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test drive meme

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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"Sure." Luke responds, automatic, agreeable, before even fully processing her offer. Frankly she could've asked if he'd like to stab himself in the eye and probably gotten the exact same response.

He takes the seat, but doesn't settle, tight with an obvious nervous, anxious energy. He always knew when someone didn't recognize him, in the exact same way he always knew when they did. Not everyone was mean to him, told him off, told him his father got what he deserved, but there was still always that initial look of disgust, distrust that they couldn't quite hide. Luke had gotten good at recognizing it. But not seeing it on Andrea Martin's face was a blessing.

Maybe if he kept just dove right in there wouldn't be a chance for his luck in that department to change.

"What are you doing here?" Abrupt, blurting. He back peddles. "I mean... you're already a pilot. Is this a test?"

She keeps her expression nonchalant, her own posture reading as relaxed and comfortable. Luke is so clearly on edge, she doesn't want to further agitate him.

Andrea speaks in a reasonable, affable tone of voice when she replies. "This is all a test, Luke. That's why you're here. As for me?" Here she gestures toward her chest, an unaffected motion. She shakes her head. "How do you feel about me being here?"

She watches his face and upper body, keeping track of his tension levels. "If you'd like, I can ask one of the K-science guys to come sit in with you."

You can deal with the stress, Luke. Communicate why it's a problem, or when you have a concern.

Luke starts a bit, looking over to the glass where he knew they were being watched. He knew but having her talk about it so casually made it sound so much more real, maybe she was running the test? Or at least working with them. Yeah, that would make sense, obviously.

"Um." His eyes wander back toward her, not afraid or alarmed but obviously uncertain. "It's fine? Unless you think one of them should come in here..." What was the right answer? Maybe she didn't want to be alone with him? Seemed perfectly reasonable. Maybe he could fix this.

"Sorry. I'm just surprised, I guess... I didn't mean to be weird. I was just expecting I'd only be talking to..." He makes a nonspecific, half handwave, "you know, other people like me. Just trying to get in."

"Kind of a surprise, I can imagine." She smiles, the first big flash of teeth and laughter that comes from a gut level. Short lived as it is, she seems to be in an honest to goodness good mood. "You're fine, Luke! There's no right or wrong answer when you're in here."

Gesturing to her clipboard, she continues to relax in her chair. "It's relatively painless, even if the questions seem ridiculous. DO you feel like going first, or would you prefer for me to?"

Her reassurances are taken to heart, and when she doesn't seem to be bothered, by... well. Him Luke relaxes considerably. It isn't so much that speaking to someone famous made him nervous, he was just always on the look out for how he was fucking up this time. But he believed her when she said there were no wrong answers, and while he continued to toy with his gloves idly, he otherwised seemed a lot calmer.

"Okay. You can go first?" Even if there were no wrong answers, he'd still rather hollow her lead. He glances down at the questions. "Not promising I'm going to actually have an answer though. "

"People start by asking that you try."

It's a soft suggestion. Having the answers, let alone right ones, is a luxury most people don't have.

Andrea glances at the list, skimming down the questions she knows are there. "When do you feel like you're at your best? What time of day, that is. Mornings, afternoons, early evenings...?"

Most kids around his age didn't tend toward being morning people, but the point wasn't so much in the questions. Andrea watches him in her quiet way, expression turning into something neutral and friendly.

Luke wasn't sure he was prepared for Andrea Martin to remind him more of a teacher than anything else. But he wasn't going to argue, gripping the edge of his chair with what is left of his idle nervousness.

The question, when it comes, seems harmless enough but as soon as Luke goes to think of an an answer, he deflates visibly. Mostly because of what came to him immediately. "Can I say never...?" It wouldn't be fair to say he looks miserable, just defeated. The face of someone who knows his limitations and accepts them as just an ordinary part of his day.

But he doesn't leave it there. Reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck, not quite looking at Andrea and not quite looking at the glass. "But... Sorry, that sounds lame. That's kind of why I'm here. To figure out how to feel like I've done my best."

"Not lame at all," she says, giving him her serious regard. "Admitting you don't know when you have or not is one step along the way to figuring out your personal best."

Something he'd have to do, or he'd flake out of the Academy early on. Nothing about the program allowed for coddling. Andrea didn't feel it should, not given what demands and expectations fell down the line on Ranger shoulders.

The fame might seem appealing, but riding with your legs straddling a nuclear reactor (Mach dependent, of course) and standing as a first and last line of defense between innocent, defenseless lives and a creature that kept on killing even after it died left little illusion in Andy's eyes as to what they were doing out there. Winning would be the cocky answer. Staving off a force of nature was her own personal one.

"How do you feel about sports? Played any, like watching some, anything like that?"

Luke is a bit surprised at her response, coloring faintly. He was pretty sure it was still lame but he wasn't used to hearing the reassurance, and the gesture was appreciated. He sits up a little straighter and perks noticably at the second question.

"I've played some football and baseball and stuff for fun, but I wasn't on any teams or anything. I've had a bunch of lessons in all kinds of fighting though. Mostly martial arts but I even took one for how to how use a broad sword."

He smiles, genuinely cheered by this subject, maybe even a little proud of himself. He is in pretty great shape, after all. He'd spent months working on those abs, and the maintenance. Such a pain, but it was worth the effort. It didn't even occur to him how bizarre it probably sounded, but when you were wealthy enough if you got it in your head you wanted to learn kung fu and how to use a sword because you saw it in a movie, it turns out it wasn't that hard to find a private instructor.

But he was supposed to be asking questions too, wasn't he? So he shoots back eagerly, "What about you?"

She manages to keep her eyebrow from inching up toward her hairline, maintaining a neutral expression. The carefree way in which he lists off what he does indicates some definite degree of his background, and his familiarity with what might be termed as casual reality.

"Nothing as historically relevant as the broadsword," she says, her lips turning up into a brief smile of amusement. "I played Ultimate Frisbee when I was in college, did a lot of mountain biking around the same time."

What's more important to her than hearing he might have all kinds of things to learn or unlearn is that he's been part of any sport team event at all. "You should look into the fútbol teams if you end up down in Chile. Basketball tends to do well in the Shatterdomes. Doesn't need much space. Baseball's not quite as universal," she adds, thinking of the United States and Japan. "Though American Football is even less so."

There's a brief pause while Luke parses what she just said. "Oh right, that's what they call soccer outside the states." Honestly, he never had been much a part of team sports. Not for any particular reason, as long none he'd ever thought hard about. In reality it was probably a mix of it never being encouraged and his tendency to aggravate people within short periods of time.

"I don't know if I'm that good with my feet, but if that's what's big around here I can give it a try." Just the same, despite the inexperience he was game. Particularly when the advice came from someone like Andy. "I don't think I've thrown a Frisbee around since I was ten, but I've done some mountain biking." The biking part, at least, he enjoyed. Taking trails between comfortable locations. He wasn't much of a camper. "I bet that could be pretty fun around here, too."

This was kind of nice. Luke wasn't the sort to have any particular aim with his conversation. He wasn't looking for any achievement, not even to make a friend or earn her respect. But it felt like it'd been a long time since he's gotten to talk casually with someone. He's quick to forget it's still essentially a test.

Andy's as content to allow the conversation to continue as it does, meandering and allowing Luke to participate as much as he feels comfortable. From where she sat, that give and take was all the more important going forward. Muuch as a willingness to engage, no matter how skewed the platform of performance he started out on.

"Cycling's fairly prominent throughout Chile. There's a tour through the Andes I hear is fantastic, if you've got the time and can handle the elevation." There was evidence that those born at the higher altitudes developed better lung capacity and an increased capacity for exercise than those born closer to sea level. She'd done some research into the details when she'd been considering taking part in any of the local races. The end conclusion had been it'd be better if she did nothing more than recreational cycling, and even that had to be carefully planned out.

All of that was simply a pathway for the conversation to wander. "See how you feel about it after settling in to the schedule." Like he was already on his way there. Andrea knew if he'd made it to the point of interviewing, he was already on his way. The real tests came down once people were at the Academy. "Are you much of a handyman, by any chance?"

Luke was pretty sure the Andes was not one mountain but multiple mountains. He wasn't sure if that sounded awesome or terrifying, and is happy that Andrea remembered to pull them back on topic before he had to admit wasn't sure he was that into mountain biking.

He skims his question list, guessing where this is going. Getting distracted enough that he misses the hint that he might actually make it past the interviews. "No way." He wouldn't go so far to say he'd never picked up a tool in his life... but when he had it was mostly going through Guy's stuff, moving things around just to piss him off.

"But my friend who is told me the answer to this question once." One boring day when Luke was reading off quizzes from his mom's magazine to go avoid going stir crazy. He pauses, actually remembering what Guy had said. "Chisel." The rest wasn't exactly something you put on your resume, though.

Maybe if he moved on fast enough she wouldn't ask him to elaborate. "You?"

"Allen wrench," she said without missing a beat. "Why a chisel?"

Not that it saved him from her asking the obvious question. It's as quick to come to mind to ask about his friend as well. "What kind of handy-work did your friend get up to?"

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