how genuinely unprepared she is.

But. Landmarks. Okay. She can look for landmarks. ]

Um... well, this weird tower thingy is near me. It's pretty tall. I bet you could totally see it from, like, way far away. [ She swallows. Wait. No. She has to sound serious. She'll try. ] Like a cell tower but kind of... different? It's about twenty feet away from me. Maybe thirty.

Should I go to it?

[2199]

[And, through the ocean waves and the light crash of static, Moss thinks she can hear that hesitance. This woman isn't supposed to be here. She was never supposed to be here.]

[What has the Libra done?]

Sierra-Charlie, I advise you to find a fortified position within view of the tower. I can see it from here, and will be en route shortly. I repeat: wait until I can provide assist. I... I'm a blonde woman with a prosthetic leg.

[She doesn't like being defined by what she lacks, but it's probably the most easily identifiable thing about her, now that the evidence of her fight with Nestor has healed.]

I'm wearing a red jacket and jeans. Do you read me? Please repeat instruction back to me, over.

c.

[thedreamer]

Intrigued by the sight and far too curious to stay away, the Doctor makes his way towards the smoke rising. Morse code—admirable ingenuity in a time of relative turmoil. For most, anyway. Not for him. This is just an ordinary Thursday, or really...any day ending in -y.

Approaching the woman, the Doctor offers an easy smile, perhaps outwardly more at ease than most would be.

"Ah, hello! Clever, that," he gestures towards the sky. "Worth a try, anyway. As to your questions, well, how long have you got? The stories I could tell!"

Holding out his hand, he offers his name, "I'm the Doctor. Very good to meet you."

[2199]

Inevitably, her line of work, you run into eccentrics. They're largely harmless, and can even be indulged. Moss is not so focused she can't humor him, even if the levity feels discordant.

"Agent Shannon Moss," she says. What agency? Why is it important to note? She wants to set the tone. There is only so much brevity she can indulge.

But she does shake his hand.

"PHD or medical?"

[thedreamer]

"Or is a bit limiting," he notes, giving her a friendly nod as their hands briefly join. And when he lets go, he follows up that bit of ambiguity with an equally vague explanation, "And, I much prefer. Mind you, bit rusty on the medical but handy in a pinch. Not to worry."

Of course, he's not unaware that their circumstances are...concerning, to say the least. He's not totally dismissive, even if he's reasonably sure he'll have it all figured out in due time.

"Do you prefer Agent Moss, Shannon, or a yet-to-be-determined codename?" Agent, of course, has him curious. He does wonder which agency, why her expertise might have been of value here, why she was brought here in particular, of everyone, of all the billions upon billions in the universe. Why. She's important, of course, everyone is, but why Agent Shannon Moss, here of all places? Why any of them at all?

And where is his TARDIS? The most alarming thing in all of this, perhaps; his old girl wouldn't abandon him like this.

"What do you make of all this?" Leaning into her expertise, such as it is. A question that might help him get to know her experience a bit more, in a roundabout way.

[2199]

Moss listens, and finds... nothing much of value in his words. The prevarications of a showman. He's a civilian trying to emulate expertise. It's her job to protect him, but she doesn't need to get along with him.

It will serve no one if she signals displeasure, though. Him disappearing back into the bush will just end in his death. "I don't have a preference," she says. "Use whatever makes you comfortable."

Marion hadn't called her anything at all.

"We're stranded in a place with... unique characteristics. I haven't been here long enough to form a unified theory, but it's troubling."

Her best theory is regrettably classified.

B1

[aluminumandash]

Rust follows the tracks up the coast, the peculiar divot—crutch, walking stick?—alongside an ordinary footprint. All in all it's easy going, with the prints less washed out by the tide the closer he gets. He moves off the sand, into the shade at the fringe of the jungle, once they're fresh.

He doesn't expect to catch up this fast, or find her the way he does—supplication, he thinks, the word drifting into his head. As out of place as an actual fucking church. For a while he just watches, waiting for her to get up or keel over or scream. Something.

When it doesn't happen he circles around to approach from the side, gun not drawn but his hand at the ready. He looks crazy, probably, in his sweat-soaked dress shirt. Suit jacket and tie slung across his back in a kind of makeshift backpack.

“Something the matter?” he asks in a grave Texas drawl.

[2199]

She should have moved, but the man hadn't registered as a threat. After Mursult, after the bodies jellied in that trailer, after the looming end of time, she found his presence difficult to care about at all.

But that's over. Get up, Moss. She stands with practiced, economical fluidity; she's clearly accustomed to the prosthetic sticking like a rubber hoof out of her pant leg. She doesn't reach for anything to steady her, though there's something uneven in her gait. This isn't her preferred model.

She'll live. She always does.

Pointing to the trilobite, Moss asks the only question that coalesces out of her cluttered mind. It's probably not the right question. There's information she needs in order to move forward, but her mind is as always drawn painfully back to the vicissitudes of time. "Do you know what that is?"