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Days 8-11 - Test 1: Aptitude
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.
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...)
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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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?"
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"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."
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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.”
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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.
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"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."
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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."
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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.”
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"I've been thinking about that very problem, and we could always move your bed into our room and push them together." It was a crude fix, but one that they were capable of. He doubted any of this junk was going to contain enough of anything to build a bed out of. As he made the suggestion his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her a bit closer.
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“And if anyone does have a problem with that she added quickly with a smirk. “I will quickly disabuse them of that notion. Honestly if we’re here and we need to do this damn testing then we’re gonna live how we want.” Her fingers brushed his face as she added, “I am definitely not hiding how I feel about you any longer. We’re together and I love you and everyone else can forget about it.” It may have been the first time she actually said those words aloud, but they were true and nothing was going to change that.
Even if he did eventually become a politician and she became his adviser. It just meant that the two would have sex in the Oval Office.
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Her comment only made his smile widen. Grace was fierce and strong and every bit of exceptionality that he's learned she was after calling her ordinary. He couldn't help being more wrong about a person. So, of course, he leaned in and kissed her.
"I can assure you that I have no intention of hiding my feelings for you any longer. In fact, I already told someone that you're the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with." And he'd tell anyone who asked as many times as he could. There was no lie in the comment, after all.
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That surprised her, but only a little bit honestly. Darius Tanz was the sort of man who did everything with his whole heart and he always meant it in that moment (she didn’t remember everything in Russia but she did remember that. It was one of those things that stuck with her. Along with the dancing. And the kiss.) But Darius was also so much more than that and if they couldn’t save the world at least in the time the two of them had, she had this. She had him. This time counted double because there was no one to save other than themselves and that was fine. Better than fine actually.
Still she grinned at him, the look a little teasing. “Oh yeah? Anyone I know, Darius?” Because she wondered just who it was that knew that. As if their pdas in public weren’t enough to make that abundantly clear.
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He pulled her closer, running some hair from her face before noticing the red marks. They'd been obscured by that hair and he couldn't help frowning heavily at them. "What, Grace, what happened?" Concern laced his voice. Had it been the next part of the test, or someone who was attacking the other prisoners? Or maybe it was LACUNA herself, punishing Grace for some non-existant 'deviance'.
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"Anakin and Obi-Wan happened," she said simply. "Anakin was trying to kill your friend, again, it seems, and I tried to stop it." There was a beat and Grace just sighed softly, gesturing to the marks. "I guess you can tell how well that went over. But of course there's magic in a world and someone needs to take it and turn it into a weapon to use against other people."
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Unfortunately, there's no way to ensure that Grace is safe here, and he knows that she wouldn't want him to do that. Grace is a strong, independent and smart woman. If she wanted the help she would ask for it, and if not, they'd discuss it, like adults who respected one another.
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“I’m fine, Darius.” The words are quickly spoken because she knows him and she knows what he does and what he wants and he wants to fix this. But there’s nothing to fix not really. This was just something that she’d deal with. The marks from her nails weren’t that bad and the choking hadn’t caused anything to happen to her vocal cords so she would be fine in a few days.
This time anyway. She didn’t know about the next or the time after that or the time after that.
“Anakin is bad news, Dorian. He killed his wife and the mother of his children when she was pregnant. He’s a psycho.”
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"But right now we need to get ice on your neck before it bruises any worse than it's already going to." Darius knew a thing or two about bruises, and as he spoke, he gently brushed her cheek, almost begging her to at least let him do this for her. Since they both knew he couldn't do anything else.
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Honestly she agreed with him about the lock. And she’s not even sure that she was pulling the stuff out of her ass about coming back to life. If the AI could bring them all here from all these different worlds then it stood to reason that it could probably bring them back from the dead. Of course that meant that he could kill all of them more then once. Her near death experience was more than enough for her.
Nodding her assent, Grace just laughed softly. “Well, I suppose if it’s one thing we’ve got here it’s ice.” They were practically surrounded by it all once and that was the point of it it seemed. No one wanted to freeze to death anymore than they wanted to be magic choked. “The bruises are from me though. It was like he was choking me without touching me somehow.”
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As they entered the kitchen, Darius went straight for the freezer. It was easier to find things now that there was cleaning involved, and he'd managed to make cleaning towels from various scraps he found around the facility. That at least helped better than when Obi-Wan had been injured.
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Like everything else here other than the two of them it seemed like. Something told her that's how LACUNA wanted it.
"You'd think the stupid AI would want to give us something of proper medical supplies," she noted, "if only just to keep all of us in good testing shape." Grace was leading to something else, just taking a little bit to get there.
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After wrapping the ice on a few of the towels he crosses over to her and lightly applies the ice to her neck. "I'm pretty sure that's the point." It had taken a bit, but he was answering her comment. "If we're dependant on her for our needs, we have less ability to fight back. It's the same with the punishment for deviance."
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As if her volume level would matter to the damn AI though.
"I was talking out my ass to Anakin, when he was trying to kill Obi-Wan, and I told him that I think that she wasn't stopping him because what if she can bring us back from the dead. I know no one could really do it at home, not even you with all your science and brains, but what if she can?"
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