Days 8-11 - Test 1: Aptitude

[14_cun4]

Who: All Initiates
What: LACUNA begins her testing phases
When: Days 8-11
Where: Area 2 - Testing Grounds
Warnings: To be updated, but as this is a testing regimen, it will most likely contain language, violence, mentions of sensitive topics (up to and including pondering the murder of children)

At 06:00 hours on the morning of Day 8, every terminal, be it the one in the living quarters or one of the personal terminals within the rooms, begins broadcasting the sound of a klaxon. This sound, loud enough to reverberate, continues for 30 seconds before it ends as abruptly as it began. The lights raise and after they are fully illuminating whatever area your character may have been rudely awoken in, LACUNA's cold voice fills the silence.

"Good Morning, Initiates. Today will begin Testing. Our first Test Round will be for Aptitude measurement only. As such, blows that would otherwise be fatal will spare you. You have one hour to prepare. Afterwards, proceed to the cryopod chamber for further instruction. Thank you."

As incredibly forthcoming as she's been previously, any attempts to question her further are met with cold silence.

(OOC: The Test will be divided by day and function, and for more information, check out the sweet prompts below, also organized by date! You're not required to use this post, but it may be easier if you haven't found a partner! Feel free to make your own posts, either as actions or network posts as well! Remember, it isn't 100% necessary to obey her commands...)

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DAY 1 - THE WRITTEN

[14_cun4]

Exactly one hour after her announcement, the familiar path of lights that originally led you to the Residential area leads you back to the cryopod area, but those who follow will notice once there, a large door on the opposing end of the chamber is now illuminated. Any initiate who approaches this door will prompt it to slide open revealing a long corridor narrower than the one leading back to the residential area. At regular intervals, there are doors off this corridor that appear to have terminals outside each. Just inside the door is a room filled with several of the same terminals, all at the login screen for initiates.

"Welcome, Initiates, to Day 1 of Aptitude Testing. Please proceed to one of the terminals and complete the Written Aptitude test. There are no wrong answers, but participation is appreciated. After your written is complete, you are free for the day. Tomorrow will commence the Practical Aptitude Exam."

After her vague explanation, LACUNA goes silent once again. Do you proceed into the room and take this "written" aptitude test? Do you refuse and try to head back to the Residential area? It...might be a little cold there right now...

(OOC: If you'd like to take a written aptitude test for your own records and in character, check out this one! Feel free to discuss results in character, or just meander about, or discuss what this all means now that things are actually happening! You've got the day to yourselves, after all!)

[actualhumandisaster]

While Anakin has no intention of taking any tests, he follows the line of lights towards one of the terminals and quietly glares at the screen in front of him for a few moments.

Then, without any warning, he proceeds to punch his mechanical fist right through that very same screen and into the wiring and mechanical parts within. For a moment he reaches out with the Force, trying to decipher and understand these unknown electronics.

When he pulls his hand back after another moment, Anakin's expression has shifted a little. He's no longer plain glaring, but much rather seems a little confused.

[hadthehighground]

Obi-Wan had awoken to the announcement with a groan and a sarcastic comment before getting himself up and ready. He followed along like a good little initiate, interested in seeing what was expected of them.

A written exam? Apparently they needed more information on their captives. All right.

Logic? High.

Management? High.

People: interaction with others, ability to train and council...

And then Obi-Wan heard a loud smash. Looking up with a blink, he wasn’t at all surprised to see Anakin was the cause.

The Jedi sighed and shook his head.

“That was unnecessary.”

He then marked his answer as average.

[actualhumandisaster]

Anakin snapped out of his brief confusion and quickly turned his head towards the Jedi, scowling again.

"Then I shall do something necessary next."

With those words he made to move towards Obi-Wan, raising his hand and reaching out with the Force to use that invisible grip and grasp the other by his throat once more.

[hadthehighground]

Well that feeling sure felt familiar.

Obi-Wan grimaced at the tightening pressure around his throat and gasped, his hands gripping the console in front of him. His eyes turning to his former Jedi brother, he managed to get a few words out.

“Anakin... this will only end poorly for you.”

[actualhumandisaster]

Not taking another step forward, Anakin snarled at the older man, eyes narrowing darkly as he raised his hand slowly, keeping his fingers in just the right position to not fully crush Obi-Wan's windpipe. Instead, he slowly attempted to raise to other into the air before him.

"Right now it seems to be ending poorly for you, Obi-Wan."

He put a good amount of disdain into the other's name.

[hadthehighground]

Feeling his feet leave the ground, Obi-Wan gagged and dangled in the air at the mercy of his former student. A memory flashing through his mind at the last time this had happened to him. When they had fought Dooku. Together. The last time they had been together on the same side.

The memory pained his heart along with that of the tight grip around his neck.

There was little he could do. Some help sure would be nice right now.

[overstepping]

Grace was just coming out of the testing, and her mouth was set into a firm line of annoyance already. This testing was stupid and she knew what she was good at and she was just too damn old for this. After all, she had her job, she did it well and she was important back home. This was absurd, because if she had actually had signed up for this, then she would have actually been vetted. Grace knew how things like this worked; she'd been at the Pentagon for years.

The frustration of this whole thing is evident in the line of her shoulders, and the sharpness of her steps. If she was allowed heels? They definitely would have been clacking. So, when she comes onto a scene where one man is magically choking the other. Again. Jesus.

With her hands on her hips, the petite redhead just called out in her most authoritative political/mom voice. Because honestly what the hell. "That's enough! You're both adults and you need to act like it!"

[actualhumandisaster]

Having Obi-Wan at his mercy like this was a nice change of things. Especially the lack of scolding and just overall silence form the other man. Aside from the gagging and choking noises, of course. But those only added to that slight satisfaction Anakin came to enjoy.

Until another voice cut in and drew his attention away from Obi-wan and towards an unfamiliar woman.

Anakin just glared at her for a moment "You will not tell me what to do." he snarled, then flicked the hand that was holding Obi-Wan with the Force around to hurl the Jedi Master right at the intruder "But you can die as well!"

[hadthehighground]

Hearing someone's voice, Obi-Wan's eyes turned to look at the woman and he just tried to shake as head at her. It was best if she didn't get involved.

It was a bit late for that though, and Obi-Wan found himself flung in her direction. Sorry Grace! He can't help where he's being thrown! Hopefully she gets out of the way. Whether or not she does, it will be a painful landing. But now there was someone else involved. Someone who had nothing to do with their quarrel. It was one thing if Anakin wanted to pick on him, but he wouldn't allow him to hurt an innocent person.

Thus Obi-Wan pushed himself up to thrust his hand forward, sending a Force push with intent to knock Anakin back.

[overstepping]

Grace Barrows was never good at not getting involved. Really, she was quite bad at it, so of course she needed to interfere here. Or try to anyway, despite the shaking of the head of the man who was being magic choked. Which seriously what the hell. Somehow being here made it all the worse with magic added.

But one thing that Grace had going for her was her self-defense training. Her father did wetwork for the CIA and Grace herself had worked for the Pentagon before moving to the White House. The dodge wasn't totally successful, and she still took some of the man's body weight onto her own, falling backwards and forcing herself to go boneless with it. Still, the wind was knocked out of her, and she was going to have a hell of a bruise.

Laying on the floor gasping for a minute, Grace just gasped at last, catching sight of the man using more magic to push the man back. "Jesus Christ, stop this. Are you adults or are you children? Fighting among ourselves isn't going to do a goddamn thing. You want to fight, do it against something productive." Like trying to find a way out of here and all of that. She moved to struggle to her feet, holding onto the wall as she did it.

[actualhumandisaster]

Obi-Wan finally going on the offensive himself wasn't really surprising, now that another person was involved. Anakin was indeed pushed back somewhat, but that didn't change much about his intention to end the Jedi Master.

"All of this is the Jedi's fault." he said, stubbornly.

"And that's why he will die!"

That and, of course, he still had orders to kill the Jedi.

A mechanical finger was pointed in Grace's direction before Anakin's glare settled on her "Unless you want to die as well, leave!"

[hadthehighground]

“Now would be a good time, Lacuna,” Obi-Wan muttered to himself as he got to his feet. Glancing over at this lady he hadn’t really gotten to know yet. She seemed to be all right, which was a good thing.

And again Anakin was pointing the accusation at him and he sighed.

“I recommend you do as he says,” he said to Grace. “This is something between us and I don’t want you to get hurt because of it.”

[movesahead]

(A. In the test)

The whole thing was idiotic, but he could understand where it was coming from - technically speaking. If you were going to have a controlled experiment, you needed to understand the general mindset of your subject pool.

A series of basic testing would give you that sort of data. Which, was, as stated, what LACUNA was doing. Her programmers were rather understandable in that way. At least to another scientist.

To be honest, all of this made perfect sense to Darius. A controlled environment, basic reward/punishment system, and giving the test subjects a reason to want a reward. They were being treated just like any rat in a psychological experiment; and sadly, they were going to have to suffer through it for now. Especially since there were so few of them (not that he expected it to stay that way).

The test itself was rudimentary, but that also made sense. Some of the subject pool wasn't as educated as others, and between their worlds, there were differences as vast as chasms. There needed to be something basic. It was the results that confused him, and that fact was evident on his face.

"Politician?" His tone incredulous, as if the thing had told him he should be the next H.H. Holmes or Moriarty (the second one wasn't that far off from being a politician). "I'm fairly certain I have more sense than that. "There has to be some mistake. Me, a politician? Noooo."



(B. Outside testing)

Leaving the testing chamber was rather anticlimactic, and Darius was still confused about his result. Rockstar he could handle, even something as benign as a grocery clerk, but a politician was just wrong. He had far too much heart for that and he was far too apt to wear his heart on his sleeve and tell the truth. He tried always to tell the truth where he could, actually.

So he wasn't exactly paying attention, instead, running through the questions in his head to see where the test would have gotten the answer from. It was important to him, especially since LACUNA would probably base any testing that she did (specifically with him) on that assessment. Which, wasn't the worst of things. The idea of scientist and tech genius not being at the forefront of her memory banks meant that there was a whole raft of things he could do that she wouldn't see coming.

[overstepping]

Grace had been keeping an eye out for Darius' testing to be over. Hers was happening later in the afternoon, and she was a little bit nervous about it, because she couldn't not be. Yeah, they'd had the week to understand that this wasn't some sort of collective breakdown, but knowing that they were about to be tested still bothered Grace because there was the giant question of what they were going to end up expecting with all of this. And of course LACUNA had been rather characteristically mum about the nature of it when she asked.

Still, she had almost missed him when he bristled past her, and she knew Darius enough to know that whatever had happened in there had bothered him. Scooting to her feet, she called out after him: "Hey, Darius, wait up." That seemed familiar somehow and it made her grin before she caught up with him and placed a hand on his arm. "What's wrong?"

[movesahead]

It wasn't normal for Darius not to notice Grace as soon as she was in the room. Generally, his eyes and attention were immediately drawn to her, but the revelation that this test seemed to think that he ought to be a politician, it was acutely upsetting. Politicians were people like Harris, people who were rigid and cold in the face of new information or cherry-picked the knowledge that they wanted to be true. People who would lock up someone who had managed to risk everything to bring two warring countries together for the sake of saving the world.

Darius was far from that. He wasn't a good man by any stretch of the imagination, but he tried to be. Grace, Liam, Gillian, they made him want to try to be a better man than he had been before, and he thought he was doing a decent job of it.

It was Grace's voice that pulled him back. Reminded him that he was in 'The Cooler' with a rather frustrating AI named LACUNA, and being tested for aptitude so she could better 'test' them in the future.

His footsteps slowed to a stop so she could catch up, and when she did, his hand immediately moves to take hers. They weren't able to do even simple gestures like this in their world, he was going to take advantage of that small luxury for as long as he could. "Nothing, it's just -" It took him a moment to actually say it, and when it did come out he sounded nothing but incredulous about it. It still annoyed him. "They said I should be a politician."

[overstepping]

Grace's fingers just tightened around his for a moment, holding onto his hand because she could without needing to worry about anything else. It was still something precious, to not worry about being judged or having to think about how someone thought that she was too involved (in love with) a renegade mad scientist who cared more about the planet than he did to political allegiances to the US. Which honestly, she did too, but she needed to better protect herself than he did. She still needed to work with the president.

For a moment, she just blinked at the reasoning for how he responded to her question, and she could just as a single word question: "what?" Grace Barrows was probably considered a politician as the press secretary for the Pentagon, and god knew that she was surrounded by them on a regular basis. She knew how politicians were and how they worked and neither of those things were how Darius was.

"But you're you." The statement was matter of fact. "You're like the anti-politician." Which was one of the many reasons that she loved him; he told the truth and was straightforward when few other people in this world were. He wasn't someone who she could ever see fitting into the world that she resided in in that way.

[movesahead]

He felt the same way about the whole thing. He was a scientist or a philanthropist, he was a man genius or a chess player trying to bring about the salvation of the human race. He was a businessman, and sometimes, he was even that bastard who wanted desperately to take a beautiful, enigmatic woman who was already with another man and envelop her in every ounce of his being that couldn't help but gravitate toward her, but he was never a politician.

And he'd never call Grace one either. There was a light that shone through her. An honesty that was expressed in her actions and the way she kept things close to her chest rather than lie about them. She was willing and able to believe the unbelievable and wanted to do what was right to help others. She was the reason he started all this rather than simply finding the right candidates and launching them into space on the Salvation in the hopes that the human race would continue even after the asteroid or humanity destroyed the Earth.

Her remark brought a smirk to his face as he brought their clasped hands to his lips and kissed her. Grace was beautiful in a way he couldn't describe. Even without trying she seemed to often be able to break through his frustration and the clouds of uncertainty to bring him back. "Thus the frustration in the results. Though there is a silver lining, at least we know that she's underestimating our abilities." It could very well be a blessing in disguise unless of course, Grace's results said something like president, which Darius had no doubt she'd be amazing at.

[overstepping]

Grace just grinned at him when he kissed her hand like that, and the grin turned into a smirk after a moment. He may think she wasn't a politician, but she definitely was thinking like one, especially when he told her that LACUNA was underestimating him. In her experience most people did.

“Guess maybe that means your next rewiring job might be easier.” She’d moved into his room of course, but when they weren’t in their the door was propped open with a bit of junk. Less than ideal but more ideal than if she couldn’t get into it when she wanted to or needed too.

[movesahead]

"If only it were that easy." Darius had complained about LACUNA's closed access more than enough times in the short period they'd been here. Grace, being the closest person to him and the woman who was sharing a bed with him (and, let's face it, his entire life) had been privy to every complaint and frustrated outburst. Especially when he'd had to resort to propping the door open continuously. Even without being able to change the programming, there was no way that he would let it stand that Grace couldn't get into his room whenever she wanted to.

"If I had a welder or, something, I might be able to get through to her wiring." Even without the use of one of his hands (there was no way he was going to let go of her when he could so actively stay this close to her side), he was still animated about this. "I'd feel a lot more confident about getting to her if Liam were here." He leaned in to give her a soft kiss, solely because he could. "Which, you are never to tell him. He'd be insufferable after that."

[overstepping]

Grace was aware of course because there was no way that she couldn’t be at this point. His frustration with this colored everything as of late even more than his testing. Of course seeing Darius perplexed about something that out of the norm, but the norm happened to be an asteroid and people being idiots other than rogue AI.

God she sounded like she was in a sci-fi movie.

Still she kissed him back, her fingers brushing slowly along his cheek as she did it. “Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me.” Then she kissed him once more before she added, “but I’d rather have our door open with a brick rather than see you in the cooler for a while.”

[movesahead]

The second kiss was one he leaned into. Running his free hand through her hair. It was amazing and calming, being able to kiss Grace like this. Of course, Grace calmed him even without kissing. There was a sense about her, an aura of being Grace that seemed to reach into the deepest parts of him and calm the frustration and insanity that lived deep within him.

He knew that she wouldn't tell Liam if she said she wouldn't, although honestly, the comment was more of a joke than anything else. Liam would, in fact, be insufferable, but only for a few minutes before he understood that there were bigger things to deal with. Still, it meant quite a bit that Grace was willing to keep his tiny secrets. "Hence the current brick situation. Still, I did make a promise." One he intended to keep. After all, he didn't want to break any promises, especially not ones to Grace.

[overstepping]

Kissing him was calming, but so was his hand in her hair, it had been ever since Russia, even though she wanted to deny it at the time. Even though she might have denied it back home to anyone who had asked about it. But here where there wasn't anyone who gave a damn about how much it may or may not have compromised her and her allegiances. Here, he was her only allegiance and it didn't matter a bit to her who knew it. LACUNA was everywhere, and if she gave a damn she hadn't made her opinions known. Yet anyway.

"I know you did, and I know that you're going to figure it out eventually." Or one of the two of them would earn it, there was always that part of it as well. Grace wasn't above taking the carrot approach if the stick didn't work. It was a part of the entire bit about being the diplomat who she was. "One way or another." Then she smirked at him, her eyes sparkling. "Even if you aren't a politician."

[movesahead]

He couldn't help the smirk at her comment. Grace knew how upsetting the results were (even if he knew in every fiber of his being that he was a scientist and could never be a politician; could never be like Harris).

In truth, Darius was already taking the carrot approach. He hadn't done anything that was particularly deviant. Unless LACUNA counted exploration and propping one's door open as deviant behavior. He'd helped Obi-Wan to clean his wounds and the clean the space that they were apparently going to be living for the foreseeable future. He'd participated in their tests and hadn't made waves. He just needed to work harder to get through to what they were planning and how to keep them all safe.

He continued to brush his fingers through her hair, partially because he could. All the freedom they had here to be together, to touch and hold was still new, and he doubted that the magic of it would ever end. It was the nature of being desperately in love with someone. In love enough to refuse to give them up for anything except their own choices. "Until then I suppose I'll have to make sure we have plenty of bricks, in case we lose one somehow."

[overstepping]

Grace just laughed softly at that, looking meaningful around the space that the two of them were inside of. “Somehow I don’t really think that it’s gonna be a running out of bricks problem.” There was enough junk around them that there was only going to one more somewhere even as people were still doing that whole cleaning up thing.

However for all of that. “I am still hopeful for another solution because if nothing else it’s going to be less awkward.” Grace was a private person and having their door rather constantly open wasn’t something that she was wanting to keep doing. Sometimes a locked door between them and the rest of the world was actually very good indeed.

It wasn’t as good as the tree house or her own bedroom would be, but it would be better than this. Slinging her arms over his shoulders, she just grinned. “But maybe if nothing else we can find a bigger bed here among all the rubble.”