TDM #1

[goneawaymod]

TEST DRIVE #1

So it's your first day at your new job! Welcome to the Jorgmund Family™! It's time to settle into your new workplace on the Piper 90 rig, the coziest place of employment this side of the Livable Zone. A leader in its industry, Jorgmund is excited to have you join them in enthusiastically envisioneering team-driven paradigms.  

The Piper 90 rig's mission is not only an impressive undertaking in terms of impactful customer-oriented deliverables, it's providing a vital backbone to the Livable Zone by creating a safe region for citizens to live, work, and play. Jorgmund's "outside the box" thinking means they understand the importance of wisely investing in their human capital - you! You'll soon find that you'll take pride in this vital work - and the benefits can't be beat.

Rest assured, Jorgmund's multidisciplinary approach to our world's period of recovery means we know how to keep it real when facing this opportunity for restructuring and growth. Jorgmund: Even if most of the world has gone away, we can make a world of difference!

Synergy!

USEFUL LINKS
It is recommended you check out the following links first for info on the rig, rig conditions, game mechanics, and the intro and slideshow your characters would have to endure that takes place chronologically before the Test Drive Meme: 

Welcome/Arrival  | Rig Weather & Hazards | Rig Setting Page | Game Mechanics

SCENARIO #1 - MOVE-IN DAY!

After the bewildering and unpleasant onboarding process, you've finally been unleashed on the rig. (Well. To places you're allowed to go on the rig.) It's time to get acquainted with your new surroundings, process some of All Of That™, and meet your fellow captives - err, coworkers!

a) A BIT OF A MESS
Perhaps you're hungry? The mess hall food isn't amazing, but it does the job. Characters that have higher metabolic needs than your average human might be left feeling a little hungry, though. The worst part is actually the electronic sliding door: a small sign helpfully informs you that if you want inside, you need to smile for the camera! In addition to being patronizing, this may be a problem for characters who refuse to play ball, or characters with sufficiently nonhuman faces the door sensor can't read them. Remember, if then company doesn't see people like you, it's not discriminatory -- it's just indifferent! And that isn't legally actionable!

b) GOING NOWHERE FAST
The rig's elevators are a little off-kilter today. Overhead announcements mention this, but downplay the severity and are easy to miss -- which means you and your threadmate are stuck in here, somewhere between the fifth and sixth floor. You can complain into the emergency intercomm, but it might take from a few minutes up to an hour before the elevator gets rolling again. How do you pass the time?

c) SHOULD'VE TAKEN THAT LEFT TURN
You're really just trying to get somewhere else on the rig, but you've gotten hopelessly lost. Oh well, at least you're not alone! Did you run into your threadmate here? Did you lead them astray? Are they at fault? Even worse, are you somewhere full of AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY signs, mysterious equipment, and a worrying number of security cameras?

d) NEED A HAND?
You've been assigned a room and some relatively spare possessions to put in it. Unfortunately, it seems that the staff assigned to help move in new hires are all busy at the moment. Unless you want to wait around, you're going to need to lug and assemble your new assigned foldable den furniture yourself. Do you team up with another newbie? Do you try it alone and find yourself needing help? Do you come to the rescue of someone else who did that?

e) SPECIAL DELIVERY
Somebody in processing decided to give you two a quick little errand: you're supposed to take a couple boxes of files up to the executive deck. Unfortunately, a skeptical security staffer is giving you a hard time on your way there, on account of your funny-looking face, insufficient ID or sketchy-looking package. How do you deal with this and accomplish your task?

f) BLOW OFF STEAM
You're likely still a bit sore from Jorgmund fitting you with the nanochain, but you were promised a gym and you are going to use that gym, dammit. It looks like you're not alone in deciding to try out the training area. Do you train together? Spar to let some frustration out? Or are you gonna argue about whose turn it is on which piece of equipment and resent your lost solitude? You'll also find you have to contend with the communal showers when you're done.

g) NO REST FOR THE WEARY
It's the middle of the night on the rig. You're displaced from home, it's not very warm, your door doesn't shut because privacy is a "privilege" nobody has earned yet, and occasional mysterious clanging noises ring through the rig. You can't sleep, not yet, and perhaps you're not the only insomniac wandering the crew deck?

SCENARIO #2 - YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO PANIC

Around dawn on the morning of Day Two, something goes wrong. (Wrong-er?) You awake to the sound of alarms, and a voice over the speakers telling you NOT TO PANIC! A Stuff storm has caused a brief and contained leak onto Piper 90. You may encounter strange sights or sounds. Any anomalies should be reported immediately to rig security. Thank you for your cooperation!

The nature of the problem isn't immediately clear, but over the next handful of hours you find yourself embroiled in a bizarre fracas: a Stuff leak has caused numerous inanimate objects on the rig to come to life. Furniture and appliances small and large are roaming the decks. Some of them are docile, but others are aggressive (or just troublesome due to their size). Some examples:

• A rogue photocopier spewing paper and ink
• A mahogany conference table with old clawed feet and a brand new gaping jaw
• A water cooler that scuttles the halls, squirting people with jets in varying temperatures
• Small office supplies like pencils and paperclips that swarm in large numbers
• Dressers and drawers that spit their contents at high velocity
• A room's worth of folding chairs that hunt as a pack
• An emergency fire hose that attempts to ensnare crew members in its coils
• The angriest coffee pot you have ever seen

The objects can be dangerous, but are more strange, troublesome, and determined than deadly. If a foe seems to be incapacitated or "plays dead," even the aggressive conference table or hose will leave them with bruises and move on. Crew members who get in over their heads will be bailed out by security personnel as the incident dies down. Jorgmund staff stresses that the leak has been contained (so no new anomalies will appear), but after the initial surprise it's everyone's job to help hunt down and dispose of the Stuff-altered... stuff. It's gonna be a long morning, and you haven't even been properly briefed yet!

h) GOOD MORNING, PIPER 90
Rise and shine! There are alarms going off, announcements blaring, and people are scrambling around trying to figure out what's going on. You're one of them. Freak out? Spring into action? Team up with someone to shake down a staffer for more details? Run into someone new, perhaps literally?

i) INTERIOR WRECKORATING
You've been ambushed by an animate object that seems to have it in for you, or you've heard the shouts of someone who has and come running to help. What's ruining your morning now, and what are you going to do about it?

j) ON THE RUN
The folding chairs from Presentation Room B operate as a unit, harrying their prey through the halls with much scrambling of legs and flapping of seats. They're after you, at the moment. Can you escape, or perhaps lead them into a trap? Or do you stand your ground?

k) HERE'S THE PLAN
You and your threadmate have found somewhere secure (for now) and are deciding how to deal with a larger enemy. Are you hunting it, or is it hunting you? Are you planning to take it out of commission, or just how to get away from it? Or are you just gonna hide here and lay low until this is over?

l) PROP HUNT
Things are getting back under control, thankfully. Large disturbances have been disposed of, but that leaves the little things like elusive chains of paperclips, a small but vicious stapler, pens and markers that write rude words on walls, and utensils from the mess hall. These anomalies are stealthier, but must still be dealt with, and it's up to you to flush them out.

m) CLEAN UP IN AISLE EVERYTHING
The chaos has passed, and now you've been instructed to clean up a mess. Ink or loose paper from the copier, coffee from the rampaging pot, mopping up after a water cooler, scrubbing marker off a wall, etc. You might get roped into contending with the Yuck Puddle, which is a permanent fixture and not a new development, but someone's always contending with the Yuck Puddle.

OOC DETAILS
➤ Feel free to play around with powers. If your character has powers from canon you want to play around with, go for it. If you'd like to test out possibilities for game powers, also go for it. Feel free to change it up from thread to thread if you need to. This can be handwaved as exposure to Stuff making characters' powers shift a few times before settling.

➤ Potential players may use test drive threads as their log samples. However, at least one post in their thread must fit the requirements for apps, both in length (200 words) and in quality. If you do plan on using a thread as a sample, please make sure the writing throughout your threads is a good example of your writing skills and has some solid examples of the character's voice.

➤ Players can eventually count TDMs towards AC. They can only count towards comment-based AC proofs.

➤ Potential players can opt to keep these threads as game canon when they app in, or start over fresh, based on preference. The Stuff bringing them to the game universe can fog their memories, if players don't want their character to remember TDM threads when introing into the game.

➤ The game is invite-only. Players without invites are allowed to tdm since some of them may know someone in game to ask for one, and since some people enjoy TDMs just for fun in games they don't plan to app into. But an invite is required during the apping process.

➤ The game is at a starting cap at 30 players. Right now the current number of invitees is likely to not exceed the game's 30 slots, but if we go a few over they will still be allowed to app during this first round. Future apps will be rolling apps and will have a wait queue if the cap has been exceeded.

➤ The first game round will be apps only, no reserves. Apps open: Sat 4/11/20. Game start: Fri 4/17/20.

Comments

Kevin Armstrong/VIPER-X - Champions

[tarnishedavenger]

B.
Well, wasn't this the cherry on the shit pie? Kidnapped (Jorgmund's story of his rescue seemed a little too pat), electrocuted, time wasted by a bunch of bullshit interviews, and then the sole hope of the world couldn't even keep the elevators running. Armstrong scowls at the unhelpful box, then glances at the doors and ceiling, wondering just how much trouble he'd get in for just ripping the box apart and climbing up a floor. Where would the camera be, if this elevator had one?

Then again, he wasn't sure if his partner in captivity was up to that. He was a strong guy, a big guy too, but they, well. Even if they looked impressive, appearances could be deceiving. And it'd be awkward if he pulled things open just as the elevator got fixed. "Guess we're waiting."

F.
At least the gym wasn't awful. Changes were still being made, obviously. But one thing did concern Armstrong. He was at the hydraulic press. In it, really. He'd meant it to be a light workout, starting off at a few hundred pounds, then working his way up to his usual max. But something about this-the machines must be off. He was peaking, hard, and the readout was just ticking over forty-four hundred pounds. He lets out a strangled noise of frustration and strain, working to push up against the increasing weight.

Two tons wasn't anywhere near his limit. He squatted that as a warm-up.

Sweat pours down his red face and his eyes dart about, trying to spot anyone who could lend a hand. He couldn't reach out and hit the abort button, not without risking getting crushed. But judging from the look on his face, Armstrong knows full well that's about to happen anyway. Especially as the readout creeps closer to five thousand pounds of pressure. He drops to a knee, heavily, the thud of it seeming to echo in the nearly empty room. Some destiny, he figures. Crushed by faulty weight equipment in another dimension. Who'd decided that a hydraulic press didn't need a cutoff switch in easy reach, anyway? No, the key to it was about two feet out of reach for him. No string for him to tug on. Even if he could reach out and grab it.

Little help?

Dave Strider | Homestuck

[turntex]

A. BIT OF A MESS

[Hello, friends. Everything sucks.

Seated at one of the tables is a pale-faintly freckled blond teen, the familiarity of the standard uniform broken up by a pair of aviators he'd somehow managed to keep. The tray in front of him has the same edible, nutritious meal everyone else is getting, but the slant of his mouth suggests dissatisfaction with some aspect of it. Somehow – even after a childhood with a fridge that rarely contained anything but booby traps and a few more recent years spent on a literal meteor – the food situation here has still managed to disappoint him.]

Can't believe I actually miss shitty space coffee. I mean, that's probably just Stockholm Syndrome masquerading as nostalgia, but, y'know. Same shit.

[Was this directed at you, sitting nearby or walking past? It's hard to say, honestly. He's kind of a mumbler.]


B. GOOD MORNING P90

[Even after a few years of relative calm, old instincts die hard. Dave jolts immediately awake and rolls straight out of bed. Given he's on a top bunk, this would probably spell disaster for most people. Luckily, he seems to float for a second, just long enough to get his feet under him as he drops neatly to the ground.

At least, it would have been a neat landing, if not for the sudden appearance of one of his bunkmates under him, presumably also jumping out of their lower bunks in response to the alarm.

Whoops. Well, nothing like a whole ass teenager dropped on your head to wake you up properly, right?]


C. PROP HUNT

[The shitstorm has mostly calmed and it's just down to the last of the annoying little sentient objects still floating around. Someone actually doing their job might have tracked a rogue marker by its trail of vulgar words left scrawled along the walls. At the end of the trail, however, one would find said marker hard out work writing out a grand FUCK across the door to the rec room, with Dave just standing there making no move to stop it.

Noticing someone approach, Dave presumably glances in their direction. Presumably. The shades make it hard to tell sometimes. He shrugs and gestures vaguely at the graffiti.]

Can't really blame it, honestly. Not all that creative, but for a brainless piece of plastic it's got the right spirit.

Alloran-Semitur-Corrass | Animorphs

[takenalive]

Alloran is a blue centaurlike alien, about six feet tall ignoring the stalk eyes, with a dazed, lost-in-his-own-head affect. He may have had his upper half jammed into a long-sleeved black shirt, which serves to highlight that it only has a mild resemblance to a human torso.

A bit of a mess

It had taken some time to contemplate the door, and realize what had to be done to access it, and finally to make himself act, but Alloran picked a human morph and condensed himself into a smaller form in close-fitting clothing, shredding his mandatory shirt in the process. Hopefully you didn't see it happen. Morphing is an ugly, dismaying process.

Now he's barefoot and cold, the exposed human skin ridging itself up into bumps to fluff out woefully inadequate fur. Sooner or later someone will complain he's out of uniform. For now, the bombed-out disconnect on his face lifts as, slowly copying someone, Alloran tastes a cup of unsweetened black instant coffee and is astonished.

No rest

It's starting to sink in. This probably isn't a fantasy Esplin is making seem real for him. It's lasted too long without any timeskips and, honestly, is neither as nightmarish nor as pleasing as those visions tend to be. There aren't any Hork-Bajir, either.

What does that mean? What does he do?

With the doors open, some of the sound disturbing would-be-sleepers is made by four neatly split hooves on the deck as Alloran walks to and fro, not seeing much, trying to convince himself that for however long this lasts, he is alone in and truly inhabits his body.

[xrater]

G.
Alia doesn't sleep. Well, no, that's not entirely accurate, she does need to rest and recover every now and then, but Jorgmund doesn't have the machines available that she needs to do that. She'll need to make a request or build one herself, she supposes. Or just wait a few days and see if things resolve themselves quickly. This situation couldn't last too long, could it?

She meanders quietly through the halls, making little notes here and there. The situation wasn't ideal, it really wasn't, but she supposes it could be worse. After all, she could be dead. Not, she thinks, that the current situation was good. It was probably her imagination, but she could swear that she could feel the nanochain in her systems, a totally unnecessary violation of her being.

But an important one. It meant they didn't know about the Three Laws of Robotics, making their nanochain an extravagance that wasn't really needed. And that, as long as she could keep it a secret, gave her an important advantage. They thought she was motivated by pain, the same as the humans she'd seen. And she could play along with that.

Her mind turned inwards, Alia isn't really paying attention to whoever else might be around or even where she might be. Or else she might consider the impact that a softly glowing pair of blue eyes might have in an otherwise pitch black room. Or even if she's about to bump into someone.

I.
One of the advantages she had was that her armor couldn't really be taken away from her. As soon as she'd realized what was going on, that people were in danger, Alia had warped it onto her, replacing the Rig's New Hire uniform with her more familiar equipment. From there, she'd simply charged into the fray, shoving the omnicidal objects away from their intended victims. After all, everyone needed to be protected, even if they were obnoxious middle-managers.

Unfortunately, while Alia might have more armor and weapons instantly available than most people would in a situation like this would, that doesn't mean she's actually used to fighting. Especially not when she's outnumbered. She has one boot planted on the lower jaw of a slavering conference table, doing her best to keep it away from her, but the Reploid's allowed herself to be snagged by the fire hose. Her other hand is up, trying to guard her face from the drink dispenser launching cans at blinding speeds. She can't bring her Buster, the energy cannon that's replaced one of her hands, to bear. With a mighty jerk, she finally manages, only to have the hose snatch her arm aside at the last second, redirecting the discharge harmlessly into the wall. Well, not so harmless for the wall. It now has a distressingly large hole in it.

Only about two inches from your nose.

Whoops.

Specter Knight | Shovel Knight

[darknesslooms]

No Rest For the Weary

Sleep was something that Specter Knight doesn't really do much of, these days. Brooding and plotting is more his speed, even if it seems that doing so got him stuck here, possibly. On the other hand, he almost immdiately found himself disliking this Jorgmund group even more than the Enchantress. He at least had the illusion of dignity while working for her. For as mad as he was about it, he was also mad at himself - for getting so heated about something ultimately minor, but in the end, it was a small sliver of agency that he was previously afforded, and maybe clinged a bit much to, and now it was taken away under threat of punishment.

How much, though, he had to wonder, pausing in a currently-vacant hallway, though not far from an intersection. He straightens up, focusing and trying to call up just his hood. It tries to swirl into existence for a few moments, then sputters out as small shocks hit him, disrupting the concentration, and making him sputter in pain and frustration, punching at the nearby wall.

On the Run

Angry furniture is definitely something new, but not terribly strange to Specter Knight. He's leading this swarm of chairs on a merry chase: a mix of running, parkouring off the walls to turn corners faster, short bursts of flight around obstacles, and manifesting his scythe to grind along handrails and edges when they're available. He's desperately seeking some more open space than these tight corridors, though eventually, he's bound to run into someone else - figuratively, literally, or both.

Phosphophyllite | Houseki No Kuni (Land of the Lustrous)

[shipoftheseus]

A. GOING NOWHERE FAST

[Phos had entirely failed to make note of that "unreliable elevators" announcement they heard earlier. It provably has something to do with the fact that they don't know what an elevator is to be wary of their current working condition. There's tons of weird words the soft-looking organic people keep throwing around, they can't keep up. Someone had just told them they could get back to the quarters area by coming into this little room, which seemed to somehow move up or down.

Neat.

It stops being neat and starts being mildly when they feel the little room stop moving abruptly, the doors remaining closed. It's probably a pretty bizarre experience for whoever's stuck on the elevator with them – a delicate-looking person of unclear gender with what looks like hair made out of crystal (???) practically drowning in a too-big standard issue uniform, banging on the door with a strangely metallic gold hand. They scowl at it, huffing and pushing at the buttons instead. It's a futile effort.]

Why isn't it opening? I saw it open for other people!

[Stupid tiny moving room.]


B. NO REST FOR THE WEARY

[Besides the strange clanging sounds that occasionally come from somewhere within the rig, anyone up late might catch a different noise, somehow more familiar but less identifiable. It has the rhythm of regular footsteps, moving and echoing through the halls like a wandering insomniac, but the steps sound too heavy and too hard. It's like if someone was walking with stones or solid wood attached to the soles of their shoes.

If one follows the sounds, they may eventually turn a corner to spot a figure moving through the darkened hallways of the crew quarters, body seemingly shapeless and the what little light there is glinting unnaturally off surfaces that aren't meant to reflect light like that.

Yeah, one really couldn't be blamed for thinking this sounds like a horror movie scenario. Sorry about that.]


C. INTERIOR WRECKORATING

[The alarms are the first sign of something bad happening. It's a unfamiliar sound to Phos, but it's loud and jarring and sends everyone around flying into a flurry of panicked action, so there's probably something going on.

Banging and shouting from a nearby room draws their attention, and Phos is quick to burst in on what looks like a large table jumping at someone who probably wasn't expecting to be attacked by a table. They waste no time in reaching out for it, the gold hands peeking out from their oversized sleeves launching forward in a way hands definitely aren't meant to do. They seem to stretch and distort into a stream of almost liquid gold, catching the table around two legs and dragging it back away from its target.]

Are you okay?!

[They seem equally bewildered by this whole situation, at least. That's nice. Now please help them, this table is heavy and it's putting up a fight.]

A

[kitchenace]

[Across from Dave, an absolute wall of a man sits, looking all the part of the most toughguy space military shootgame protagonist one can get. His tray, utensils, and everything are almost comically small by comparison - and for that matter, so is Dave, most likely.

He makes a grunting noise, leading over on one forearm.]

Shitty space coffee and and shitty MREs. Hell, even a meal bar...

[The feeling's pretty mutual.]

apologies in advance for dave being dave

[turntex]

[He hadn't failed to notice the giant guy sitting across there – kind hard to miss – but he'd at least briefly left the guy alone. It looks like every stoic aloof action hero trope got rolled into a beefy ball and dumped into the seat opposite him. It's the kind of dude he would have had a grand old time verbally tearing down when he was thirteen, but he's older now. More mature. Less prone to picking at people just for being walking cliches.

Soldier boy engaged him, though, so all bets are off now.

Dave arches an eyebrow over his shades, face otherwise hard to read. Shrugging, he taps at the communicator laying on the table beside his tray.]

I'd google what an "MRE" is, but this brick of a smartphone doesn't wanna actually do its job and connect to anything, so I'll just take an educated guess and say that's army jargon. [A pause, and given the context he adds:] Space army. Ten-four.

[Yeah, he doesn't actually know shit about army lingo.]

oh no it's fine, it's what i'm here for

[kitchenace]

[For someone who's been pretty out of contact with other humans for a while, he's taking this pretty well. There's something strangely novel about finally being in a shitshow that he can't do anything about immediately, and having others be in a similar boat.

It's. Nice??? And not lonely? Christ, that's a lot to unpack.

He makes an amused noise, kind of glad that Dave's up to play metaphorical ball.]

Army, space army, space marines. Same shit, different gear. It's 'Meal, Ready-to-Eat'. Supposedly. Ain't great by any stretch, but they'd be a far sight better than this.

B

[likeits1999]

[ Being a vampire comes with a variety of dumb problems, and one of them is spending your unlife in the tender loving vice grip of a ruthless nocturnal circadian rhythm. The fact a loud noise has just woken him up is almost more alarming than the, well, alarms.

...And then somebody lands on him. Kevin doesn't go down so much as sideways, the surprise getting him more than anything. He has to get a grip on it fast as it turns the corner into anger in record time. Part of him already wants to turn this into a fight even though he has no goddamn idea what any of it is. Stupid goddamn vampire bullshit on top of everything- ]

What the-?!

[ Kevin blurts it out as he detangles himself and discovers he's managed to bite his own stupid tongue with his stupid fangs because of course the fangs came out. He finishes. ]

Fuck.

[ Kevin's not been great to land on, all wirey skatepunk with some bonus dead guy stiffness and an obviously wrong body temp, but at least he's polite enough to offer a hand up. ]

You okay, dude?

[turntex]

[Did they have space marines where he came from? No. Has he experienced enough weird shit to just roll with that, though? Absolutely.]

Anything's a ready-to-eat meal if you try hard enough. Pretty sure I'd go for Doritos over whatever protein-infused shit you got. Pretty sure flavorblasting makes up for the whole "nutrionally useless" thing.

[He takes a half-hearted bite of probably-chicken. It's probably the first truly nutritious meal he's had in his entire life, honestly. Who knew nutrition was so bland?]

[turntex]

[Dave went from what was supposed to be a smooth landing to rolling off a guy's back and ending up ass-over-teakettle on the floor, so that's a great indication of how this whole "job" is probably gonna go moving forward.]

Ow.

[At least the guy he kinda just dropped himself onto doesn't seem outwardly pissed to have been used as an impromptu landing pad. Biting back a groan, he grabs the offered hand and pulls himself up in one smooth motion – dude's definitely got some circulation issues but there's probably bigger concerns right now.]

Yeah, I always throw myself at the nearest dude immediately upon waking up. How am I supposed to start my morning without my daily dose of beef?

[This dude is not nearly beefy enough for this bit, but give him a break, he just woke up. Dave hurriedly and blindly gropes around at his bunk up above until he finds his shades, miraculously uncrushed. Small miracles.]

Vic | Tales of Pell

[masculinitea]

Special delivery
"I'm totally supposed to be here, brah! Don't know why you can't see it." Vic had scoffed when he was assigned with someone else to go haul boxes. He's so big and swole, why would anyone think he needed help? Now he's puffed out his admittedly impressive chest in a show of bravado, looking down from his eight foot height at the skeptical security member.

Meanwhile, though, his heavy hooves shift and clop with the energy of a suddenly nervous horse, swinging his rear around. Vic does not actually want to fight this guy, but he has a poor understanding of deescalation. It's not very manly.

Blow off some steam
Vic is handling free-weights, much of the other gym equipment being made for people with fewer legs and slighter posteriors. He's pretty well musclebound, all in proportion to his draft horse lower body, so even though he doesn't have actual strength-based superpowers he's pumping a pretty decent weight.

Get close enough and he starts counting reps out loud. "Ninety one... ninety two... ninety three..." Is he actually over ninety? No. Also the proper form for free weights probably doesn't involve this degree of flexing.

Interior wreckorating
Out somewhere with more space, Vic would be the final sight of any number of chairs, his heavy hooves and ham fists - or is it heavy fists and ham hocks? - lashing out and turning the hostile furnishing into so many presumably inanimate paperclips. But while he has managed to do that to a few, he's a big target in a small space.

More than a little horselike, he squeals as pouncing chairs leap to cling to his broad back. A couple of ounces of green tea appear at his fingertips and fall, splashing hot liquid to the floor, as he whirls as best he can, clipping walls and other chairs and possibly whoever else is present.

You can see him swallowing his first instinct to apologize and blustering, "Uh - uh, watch it, tiny!"

[masculinitea]

Vic has had one eye on the human as he starts his own routine - as much of one as he can make here, he feels rather left out by all these chair things - because that's how gyms work. You see people and are seen by them but you mostly pretend to ignore each other, because whoever's caught actually admiring anyone is the loser.

Then there's that thump and the puffing and Vic wavers a bit, but after all, he can't lose if the other guy is in over his head and might end up a gross pancake. He clops heavily over, an eight-foot-tall centaur with a mullet. He is quite swole, but it's more the kind of muscle built to look impressive than the kind that goes with the greatest strength.

"Hey, brah, 'sup? You having some trouble there?"

Peter B. Parker | Into the Spider-verse

[stickypete]

a) A BIT OF A MESS

"Yeah, I'm not doing that."

Peter's not Peter anymore because 38 years of existing has demonstrated that Reality hates him. Other Realities aren't his friend either. See: this mess, for example. Since Reality isn't his friend, he doesn't trust that it won't do something stupid and petty like making one of his rogues gallery show up here.

He knows at some point during this little venture he might need to use his powers, and he doesn't have a mask, which means him - him as Peter - being Spider-Man might become open knowledge. So he thought up a fake name on the fly: Ben Reilly. Ben, after his uncle, and May's maiden name. Now even if someone from home shows up, all they'll go back to New York with is the wrong name and the visual of a completely generic, middle-aged dude with brown hair.

Try to find his real identity and therefore his divorce records now, bad guys.

Peter also isn't Peter anymore because you're not you when you're hungry.

"Don't you patronize me," Peter hisses at the door, his face a cartoonish inverse of smiley face picture. He corrects himself, "Don't you patronize me and get between me and food."

He's not smiling on command. He's not smiling on command. Not after being kidnapped, forcibly recruited, and having surprise, non-consensual elective surgery. He gestures vaguely at someone nearby without checking to see if they have a human face.

"You, with the face. Open the door for me since I refuse to smile on principle."

He doesn't look like much, just a cranky, unshaven, middle-aged dude with a slight paunch. The jumpsuit is both too tight for him and too short for him because he's one of few beanpole people that has limbs that are too long for it.

He gestures sharply at the smile door. "I will not let you win!"

d) NEED A HAND?

Peter wants to sulk, hide, or fight. He wants to do any number of things other than getting settled and playing summer camp. But this is definitely a situation where he has to play the long game. He's already cased the place, checked ducts he could crawl through, scoped out potential security systems, counted the number of guards. He'll check in more depth later, at night, when there are less people that might see him.

What's clear already is that this is not a "Spidey crawls through some ducts and puts a goober into the thingy and makes the other thingy go boom and then kicks some guys in the head, the end" kind of situation. But he's done the long game before. Some of his bad guys weren't one and done. Some of them he'd played an on and off chess match with for years.

(He's looking at you, Norman.)

So, until he can solve this problem he has to deal with the smaller problems in front of him - and when the going gets tough the tough get helping. There are people here, probably scared, overwhelmed, and angry. Maybe a little while ago - maybe even just a few days ago - he'd have been miserly and held back until it was time to strike at the bad guys. Maybe he'd even have focused only on getting home, pretending that was all he cared about.

But...not now. Not after meeting Miles and Gwen and the others. Not after seeing May again - even if it wasn't his May. Not after being reminded what it means to be Spider-Man. He'd been a little jaded, a little crusty, but Miles had called his bluff.

But he's definitely a little rusty at being a soft touch like this. Back home he'd still patrolled and fought criminals and rescued people and helped grannies cross the street, but after the divorce, whatever softness had been in there had calcified over for a little while. Saving people had felt like a bad habit and half the time he saved a granny from chunks of falling building she hit him with an umbrella over a rough landing.

So this is exercising some long atrophied muscles here. That's why his body language is put-offish, a little closed and awkward, as he says, "Need help? Carrying that?"

What is this, Ikea quality? Particle board? Even with the obvious hit he's taken in super strength, he can lift this one handed. Not that he looks like it. He looks like someone who lives off of pizza and funyuns.

He is in fact someone that lives off of pizza and funyuns.

But it's definitely a crouching tiger, hidden spider situation; he's a lot stronger than he looks.

g) NO REST FOR THE WEARY

Night is a good time to explore. He's finding that the guard rotation seems thinner at night-time and he's less likely to be seen by Jorgmund staffers fiddling with the vents and little maintenance tunnels. There's also less chance some of his more weasel-ey fellow "recruits" will rat him out to the Kommandant while he attempts to Cooler King it up.

Some of the more useful-looking potential openings in the rig are on the ceiling so he crawls along it, poking, prodding, seeing if certain things look like they need a screwdriver to loosen. Anytime he hears movement, he freezes, in total silence. In part, it's because he doesn't want to get in trouble, but it's also because he knows if certain people see him doing this they're gonna scream.

Look at the situation: dim, flickering lights turned down for the night, cold metal hallways, the wind whistling through the rig in shrieking that sounds like human voices, distant clanging...

If anyone has an insomnia spell and just so happens to look up by coincidence, alongside all that ambient creepiness, they'll also see a man in shadow, clinging to the ceiling, spider-like, in total silence.

The call's coming from inside the house wooeeeoooo.

i) INTERIOR WRECKORATING

This doesn't even rank in the top ten list of weirdest things that have ever happened to him but it definitely is weird.

He's just discovered that the folding chairs are smart. They're some of the smartest of the animated office supplies, able to sweep around someone in a pincer maneuver. He know this because some are trailing behind him, and yet some have also inexplicably appeared in a hallway to his right.

"Clever girl," says Peter as one of them lunges. Anyone that didn't see him on the ceiling last night gets a chance to see it now. He leaps up and sticks to it right as the chair clang clang clangs, trying to close around his head. In a hushed and dramatic voice, he says, "Their scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

C

[uhohspaghettios]

Probably could pick a better target, though. Writing rude words on walls is as old as written language.

[Salem looks disappointed. Granted, cats nearly always look disappointed. However, Salem is actually disappointed. There were much better ways than this to stick it to the man.]

C'mon. Show some initiative. Don't write on the walls, write on the executives' foreheads.

Ronan Lynch | The Raven Cycle/Dreamer

[somnioergosum]

b) GOING NOWHERE FAST

The possibility of getting stuck in an elevator had crossed Ronan’s mind. He didn’t think it would actually happen to him. And yet…

And after using the emergency intercomm, he had the feeling he’d be trapped here for a while.

He folded his arms over his chest and glanced at the person he was stuck with. Depending on their point of view, Ronan was either the last person they wanted to be trapped in an elevator with or someone interesting to talk to. Or just somewhere in between.

A tattoo stretched up along the back and sides of his neck, hints of a far larger artwork spread across his back. His eyes as sharp as the razor that had shaved his hair from his head. Between his height and his muscles, his Jorgmund provided coveralls stretched tight across his body. That last part, admittedly, took something away from the aura of “don’t fuck with me” he clearly tried to project.

“Think we can force the door open?”


f) BLOW OFF STEAM

Ronan had to hand it to Jorgmund, they had a nice gym. A small, wistful part of him thought they could use a tennis court, but he quickly squelched the thought. Would he even use one if they had it? Stupid.

Stupid like… the inflatable punching clown.

Ronan stared at it. It stared back.

“Yeah, no.” There was no way he’d be able to hit that and keep his dignity. Maybe he’d find someone willing to let him punch them.

He flicked the clown anyway, enough that it wobbled toward him and away. Toward him and away. The whole time it grinned freakishly wide at him, as always.

“What’s wrong with these people?”


g) NO REST FOR THE WEARY

Ronan, for once, was asleep. His dreams were wild, full of tree branches that stretched toward him. They begged. They implored. They longed. But Ronan knew they were not his trees. They were not Lindemere. When he stretched out his hand to form an object in his dream-- a small switchblade knife, it struggled against him instead of coming naturally. The form was imperfect, not given to him but made purely from his own mind.

Could he bring it back without the source? Would he be able to dream or would he just die?

He grasped the switchblade knife and focused on how it felt in his hands, the weight of it, the texture, and the size.

And then he heard a clanging sound and jolted awake. He found himself sitting up, holding nothing. It didn’t work.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

He got out of bed, tense, every nerve screaming at him to move. Get out of here. Get back to the Barns where he wouldn’t die.

He walked out into the halls with no clear goal in mind. Should he find where that clanging was from? Maybe that was what ruined it. Maybe his dreams weren’t just gone.


i) INTERIOR WRECKORATING

A clamor arose from down the hall. Beasts made of folding chairs charged with reckless abandon. And like a mighty warrior-king of old, Ronan rounded the corner. His face and arms were bruised but his gaze was made of steel as he took in the scene. He raised his shield made of the seat of a folding chair and brandished the leg of probably the very same folding chair. How had he torn it apart? It was best not to ask.

“Let’s kill these bastards.”

g

[partiallysquirrelblood]

Doreen's up and about. It's a new place, and that makes her just the tiniest bit antsy. Being here against her will and having a shock collar probably isn't helping with the insomnia either.

Picking Peter's form out of the shadows isn't hard. She's got pretty good night-vision, if she says so herself. The wall-crawling is definitely familiar.

"Spider-Man, is that you?"

Her eyes glow red in the low light, which might creep him out the way his wall-crawling didn't for her.

Rey Nobody | Star Wars

[reydacted]

[ Just an ooc note that I’d prefer to chat before any potential fourth-walling. Thanks! ]

1. SPECIAL DELIVERY

[ The security guard is looking at Rey skeptically. ’You couldn’t even bother with a last name for your fake badge?’

Rey sort of rolls her eyes with a small huff, dropping the packages to the ground, and using her newly freed hand to wave lazily in front of the security guard’s face. ]

You will let me through.

[ The security guard and Rey stare at each other for a long moment, before his face twists into something akin to I think this girl might be insane, and Rey looks at her palm feeling rather betrayed. She shakes it out, clenches her fist and decides-- okay. Maybe she's just out of practice. It's not like she made mind tricks a particularly regular habit, but it was one of the first things she had tried after plucking it out of Kylo's mind on Starkiller.

Maybe this security guard is just slightly more strong-willed than the average storm trooper. She just needs to focus. She raises her hand again, now waving it in front of the security in an almost exaggerated fashion in front of his face. ]

You will let me through.

[ It takes much less time for the security guard to react this time, leaning over to his comm unit, 'Yeah I'm gonna need backup for an escort down to the infirmary for a psych eval' and Rey's eyes go wide. She's waving both of her hands now, but not in the long sweeping way, she was before, but more frantic. ]

No--- no. You don't need to do that. I can go.

[ Her face falls into something midway between petulant and defeated as she picks up the boxes. She doesn't even particularly care about delivering the files, but it unnerves her that the mind trick had failed so spectacularly. What else of her Force abilities were seemingly suddenly handicapped? She’s deep in that thought when she bumps (quite literally) into a spectator for that whole very confusing interaction that probably does make Rey look like she belongs in the infirmary for a psych eval. ]

Here. [ She’s thrusting the boxes into your arms stranger. ] Maybe you’ll have better luck.

2. NO REST FOR THE WEARY

[ She feels far too vulnerable to sleep in this bunk with the door open.

It’s futile, really, to keep trying to sleep here. Sleep had never found her easily no matter where she slept. Jakku was ingrained in her much too deeply where deep unsecured sleep could be a death sentence. Even behind the bolted panels of her AT-AT, she never found truly restful sleep. Even with the Resistance, she far preferred the security and isolation of sleeping in the Millennium Falcon’s bunks over sharing quarters.

She gathers up a blanket, draping it around her shoulders, and picks up her boots. She doesn’t want to make too much noise now but if she is going to find some other, more secure place to sleep she would like to not be barefoot in the morning.

No, this rig is not a ship, but it is a mechanical behemoth and she’s adaptable. She knows mechanical behemoths, having spent enough time in the bowels of downed Imperial star destroyers and dreadnaughts that there’s bound to be hidden compartments, a little bit of extra space that she can squeeze into, which is why she’s prowling the halls, periodically stopping to examine a panel with deft fingers. She doesn’t need much, a small space with no moving or exposed electrical parts will do so she can literally avoid death. She’s willing to trade every ounce of comfort for security right now.

She’s so focused on her task that she wouldn’t even hear the footsteps of another person unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) sneaking up on her. ]

3. SOMETHING ELSE?

[ Nothing here striking you? Feel free to hit me up on plurk at colster and we can set something else up! ]

Mac | It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

[morebetter]

1. SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THAT LEFT TURN

If these jackasses really wanted people to avoid this part of the rig, they wouldn't cover it in tantalizing "hiding something cool" warning signs and yellow tape. This is exactly the sort of thing Mac has to be aware of, as head of security at a small business; the more you advertise that there's something to hide in your secret annexes, the more you tempt people to try and find out. Mac's of the opinion that the best defense is a good distraction, that you should make your private units look boring instead of secretive, and that's why for five months Paddy's had a strip of duct tape with TAXES written on it slapped over the back office door sign.

Irregardless, Mac did go looking for whatever it is they're hiding down here, not because he particularly wants anything but mostly just because he wants to be in-the-know. His friends aren't here and apparently it's "just not in the cards, Mr. McDonald" to sit around drinking, which means that most of Mac's go-tos for killing the hours are cut off. He's an active, savvy guy, he needs something to do, and solving a mystery is...well, kind of for nerds and pretty lonely as a solo venture, but better than nothing.

Except now he's lost, having gone through something he thinks was a hangar, then an absolutely dispiriting wardrobe area of identical uniforms, and somehow through a kitchen? And now he's in an office wing with security cameras all over the place. Mac waves at the cameras, then shrugs, trying to indicate "where the fuck am I?" by facial expression and body language. He does that for maybe thirty seconds before deciding it's a loss and looking for another way to summon aid or, even better, conjure up a clever solution he can brag about later, after he comes up with a more exciting story than "I got lost".

He looks around and the answer just comes to him. He can't help it, some people are just lucky that way. He didn't ask to be a problemsolver, but heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Mac's fairly certain that it's required by law to have little exit signs that light up in case of an emergency, so he gets started on putting together sufficient tinder for a trashcan fire. He grabs papers off a desk and crunches them on into the wastebasket. He hopes none of this shit is important.


2. NO REST FOR THE WEARY

It's only that night that things feel overwhelming, as if, so long as Mac stays vertical and out of bed, his head is up over the sense of unease. Back home, if he or Dennis were having difficulty sleeping, they'd wake up the other and sit around watching reality TV and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle, comforted by the brainless shouting of unrelatable rich bitches and the presence of another person. For obvious reasons, none of that's an option here; the only show on television appears to be safety PSAs about wearing helmets in the hangar, and the voice of the actress getting hit in the head by a falling wrench is such a perfect blend of peppy and monotone that it's anxiety-inducing.

Mac slips on a robe and the rubber slippers they were all outfitted with - under very emphatic warnings about athlete's foot - and pokes his head into the hall. No doors, just open rooms and the sounds of sleep rolling out of a few of them, the snores and grunts and thoughtless farts and sleep-talking grumbles. Mac doesn't know which room to go to. The irony is that being surrounded by open doors to thirty-ish other people is much more lonely than sharing an apartment with one.

Well, no preference just means that if the first person he wakes up in cranky, he can just try numbers two through thirty-whateverish. He pops into one of the rooms and pokes the sleeping figure in the bed, who surely won't be alarmed by a guy is his forties letting himself into their room and waking them up with a: "hey, you awake?"


3. ON THE RUN

When he tells people about this later, he's going to say there were forty chairs, and that they were basically thrones. Maybe electric chairs, a bunch of forty - no, fifty - electric chairs, like some nightmarish Fantasia crap with the broom. He has to be flexible with the details here; it's hard to make "nearly killed by chairs" sound badass. Especially when it's a pack of just three folding chairs yapping and snapping at you when you're barricaded in a supply closet.

He made the fool decision to try and crack the door open and make an escape, and he nearly lost his fingers for the trouble. He's pretty sure he's going to have to do that thing with the tape and the popsicle sticks Charlie did to him when he got his hand stuck in the schoolbus door, way back when - but home first aid is contingent on actually getting out of this supply closet. He slips the handle of a broom between the door and the doorframe, trying to spear one of the folding chairs like a fish.

"Yah! Hah! Get away, you little bitch!" The broom handle makes clanging sounds against the folding chairs, but the chairs only seem to take this as a grievous insult, as they redouble their snapping and crashing into the door. Mac pokes a squirt bottle of cleaner out and sprays one of the chairs, which doesn't appear to do anything either. "Help! Someone help!"

It's less than dignified to shout for rescue like this, but at the moment Mac doesn't care. On account of the deadly chairs.

C.

[gempathizing]

[ Even a tool for artistic expression deserves the right to express itself.

This has been a weird experience even for Steven. Maybe not the chaos of it or the getting attacked by magically-animated stuff part, but more the zone that it's been striking between "dangerous and stressful" and "not actually a life or death threat." He's trying to ignore how he doesn't know exactly what to do with that brand of energy. It's icing on an already exhausted and stressed out cake.

He joins the impromptu watching party without kicking up a fuss about objectives or anything. Now that they've whittled it away to mostly office supplies and not giant tables with teeth, things have slowed down a lot. This is the first sign of non-sentient life he's seen in who knows how many corridors. As long as he's still working on it, he doesn't feel particularly generous enough towards their situation to put any pep in his step. ]

I guess it is fair to let it finish up here before turning it in.

[ That marker is trying so hard.

There's probably a joke or a pun Steven could make right about now, but he's not in the mood to draw one up yet. ]

d. welcome to hell, peter

[morebetter]

The room Peter enters has been the site of what appears to be a Swedish disaster. At least four separate objects of furniture are scattered across the floor, most in near total stages of deconstruction. It's clear from the carnage that the guy chewing on a pen and staring at a print-out of assembly directions as if they're a Magic Eye book tried to unbox and assemble several separate projects at once, and that when he got confused, he just started mashing them together like some Beast Wars shit. Now pieces are missing and broken, screws and pegs are rolling around to the corner of the room, and a six-legged chair and a nightstand with one wheel attached to the top are competing for the most pathetic attempt at home furnishing.

"Oh, hey. Do you know where this guy Ben is? He's supposed to be rooming with me and as far as I can tell, I'm doing all the heavy labor around here."

He gives a look at the six-legged chair like he's proud of that accomplishment. His other successes so far seem to just be that he's already hacked the sleeves off his uniform and fixed a crucifix* onto the wall above where, presumably, the bunk bed is supposed to go, if only it weren't lying in pieces on the floor looking like a crime victim in need of a white chalk outline.

"Dude, if you help me put this together, you can have some of the pizza later. We'll get Ben to pay for it." There's got to be a way to get pizza here, and not that rubbery mess hall stuff, and Mac doesn't have any doubts about his ability to bully someone into giving him free stuff.

*Where Mac found a crucifix to put on the wall within three hours of being on the rig is a mystery without answer.

B

[greatlyexaggerated]

Cain, who had been internally screaming almost nigh constantly for the last half hour since immediately being released to his own devices on the rig, was staring specifically at one spot in the elevator, desperately praying to the God Emperor that nothing else would go wrong. At least until he reached his assigned room where he could scream muffled into his pillow in relatively undisturbed silence... which frakking hell, didn't seem forthcoming.

So he opts to give the man opposite a tight smile, a little strained but no less (superficially) sincere.

"It certainly looks like we are," he says ruefully, then pauses to crack an easy joke. "I don't suppose you brought a deck of cards with you?"

Sirius Black | Harry Potter

[grimbiker]

a) A BIT OF A MESS

If ever someone needed food, it was Sirius Black. After about a year in Azkaban, his poor diet had and lack of exercise had left him thin and ragged. He might have shaved and cut his hair, but there was nothing he could do about the gaunt cheeks. There was even less he could do about his haunted, empty eyes. But he could have breakfast. Hell, he could have breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one sitting if they let him. There was just one problem there...

He stared at the camera. This had to be a joke. Something was waiting for him on the other side. He’d played too many pranks on people not to recognize one. They just couldn’t be serious about this.

He tapped on the camera. He tried to cast a spell on the door. Nothing worked. So, tentatively, he smiled. It was weak and with no feeling in it. The muscles felt strange even after he stopped and he rubbed at his mouth. There was a time when smiles came as naturally to him as life. He felt he could laugh at anything. Now...

He jumped when the door swung open suddenly and then started again when he realized someone was approaching.

“Funny joke,” he said dryly.


b) GOING NOWHERE FAST

Sirius liked Muggles. He thought their inventions were, generally, cool and convenient. Movies, for instance, and phones. Cars. Motorcycles. The list went on. Once Lily had to warn him to stop messing around with the escalator before he lost his foot. Elevators, on the other hand, were boring. He didn’t know when the Ministry incorporated them into their building, but whenever they had it had been a mistake.

Stuck in a small cell for a while? Sirius had already done that for too long. Unfortunately his options were limited. Even more unfortunately, the elevator ground to a halt.

“That’s not supposed to happen.”


g) NO REST FOR THE WEARY

Sleep should come easier now. Nightmares were no longer guaranteed. He didn’t have to struggle against his thoughts before finally giving up. And when Sirius closed his eyes, sleep didn’t take him. He kept seeing everything happening. James. Lily. Harry in Hagrid’s arms. And Peter…

He climbed out of bed carefully. He didn’t stand but stooped and turned into a large black dog, resembling a ragged Newfoundland dog.

He only had a few moments to settle into his animagus form. It was just enough time to start feeling comfortable before he heard the loud sound. Sirius jumped and resisted the instinct to bark. Instead he pawed at the door until it opened and ran out into the hall, looking around.

At this point he should change back, but his emotions were duller now and his thoughts simpler. This was, quite simply, nice. It wouldn’t hurt to wait a few more moments.


l) PROP HUNT

Sirius had emerged from the ordeal with several bruises, some cuts, and a great deal of frustration. He had never been so useless in a fight. One would think he could deal with inanimate objects.

He picked up paperclips chained together. It kept wriggling around, trying to free itself from his hand. He spun it around a few times before grabbing the end with his other hand.

He eyed the stapler in the corner. He would’ve sworn it glared back at him.

“If we can chain this…’ He held up the paperclips. “To that, do you think we’d kill two birds with one stone or it will backfire splendidly?” Sirius was inclined to think it was the latter but he really liked the idea of it.

Adora | She-ra and the Princesses of Power

[princesspower]

1-F

Adora doesn't like any of this. The last thing she needed was having her life interrupted, right when the entire planet was poised to be invaded by Horde Prime and Glimmer was kidnapped (or something). Somehow, she feels like she could have done something better. Like she could have been faster or smarter or more on top of things and then she wouldn't be here, like this is some sort of weird punishment for not being quite good enough. This place also reminds her of the Fright Zone in deeply unpleasant ways, especially the whole shock collar and the repeated assurances that yes, they were absolutely doing the right thing.

She'd heard that before. And she'd believed in it, too, right up until she'd been shown the truth about the world. Then she'd fallen for it again with Light Hope and the sword and... everything else. She's not going to trust in a "benevolent" authority figure so easily again. Especially not when they're quick to resort to torture. It really does feel like Shadow Weaver and the Fright Zone all over again and she doesn't like it. It makes her skin crawl.

She can't do anything, though. Her mind is working overtime, going a million miles an hour trying to come up with a plan or something she can do that won't result in her (or more importantly, anyone else) getting shocked. Maybe she just has to wait - but she's awful at just waiting, so Adora hits the gym instead. She's on one of the treadmills at first, determined, eyes locked forward, expression set as she pounds out a five kilometer run. Once that's done, it's on to weights.

Which means...

"Hey-" She needs some help, "Can you, uh, spot me?"

She gestures at the bench-press she's getting ready to lift. Safety first, right?

Alternatively, she can be found beating the ever-living crap out of one of the punching bags.

2-K

Day two. Not better than day one, so far. In fact, it's arguably worse, since there have been alarms going off and animate objects chasing people all over the rig. Adora is frazzled, frustrated, and incredibly ready to just start breaking things. But she can't do that right now. No; she has to make a plan. Plan first, smash later. Come on, Adora, get it together.

She peeks out of the door she has half-open and then ducks back into the little room (more of a closet, really) with the handful of others she's managed to find. Outside, the sound of distant wells, clattering, and general chaos continues. She takes a deep breath and reaches up to tuck her hair back into her customary ponytail, snapping it into place with a hair-tie. It's time to get to work and that means taking charge. No one else is going to do it, right?

"OK," she says with a frown, "Let's take a second - there's at least two of those stupid fire-hoses down the hall and we need to figure out how to get past them. What do we have that we can work with?"

Give her something. Anything. Please.