repeter | JANUARY 2018 TDM

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JANUARY 2018 TDM

TEST DRIVE

JANUARY TEST DRIVE
The city of Recollé...

What do you mean the city's behaving for once?

I.
The large opaque dome enveloping the entire city continues to stand tall and firm, though this may be the first time you've noticed the dome itself rather than believe it's simply an eclipse effect. Faintly reflective in appearance but blocking the outside world, the dome still allows the warmth of the weak winter sunlight to seep through. It isn't hard to breathe, and the flora and fauna seem to be responding just as naturally as always. But the city of Recollé is pitch black except for the light citizens shine themselves.

The dome stretches incredibly high over the city, but anyone who can get close enough to it will find that they can briefly see themselves in the surface. Upon touching the dome, it appears to be smooth and almost rubbery in texture despite a shell-like shield appearance. Soundproof and unable to provide clues to what's happening outside of the city the dome is also harmless for those who wish to touch it and examine it, causing it to bounce a few times under light impact. However, do be careful not to trigger its defense mode! Should anyone attempt to damage the dome itself, it will light up with a bright, sickening blue color for three seconds before delivering a shock to its attacker and rendering them unconscious for an hour. Perhaps you'll get lucky and you'll only deal with the too-hot-to-touch surface that self-activates when the dome is threatened, or the spikes that appear at the source of impact. The dome seems to have a temperament of its own. It may be best to treat it the way you want to be treated.

II.
Going about your normal day, the darkness seems endless aside from whatever light can be shed via flashlights, cell phones and interior lights inside buildings. However, as you wander the streets of the city, under your feet a swirl of yellow light appears before darting ahead, bouncing and bobbing its way over snow and concrete to create a clear path for you. It's a little convenient to have a guide to follow, but you're not the only one. Others around you are following their own lights and they all seem to gather right at the entrance of the old subway station. Perpetually under construction for as long as you can remember, the station appears to be wide open for anyone who ventures in.

The light will guide you for roughly twenty-five feet before it dies down again. You're allowed to turn back, of course. There's nothing stopping you...except for the vine that suddenly snakes along the ground and wraps around your ankle, hooking onto you and beginning to drag you further into the tunnels. Now would be a good time to start calling for help.

III.

Back in the city itself, it's hard to say who, exactly, is to blame for the first hit. People are minding their own business and moving on as if everything is perfectly natural as usual. However, in addition to the hustle and bustle small barrels appear on every street corner with an assortment of colored guns. The moment you step up to investigate one of these barrels it becomes a little more clear what, exactly, is happening here.

A bright red, green, or blue dot appears on your skin as the laser light hones in on you. Someone's decided to make you their next target in a city-wide game of laser tag and you have precisely ten seconds to run. For anyone tagged by the guns, a confetti-effect of red green and blue dots will appear all over you lasting for up to fifteen minutes before you're back in the game.

Will you grab your weapons and join the game? Or will you dodge as long as you can?

IV.
As the evening sets in, there's a smell in the air. It's not the usual winter-y scent of peppermint or warm soup or anything like that. No, you soon realize that the smell is buttered popcorn and now instead of the barrels of laser tag guns there are carts containing popcorn machines, bottles of soda, candy and more. These carts don't move and they do not seem to be manned by anybody so feel free to take as much as you'd like! At precisely 7pm, the street lights dim a little and the dome above you starts to...glow? It glows and a picture stretches all the way across the sky as a movie begins to play for your enjoyment. Maybe it's the first of the Galaxy Fights series, or it could be that crazy archaeologist turned fortune-hunter Kentucky Smith. The movies will rotate one after the other for the rest of the evening until 7am when the street lamps come on, but for now grab some blankets and a good seat. There's always time for a movie with some friends.

BONUS.
Of course communication to people outside of the city is still out of the question. Of course it is. There are absolutely no signs of that changing anytime soon no matter how many times you call or text or email. Snail mail is nearly impossible and don't even think about videochatting.

On the other hand, it seems as though the powerlines above are beginning to spark, pulsing in patterns of a bright blue color visible to the naked eye. What's up with that? Trying to get a closer look will only reveal a thick, crackling sort of energy that is surely not dangerous in the slightest and is nothing to worry about.

The energy won't leave the powerlines at all, but instead the next time you use your phone for anything a song activates instead. It's loud and it can't be shut down, but once it ends you may find yourself in a video chat with a fellow Retrospec user. Say hi!

Welcome to the

recolle test drive meme! All characters will be begin in-game AU'd as Recollé residents. You may use any of the above prompts for ideas or make up your own depicting your Recollé AU! Prompts do not have to be set in the districts listed above. You can review our list of locations for what's available. Please note that TDM threads can be used as samples, can be kept as game canon, and can also be used for bonus points for future item regains. Share a few minor details of your AU, tag around, and have fun!

For current players, please remember that TDM threads can only be used for bonus points, not regains.

Please note: you will need a reserve to apply, and current characters must have full AC posted at the time of their reservation.

Your January TDM directory is here, and your AU workshop is here! Our mod questions thread for this TDM is over here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ The alleyway is Minato's hiding place too. He isn't even carrying his pistol in his hands in hopes that people will take the hint that he doesn't want to play, but that doesn't stop him from having a gun pointed at his face several times every block he walks to get home. He thought he could sneak through the alleyways, but... ahh...

He approaches Anna cautiously, one hand leaving his pocket to touch the bag slung over his chest. ]

Cough drop or inhaler?

[ He carries both. ]

[she manages to glance up quickly enough to figure out that this new person isn't drawing a gun on her, so at least she doesn't have to worry about fighting back. when the coughing subsides and she's able to stand up straight again, which mercifully only takes a few seconds, she actually processes what he asked her.]

Bad life choices, but thanks.

[her throat does hurt, though, and it's going to make talking difficult. and right now it's probably to her advantage to hang around other people who think laser tag is stupid and don't want to play. she leans against the wall to let herself rest.]

Actually, a cough drop would be good. You just carry stuff like that with you?

Edited (sorry for the notif spam, my computer was unhappy) 2018-01-18 16:14 (UTC)

[ All Minato carries is honey lemon, so she'll have to make do with that flavor. He passes two over to her from the half bag he keeps on his person. ]

The inhaler's prescription, but cough drops are handy. Especially winter when the air's cold and dry.

[ And you can't breathe because everybody in the city is trying to kill you; doubled over trying to catch his breath was also the position Minato was in just a few short minutes prior. He settles back against the wall, trying to look over her shoulder out onto the street. He's curious as to whether the fighting has subsided, but if she had to take cover, probably not. ]

How's it look over there? My end of the alley's pretty crowded.

[hey, honey lemon is better than nothing. she takes it and immediately fights back the urge to crunch down on it that she always has with these things, and after that she seems ready to just listen and let herself catch her breath.]

Not great. They're pretty organized for something that just started happening. I didn't even see any ads for it and now they're all out for blood. Or whatever.

[Anna gives this other, surprisingly nice person a once-over before tilting her head against the wall and rolling her eyes upward. she just wants to go home, not play laser tag with an entire city.]

You get hit yet? Anything bad happen if you do?

[ People rally quickly for common causes, or something. All it takes is picking up a gun and joining a team, and let the fact that you're in a group make it easy to get into the spirit of the game. ]

Yeah. The lasers are just light, at the end of the day. Not like a sniper rifle or anything.

[ All in all, it's harmless, but very very annoying— the troublesome part, he thinks as he gives the mouth of the alley another once over, is people getting into your faces rather than the consequences of getting shot yourself, especially when people don't let up even after you've been shot. ]

Might be easier to just fight our way through... What do you think: would people be more or less trigger-happy facing a sitting target, versus an armed one?

Depends on the person. There's enough people out there that don't care if you do or don't have a gun. They just want to be assholes about it.

[at least he didn't think that her question about what happens if you get hit was so strange. given everything else going on lately, that's got to be one of the more reasonable questions.]

I'm over in the Hills if we want to make a break for it. That around your way?

[ He honestly wouldn't be surprised if being shot with a laser gun would make you sprout an extra head; that seems on par with what he's been seeing around the city, kids turning into horses and people swapping out limbs every other day. This- a laser tag tournament- is mild, and he'll take it. ]

Birch Hills? Yeah, I also live there.

[ But before they make a break for it, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and opens up a gps app, zooming out on the screen until the map encompasses their general location as well as the apartments. Neither of them can breathe when running for very long, so they can't just dart out there and run for their lives without a plan. ]

Which route should we take...? I don't know this part of the city very well.

[Anna brings herself around in view of the phone and takes a look at where they are vs. where her neighborhood is. come on, girl, you've lived here eight years, you should know the fastest way to get home from anywhere. without putting her finger on the screen, she kind of starts tracing a path.]

It's gonna be a pain in the ass getting there, but we can cut behind this one building here [and her finger hovers over a grey box a few blocks away] and buy ourselves some time to catch our breath. They never do any landscaping, so it's overgrown to shit, but that's cover for us. And nobody else, hopefully.

[it's so stupid that she actually knows this stuff, but whatever.] Then we just have to get across that big street that's probably gonna be crawling with people and we're back in our neighborhood. Then it's whatever you normally do to dodge a bunch of idiot college kids.

[ Minato's only lived in the city for all of three months, so his memorized routes are directly from home to work and back, much of it on autopilot rather than really paying attention to where he is in relation to the rest of the city. He does his best to commit this plan to memory, but he'll have to rely on Anna's guidance for much of it. ]

Looks doable. We'll have a good chance on that street too: more potential targets means a lower probability we'll be the ones to get picked off.

[ What to do about idiot college kids... Hope and pray, he supposes; they can always figure it out when they get there and have a better grasp on the situation. ]

Ready to head out? Better crunch that cough drop. [ It won't help suppress a cough that way, but accidentally swallowing it while running and having it lodge in your throat is never a fun experience. ]

[she gives this new guy a look; he's really on board with this like it's an actual battle plan or something and not just dodging a bunch of harmless lasers. oh well. their lives are weird enough right now already. that cough drop gets crunched almost as soon as he suggests it.]

All we've got is our pride on the line. The stakes have never been lower.

[and despite herself, she's a little excited now that there's somebody else she can do this with. it'll be good exercise, it'll get her heart pumping, maybe she won't have another coughing fit on the way there... and there really is nothing to lose. she looks in the direction they need to go, assumes a stance, and glances at her partner.]

On three.

[and she'll absolutely be ready to go as soon as they hit three. hopefully nothing will actually stop either of them on the way to their first, uh, shelter? safe point? base?]

[ Minato tends to take things seriously when they don't need to be (e.g. actually inputting this route into his phone...), and unfortunately, the same is true for the opposite. He does the countdown out loud: one— two— three—-

and takes off down the suggested path, the muffled robotic voice in his pocket telling him when a turn is coming up, although he keeps an eye on Anna's back for most of his guidance. Rather than from smoking, his bad lungs are more of a physical problem, burning out quickly and even though he can ignore the pain, he's definitely the slower of the two of them.

Nothing really stops them on their way to the first checkpoint, but by the time it's in sight, Minato's definitely being showered with colored dots, each time he gets tagged making him an even more obvious beacon of somebody who sucks so much at this game, he doesn't even have a gun to fight back with. ]

[and even though Anna has a gun and manages to get off a couple shots on the way to safety, she's not doing a great job at the whole tactical aspect of laser tag—insomuch as it can be called that. she makes it far enough without getting tagged, but she's also figured out that her partner might need some backup in case his lungs give or whatever happens to people with asthma.]

[when their goal is as close to in sight as it can get, given the circumstances, she slows down a little so she doesn't beef it when she turns her head to check on this kid. when she does, that's when somebody gets her, from basically right in front of her. and they duck back away and out of sight before Anna can even think about retaliating.]

[those colorful dots on both of them are a mild pain in the ass, but at least they're safe now. panting way more than she expected to, she slumps back against the wall and shuts her eyes for a second. after she swallows, she asks him a question with her eyes still closed.]

You good? Any breathing problems?

[ Minato slides in next to her a couple of paces later, but he doesn't exactly have the breath to answer her question right away, letting himself sink down into a crouch with his back flush against the wall and digging around his bag for his inhaler. He wishes the design of these things were better in that he's got to breathe in the medicine deeply and hold his breath for it to work, and he can't exactly breathe at all. He does his best, though, waiting for when his lungs loosen up again before he lets himself speak. ]

...I'm good. Had breathing problems since I was a kid. So I know how to deal with it.

[ Most of the time, he deals by not doing stupid things like running for his life that he knows will trigger it. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

JANUARY 2018 TDM

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