academyooc | test drive meme

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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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When Yuri'd been told that he was being transferred to Valparaiso, he hadn't thought it was much of a punishment at the time. Some place that wasn't twenty damn degrees at best most of the time sounded like a great idea to him. But his first interview had been that damned fon Fabre kid, and after that, one of Hyrda Corinthian's pilots. The last six months in Alaska he'd been doing his best to forget his hometown, throwing himself into the physical training and the meditation, striving so that when the time came, he could do the impossible--bring nothing into the Drift.

It was a long shot, but it wasn't like he had much to lose if he failed.

He had been more confident in Alaska, but he was already dreading the prospect of being faced with the fon Fabre heir day in a day out. The kid reminded him too much of his devastated home, of the man who'd caused that devastation... The man he'd killed. He'd managed a flip attitude through that interview and the one after, but he found himself oddly tired now that he was one interview away from getting out of these sterile rooms.

Get it together, he told himself. Maybe he'd try meditating after, get a head start on getting his mind straight.

He had planned to just breeze through this last interview with a minimum of effort but as the other person sat--he blinked, tensing up into a sitting position from his easy sprawl.

Something about this guy--

"Guy...?" his mouth said, miles ahead of his brain.

Guy goes very still, visibly double-taking. He straightens up, his face completely blank, owlish and staring. Whatever had him so preoccupied with his own train of thought comes to a screeching, tumbling halt.

"Yuri?" It couldn't be. He hadn't seen him in five years, and that was a life ago. They were in Chile. What the hell?

"You're blond," he blurted out.

What the hell was he doing? He had an expression to match Guy's, wide-eyed and unbelieving. He should say something else--there was too much to say, or maybe there wasn't anything... it had been five years. It seemed like such a small amount of time, but they'd been kids back then. Another life, no kidding. He'd been a different person... The shrinks would probably go nuts over how similarly their thoughts were just then.

What the hell could he say to him?

"Nice dye job," he said, snatching the thought at random and then having to bite his own lip on slightly hysteric grin, listening to himself. Nice dye job. Great, neutral topic, that.

"I--"

There's a moment where he stumbles over the reply, and a noise bubbles out of his throat that sounds so unrecognizable to him that he almost doesn't realize it's him at first: a confused, startled laugh. When was the last time he laughed? This wasn't even funny!

"Didn't you hear? We could get famous." He can't take his eyes off him - he can't believe his eyes. "The circus would be in town if I was recognized too easily." Thanks for ruining the effect. He leaves the sarcastic follow-up to that unspoken, rubbing his hand over his mouth in disbelief. From the feel of it, he was smiling too.

"You're a little far from home?"

"I was in Alaska a month ago!" he was flat-out grinning now, laughing with stunned disbelief. "They kicked me out--'reassigned me' because of my sterling personality; they thought I was so friendly I'd ace this multiple Drift partners thing."

He was practically leaning forward in his seat, talking completely unguarded. "Your secret's safe with me. I didn't think--" I'd ever see you go near a Jaeger. He managed to catch himself just in time, though with his face an open book at the moment, Guy can probably see him manually switching tracks. "I'd see you..."

Edited 2014-02-02 06:59 (UTC)

There's nothing of the shaded, flat smile Guy was wearing before. He's wide open, so it's easy to see him catch what Yuri just didn't say, and react to it-- with a vulnerable, bitter, self-deprecating look on his face, his lips twisted to half-smiling. "I didn't think I'd ever be here," he admits - it's not like the people watching quite understand what's behind that.

"That Alaska scenario sounds like exactly what I'd think, though," he rolls along, more cheerful this time - it's not talking about that, but it isn't a change in topic either, really - he just has to react. Kicked out! Yuri Lowell! "You're as popular as ever. How could you possibly not get along with everyone?"

This is almost too much, Guy's face is just too obvious and Yuri almost pushes himself up out of his seat to do something--but the not quite double-speak snaps him back to where they are. There's a palpable jolt through his body as he catches himself, makes himself relax back into his seat. There isn't anything he can say to that that he wants on public display.

"It's the temperature up there; makes people awful cranky." His tone is more or less back to normal, flip and insouciant, but his eyes are focused wholly on Guy, looking him over, seeing if he looks like's he's been doing well, if he's healthy... And he' not making an effort to hide it in the slightest, even if he could scrape together some semblance of unconcern. Which he can't.

Edited 2014-02-02 07:25 (UTC)

Guy restrains his response to a small grin, for Yuri's sake - a scoff would give away whatever he was covering, really -- though his eyes are glittering. We can't possibly be the same, but he's still so full of shit. The amount of comfort and relief that gave him - that this encounter was giving him - he's completely unprepared for it, so he has to just let it happen. Why not? It wasn't like he remembered what the particular happiness of a reunion even felt like, and feeling good was rare these days.

"We'll see if it gets as hot here as it did downtown," he says. It's a stall. People are watching, and they're supposed to be asking questions, aren't they? He comes a little back to reality at that thought -- he didn't know what he'd say, he just knew he had more to say than this, in front of one-way glass.

"You've grown. I'm pretty interested in knowing the answers to these questions."

Edited 2014-02-02 07:47 (UTC)

Yuri, for his part, was on the verge of saying Come on, let's blow this place, find something better to do. It would have been what he'd said when they were kids. And the sentiment was more or less the same--suddenly, the pageantry of the whole situation was grating; he wanted to call a time out, tell the shrinks to take a hike because this was real . It felt like the first conversation he'd had in months. Maybe more.

He glances at the clock to see how much longer they have to do this before settling back into the game. "I've grown," he says with heavy irony. "Sure. We'll, let's see, I've got three kids, and I still don't like the color blue. No offense. "

"None taken," Guy says sarcastically as if he's obviously offended anyway, cracking a wide smile by now. "You always were too mature for your age. I expect to be introduced to the family. I'll bring my kid and he can get bullied by yours, just like old times."

"Bullied! I just brought you out of your shell. You were way too shy," he says the last part with an unmasked fondness he can't keep down, but he at least cuts himself off from further reminiscing down that line.

"Let's see--the tool kit question's kind of irrelevant for both of us. I can't use any of that stuff, and you'd use it all."

"It depends on the kit. It specifically says basic toolbox, and it would depend on what I was making," Guy retorts with a roll of his eyes. It's an immediate answer, easy to give - the whole conversation is. It wasn't even how they talked before, so it wasn't a return to how they used to be. This was all new.

So why was it so easy? Because they knew each other before the whole world changed? There was almost nobody left that had any pieces of who he used to be, and he'd spent the last five years now being anything but that. But Yuri... he was his friend. It was almost comforting, to know Yuri knew how ridiculous it was that Guy was here.

"Do you still waste the whole morning sleeping?"

"That's such a nerdy answer." He sounded practically delighted. Why was it so damn hard to contain himself? Everytime he thought he had a grip, Guy would answer in that new, weirdly confident way, but everything Yuri had known about him was still just so obviously there.

"I was a kid! It was weird that you didn't." No, it wasn't. He was pretty sure who was to blame for that. "And no, for your information. Even before I joined I had been getting up early to run." A deliberate pause "And do yoga." What he didn't say, was that after Mary had died, he'd started taking her seriously about putting himself to use.

The yoga, well... He wouldn't have believed it himself, so he raised an eyebrow at Guy, waiting to see if he'd take it as a joke or not.

Guy raises his eyebrow too, taking a moment.

"Really," he says, neutrally, cracking a smile. Was that really true? It wasn't quite ridiculous enough to immediately be a joke, but he was obviously trying to decide if it was or not. Was this something fun and new, in how his old friend had grown? He hoped it was true.

"Yoga, huh? Patient, calm, controlled yoga?" He gives him a cursory look, deliberately sizing him up. "... I can't tell if you look like it with that uniform on."

Edited 2014-02-02 23:12 (UTC)

He gave him a dirty look at the 'patient' stuff, but sprawled more theatrically under his scrutiny. It was unlikely from that angle, sure, but Guy would be unsurprised to learn that he'd been more attracted to the physical challenge of it than the mental.

"You don't believe me just saying so? I'm hurt." He grinned at him. "We'll have to wait until we're out of here, then I can show you far I can bend back my leg."

Guy is laughing before he even realizes it, warm and delighted. Like he's used to laughing. Like he ever laughs.

Yoga! Well, why not. Guy had tried once and quit when it was harder than he thought, and he didn't have the patience. Yuri, though - he would have gotten stubborn about it, wouldn't he?

"Maybe you can teach me a few things," he manages, cheery. "I'm not flexible at all. ...I did pick up weights, though." He offers it up to match him, but he wonders which is more unbelievable.

"I noticed." He can't quite keep the note of sourness out of his voice or off his face. He just wasn't destined to be broad, not that he hadn't tried. As for Guy picking it up... He wouldn't have believed it if he didn't obviously see it. It made him curious to know what he'd been doing with those muscles, but that was another question for when they were away from prying eyes. "You can probably bench press me while I go through my morning stretches."

"Yoga's good for balance, right? If you stay reeeally still. Bench pressing you can't be harder than erecting a wall."

Which is what he had been up to, lately. Had Yuri been doing anything before he got kicked out of Alaska? What jobs had he held down? What kind of trouble had he gotten into?

He'd thought he was dead, two years ago. He had no way to know where he was, and it was far more likely he'd been wiped flat thanks to fon Fabre, like so many other lives. Maybe he'd been too quick to assume... but hope had been so difficult then.

"Smartass." He had to be joking.

The line about the wall was interesting, though. "So... Were you an engineer?" There was a subtle hesitancy in the way he asked it. He knew that was what Guy had always tended toward, but after Mary, who had tried so hard to turn his interest toward the military had died... It must have been hard for him.

An engineer. He'd barely had the confidence to achieve it as it was, but he'd needed some kind of counter argument at the time - some other goal.

Surely he wasn't still on him for a childish thing like that.

"Nothing so fancy. Just construction work, volunteering. I help rig up electrical equipment sometimes, that's as close as it gets." He shrugs, with a little fake grin. "Don't have a degree on the resume."

He made a noncommittal noise, acknowledging his words without having to reply to them. The topic was too loaded.

"We should probably get around to the rest of these questions, I guess. What do you think the Drift is like?"

Dodging, hm. It was strange to recognize his own patterns in someone he'd conceived for so long as completely different from him.

"The Drift," he states, gesturing wide like a marquee through the air with his hand, loaded and awestruck in his tone... though he sinks back casually in his chair with a sigh. "Isn't this unfair? Don't you have insider information? Are we graded for accuracy?"

He smiles at the theatrics, but it turns wry. "No, I've never drifted. I couldn't find a partner back in Alaska, so I'm just as clueless as everyone else." Though he'd shown a baseline of compatibility with plenty of people, none of his prospects had been good enough for them to try a Drift.

"So we're on even ground after all," Guy says, smiling a little. "So much for a sneak peek."

The Drift... an unspeakably world-altering development impacting the very core and history of mankind, psychic links made real. And Guy didn't think deeply about it. It was like staring into the sun of your secretive bullshit will be done for. Considering his behavior some one of the most important relationships of his life, maybe avoidance wasn't a surprise.

"We won't really know until we try, will we?" he finally answers with a sigh, looking at the table. "I'm not a picnic anymore, but that's not special. Whoever I Drift with," he says, pausing... then glancing up at Yuri. "They'll have their fair share too. Isn't that the point?"

"I guess so," he says evenly, gaze level with Guy's, letting the promise both of them were to cautious to verbalize hang between them.

If Yuri were to be honest--and he wouldn't be, not right now, maybe not until the Drift dredged up both their shaded histories--he would have said he thought the Drift felt like this: a conversation that existed entirely in things unsaid, foregrounded only by everything he knew about Guy, everything he knew about himself that he saw in Guy. A chill seeped down his spine as he considered himself under Guy's scrutiny. All these months he'd been letting the PPDC prepare him to Drift with someone, and despite his own preparation... He suddenly felt vastly unprepared for someone to Drift with him.

Well, he had a few months more to go to correct that. And he would.

Edited 2014-02-03 23:56 (UTC)

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