TEST DRIVE 01

[modmachine]

Test Drive meme Welcome to the first Test Drive for Hex! Unlike most test drives, the scenarios included here also feature things that you can investigate with mod interaction. If at any point in your test thread, your character(s) want to investigate something further, please put a "HEY MODS" in your subject line to make it easy to find. Don't feel limited to the scenarios presented - make up your own prompts as much as you want! Reserves will open on the 7th and Applications on the 15th. scenario one - the tree In a grassy square in the Central District, wedged in between dorm halls, there is a tree. Far wider than it is tall, its leaves are just beginning to turn from yellow to orange, with a few green stragglers near the top and a growing carpet on the grass beneath it. At one end of the tree's reach, there is a picnic table, the sort with benches built in to either side. Anywhere under the boughs, a distinct ticking, like the sound of a clock, can be heard. Moving about makes it clear that the sound is loudest nearest the trunk. Numerous small gears stick out of twists between branches, though they do not appear to move to the naked eye. Someone has hung a string of orange lights in the branches for Halloween, along with some cotton spiderweb. No matter how closely you look, there doesn't seem to be an end where the lights plug in to anything. Otherwise, there is nothing unusual about the decorations. In the center of the table, half-covered by leaves, there is an iron plaque that has not been particularly well-treated for rust. Some of the writing on it is almost legible. It is chill to the touch. Someone's carved their initials and a date into the end of one bench - scenario two - the wrecking yard Abandoned vehicles are by no means an unusual sight in the Sixth District. Abandoned buses are slightly more unusual. This particular bus has boarded up windows, a black light string hanging over the windshield, and the words HAUNTED HOUSE written along the side, where the old inoffensive public-transit advertisements have been painted over. The front door serves as the entrance; the back leads into the wrecking yard and the haunted "house" proper. A girl in her late teens in slightly unsettling gothic lolita sits in a cheap folding chair around the front of the bus. She doesn't charge admission, though there is a candy bowl labeled for Donations on the card table next to her with a few bills and some change in it, in the center of a group of candles that burn in skull holders. She reminds everyone who passes her to please not touch the actors or props inside. Occasionally, mist from a smoke machine on the other side of the wooden fence billows around her ankles, almost seeming to form caressing fingers running down her legs. Across the street from her, two men sit in a beaten up old pickup truck, the much taller man smoking cigarettes with the windows open. The shorter man fidgets almost uncontrollably, constantly glancing in the direction of the girl and her bus. Their voices aren't loud enough to hear distinctly from the haunted house side of the street, but the woman at the bus entrance shoots them occasional looks none-the-less, alternating between pleased smiles and blank stares. Painted along the sides of the truckbed, in much dirtier letters than those of the haunted house, is the phrase NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH. scenario three - the party downtown In a bar downtown, it's not much different from any other night of clubbing, except that everyone is wearing masks. Ranging from the elegant custom work of a nearby boutique (conveniently open even after sundown tonight, if you need to pick one up) to cheap colored paper held on with elastic handed out at the door of the bar, masks are the must-have accessory tonight. Indeed, many of the parties won't let you in if you don't have one. Those paying careful attention might notice little dots of red on the necks of some of the partiers, especially those who seem a bit pale and have called off drinking for the night. Aside from that, though, it doesn't seem like anyone's really getting hurt; it's just a fun time for everyone. Except for the poor guy who made the mistake of wearing an owl mask and yellow contacts, anyway. Just within hearing range of the beating bass of the clubs, a young woman in a red jacket holds a mask in her hands, turning it over and sometimes holding it to her face to look at in a window reflection. The long face of it calls to mind some kind of black dog, perhaps a Doberman or German Shepherd. She isn't dressed at all for an evening at the clubs, and has a canvas bag slung over her shoulder with the shape of heavy books straining the fabric at the bottom. scenario four - the playground Not everyone seems to be getting into the spirit. A playground near the center of the city has precious few decorations - save for a spiderweb on one of the swingsets that seems to be natural, not man-made. A pumpkin or two have been left near the edges, but they're all smashed, the orange guts running along in a streak that seems to blend into a thin line surrounding the entire perimeter. The see-saw looks like the board's been freshly painted, but otherwise all of the equipment looks almost lonely and old. The rust on the metal stains everything an orange-red, and the slide in particular seems the worst hit. Still, everything is at least standing, and those who attempt to play on it will find it sturdy and warm in the cool night. ... Except for the merry go round. That one seems to be bent, as if someone very heavy sat on the edge. It still turns, but it wobbles dramatically, with horrible squeaking noises. Still, it's usable, for anyone who would like to play.

MADE BY TESSISAMESS

Comments

[closetometal]

At this point, Nick thinks its a good guess that the girl in front of him isn't from around where he is either. The simpler story is probably better. Still, her curiosity is sweet in a way, and it seems like she might be feeling a bit better herself.

"Well, before that I was a cop in Chicago." Kind of anyway. The human who's memories he possesses was. "Little bit of a confusing transition to tell ya the truth." There seems to be a laugh in his voice at that, but he sobers up, even with the smile still half on his face. "It's good to know I didn't wake up in a different body again, I was starting to worry."

[runs]

That is strange. She can't make heads nor tails of it. The guy seems to imply that he got an entirely new body, but that he had a human body before that? And he slept in between?

She narrows her eyes. There was this very unpleasant extraction that they worked a few months ago... "Your body didn't belong to anyone before that, did it?" The question may be very blatant, but she's found that she still looks young enough for that to not be considered offensive by many, and that way it is a very useful thing. Sure, looking older would have a lot of other upsides, but this one is an advantage of looking young.

And with all of that in mind the reactions to it can be quite interesting.

[closetometal]

That was a very specific question, and it threw him off for a second. That thought hadn't occurred to him before, or maybe it was something he was actively trying not to think about. The less he thought about what his synth body was doing in the Institute where it got made, the better in his book.

"I woke up in a garbage heap in tatters, so suffice to say if it did, they didn't want it anymore." he says, gesturing a bit as he speaks. "I'm not sure anyone's ever asked that one--most people are more concerned about whether I'm going to explode or something."

He pauses to gauge her again before continuing, "You've got a good head on your shoulders, so what was worrying you earlier? Maybe I can help."

[runs]

Well, that's good enough. He sounds like he is alone in there, if nothing else. That prevents some issues, at least. "You don't look like a fanatic and are sentient, so there's as big a chance that you explode as everyone else ...is there?" The worry that he might explode hadn't even occurred to her until now. Why would people think that?

...As for what upset her... Well, if anyone can be trusted with her worries in this place, he might be a good candidate. He seems trustworthy enough and more than that he quite clearly doesn't belong to this place, either.

"It's ...incomplete. There is no matrix and no astral plane." Or at least she cannot access either, which would be equally worrying.

[closetometal]

"Hah! People fear what they can't explain," he nods at her, "and when you look as different as me, well, who knows what you're capable of." And she's right, there's very little chance of him exploding. If he was going to do it, he would have by now with the amount of times he's been shot at in the past.

But her next comment confuses him some. He cocks his head slightly to the side as he answers, "And those are things that you normally notice?" A matrix--he doesn't know what that is, but astral planes... He's read about those in fiction and historical pieces before. It's just not something he usually has to worry about. Still, people have come to him with weirder concepts so he's not going to make a judgement.

[runs]

"And sometimes they hunt it down and kill it, and sometimes they make a cult around it and think it's holy." She has looked into this before for shapeshifters, and it certainly is true for them. "...But you said that most people can't see that you have mechanical parts here?"

"...Of course." Sure, most people never come in contact with anything astral, at least not knowingly, but how can someone not notice the matrix?

She holds up her commlink (a smartphone, essentially). The matrix does a lot more than letting you check the news and so on, but it's a start and on the legal side. "The matrix? What you access with these?"