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...)

Comments

[overstepping]

“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.”

[movesahead]

When she explains why Anakin is a 'psycho', he stops in his tracks. That explained a lot, and even more than before he couldn't fault Obi-Wan for his actions. "It seems like I need to fix that lock even more now." He wasn't about to let a man like Anakin have free access to their room, but there wasn't a better way for Grace to have it, and he wasn't about to give up Grace for safety against some lunatic who seemed to have a penchant for choking innocent people.

"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.

[overstepping]

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.”

[movesahead]

He started moving toward the kitchen again, frowning as he thought over what she'd said and still keeping hold of her hand. "I'll have to talk to Obi-Wan about it." He's sure the other man knows what's going on. Anakin is from his world, after all, and was a friend.

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.

[overstepping]

"I don't think he can stop him, I mean the reason I got involved was because I thought Anakin was going to kill him." Grace sounded tired when she said that, and then she took a seat at the table while she waited for Darius to get the ice for her throat. While she was waiting, Grace touched the marks gingerly. Well, hopefully they wouldn't scar; she didn't think they were that deep, just uncomfortable as hell.

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.

[movesahead]

After having seen Obi-Wan's face the first day, Darius was fairly certain that the man couldn't stop Anakin from doing anything. But he could give insight as to what was going on with the man. At least, magically choking wise.

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."

[overstepping]

"Yeah, but..." Grace fidgets a bit with the ice on her neck, because cold and ow, but she doesn't outright pull away, instead she just sighs and wraps her hand over his, touching him but without interfering with what it was that he wanted to do. Watching him for a moment, she just looks around the room to make sure that they're alone before speaking softly.

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?"

[movesahead]

"You're probably right though." In fact, he was sure of it. The idea of killing your kidnapped experiment victims was probably the last thing on LACUNA's programmer's minds. While it might have been easy to bring people here, orienting them properly clearly wasn't LACUNA's job. She'd made it theirs.

"I can't see the programmers of this facility leaving us to die. It's far too elaborate a system to be simply for murder."

[overstepping]

“Unless they can bring us back. Then it’d be good data. And I’m probably sure I wasn’t all that close to death not really but it sure as hell felt like I was.” Grace rubs at her eyes for a moment with a frown, remembering how they had watered. At least the vessels in them hadn’t burst. That would have been the next step. Then passing out. Then death.

“Either way? Anakin is counting me as Obi-Wan’s friend now though. I’m thinking that may be a giant negative against me in his eyes.”

[movesahead]

He leaned in, kissing her lightly against the forehead. Darius couldn't imagine what it must have been like to have something like, and the thought that it might happen again worried him; at the same time, he couldn't help being incredibly impressed by the fact that there was no question in his mind that she would do it again. Grace was, in all ways, extraordinary, and he would always laugh at himself for ever thinking anything different.

"I'm sure he is. We'll have to be more careful than we've already been being." He'd also have to talk with Obi-Wan to see if there was some way to keep Grace safe. While she was a strong and independent woman, sometimes even she neededprotecting.

[overstepping]

As always, Grace smiled when he kissed her on the forehead, and she closed her eyes and rested hers against his for a long moment, without saying anything in response. They were careful, but honestly there didn't seem another step that they could take when it came to this nutjob and his anger. The place was claustrophobically small at times already, and that was before they needed to avoid this idiot. Honestly, this, them was the best part of being here. She could handle the rest if she needed to.

Of course, it wasn't going to be easy, or good, or safe, but she could handle it as long as he was here. "He told me that. To be careful and avoid him. But jesus, Darius, this place is a tin can."

[movesahead]

"I know." There was a slight tone of defeat in his words. Anakin could do whatever he liked with them (or at least it seemed that way) and they could do nothing back. There were no parts to tinker with to stop what he was doing. There was only running and hoping that he didn't get pissed off enough to take his anger out on them. If this was the situation LACUNA had intended, she was more misprogrammed than he thought. The least she could do was offer some sort of defense against this man. "But since I doubt our friendly LACUNA will be doing anything about it, it's all we can do."

He hated that. He hated that he couldn't do anything to protect Grace and the others from this man. That he couldn't invent something that would protect them from his actions. But here he was important against such things. He had no tools or circuitry to work with.