redstringtheories

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!tdm

TDM #1

➥ Arrival

(cw: potential for severe disorientation/vertigo, claustrophobia, arachnophobia, body horror)

It happens in the blink of an eye. You may have been asleep. You may not have. You may have stepped through a door or turned a corner. You may have seen a flicker of something at the corner of your vision and turned to look. Or maybe you didn't.

It doesn't matter. What matters is that you find yourself somewhere entirely new and entirely unfamiliar. The arrival point is not always the same. (If you're lucky, it might be a canteen or an open office. If you're not, well... you aren't claustrophobic, are you? Or arachnophobic. These ducts do seem to be a bit cobwebby.) There is no one waiting for you but you don’t seem to be alone, either. Even in a janitor’s closet or the bathroom, you’ll find at least one person who seems to be just as out of place as you are.

If characters have arrived in a location devoid of NPCs, they may want to work together to figure out what is going on... or to avoid their 'kidnappers.' If you’ve arrived in the middle of the entry foyer or the gym, there may well be a few people who startle a bit at your arrival and try to approach (or discreetly leave the room... where are they going?). Will you cooperate or fight? Do you even understand what they're saying? You might need to find a translator, if you’re not immediately willing to follow a stranger.

After characters follow their new hosts (or are forcibly taken in) there will be a limited tour and the chance to settle in at the ADI-provided housing. (Do you enjoy living with strangers? Well. It's a new situation to navigate, anyway.)

➥ Sticks and Stones

(cw: hallucination, potential mind-control)

Weird things happen in Dogtown, everyone knows it. The Apocalypse Disruption Initiative (ADI) is not above taking advantage of that to test out the waters for its newest arrivals. They're not looking to send anyone to their death, though. That's far too much paperwork, you'd been assured with a wink from the employee who'd directed you to the park trailhead. You've been left with another person. Maybe they're a new arrival, as well, or a more seasoned 'veteran.' Either way, you're together for the next while and you've been asked to find and record any paranormal activity in the park. You have your phones and any other equipment you might have brought with you. Those who succeed in documenting anything peculiar will receive a $100 reward to be used as they see fit.

This month, there seems to be something odd afoot with the stones around the park. Instead of the questionably useful advice they offer, there is, instead, something embarrassingly or horrifically true about you carved into the stone. Trying to show your companion or gauge their reaction will net nothing; they will simply see their own truth. It's only when you admit to what's on the stone that it seems to become visible to others or any camera in your possession.

Take a picture. The least you deserve for the trouble is some money.

➥ I Will Survive

"We'll have others with you, but all of you will be out on your own for missions, so to speak," the ADI employee who had led you down to the underground training facility explained. "You'll need to have some basic skills. Even if you're not going out soon or ever… it's safer to know these things."

Basic skills, in this case, appear to mean survival and weapons training. The room you've been brought to on Floor B3 below ADI Headquarters is a massive, underground gym, and there are sections set up for various skills practice. One side of the gym is dedicated to fighting: bare-knuckles, wrestling, knives, and tasers are all out on display. There are also a few guns, but those are reserved for people who can prove they can manage the other weapons first. The other side has areas for fire-making, building a shelter, navigating without a phone, supply preparation, cooking, and basic first-aid. Through a side door, there's also a small pool where people are being taught the basics of swimming.

Any or all of these skills would be useful in a dangerous situation, and there aren't enough native ADI employees to cover training for all of them. If you show that you're proficient with something, you'll be asked to man one of the areas to assist in training others. If you're at a loss and looking lost, you will be pushed toward whatever skills practice area is physically closest to you, whether you wanted to learn anything about that or not. Best make the most of it… and try not to kill anyone or burn anything down.

Even those who have refused ADI Housing and taken themselves to Bonnie's Flophouse will find that they're welcome for this training under the strict understanding that no supernatural abilities will be used. Bonnie will have informed them of it and helped them get to ADI to ensure they learn some of the things they might need to survive... and also just to bond with the people they'll be working with for the foreseeable future.

➥ Shifting Perspective

(cw: body horror, implication of near-drowning, violence, potential for blood, gore, drowning, death)

The beaches around Gloucester are numerous and varied with reported supernatural activity at many, if not most of them. For those working with ADI, they'll receive the direction in a mass email from Reyes Amador, the assistant to the Head of ADI. For those not technically working at ADI, Bonnie will provide the same information.

All,

We have received reports of strange noises and sightings at Coffin Beach. Please take at least one other person and investigate. A $300 bonus will be offered to those who bring back evidence of the source of these reports.

Take Care of Yourselves,
Reyes

Those who head to Coffin Beach will find that the sand beneath their feet squeaks softly with each step, like the faint sound of a poorly-maintained hinge protesting their movements. It makes stealth especially difficult, and those who wish to maintain their cover would do well to stay farther up into the vegetation and off the beach, itself. There aren't any houses out this way, just coastal marshes, the beach, and some higher ground with low-growing shrubs, tall grasses, and thin trees.

For the patient, those who wait for night to fall, they will be rewarded when they hear the sound of someone crying. Searching the beach, they will be able to spot a young person who appears to have washed up in a kayak on the beach. The young person is visibly injured in some way with blood coming out of them. Those who approach cautiously may get the sense that there is something not quite right about this person. Man or woman, their face is too long, their angles too sharp.

There is something wrong. It's not the injury.

There is something very wrong with what this person is.

They will not respond to any calls or move from where they lie, half-submerged in the surf. Anyone who approaches within a few feet will discover they're not nearly as helpless as they seem to be, though. The person will burst from the water with a powerful thrust, attempting to tackle anyone nearby and bite them. The person's face transforms into a long, fanged maw, trying to rip and tear and drag their prey into the ocean with them, away from any safety.

➥ Mod Notes

ARRIVAL: Two people will always arrive in the same general location together. Arrivals occur throughout the early month, not all on the same day or in the same place. Arrivals are not naturally fluent in English/other languages immediately upon arrival. Characters may attempt to evade capture, but they will eventually be snagged before they can leave the building. Please refer to the Arrival page for details regarding the arrival and onboarding process.
STICKS AND STONES: If so desired, to facilitate CR, characters may feel themselves compelled to ask about the stones when they see their truth written on it. Resisting the compulsion will become more and more difficult as time goes on.
I WILL SURVIVE: Characters may be students or trainers in this scenario. They might be able to get away with small displays of supernatural abilities if they want to risk it and if they find themselves with the necessary reserves of power. Anything significant will have them immediately removed and asked not to return to ADI for a few days.
SHIFTING PERSPECTIVE: Characters may fight off, capture, or kill the creature. If they successfully capture it and bring it back to ADI (or call for someone to come and do that for them), they will receive a significant monetary bonus beyond the promised $300 for their work. If characters successfully kill and document the kill, they will also receive the bonus and instructions to push the body out to sea. If a character is taken by the creature, they will be killed. Please bear in mind that if a character dies in the TDM prompt, they are dead. A different version who doesn't have TDM memories may be apped in their place.
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"Elevator, sorry."

There's no hesitation over that answer, and the apology is more automatic than anything. Yeah, she knows she makes things difficult, but she's not stopping to explain here and now.

As they go, though, a few eyes turn toward them, some of the locals beginning to twig to Meredith and Tim not being familiar to them.

Right. He thought so. That strikes Tim as something he shouldn't say out loud, so he nods and starts off behind her. Like he can fend off an attack on them better that way, though no one he's spotted is obviously sporting a firearm. The stares are almost weaponized, themselves, like they're there just to get them to break the act. But Tim can recognize paranoia for what it is.

They reach the elevator and Tim wonders how well advised slash or healthy it is to pretend like they can have a chance of waltzing out the front doors into the harbor city. But Meredith's got nothing to say about it either.

He sighs as the elevator dings and opens. "If anything, I'm feeling pretty good about not trashing that server room like I first had in mind." Maybe they'll get nothing but a slap on the wrist.

"True, though I wonder if we'd have gotten a nice confused IT guy finding us in there if we just started unplugging cables at random."

Sadly, it looks like their trip ends at the ground floor--there's a pair of men in security uniforms waiting for them, called by one of the people in the canteen who'd been dropping eaves casually. The taller has a chinstrap beard and beady eyes, the other is broad-shouldered and has a nose that has obviously been broken multiple times.

It's the taller who speaks first. "Right, you really ought to come with us, there's some things we need to explain to youse."

"IT would not be nice if we started unplugging cables at random," Tim confirms. He has the passing memory of Oracle locking him out of systems. It tastes bitter. But it doesn't get to grow because as soon as the ride slows for its stop Tim is taking that first, gallant step forward, putting himself between Meredith and the doors.

The doors which open to reveal... a frankly underwhelming security team.

Tim wonders what the hell this is all about.

And, hilariously, he and Meredith are back to being in a small enclosed space. He frowns. He frowns a lot. "What, like we can't talk about it out here?"

(No, the security duo assure them. They cannot.)

Meredith knows she can't fight her way out. Tim might be able to--she saw how he dealt with the server room door, but she's not going to win by strength. And frankly, if these guys can bring her to someplace with an explanation coming, she's all for that.

She glances sidelong at Tim, trying to figure out what he's about to do.

"Alright, so how does this go down?"

It would go down by actually having them go down. The Big Guys explain that they will be taking them to a basement floor; it's just procedure. They've done this many times before. They're safe.

Tim wants to kick the guy's throat. His shoulders are stiff. Even if he could fight his way out (which he... could), he'd have to leave Meredith behind. And that's not happening. But Tim doesn't have to be happy about this, and he's obvious in his tells. That's fine. No one would love to be--

He glances back to Meredith. She's not... concerned. Wow. Taking it like a champ.

Tim keeps his lips zipped until they get to the appointed room.

It's not that she's not concerned. She's more wearing an icy mask, not letting her internal thoughts show. Meredith is a woman who wears her dignity like a suit of armor, especially in the face of situations that are out of her control (that's most of her life, really).

There is one sign she's having a feeling about things; she walks to Tim's left, and her right hand briefly brushes her sleeve, just as she glances toward him, her chin lifting in something a little like that cool-guy upnod. It's a silent check-in, of sorts.

The adrenaline fades, the tiredness hits, and Tim stays pliant. He takes in what he can of the new floor they're taken to; he learns this isn't ADI anymore, not the way the sign on the green and manicured lawn outside broadcasts. Things are more somber down here. They're in... dorms, or something like that. And Tim wonders if his companion was right and this is the Galaxy Guardians' home base. Then he wonders if the Witch Boy has any reach into this dimension, and if he should just call in that favor from Klarion after all.

--uh, no.

He raises a brow at her, still the sulky teen, but it's hard to be anything else when he's buzzing on the inside and waiting for the worst. He doesn't even know what the worst is. He just knows-- he hasn't done this brand of Boy Hostage before.

The two guards (who have by all accounts been... friendly) lead them to a room and open the door and usher them inside. And leave.

Tim can see a piece of paper; it's just there and probably important. Instead he chews on his tongue for a second before blowing out a sigh and pinning Meredith with a Look. "Not your first kidnapping?"

That Look catches her off-guard, and she glances off to one side slightly rather than meeting it directly.

"I wouldn't say I'm a frequent flyer, but no, not my first. That said, there's something distinctly...weird, about this one. Like, you and I seem to come from different...I hate that I'm about to say this, but different versions of the same world. And I can't help but wonder whose Earth this is."

"Does the Global Galaxy team usually kidnap people to different versions of the same world?"

He butchered that league's name, but it's more of a throwaway comment. Tim knows the answer to his own question, but he hadn't been in the know of any time-space rip since

well.

Anyway. He's growing quickly resigned. The paper is just drawing his curiosity out and Tim steps off to read it. It reads like something made to echo the Anti-Life. The agitation builds in him, which he needs to stop. He feels like there's ants crawling on his skin. That's normal, right?

Get kidnapped, get worked up; it's normal, right?

He waves the paper over to Meredith. "It's a poem," he chirps. There's some attempt at levity. At least. "New question: any enemies of the Guardians who excel in the cryptic?"

Kidding, he knows that answer too.

Meredith takes the paper from Tim, reading it herself.

"There's a few mystical sort of villains, and some who go in for puzzles and riddles and mazes, but this really doesn't feel like something Daedalus would pull."

The voice comes on the speaker to explain, talking over Meredith's last couple words. She listens, frowning, and then pulls out her phone to take notes on what she's hearing.

"...so I was right about it being a front organization, off on the nature of said organization."

It's like he's gone and tripped into a Mother Box.

Daedalus and Icarus, inventor and son.

Tim rummages through the room even as the speaker rumbles on, but it's bare save for that paper.

So now there's a few years added to this displacement. The voice confirms there's the multiverse at play. Tim's blood runs cold at being called a harbinger of an Apocalypse-- that wasn't supposed to ever happen, it's not like he hasn't made peace with the fact he would rather... He's sure he's sporting goosebumps. Thank god for long sleeved shirts. By the time the spiel ends he's back to looking over at Meredith, index finger of one hand tapping idly against the wall he's leaning and resting against. "We're just going to believe them?" he asks, and he's still not sure about his reluctance to make a break for it, maybe come evening when the staff heads out or hits the hay. He can... call for Superman? Across worlds? Or just pray Batman will come find him. Them. "They're pinning some pretty high stakes on people they've 'accidentally' acquired."

"I think it might be the opposite. While they try to work out the big picture, those of us who aren't from this world might be canon fodder to them. We're expendable, extra bodies coming in who they can afford to throw at the problem. Also, if what they say is true and they get some with supernatural abilities...all the better as a first line of defense between the problems and this world's people."

It's a cynical way of looking at things, but Meredith supposes it's all quite simple, if you look at the bottom line and don't acknowledge the basic personhood of those arriving, the lives they have back where they come from.

"Unfortunately for them, I'm not the sort of person they'd want."

His lips twitch up in a smirk. "And I thought I was a cynic." Because while he's distrusting, he's not keen on diving to rock bottom to invent motivations. His expression smooths out soon after, back to an old and familiar neutrality. There's variation ADI is admitting to, one they can't predict or control. The product is flawed. Of course, that means he would have to find the other recruits, see if it matches up with what they're being told.

Who benefits? ADI. Is it only them, though?

"It's a lot of their resources used on us already," Tim points out. So, feel special.

"I imagine some people need those resources more, to adjust to modern America, than you and I. Imagine someone brought from Narnia or Edo-era Japan or a non-Earth planet. Comparatively, we've got a lot of what we need to comprehend the situation."

Meredith's fingers tap on the handle of her cane, the silver rings on all her fingers clicking against the brass softly, rhythmically.

"I don't know what to think about any of this yet, really. It's another one of those moments where life takes a roller-coaster left turn and I'm just holding on, for the moment."

She knows the lion in the closet but not Gotham?

Tim sighs. There's nothing to do but agree, because he's learned his lesson on throwing out wild theories without receipts. But no, there's something deeper than this version of ADI, too. The truth is only ever safe with one person, after all. His eyes catch on her rings now that she's drawn attention to them. He might, maybe, kind of feel like a douche for his stunt with the crutches some months back. Sorry. But. Anyway.

"You're not kidding. This isn't like any kidnapping I know." And he's not good at it. He's not good at curveballs. "We've actually managed to make ourselves into interns," he says. Full circle, if he's reading into the offer correctly. Tim tries for levity:

"Until we get fed to the monsters, that is."

And maybe fails.

"We'll be fine."

Meredith snorts softly at the monster comment, shaking her head slightly. "I can't imagine tasting very good. I'm very salty about everything. The monsters will end up with high blood pressure."

Also a joke, but delivered with a sense of resignation about it.

"You might survive this. You're clearly used to fighting."

"If you can't beat 'em, give them indigestion." Hear him out: been there, done that. In a metaphorical sense. In fact, now that the words are out, this kid begins to feel like the bluff has its merit. So when he smiles again it's lined with some sincerity. The room is uneasy but he can't force that change. They'll be fine.

He pushes off the wall and, convinced there's nothing more to gain from staying put (again), heads for the door. (What's the worst that can happen now?)

"Yeah, I do something like MMA. Things get wild back home. But nothing like this." -- "Any pointers for someone finding themselves in 2021? Are flying cars a thing yet?"

She moves to follow him, smirking--of course, someone's just about to show up to give them the tour, but no, Tim prefers it self-directed...

"No, not yet. Electric cars kind of are, but the batteries keep exploding and they cost way too much to actually be a solution to anything. And all the Edison owners are still really defensive of the company, like even if the car ends up in cinders. But come on, flying cars? We aren't ever really going to get those. They'll be a toy for the super-rich someday, while I'm still driving an old 2001 Meridian. What year are you from?"

Pushing boundaries on the first day is bound to get them on a shit list, but when Tim faces Meredith she really doesn't seem to mind.

He likes her.

He holds back on saying that he wants a flying car (and that Batman and Robin totally got their hands on one), because she's right, and focuses on the idea that she's at least in the correct decade, so her time-space journey may be a bit more linear. "2011," he says.

He really doesn't have good experiences with... time. travel. and he feels his throat want to close up because of it. "Space shuttle program is officially done for," Iraq was a bad idea, he brought Bruce back home and lost himself to work, and oh my god it's harder than it should be to blab about something that could be relatable, "and planking is rad."

That'll do it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM #1

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