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FINAL TDM.
● ● ● T D M . 10
The words ring in your ears as in the darkness of your dream, a copper glow pulses, slowly enveloping you. It is not a feeling of comfort that surrounds you, though — as a distorted voice whispers in your ear, you feel it: cold dread, and a sudden certainty that everything is about to be irrevocably changed.
It is to this daunting realization that you wake, and as your heart slows into something resembling a normal tempo, you notice something you should have noticed immediately: you are not in your bed.
1.0 White walls, clinical yet clean, sparsely-furnished rooms. You may wake in one of three rooms: a room with only one bed, a room with two beds, or a room with four beds. Those waking up in rooms with more than one bed notice that they are very much not alone. Perhaps the other occupants of the room are still sleeping, dreaming the same dream as you just did, or a regular one after returning to the station just a few days ago … or perhaps you wake to the other person in the room watching you.
What you do is entirely up to you: yell in surprise when you wake to someone staring at you? Or maybe you’ll try to sneak away before anyone notices you...
2.0 Those with life-threatening injuries find themselves awakening in the infirmary, in a regular hospital bed. Most of their injuries have been treated, and any lingering illnesses or conditions will have designated medicine bottles on the table next to the bed.
White curtains surround the bed on both sides, giving an illusion of privacy. But is that a rustling sound you hear? Some footsteps? Perhaps you’re not the only one in need of some medical attention... or you've attracted the attention of those with experience in medical aid, and they rush to your bedside, surprised about this sudden new patient.
It is not just for your injuries that you may want some company, but also for leaving the infirmary — you can’t stay there forever, after all, and will have to make your way through the hallways of the station to the living quarters, and claim a room and a bed there.
Once you’re up, you may notice there’s something in your ear: an earpiece that, when you become aware of it, quickly runs you through the instructions for how to use the network, a recorded message by a female voice that explains exactly why you’re here… and leaves you with a map of the station.
So what else is there to do but to explore? Best get to know what is now your new home.
3.0 When trying to decide where yo go, you may find your way to the armory, where you can try to work the machine there to make yourself a weapon — perhaps to replace one that didn’t come with you to the station… or maybe you want to be prepared for the future. The recently-returned team members will surely recommend having a functional weapon with you.
4.0 After you’ve exhausted yourself training, it’s time to grab a bite. For that, you should head to the kitchen, which is equipped with all the basic appliances you might need, and ingredients for most regular dishes.
5.0 A welcome reprieve to the cold, dark space that surrounds the characters can be found in the sunlight room. A skillful illusion surrounds anyone who steps inside the room: you can hear the trilling of birds, feel a light breeze caress your skin as you walk through a grass field. The illusion has been programmed to reflect the seasons — the leaves in the trees are currently bright with all the colours of autumn: orange and red and yellow; and the air is crisp and clean. If you follow the path, you'll be led to a bridge rising over a sparkling, babbling brook, a few fallen leaves floating on the water and falling around you like very bright raindrops.
With an illusion so authentic it may leave you longing for a nice glass of ice-cold lemonade, it is easy to forget you are in space at all. Perhaps that gives you comfort, or just makes you miss the real nature all the more.
6.0 If you’d rather choose tinkering over nature, the lab is guaranteed to provide you with some entertainment. Glass vials and jars of chemicals sit on shelves in a surprisingly beautiful display of colour on one side of the room, while the other side of the room contains stacks of boxes containing assorted equipment: cords, bolts, panels, buttons, gears, gadgets, gizmos, and thingamabobs. The downside is that the parts available seem to have no apparent method to their sorting. So get digging, and you may just find exactly what you need to make what you’ve always wanted to make!
7.0 As you wander back towards the common areas, you may notice a room off to the side. The room takes up a chunk of the common area, and on its unassuming door is a little plaque that reads, 'The Ximusic room'. Should you enter, you will find a sound-proofed practice room that contains — yes, you guessed it, band equipment that even the most musically inclined should be satisfied with. So pick up an instrument, saunter up to the microphone to belt out your favourite tunes, or take a seat at the side of the room and enjoy others' playing.
8.0 If it’s items you’re lacking, though, some time after your arrival, the earpiece alerts you to a new message.
As you make your way to the platform, you'll see there is nothing amiss in the neat piles of items on it. There’s clothes, shoes, dishware, skincare, books… even a couple of CDs, and a few cute stuffed animals. So sort through what there is and grab what you want, before someone else does!
Maybe you have taken the warning to be ready seriously, or maybe you’ve heard someone mention the simulation room and want to see what the fuss is all about — whatever the reason for your walking into the room, the first few moments don’t seem too exciting. It isn’t until there’s another person in the room with you that the door suddenly slides shut, and the scenery starts to change.
7.0 Simulation on the Fritz: However, what it changes to is not one of the simulated missions. Instead, the room draws on its occupants. A little flash of memory here, a familiar scene there — the room molds itself after what one (or both) of the people in it know, perhaps a place they’re familiar with: the university library you used to spend hours and hours in studying, or the castle you’ve been trying all your life to conquer.
Or perhaps the room is torn between which person’s memories to draw on, and it ends up producing a strange mix of both: a busy street surrounded by lush forest instead of buildings, or a spaceship sailing on open sea.
As there is no simulated mission, there is no completing it to get out… so look for the little things that are not quite right in the simulation: a shimmer in the air, a grey brick in a red wall — a token of sorts. Finding it will make the simulation die down around you as the room goes dark again.
8.0 Mission — An Open Door: As the simulation starts, the scene that unfolds around you is a gilded hallway. It stretches on and on behind you and in front of you; along its sides, there are countless doors. Some are lavishly decorated, some made of pure gold, some of wood; some are decayed, looking like they might fall apart by mere touch; after a heavily reinforced door comes a door made of frosted glass… and so on.
But the longer you stand in place, the more you start to feel a sense of urgency: you must keep moving… you must find it. The orb. It’s there, behind one of the doors. All you have to do is choose which one to open.
Oh, you can open as many as you want, but be careful: you never know what is lurking behind them. It may be that you open one and step into a room that is nothing but air; it may be you unleash a horde of hungry monsters. Or perhaps you luck out and get a room that is just a room, with lavish couches and plush pillows, and maybe some grapes and apples set in a bowl in the middle of a gold-decorated table.
It’s not just the orb that you need to find, though... because just like in real missions, you receive a message that tells you your task — one that you have to complete, if you want the orb to help you in your quest to undo your regret.
● ● ●
N O T E: Additionally, there are three personal tasks provided to each character as they enter the simulation. In-game, each character will be given one task. For the purposes of the test drive, we’re leaving it to players to pick a task for their character and run with it.
A Tell someone what you are most ashamed of.
B Let a teammate get injured during the mission.
C Steal something from one of the rooms.
F Y I
• TDM threads can be used as samples for apps. In fact, we encourage it!
• Reserves are now open!
• Apps open September 26.
• For any questions regarding TDM, please direct them here. For questions about the game, please refer to the FAQ.
Have a clue about the upcoming mission—
8.0
If she feels something about that, she shunts it away; whatever memories she might have of him from her time on Ximilia or feelings about the way the orbs play with people's lives and memories is a matter for another time. Ideally, a time when she's alone. Maybe in her room, or working out with a practice dummy.
She raises her chin a little at the cool welcome.
"Barnes," she acknowledges. "Usually it doesn't take two people to run a simulation, but..." She shrugs and glances around them. Clearly what's usual doesn't matter a whole lot just now.
"Usually find the orb isn't as easy as riffling through the couch cushions, either."
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Speaking of things unusual. How about dead people walking around in this place?
He's trying everything to shove away the fact he's doing this with Natasha Romanoff. It has never stopped being utterly unfair she died to bring back a bunch of people who didn't even know her. Of course, he doesn't know the whole truth of that, and in his eyes, maybe she was just doing her responsibility as a hero, the same thing Steve would have done if he had been there, but it ties his stomach in knots.
As Bucky searches, he avoids looking at her. What can he even say? Ever say? Thank you is a pale return for what she sacrificed. And to make it worse, other than her death, and a scattered few times he's seen her in action while they're both fighting for their lives, he's only seen her face in his nightmares, when the memories of what he did as the Winter Soldier came back to him.
She speaks, and Bucky breathes in, jaw tense, as he throws one of the cushions back.
"Then...what do we do?" Sure, focus on the fake mission and throw the attitude in that direction instead of the glaring red-headed issue in the room.
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On the other hand, one life for trillions?
The math might be unfair, but it's also inarguable, and she can't regret bringing everyone back, as much as she hates that she wasn't there to see it. Looking at one of the people who's alive because of her?
"Look for clues," she says, doing her best to pretend there's nothing awkward about this. Any of it. "Anything that might be out of place. Puzzles. Information."
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It's so incredibly awkward. Natasha says Anything that might be out of place and the first word on Bucky's mind is You, but he, blessedly, manages not to say it. It's beyond insensitive, and certainly not something Natasha deserves. He's just trying to sort the disbelief and confusion.
What if she's not real? He's determined this isn't a dream, so it's not that. But she could be not real or someone wearing a disguise, right?
"Haven't seen anything like that. And how would I know what's out of place when this whole scenario feels too normal?" Which is what makes it abnormal, to him.
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Flawless logic.
"The room is very comfortable. Food. Cushions. It's inviting..." She weighs that thoughtfully, then after a moment bites her lip. "Probably means that the orb is in another room. This is all too inviting."
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It makes sense to him, though. If the room is comfortable and inviting? Something isn't right.
"Then we move on." He cants his head toward the door. "We'll just pick another room." Bucky intends for her to go first, for more than one reason.
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She opts for a door with a frosted glass pane, leading the way through.
"See if this one's a little more productive. Who knows."
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He leaves, closes the door behind him, then nods at Natasha's words.
They enter, and there are snarls, hisses coming from inside.
"Sounds more likely already," comes the wry comment.
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She enters the new room carefully, pulling one of her batons just in case.
It's dark, and there's movement in here.
"Unless we want to get out of here now."
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The snarls and hisses continue as something paces in the dark. Maybe some things. He can make our a form, and it is not small, and not the only one, though he can't see it clearly.
His body tenses, and he lowers his stance, ready for an attack.
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"3 o' clock," Natasha says just a moment before one of the beasts lunges.
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He jabs his left fist into where he thinks the stomach should be, and follows with the right on the creatures back. There's a definite whimper to indicate he didn't something to it.
Normally, he would consider Natasha can more than take care of herself, but when one of them heads in her direction he grabs it by its hindlegs and throws it back. This is not a normal situation, after all, and Natasha has one of the creatures snarling on the other side, anyway.
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A different version of him, but still him.
She trusts him to watch her back now, focusing on the monsters in front of her, jabbing first one in the throat with her baton, then spinning to whip her weapon around on the other, cracking it across the nose and earning a yelp of pain.
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He hears the yelp and aims his metal fist in the place he thinks the head is, trying to take the monster out, faster. Now.
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She focuses on hers, wrestling them back.
"Should have brought more of my gear," she grumbles.
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"Never needed gear with me." In fact, if anything, knives and other items wouldn't have done much to slow him down. Ingenuity worked better, sometimes. He isn't counting her phone with a message on repeat as using gear, clearly.
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"I would have liked to have my gear then too," she says as she drop low and jabs one of the beasts under the jaw with her baton. "But I guess we always work with what we have."
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"We'll have to make it work without them. You're not worried you won't be able to keep up, are you?"
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"More worried you won't be able to keep up," Bucky huffs out, not entirely serious.
It's not the same level of letting his shields down he would do, say, around Sam, but it's the first thing his brain and mouth run with.
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"Oh, don't worry about me. I've been punching above my weight most of my life."
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It's really her, isn't it? He might need a little more proof, but so far, he's almost convinced.
"I don't think I hear anymore of these things moving around. Would they be hiding the orb somehow?"
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They could be protecting it. It wouldn't be the first time...
[She frowns then.]
Though more often, they're just hidden somewhere. We should look around, then we can try another one.
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[Bucky starts to feel around the room, shuffles his feet to see if the bump into something.]
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[She squints into the dim, looking for anything in the shadows.]
Normally these sims are a lot more... urban.
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Wrap?