goneawayworld | Corona [OPEN]

Entry tags:

Corona [OPEN]

Who: The New Hires and Planker
What: Fun
Where: The Gym
When: Post-plot.
Warnings/Notes: Foul language from Planker.

The first warning the New Hires have is that some of them quietly get pulled aside by various members of the staff before training even starts. Not only does this mean that some of the personnel had to wake up extra early, already a warning sign, but they don't mention why. They just take a few key people aside.

The second warning is when Planker walks in, whistling a cheerful tune and wearing a smile like a man with a three foot erection. "All right, you miserable fucking reprobates! Big Daddy Planker has heard your complaints about his training methods. Pity the Princess got transferred out, she could feel the love today." He paces in front of the assembled crew, doing his best to show off every little tooth. "And, believe you me, that's the only love that exists for you little shits! God doesn't love you, He's dead! I killed Him! He came upon me in His divine glory while I was showering and didn't duck fast enough when I turned around to face Him! And if you anorchous shit-stuffers don't want to be buried in the same fucking hole, you'll straighten those fucking backs and pay attention!"

He snaps his fingers, directing everyone's attentions to a series of chambers. Clear material forms the walls and the rest promises an obstacle course. "This is your obstacle course! And you are mine! I have permission to keep you here until I get bored! And if that means you blowzy copremetics will all get through this course." He slams his hand against one of the walls, then jabs a finger at the first person to catch his attention. "That means you, filth! Mount that wall, put some effort into it, and go! You! Join them!"

The course is an exercise in sadism, as only Planker could imagine. There are seven chambers.

The first room seems simple enough, you simply have to run across. But the floor moves, like treadmills, and each segment is in an opposite direction. When the participant hits the floor an ear-piercing siren starts blaring, increasing in volume with every fall and not ceasing until the course is completed.
The second room is a mud crawl under rows of concertina wire that snags and catches at the clothing, with stinging insects there to hurry people along. If the poor unfortunate is too slow, tear gas starts to fill the room.
The third room has a set of irregular monkey bars, but they've been greased. It's set above a three foot pit filled with mouse traps straining to go off.
The fourth room has, dangling from strings, chattering stun guns at various heights. There are sparking hurdles, as well, wrapped in barbed wire to snag at any clothing and drag people in to the electrified bars. Three double-sided cattle prods rotate like ceiling fans, threatening anyone who gets too close. To add to the stupidity, the floor is covered in tires.
The fifth room brings them to a ball pit! But some of the balls are electroshock grenades. Some are glue bombs. And some of them are flashbangs. Both are set to go off on contact.
The penultimate room has air rams that go off as the participant drags a dummy (or their partner. Or the previous, possibly unconscious, runner.) through, blasting powerfully enough to knock a man off of his feet. To make things worse, giant strips of fly paper stretch across the room, snaring anyone unfortunate enough to get caught.
The seventh, and final, room has something different. Carrying a tool box, the participant has to dash up a spiraling ramp that has alternating barrels and greased ball bearings dropping down at regular intervals. At the end, they have to solve a puzzle and disarm a bomb. If they fail to do it in time, the 'bomb' goes off. Unfortunately for them, Planker isn't allowed to use a real bomb. Instead, the box underneath the bomb springs open, revealing an enraged skunk.

After about the third person starts to go through, Planker will press a button. At that point, the chambers will rise up, revealing wheels, and start to move about the gym in swift circles, controlled via his remote, designed to throw the people inside off-balance and remove any illusion of stable footing. To add salt to the wound, there are cameras in every chamber, capturing every possible humiliation for editing and presenting to whoever Planker sees fit later on.

[[Obviously you don't have to participate. Your character was taken aside for some reason. Otherwise, you can either have your characters run through, react to, or simply have them talk about being forced to undergo this new, improved obstacle course later.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You still got Penthouse in de future?" It's flippant, but slightly tired as well. Because there's a lot going on in that room. "Al'ight. What you t'inkin'? Jus' see if we can run 'cross?"

He looks back to the ball pit. "Could maybe take out some of de air rams. But might jus' make t'ings worse."

"Chummer, we got Penthouse in surround sound. BTL chips, better-than-life. Full sensorium daydream drugs, plug 'em into your spine and experience it like it's happening to you, 'cause it is."

She leans her head against the door frame. "I dunno, I'm kinda inclined to throw my body on the gears for spite. If he's gonna have us playing stupid games either way..."

He blinks at that, obviously giving it some thought. Then shakes his head. "T'ink maybe dat's a bit too far for me. But I can definitely see where people'd be interested." It's not that he wouldn't have a few times in his life. But right now, he's good.

He leans on the other side, frowning. "Yeah, but might be more painful dan it's worth." His eyes look over the room, frown growing. "Might jus' be dat we muscle t'rough it. Easier if we got a pattern, 'course."

Saturday squints and starts counting beats. "You count the right hand side, I'll count the left?"

There is a pattern, or she should say a kind of patterned randomness that she recognized. Not exactly a beat you can dance to, but a kind of telegraphing intake of breath into the vent before it belches the ram out.

"Might make it. Wonder if I could ride the ram to cut down the flypaper, though."

"Mmm. Might wanna be careful wit' de destruction. Well, de stuff dat ain't so 'accidental'." Remy doesn't mind taking the shocks for himself. But Saturday is still a kid in his eyes (even if she's probably far closer to his age than he'd like to think). Which means at least a little bit of protecting.

"Ridin' de ram, though. Dat might have some possibilities." There was a pattern. With a little luck and skill, they might be able to run across the top of them.

"Hmph, I'm nowhere near a violation. But fine." Saturday is absolutely willing to cut off her nose to spite her face at any time. If it had wanted to stay pretty, it shouldn'ta tried to tell her what to do.

"I mean, it's not the dumbest thing I ever tried. That was probably climbin' on a dragon that didn't want me there in mid-flight, an' I pulled that off. So."

"Ain't worried 'bout de infractions. 'M more worried 'bout gettin' shocked in de middle of de room." Which could be bad for either one of them, really.

"An' it ain't even in de top ten of de dumbest t'ings I've tried." Which is why Remy grins at her, then takes a run to jump on top of the first air ram. Which shakes his balance a bit when it stops, but he's good enough to keep his feet.

Then it's...practically a dance across the tops of the air rams. One that gets a bit rattled from time to time as Remy has to fight for his balance. But he doesn't fall and he makes it to the other side in one piece and not sporting any fly paper, so that's a win, right?

Right.

Saturday cackles and takes off after him. And has a somewhat easier time, at that; she's able to watch and follow his timing, like a very high stakes game of Simon Says. Thus, she is able to end her run with a thoroughly smug forward flip and landing that'd get ten from everyone but the russian judge.

"Ha. Eat shit, Planker. Now what?"

"Show off." Like he hadn't been doing exactly the same thing. Actually, he's not that much of a hypocrite. He's grinning as he says it, after all.

He looks into the next room and reaches up to rub his face. "Took a lesson offa de Indiana Jones movies, I t'ink." Because he can see the staircase and the tool box and it's just not going to be that easy, is it? "Guessin' whatever we gotta do to get outta dis room is at de top of dose stairs."

"I don't like the tool box. Why would we be given something useful?"

She frowns.

"What if we used the tools to dismantle the ramp?" That feels like a smart person solution, and this looks like a smart person problem.

"Ain't too certain what dat'd be a solution to," Remy replies, rubbing the back of his head as he looks over the room and the ramp. "Lookin' like what we need is up dere, after all. Now, ain't sayin' we have to go UP de ramp, but dismantlin' it don' seem de way t' go, neither."

He walks over, opening the tool box. "Still. Buncha stuff in here dat could be useful. But ain't much tellin' what's up dere."

"The solution to Planker getting his own way?" Saturday suggests, and then gives up on the idea without too much fuss. She looks through the toolbox instead, giving a hammer a few experimental swings.

"Heh. When all you have is a hammer... maybe there's something we have to build?" She looks up. "There's probably a trigger for whatever's on top somewhere on the ramp itself. I could climb the outside, try to see what's gonna hit us without triggering it?"

"Oui, would be. But den we're blowin' a hole in de side to get out an' I can't see him bein' all dat happy 'bout dat." Remy shrugs. Sometimes, the easiest way out was through.

He looks at the stairs and nods. "Dat'd be de smart play. Seein' what we gotta deal wit' 'fore we get up dere to do it."

Saturday rubs her hands together and commences to climb. She's not bad at it, either. When she reaches the first trigger, she calls down.

"Thing's booby-trapped! Not sure what with. Assume it'll be annoying!"

A bit further, and then:

"Uh, there's like. A bomb?"

Edited 2020-07-11 23:04 (UTC)

"Wit' dis homme? 'M assumin' everyt'ing is annoyin'." It's the only way to get through any of this.

Still, Remy crouches down to start looking at the tool box when that second pronouncement comes down. He curses under his breath, grabbing up the tool kit. "Can you get up okay from dere?" He probably shouldn't ask her to, but they need eyes on the bomb to see how to disarm it.

On the other hand, he makes his way to the spiral staircase to start up it, careful of the trigger that she'd pointed out earlier.

Saturday tracks his progress, calling out problems as she sees them. It mostly works, though there's a few close calls. She keeps her other eye on the bomb.

"I don't see a timer - there's some kind of box around it? And these three uh, little pillar things with a bunch of rings around them, all different sizes. I think I recognize it. It's uh, a puzzle, I think. From this trid game - you gotta move the discs around or something."

She's describing the Tower of Hanoi, and usually she makes Maggie solve it for her. Which is why she's mostly remembering it as "the thing that makes Maggie freak out swearing and throw controllers across the room even though it's really easy for her." Not a series of references Gambit would understand.

"I could probably solve it." She's not sounding half as dubious as she feels.

Since he's used to working in a team, it's easy enough for Remy to follow Saturday's lead. She can see where he's going, after all, and it means his footing is as sure as possible on the way up.

He doesn't quite understand what she's talking about until he gets to the top and looks at it with a groan. "Oh, I can solve it, too. But dat's gonna take time." Time that they might not have.

Oh, the bomb probably won't do anything TOO bad. But Remy's not a fan of just letting it go up.

Instead, he drops down beside the box. "Stay back, jus' in case dis don' work so well." Because...well, Planker's not actually trying to kill them, right?

Right.

He opens the tool box, pulling out a flat screwdriver and presses the tip under the top edge of the box. A touch of power started the screwdriver glowing and he held it for a moment before letting the charge go with enough power to pop the top clean off of the top.

The plan, such as it had been, was to open the bomb and try to defuse it.

However, that plan was derailed by the fact that the inside of the bomb was actually a skunk.

And angry and scared skunk, thanks to the explosion above it.

Remy fell back, coughing and eyes streaming as the spray and smell hit him at the same time.

"Aw, fuck a duck - " Saturday switches from dropping under the edge to swinging over it, beelining for the stripey critter making a threat display in front of Gambit. She doesn't recognize it - skunks are not a thing in her cyberpunk hell slum - but she does recognize some kind of biological gas attack, and she's met animals with what you might call enhanced defense systems.

Which is why, as soon as the animal hisses and raises its tail, she kicks it off the platform. A light mist catches her in the face as it goes, and she hacks and sputters, wiping at her face and backing up towards the center of the platform.

"What the fuck - "

The skunk, meanwhile, scurries to safety.

There would be a steady line of French cursing coming from Remy if he could actually stop coughing and breathe. Which wasn't helped by the fact that every time he started getting it under control, he got another smell of himself.

Finally, though, his lungs stopped rebelling and he was able to start catching his breath, nose wrinkling up as he did so. "Ugh. 'Course dere was a polecat in dere. Jus' like dat dirty salope to do somet'in' like dat." He pushes himself to his feet with another cough, looking down at himself. "I ain't sure we got enough tomato juice in de world to deal wit' dis."

"Shit, man, you okay - " Saturday gets to be worried for half a second before his smell hits her and she starts gagging. She backs up, instinctively covering her face with her arm, which bring her into close contact with her own spray.

"Fucking - "

She doubles over, gagging, and heaves. For a moment, she genuinely wonders if it's poison.

"What the fuck is that thing?" she demands, as soon as she can catch her breath.

"Dat, petite, was la moufette." Remy's voice is rough from his own coughing and trying not to throw up. "A skunk. De scent is de way dey defend demselves."

He looks around, trying not to breathe too deeply. Even though he's really still getting his breath back. "My fault for scarin' it, least partly. Should've realized dere wasn' really a time limit. Or dat it wouldn' be deadly." Still, it could easily have hurt one of them. Or somebody outside of the course. "Dis ain't gonna be easy to get off of our skin, nevermin' de clothes."

"We don't have anything like that where I'm from, jesus!" She makes the mistake of breathing deep, in a hope that the smell has passed, and doubles over again. "Motherfucking hell with a goddamned pogo stick up its ass! Fuck!"

Cough, cough. Hack, hack. The breath she needs to curse is making things worse, so she stops and looks furious instead. What the hell do we do about this? is plain on her face.

"Dey don' usually come into towns an' cities much." Which probably explains at least a little bit of why Saturday has never seen one before. Assuming, of course, that they aren't just extinct in her time. "Me, I ain't ever gotten so close to one before now. I'm gonna be avoidin' it as much as possible from now on."

He looks at her, then sighs, though trying to remain breathing shallowly. "Gotta find something that'll deal with de smell. An' to do dat? I t'ink we bother Planker 'til he gives us it."

"I'm gonna fuckin' find his bunk an' roll in it," Saturday says grimly, already starting towards the stairs. She is a small, stinky avatar of vengeance. "What do we need to get this stuff off? I'm gonna be his shadow til we get it."

"Now, petite. No need to go doin' somet'in' so...predictable." Even though he's trying not to, Remy can't help but grin. "Not when you can hide a piece of de jumpsuit in a really hidden spot in his room where he won' fin' it for a good while."

Much more likely to stay with him. Literally.

He glances at his hand held computer and purses his lips. "Looks like somebody's got a buncha hydrogen peroxide, which is s'posed to work. Sounds like a t'ing to try, at least."

(no subject)

wheyoftheadept - 2020-07-26 21:52 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only