Test Drive Meme

[etcircenses]

Welcome new Tributes!

The Capitol has gathered a good crop of you at once, and to help morale, and to ease you into Capitol society they are throwing a banquet, just for those who work with the Games. Stylists, Escorts, mentors, a few of the Capitol elite, and of course, you all, the Tributes.

Instead of waking up in the normal way, new Tributes awake in lush beds, in a very posh ski lodge. Elegant but simple clothes are laid out for them, in a warm grey, and a note to come down as soon as they are ready. And if they linger too long, a peacekeeper appears to escort them down.

Those from the Capitol, are brought in on chartered party buses, one for each District, which are about as posh as a bus can get. It's a roughly 45 minute drive, well out of the Capitol's city limits.

Although the party is "mellow" by Capitol standards, it is still pretty damn extravagant. Alcohol flows freely, and banquet tables are kept fully stocked by silent avoxes. The whole ski lodge has been cleared out, and guest can hit up an ice skating rink, or pick out a swim suit and jumped into the huge, natural hot springs tubs.

As the night drags on, however, all does not go as planned. Half way through the night, there is a tremendous roar, and the hotel is plunged into pitch blackness. There is chaos for roughly 10 minutes, till low power emergency lights flicker on. However the generators don't have the power to keep the heater going.

A first aid station is set up, and the avoxes start pulling in blankets to the main lobby, lighting a fire in the fireplace and doing what they can to keep everyone warm. It is quickly communicated that there was an avalanche, and although the hotel remains in good shape, the power and the road to the Capitol has been cut out.

It's going to be a long night.


OOC INFORMATION

Welcome to the test drive meme for thegames!

We are both a jamjar and a Hunger Games AU character game. You can choose to either have your character ported in from their world or AU them into Panem. Detailed knowledge of the Hunger Games is not required. We accept just about any character and character type that we can work into the world, including AUs, OCs, and up to 3 multiples (however, each versions of a character must be significantly different from the others.)

All the information you need can be found in this post, which can always be found at the top of the mod account. And if you don't find something you need, the FAQ is here, so drop us a line!

Welcome, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Comments

[youbarium]

...that...is not what Carlos had expected. It's not Cecil's enjoyment of the party that surprises Carlos, no: he'd be very surprised if Cecil were fazed at all by being transported to a place as apparently pleasant as this. Cecil would enjoy a party he'd been transported to with no explanation.

It's the unfamiliarity that gets him. The hostility completely pulls the rug out from under what Carlos was planning to say. He gapes for a moment.

"Cecil, it's me. Carlos. ...the scientist?" he adds, with more desperation than hope. If Cecil is here but doesn't recognize Carlos, that brings up a whole new set of questions. "We worked together in Night Vale. For nearly a year, Cecil." Okay, so maybe 'worked together' was an exaggeration, but Cecil certainly seemed to think they were closer than they were.

Carlos begins to worry that, perhaps, re-education is the reason why Cecil doesn't recognize him. Has Cecil committed a crime of some kind? Something that would cause the despotic and futuristic law enforcement of Night Vale to drastically alter his memories?

[void_whereprohibited]

Cecil frowns. "I'm... not acquainted with any scientists, so far as I know." He meets a lot of people in his line of work, and he gives the statement a moment's legitimate thought-- but no one he can call to mind matches Carlos's description of their relationship. He's pretty sure he'd remember working with someone for a year, especially someone who so clearly knows who he is.

Ugh. This is so awkward. Were the lights up, he'd already be preparing an excuse to get out of the same room as this guy, but in the dark, no excuse is going to make ducking out of this conversation look anything but rude.

"...Look," he says. "I'm not going to say we haven't worked together - many things are possible, after all, and our own memories can be as capricious in changing our perceptions as any official Capitol defense ministry interrogator - but I think you're going to have to explain yourself a little more clearly. I certainly don't work in any scientific field-- as far as I know, I've always worked for Celebrus Entertainment's Hunger Games publicity department. And while its various branches have many nicknames among its staff-- fond and otherwise-- Night Vale isn't one I recognize."

He's polite, but firm. Maybe if the stranger realizes his mistake, he'll get embarrassed and leave on his own.

[youbarium]

He looks like Cecil, sounds like Cecil, answers to Cecil, even talks the same way as Cecil, but apparently, is not the Cecil that knows Carlos. A deep, troubled frown crosses Carlos's face.

"Always worked for..." he trails off, thinking fast. "You've never worked for another radio station at all?"

Carlos has been told about people from other worlds, told that this is another world, a fact that he's not entirely unprepared for considering the dimensional anomalies that occur about once every two weeks in Night Vale.

[void_whereprohibited]

Cecil can't hold back a disbelieving laugh. "Radio!" It's such an old-fashioned word-- such a provincial word. It was already well on its way out when he was a kid-- replaced years ago by the faster, more convenient, far more easily controlled network. "I've never worked for any radio station. I know it's dark in here, but I don't look that old, do I?"

...A thought strikes him. Maybe he's been thinking too much within the realm of possibility here. In the sudden and unfamiliar dark, it's natural, perhaps, to assume instantly the most logical misunderstanding-- to assume that this person is simply a misinformed listener who spent a little more time at the beverage table than he needed to, or a confused scientist with a bad memory for faces. But the world is different now - there is room for new assumptions, a realm of possibility that never existed before, another world's worth of people that this stranger could be. And it didn't even occur to me. For shame, Cecil.

Cecil squints. In the reflected beam of the flashlight, he can make out the vague shape of a face, and curly hair; dark hands (human, he notes-- not a guarantee anymore), wearing... white? He wishes the lights would come on.

"...Say, Carlos-- It's Carlos, right?" he says, and his tone is suddenly somewhat warmer, a little more understanding. "You're... not from around here, are you?"

[youbarium]

"No," he admits, slowly. "But you are. Or you've been reeducated past remembering who you are and where you're from, which implies a temporal disturbance on top of the spatial one, since I arrived less than an hour ago from Night Vale, where I spoke with someone named Cecil not two weeks ago. He sounded...exactly like you." There's real, honest confusion in his tone, and a little bit of vulnerability. "You look alike, too. I thought it had to be you. How--? How can two people be so alike and still be separate individuals?"

He recalls the incident with Night Vale's doubles. Perhaps that's who he's speaking to? Or perhaps it's a similar phenomenon? Carlos doesn't know. He wants to test it, but sometime in the future. He doesn't really feel the inclination right now. He finds himself honestly disappointed.

[void_whereprohibited]

A good half of those words go clear over Cecil's head, and he placidly lets them go by. He's not a scientist, after all, much less a scientist from whatever mysterious, radio-having world this stranger came from. He can't be expected to follow everything he's saying. In any case, he's far too distracted by excitement to pay really strict attention - he's stumbled into a new Tribute who knows him.

Cecil's heard of people having otherworldly doubles before. He's expounded at length over the network about how neat it would be to get to meet yourself in another world, how glorious it is that the Capitol has opened up that spine-tinglingly eerie possibility to the greater populace. And that's what's happening here, sort of! Not exactly-- it isn't himself he's meeting, and he has no way of knowing exactly how he may or may not differ from this person he's reasonably certain Carlos is talking about, who is maybe sort of him-- but he is, analogically speaking, stretching out a hand into the darkness to touch something familiar and yet utterly impossible, and that makes his heart beat faster.

"Wow," he says, after a pause a few seconds too long. "This is-- amazing." Oh, he wishes the lights would come on. "I mean, I've met people who know me, whom I don't know, before-- it happens a lot, actually, in my line of work. But! To meet a Tribute--! I-- wow. This is just--"

At this point, as though on cue, the lights do come on, with a flicker.

Cecil's train of thought is interrupted as he squeezes his eyes shut against the sudden brightness, reorients himself among the swell of relieved chatter around them. "--Well. A little warning would have been nice," he begins to say, good-naturedly-- and then he focuses on Carlos' face.

He suddenly doesn't remember what he was going to say.

His heart is still beating faster, but he is certain it no longer has anything to do with his hypothetical alternate-dimensional double, or the metaphysical questions that the existence of said double raises, or the combined excitement and unease that come with the unexpected discovery of one's smallness in the face of a vast and no-longer-unexplorable multiverse, when one was really expecting just to have a nice time at a dinner party one had been looking forward to. No, that is definitely not the reason, not unless that can also explain his sudden shortness of breath, or his very dry mouth, or his utter inability to remember where that sentence was going.

"...oh," he says.

[youbarium]

The lights are dim, for emergencies only, but by their light Carlos can make out Cecil's whole form much more clearly.

"No, you couldn't have been him," Carlos says. "He didn't have the..." he makes a gesture towards his neck, mirroring where Cecil's alterations can be seen, "...scales."

His time is thoughtful but also businesslike. This Cecil has that look on his face, the one that means he's not listening. What a pity, Carlos thinks, I almost had a normal conversation with him.

[void_whereprohibited]

It takes Cecil a second to register what Carlos is talking about. The--? He puts a hand to his neck, the same place to which Carlos is gesturing. ...oh. Right. The scales are new-- he'd had them done toward the end of the previous Arena, about when the dinosaurs showed up, to replace the mint-green skin dye job he'd had before. He wonders, worriedly, if he should have kept that-- if Carlos would have liked it better. This suddenly feel extremely important.

He gives Carlos a smile that is really, really trying to be casual. "Oh. These? They're not mine. I mean, they are, but not, like, forever. Actually, I'm getting them removed next week. So."

He's just dropped in from another dimension and you're talking about your scales. "Uh. I guess it would be a little odd to introduce myself, huh?"

[youbarium]

The scales and their subsequent removal are odd, but not the oddest thing Carlos has heard from Cecil. He lets it slide.

"Not really," Carlos says. "I mean, I don't know how you're different yet, you and the Cecil I know."

Apparently not all that different, he thinks, recognizing the flush and the tone and all the other familiar signs of falling in love instantly.

[void_whereprohibited]

Yes. Love. That is what this is. There have been plenty of good-looking Tributes in the Arena, of course, but this is-- unprecedented. Different. Impossible. Wonderful.

"...Right. Well. In that case. I'm Cecil." He puts out a hand to shake, and rolls his eyes a little as he says it-- a shared joke, Well, obviously I'm Cecil. He waits to reestablish eye contact, to have Carlos's hand in his, before he speaks again. "Welcome, Carlos, to the Capitol."

They're not strictly in the Capitol right now, but this must count as some small microcosm of it, right? And the effect is good enough that he can forgo precision-- he drops his voice as he says it, speaks it slowly and meaningfully and intently

[youbarium]

The effect that has on Carlos is immediate. A look of disbelief crosses his face as he meets Cecil's eyes, frowning, staring at this person who was so familiar but so off. He swallows.

Then, Carlos quickly pulls his hand free from Cecil's, a little too fast to be polite.

He will offer no explanation.

"I know why I was brought here," Carlos says instead. "It was explained to me already -- I'm supposed to fight. In an arena, to the death." He sounds less horrified than he should, but really, this is not the first time he's heard of something like this. The apprehension in his voice is almost resigned. "You said you were from here. What do you know about it?"

[void_whereprohibited]

"Ah, Carlos," Cecil says, with an appreciative smile. (He has decided that Carlos is the most beautiful word that exists in any language, in any universe.) "There's no need to be so hasty! All of the new Tributes will be debriefed upon their arrival in the Capitol. The city, that is."

His tone is light, calming, a little amused, but fondly so. "Of course, I understand your excitement, and can certainly imagine your anxiety. But why waste time worrying about the Hunger Games now? There'll be time for all of that later." They're at a party, with the homiest luxury the Capitol has to offer spread out here under the emergency lights; he's not going to think about work if he doesn't absolutely have to. (He seems to have forgotten the avalanche entirely.) "I mean, the lights are even back up! I could get you a drink."