academyooc | 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," Mike answered, flopping down into his chair. It was a sort of instinctive reaction. If this guy was going to be so perfect, then Mike was going to go out of his way to be exactly the class he grew up as - which meant the poorer-than-dirt class. The started-fights-as-a-hobby class.

He was going to have fun.

"So, let's see here," he mused, looking over the questions yet again. No matter how many times he went through them, he never quite memorised them. "Let's start with this one. What time of day do you get the most done?"

Mike bet himself a mental penny that the answer wouldn't be the crack of dawn.

"First thing in the morning," he said, ever-so-casually and without any hesitation. "By the time school is over, all I want to do is play with my friends, so I never get much done in the evening. I'm actually quite the morning person, so it works out. How about you?"

Stock answer: "Evening," he said. "By then, I've had the time to wake up and get over the night before."

Okay, it wasn't crack of dawn, but it was morning. He'd spot himself half a penny on that one while he wondered exactly what 'play with my friends' meant. And then he spared a moment to wonder if his interview-mate, here, would survive the culture shock of rations and living in a Shatterdome.

Time would tell.

"How about you pick the next question," he offered, not really asking as he offered out the clipboard with the sheet of general guidelines clipped to it.

Tamaki takes the clipboard, but doesn't even glance at it. "What's your favorite snack?"

Not on the sheet, no, but still easy to answer. Mike shrugged before answering, "Tacos. Real ones. But not the ones with chapulines." He shook his head, nose wrinkled. "I'll stick with beef or chicken, thanks."

As he spoke, he practically stretched out in the chair, pulling up one leg to prop the ankle on his opposite knee, fingers lacing over his stomach. The picture of casual.

Tamaki could not help but think how comfortable this commoner looked. Should he, perhaps, be sitting the same way? But no; they were being evaluated, after all, and he would hate to think that some poor, lovely lady might be on the other side of that one-way mirror, gasping in disillusionment after seeing him take on such a posture. He remained just the way he was.

"I tried chapulines shortly after I arrived here. They have the most interesting texture!"

"I just happen to prefer my land-food with four or fewer legs," Mike smirked in answer. "Of course, I can't even start to predict what they put into the mystery meat that goes out with rations, but some things, it's better not to know."

Mike tossed him a wink.

"You don't say!" Tamaki's eyes widened. The mystery of the mystery meat went even deeper than he could had imagined. How exciting!

...Yep, this one didn't have a clue what the hell mystery meat was. Maybe it was time to make up some horror stories. "Yeah, man, some places they put in horse, other places they put in dog, or guinea pig, or whatever's closest. Usually, it's the pieces they can't sell any other way - like lips or as-- ...I mean buttholes."

Better to watch his language, right? Right.

That did the trick. The blood drains from his face. "D-dog? And little guinea pigs? They can't just do that..."

"Guinea pigs are actually a major source of protein in parts of South America," Mike said. That was the truth. And here they were, in Valparaiso, so of course it was just natural to bring that up. "So yeah, our mystery meat might be a lot of guinea pig. I've never had it before, but I bet it's passable, anyway."

In a flash, Tamaki had moved to the corner of the room and curled up into a little ball.

Seriously.

Mike blinked slowly. That was both fast and kind of disturbing. Had he just broken the guy?

"...Uh."

Still in his corner, he whipped out a cell phone and started chattering into it in rapidfire Japanese.

Mike knew a few words of Japanese. Enough to say he didn't speak much Japanese, that he needed to find a taxi, or that he was looking for a bathroom, so this? This was way out of his comfort zone to say the least.

He'd expected some 'eww gross' reactions, or a freakout that he could laugh at a little before calming the guy down, but this was...

"...Dude... uh. Are you having a panic attack or something?"

If Mike knew the word for "meat" or the names of various animals, he'd find those two things comprised a large chunk of the conversation.

Once Tamaki finished his call, his gloom dissipated almost instantly. Ignoring Mike's question— and indeed, acting as if the entire affair had never happened— Tamaki sprang back to his feet and grinned.

"All right! It's all taken care of. We should have fresh meat by tomorrow."

Mike blinked slowly, his mind trying to reconcile what he'd just seen. The change in personality, the sudden cheer--

"Uh," he managed, yet again. "I was joking."

Cheer gave way to confusion, and Tamaki blinked slowly.

"Excuse me?"

"I was pranking you," Mike clarified. "The PPDC might be running on tight rations, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't use horse or guinea pig. Most mystery meat is just the bits off the better cuts of meat that they can't sell separately, not anything terrible..."

test drive meme

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