test drive meme

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Test Drive Meme The Pan Pacific Defense Corps was usually offered any of a variety of local buildings to set up their testing centers. For reasons of access and availability, most testing clinics were set up in central areas for any given community. Those of the PPDC staff on hand vary in their personal intensity. Some of the men and women wearing Strike Group insignia seemed overly serious, to the point of frowning with intensity at some of the youngest checking in for this testing round. Those from the K-Science division are tight with nervous energy as they direct prospective cadets through various activities. Everything was meant to measure potential, looking for that spark that meant they had somebody who was Drift Compatible. The majority of people were turned away after the first series of seemingly random tests, officials looking in eyes, placing odd looking contraptions over heads, asking for people to play a series of short games, one even in a virtual reality set-up.
	( SCENARIO ONE ) If you are still here now, you've made it past the first cut. You'll be sat down in a room with the rest who have made it this far, then systematically led into smaller interview rooms as pairs. If you came with a partner, they're your first interview candidate. If you came on your own, all your interviews are random assignment. All who have been asked to stay are required to sit through and conduct a series of short peer to peer interviews. The questions are straightforward. What is your least favorite color? Which tool in a standard toolbox is most useful to you? What time of day do you accomplish the most? Do you have children? What do you believe the Drift is like? Peer to peer interviews last for half an hour to an hour, and each person is asked to participate in at least three peer-to-peer interviews. There is no punishment for going off script. There is a one-way mirror looking into each interview area, and one door leading into the room with a small panel of glass located on the door. There is a clock on the wall in each room. The time they report is odd, when examined. These are not digital clocks, but timers, counting up time since the last Kaiju attack.
	( SCENARIO TWO ) Congratulations! You have been judged Drift Compatible, and sent home to pack after giving a definite yes to the Pan Pacific Defense Corps. The next thing you face down is the flight into Santiago, Chile, and the subsequent drive in to Valparaíso's Shatterdome. You and the rest of the crowd of soon to be PPDC Ranger Cadets have been gathered together to wait for the old bus scheduled to take you to the Shatterdome. While waiting in the open air, those from any Northern Hemisphere countries may find the summer weather strange. Today's high is going to be in the upper 80's, and there's not a cloud to be seen that's not clinging to the distant mountains. Welcome to Chile. When the bus arrives, it's another hour ride out toward the coastline to get to the Shatterdome. Even better? The bus Air Conditioner is broken. Safe travels, Cadets!
Please set up your own scenarios as you like. The above two scenarios are suggestions. Anything goes!

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Yancy Backet | Pacific Rim | I'll roll with anything

[inurhead]

III.

Oof. It's gotta be mid-morning by now, but Yancy is still yawning a little and hugging the corner with the coffee machine closely in between posing for photographs and signing autographs. A week in Chile and he still feels jet lagged. There's a strong urge to curl up on one of the benches lining the room that he has to fight. It's probably fortuitous that they look seriously uncomfortable.

He grunts a quiet thanks at the starry eyed new cadet who's just fetched him some murky sludge that might have started out as coffee around sunrise, but had since morphed into a type of milky syrup.

Close enough. He takes a sip and gags on it a little, but swallows it anyway. "Wow. That'll wake you up."

[righthemisphere]

"It better." Raleigh laughs and grabs his brother in the ribs from behind - a small mounted sneak attack - before quickly dodging to the side and coming to stand in front of him. Sure, he's a little tired, but in comparison he looks bright eyed and bushy tailed.

And why shouldn't he be? It hadn't quite hit until people were starting to arrive, but he's never been more exited. And sure leaving home isn't perfect, and he's pretty sure the humidity might kill him, but Yancy, we're stationed with Striker. This is going to be awesome. Plus, the newest complex and Academy gets the newest tech and being able to play with that is almost good enough on it's own.

"C'mon, eyes open, you look like a zombie."

[inurhead]

Yancy makes a noise of protest as some of the coffee sludge sloshes over the side of the cup onto his shirt, but it's the sort of long suffering protest noise that isn't really one at all.

The coffee gets shaken away and swiped at and then dismissed as unimportant while Yancy takes another swallow of the foul stuff, pulling a face. "How many of these have you had, kid? 'M not sure it's even edible."

He stifles a small belch of protest from his stomach, put off by the whole morning cup of acidic sludge deal. One more quick, brutal chug of it and Yancy pours it out into the nearest trash can. Okay, that plan didn't pan out. It's gonna be a long morning. (Afternoon?)

[righthemisphere]

Afternoon.

Raleigh eyes the coffee with a look of distaste and reaches into his pocket, drawing out a brightly colored boiled sweet wrapped in cellophane. He pulls it from either end with practiced motion and pops it in his mouth, crumpling the plastic with two fingers. He knows the crinkling is annoying.

He doesn't even have to answer, Yancy knows he doesn't drink caffeine.

"I don't know what you were expecting, there isn't a Starbucks on campus."

Note to self, get a coffee machine for their barracks. If only to shut Yancy up.

[inurhead]

That gets another grunt of protest, whether it's addressed to the crinkling paper or the smart remark is unclear. Though Yancy does take the opportunity to look around, secretly hoping for a vending machine or something, and catches sight of all the fresh-faced, queasy looking kids pouring in out of the bus.

Man. The Academy crowds just get younger every year. They're mostly teenagers. Jeez. He shakes his head a little and smiles. Looking at them, he's just glad he didn't ride in on a cramped, miserable bus this morning.

"Mmf. Think you're ready to be a roll model?"

[righthemisphere]

Raleigh shorts and follows his brother's gaze, thumbs tucked up over his belt buckle. The journey here wasn't exactly a picnic for them and they hadn't been crammed into a bus for hours, he imagines they're all feeling a little green around the gills. Especially as they're all so young. What was the minimum recruiting age these days? Not old enough to drink but old enough to die for your country. Not that it's ever been otherwise.

But, that's part of why they're there, right? The welcome wagon? To do their job and do it well and just happen to be visible to the cadets as a constant reminder of what they're all working towards. What this is all about.

He turns back and offer up his right forearm for a bump. They've got this.

"Hell yeah, we're rock stars." Cocky? Yes. But true? Absolutely. And then,

"Shame the Hansens aren't here yet. Would have been nice to divide and conquer a little bit. Split the load."

[inurhead]

It's Yancy's turn to snort at that. He shakes his head, but offers his arm to Raleigh in return for the bump back. The attitude on that kid is really something sometimes.

With one last yawn and shake, Yancy turns and squares his shoulders. "Even better, kid. Let's go sell it to the guys who're gonna be us in ten years."

[righthemisphere]

"I already feel sorry for the ones who turn into you."

He quips and smiles, taking the first steps towards the crowd with his usual saunter. Somewhere in the back of his head he can hear an epic theme song blasting. Yancy and Raleigh Becket, Professional bad-asses reporting for duty.

[inurhead]

"No kidding, they'll have to put up with the next generation of you." Comes Yancy's retort. Anyone casually listening to the men might assume they didn't get along well, but the opposite was the truth. They were close enough to affectionately give one another crap all of the time, that was all.

Show time.

[secondtry]

"...Whoever brewed this should be shot," Mike muttered in agreement as he took a sniff and then took to holding his own cup of coffee at arm's length. It was chance that he'd overheard anyone, and even then, it took him a moment to realise that was Yancy Becket.

"Or at least taken to medbay to see if they lost their sense of taste in the war or something."

He'd come in on the bus with the newest batch of cadets, but he was much more a contemporary of Yancy and Raleigh. There was just a break of a few years between when he'd finished classes and when he finally showed up to be assigned.

But now, after this bit of commiseration, he offered his free hand for a handshake. "Mike Traceur. Nice to meet you."

[inurhead]

"Yancy Becket." Yancy greeted automatically, shaking Mike's hand. He took another sip of the coffee and grimaced. It didn't get any better the second try, that's for sure.

Turning back to Mike, Yancy decided to make conversation in between attempting to tar his insides this morning (afternoon?) "What's your department?"

No need to offer his. Unless the guy didn't have access to a tv and never walked past a magazine rack, he probably knew. Especially working for the PPDC.

[secondtry]

Mike answered him with a wry smile. "Pilot trainee. Might be marching out beside you eventually. Key word there being 'might.' They've got to figure out if there's anybody I might match in all this. I've decided not to put any money on it. You were lucky."

He raised his glass in Yancy's direction. "You got to come in with a drift partner ready-made."

[inurhead]

"Mmm," Yancy agreed, taking another sip of coffee. It's the only way he'd have ever said mmm with his mouth full of that stuff, but he nods, and swallows it after a brief struggle with his gag reflex. "Yeah, we all did. That's why we're here, actually. The program here is cutting edge, trying to get strangers to drift together. This place is making a big noise, and it's been quiet up north."

[secondtry]

"Yeah, I remember," Mike said, shaking his head a little. "I was in Alaska for a while. Glad I'm down here now. Those kind of temperatures are hell for a California kid like me. I'd sooner deal with humidity than freezing off anything that dangles."

[inurhead]

That gets a little snort out of Yancy. He can sort of relate, except for him this place is the painful adjustment. The heat and humidity are murder to an Anchorage boy. They're lucky he's not asleep right now. Seriously. "Insulation layers go a long way."

Heat, on the other hand, you can do jack all about. That's just going to take some getting used to.

[secondtry]

But Mike chuckled, shaking his head a little out of amusement more than anything else. "But you can only put on so many layers and still move. Down here, I can probably just hang out in some shorts. It'd be nice. I'll get to work on my tan."

Except he knew, thanks to scheduling, he'd never get that kind of time. But he could live with that when it came down to it.

[inurhead]

Yancy quirked an eyebrow, but refrained from pointing out how unlikely it was for a pilot trainee to have spare time like that. He'd been through the program himself, he knew better. But what was the harm in a nice daydream like soaking up some sun? Let the guy have it for now.

"Do they start you from scratch when you transfer?" He asked instead. It's a protocol he'd never had to deal with personally, having come in with a strong drift partner and all. Relocating them wouldn't have made any sense. But for single pilot hopefuls, there was a big difference in tactics. Maybe the guy hadn't made a good match with anyone in Alaska but had good potential. That seemed like something that could happen, right?

[secondtry]

"Not really sure, honestly." He sniffed the coffee one more time before shaking his head and taking a few steps away to throw it away. "I've been out of the picture for a few years. I figure I'll probably have to do some catch-up work, more testing, and I'll definitely have to add some more Spanish to my vocabulary. Right now, I'm waiting to find out what's going to happen."

*"Spanish is easy."

[inurhead]

"Espanol es facil." Yancy replied, eying his own coffee. His stomach wasn't exactly thrilled about the hostile invasion going on right now, but mabe if he choked down enough of the stuff the caffeine would kick in...

[secondtry]

"Yeah, it is," Mike agreed, his rudimentary Spanish getting him through that much, "but if I'm going to actually hold a conversation, I'm going to need more than I've got, which is basically enough to get me in trouble."

Then again, that seemed to be one of his favourite hobbies.

"But I've gotta ask, man, do you always have this much trouble waking up?"

[inurhead]

This isn't the first time in Yancy's life someone's commented on his attraction to caffeine, but it does make him quirk an eyebrow a little. Whatever, this kid will be calling him "sir" in a couple days. Might as well be nice about it until then. Yancy shrugs. "Must be the time difference. Jet lag."

Actually, he never has been a morning person. Awake and alert took better coffee than this, or movement in the breach. At the very least a decent shower, which is the option he'd gone with this morning, considering all the press that were on the way. But that information was need to know, and anyone who still had training wheels attached didn't need to know it. The kid would find out later, if he was made of the tough stuff.