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academyooc2014-01-20 08:39 pm
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Entry tags:
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. |
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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.
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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! |
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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?"
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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..."
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
"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?"
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
"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.
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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."
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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. "
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
"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."
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
"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."
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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?"
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
"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.
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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."
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
"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."
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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.
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
"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.
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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.
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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."
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
"We should probably get around to the rest of these questions, I guess. What do you think the Drift is like?"
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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?"
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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?"
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
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.
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Guy holds eye contact with Yuri as the moment stretches. Seconds tick by, feeling shorter and faster somehow, and Guy's fake expression melts off. He knows they're passing any acceptable length of silence in civilized conversation, logically, but he doesn't look away - Yuri doesn't either, so he's just as much to blame! - and he just can't figure out the words that say more than saying nothing.
As little as Guy had thought of the Drift itself, he had imagined the type of people he'd be able to Drift with en entirety. It would have to be a complete stranger, he'd decided. Another survivor. Someone else with giants crushing their memories. Probably someone not very nice - his deeper thoughts might disgust someone too noble. The most common conclusion Guy reached was, quite simply, a criminal with a chip on his shoulder.
He swallows, the bob in his throat sliding, under Yuri's gaze. Now, in just a few minutes, he isn't so sure he's right about that, and for the first time he feels unprepared.
Yuri Lowell... the orphan brat who'd pulled his hair, called him names and yelled at him to believe in himself. It feels like he was inside his walls already, and they hadn't even talked.
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
He really wants to blow this room, already. Just the thought of the lab coats looking them over makes his shoulders tighten. He can't help but shoot the glass a dark look, even if they dock him on his anti-authoritarian temperament. Again.
But just as easily, he meets Guy's eyes again, casual. "I should probably avoid giving the same answer I gave earlier," hid voice is deliberately sly.
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
His eyebrows lift as he follows Yuri's gaze and parses his problem, his mood. Still? Well, of course, Guy thinks. It's almost funny. It isn't like Guy is a huge fan either, what with high-stakes competitive Jaeger technology killing his family, and all. (At least, as far as he's concerned.) But this is the PPDC they're talking about, and they're not even past initial scans. Being obstinate for the sake of it isn't going to get Yuri anywhere.
Omelet, eggs, something like that.
"If you can give a better one," Guy replies, plenty sly in reply - but just because he's goading. You can do a little better than that, right?
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss
Re: Guy Cecil | Tales of the Abyss