Mission Log 001

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

Who: Buzz Lightyear and Brainiac 5
What: The World's Greatest Superhero, now the World's Greatest New Hire, is getting an upgrade.
Where: the Lab
When: Immediately after Buzz's New Hire interview, where his memory was forcibly erased and his delusion of being a real space ranger was locked in by Jorgmund.
Warnings/Notes: Forced memory loss, manipulation and gaslighting.



The fact that this universe is populated exclusively by giants and that his flight capabilities are currently disabled is nothing that Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger(tm) is allowing to slow him down. They weed out the easily frustrated early in the academy. The giants of Jorgmund don't offer to carry him, and he doesn't ask, jogging along between his orientation team on the way to the labs. They also weed out those with poor constitutions early in the academy, and he arrives not winded at all.

"If anyone can figure your -" a snicker "jetpack's problems out, it's the green meanie here," one of the interviewers who discovered the toy's play-demo switch says, stopping by Brainiac 5's table.

Buzz notes the tone, and misunderstanding the snicker, frowns. This world's courtesy is obviously strained by their imminent crisis, but being rude to each other isn't going to hold their potential apocalypse off any longer than it already is. The interviewer reaches down to offer him a hand up, but Buzz ignores the hand, backing up to do a running jump against the wall, using the leverage to grab the diagonal bar that braces the leg of the table. He climbs, pulling himself hand over hand up the inclined bar, grabs the lip of the table and pulls himself up and on.

"Just because we're facing the end of the world is no reason to forego courtesy," he admonishes the interviewer, whose authority he's not sure of, and who he'd address the correction to anyway if he were yet advised on the ship's chain of command. Turning to the green-skinned lab tech, he salutes crisply. "Space Ranger Lightyear, reporting for repairs. It seems my jetpack, laser, and air monitors were disabled during entry into your atmosphere."

The interviewers barely manage to hold back their mocking laughter behind the action figure, who clearly has never actually had a real jetpack attached to his plastic form in his plastic life.

"You heard the Space Ranger," the second interviewer directs Brainy. "Make that laser happen."

The other interviewer fingerguns at Brainy, whispering "pew pew pew" under his breath.

Comments

[googledox]

Brainy had agreed to this because he wanted a chance to maybe sneak something useful out of the lab. Like a tool. Even a screwdriver would be useful. However, when he'd been told a New Hire needed miniaturized tech augmentations and asked if he was capable of making them, he'd been just been expecting someone from a diminutive species.

And who wasn't clearly made of plastic.

Who clearly wasn't a tiny droid of some kind because the "instruments" on his arm were a stick-on decal.

Brainy stared at Buzz for a moment and then turned to the Jorgmund goon keeping guard.

"You're joking."

"Nope," said the goon. "Boss wants you to make the space ranger -" another snicker "- ready for the field."

"Ready for the field, he's a -" Brainy cuts himself off, sighs a long sigh, and drags both hands down his face. "Fine. I will use my incalculably vast intellect to equip the...space ranger."

He clearly doesn't seem happy about it.

"Are you capable of pain or nerve sensation?" he asks Buzz, getting his equipment ready.

Just because it's a small action figure with a few algorithms loose in its AI matrix doesn't mean it's incapable of pain or unpleasant sensory feedback. He doesn't know how sentient he truly is. Autonomous toys in his world are not allowed to have AI past a certain level due to the moral implications, but he doesn't know if that's the case of a toy from elsewhere. That means he might be sentient, and if he's sentient, he might be programmed to feel negative feedback when taking damage.

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

"Not to worry. I have very high pain tolerance. Star Command doesn't graduate a Ranger without the mental fortitude for at least a field suture. A few electrical burns or minor shocks won't break my concentration."

After all, this green technician will only be working on his spacesuit. Buzz remains standing on the table, wondering which the technician will attempt to work on first - the nonfunctioning laser, the unresponsive comms unit, or his jetpack.

"I understand you must not be familiar with Star Command tech," he adds, misinterpreting Brainy's comment about a joke, and Brainy's clear unhappiness with the assignment, "but I'll do my best to help troubleshoot if necessary. I was top of my Engineering class, and it's all the usual scale to me."

He was top in all his classes, but bringing that up wouldn't be helpful, it would just be bragging.

[googledox]

"Of course you are." He picks up his tools. "Let's see to the laser first."

It's time consuming because the equipment and tools in this lab aren't as good as the ones back home. But he's still used to making miniature equipment because of Vi. Slowly but surely he makes the augmentations, slightly unnerved by the fact the toy man doesn't understand that he's cutting into his body, not a spacesuit.

Eventually, he gets to the jet pack, gets that mostly finished and...

"Hmm."

Sees something interesting.

The lab is mostly empty this time in the evening. Brainy spares a glance at his handler, who clearly is not taking this job seriously. He has air pods in and is checking his phone, only glancing up occasionally to make sure Brainy isn't trying to pocket something or messing with the lab equipment.

Apparently people here are sometimes lazy in doing their jobs, just like anywhere else. Small mercies.

It would be a prime opportunity to do one of those things, theft or sabotage, but instead he focuses on what's in front of him: the switch he just exposed.

Brainy looks at the switch curiously, then flicks it.

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

Impressed with the green giant's skill at repairing his foreign, comparatively miniaturized gear, Buzz remains pleasantly calm and quiet until time for the jetpack repair.

He intones back, at Brainy's questioning hum, and the sound of something being flicked.

Initially, the switch does nothing. "Everything alright back th-" Buzz starts to say -

- then his body briefly goes entirely limp, like hes been turned off entirely.

Buzz comes rushing back to himself, and this time he isn't surrounded by his friends, the jump from his last terrible memory isn't to a present with familiar faces, and hes still lying prone with his wings removed and a stranger fiddling around with the machinery in his back that makes him lose his mind.

He nearly begins to hyperventilate, even without lungs. He manages to keep quiet, moving his hands slowly to prepare to bolt as soon as the technician lifts his hands. But when the seconds tick on and he doesn't, as the seconds tick on and no easy escape presents itself, Buzz's horror only grows.

"Please don't touch that again," he begs, in a sharp whisper for only the technician to hear. The terror and anguish in his voice is so far a cry from his professional tone a second ago. He has no reason to believe the technician will care. He has no reason to believe the technician is trustworthy. All he has is a very, very desperate plea, and his every nonexistent nerve poised to make the next possible escape.

[googledox]

Interesting.

The little AI doesn't want it shifted back into - oh. Aha. Demo mode.

A display mode, which means whatever the other mode is, it's meant for regular function.

He looks at the handler, eyes briefly darting.

"What's the difference between modes?" he whispers. "Explain quickly. And quietly."

His whisper becomes less urgent, gentler, because Buzz sounds terrified.

"Unlike our captors, I don't want to hurt you."

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

"It erases my memory," he hisses, urgently but quiet, "Makes me think I'm a real space ranger."

It erases everything he's found to live for after dealing with the horrifying crisis of believing he had a life, and suddenly discovering he has no life at all.

He wants to say so much more to the first alien who's claimed sympathy, but most importantly - "are they still here?"

[googledox]

Of course they would do something so heinous as put a sentient through a memory wipe. Clearly this is some kind of child's toy that was given an AI that was far too advanced. It's actually gained sentience. And now they're trying to take that development away.

"Yes. They don't trust me to work in the labs without oversight. My handler is barely paying attention at the moment but only for so long. You need to keep still and pretend you're still cooperative." He puts him down, to work on preparing the jetpack. "They had me install miniature equipment for you. A real laser instead of an LED and so on."

He isn't sure how much he remembers and doesn't want this to appear to be some kind of terrible experimentation.

"I may be able to disable the switch. I can leave it in the demo position to fool them. You'll have to put on an act around them, but at least you'll be yourself."

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

A real laser?

"Well that's not child safe." But it is really cool. If Buzz had time to think about it much, he would, but there are so much more pressing matters to deal with than an upgrade.

"Can you do it without erasing me?" He barely manages to contain his hope. One time being wiped and hearing afterwards about the ways he mistreated his friends with almost no resistance to the order is already too many.

[googledox]

"Yes. It would be dangerous to meddle with the main mechanism responsible for this, but I can create a closed circuit and cut off the switch from it."

He could leave the switch disconnected from everything.

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

"Do -"

Do it is almost out of his mouth before Buzz pieces together a few important things.

He can act the buffoon all he needs if it means the chance never to have to be strapped down, terrified, and lose everything he has that's worth living for over and over again, but it won't just be his secret to protect.

"This is a big risk you're offering to take on my behalf," he points out. He desperately wants it done, desperately wants to feel secure again in knowing who he is, what he's meant to do, and who he has to do it for.

But if these people are willing to just erase him with barely a thought, they must be willing to hurt each other too over decisions defied. The technician deserves a moment to consider that.

[googledox]

"I'm a superhero. Undertaking risk while helping others is an occupational hazard I accepted a very long time ago."

He starts preparing what he needs to.

"May I proceed?"

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

That just blanks out Buzz's brain in a different way. Is he serious? He sounds very serious. A real superhero? Is that possible?

Is it any less possible than finding himself abducted by humans who detected his consciousness and caused him more pain than he's ever felt anything in his life?

"Please do."

They're stuck whispering, but he really hopes the gratitude (and awe) in his tone comes through.

[googledox]

It takes some doing. Unscrewing more panels that Buzz has likely had anyone meddle with before. Brainy is slightly mystified by it, as he thought he'd find more internal armature than what's there, but there will be time for questions later.

He creates a closed loop that keeps the current mode active at all times, and disconnects the switch, leaving it clicked in place in demo mode. Flipping it will do nothing, as it's not connected to anything now.

"There. The switch is useless now."

[rootinest]

There are not many places to hide in this place, because of a relative lack of clutter, and Woody doesn't like that. At all. And this isn't exactly a place a toy left in the open is unobtrusive. He hasn't seen a single kid - which is a good thing. He'd be furious if they kept kids under these conditions. But it still makes him obviously out of place.

After that terrible introduction, he's also not sure what kind of people are Sign ups were under the max limit so all characters are allowed in. here. What if they're just as cruel as the people that questioned him and put that horrible (magic??) shock thingy inside him, that shouldn't work but somehow does? (They tested it after he woke up from them putting it in). What if they're the types to tear a toy apart just for fun?

This is a frightening, uncertain place, and he still has no idea what's going on because of the nothing explanation they gave him. So after he took off the stupid jumpsuit (why would he need clothes when he's got a perfectly good cloth pattern, with a little vest and everything?) and stashed it somewhere out of the way so no one wondered who it belonged to, he started sneaking around as best as he could, hiding in little alcoves and behind pipes anytime he heard big people coming.

If it weren't for the fact he had no idea what had happened to Buzz he'd have just found somewhere to hide and stay hidden. But he'd been worried about his friend, so he sneaked from hiding places in one room to the next, occasionally calling out "Buzz!" in a hushed voice anytime humans weren't passing through. After hours of doing this, though, he was no closer to finding his best friend, and he knows asking his captors will lead nowhere. They'd probably just lie. Is Buzz even still alive? What if they've done something terrible to him?

After yet another room with no Buzz, he finds himself in a common area of some kind, only empty because of the meal hour.

"Buzz! Buzz, are you in here?"

But he's alone. Woody hangs his head and scrubs his face with his hands, then climbs in between a gap between a tv stand and a wall, hiding among the dust bunnies with his legs drawn up, resting his chin on them, wondering if this is his future.

Because talking to the humans is entirely out of the question, regardless of whether or not this Jorgmund knows he can.

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

Buzz honestly could have tagged along after Brainy for hours, basking in the Real Superhero Friend glow, but it's more important right now that he find his best friend, and not just so he can show off his new working jetpack. He knows Woody is brave and inventive and clever and loyal, and also that he's reduced by change to a tangle of anxiety and flailing muppet limbs.

The sooner Buzz finds him, the sooner Buzz, too, can be reassured that the monsters who tortured him havent found anything worse to do to Woody.

So he and Brainy split up to cover more ground, and as strange and stressful as it feels to be flying around in plain sight, not attempting any secrecy at all, it does make covering ground to find Woody a lot faster (and not just because he has a working jetpack now).

"Woody! Woody!"

His jetpack is so efficiently quiet, he barely has to shout over it at all.

His search takes him sweeping behind every little bit of cover he can find, and there's not much around.

[rootinest]

Woody perks up at the sound of his voice.

"Buzz!" he calls out. "Buzz, I'm right here!"

He scrambles out from behind the TV, still a little dusty from his hiding place. They took his hat because apparently taking a useless cowboy hat is the kind of thing they'd do.

"I was looking everywhere for you -" Woody says and then he sees that Buzz is flying. Like...actually flying. He does a little flail of surprise, throwing noodle limbs in the air. "Buzz, you're flying!"

He sounds just as excited about it as he did when the rocket didn't blow them up and Buzz actually glided.

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

Finding Woody finally takes the last edge off Buzz's fear, but he resists the urge to zoom straight into a post-stress relief hug long enough to do a series of unnecessary and flashy loop-de-loops around the entire room before landing with a thud directly in front of Woody.

"Can!" he yells, with so much force you can practically see the multiple exclamation marks.

[rootinest]

"That's incredible! How did you -" He cuts off and stops flailing, putting his hands on his hips. "Wait, I've been looking for you for hours, worried about what they'd done to you, and you were off getting cool new gadgets this whole time?"

Woody will think this is cool in a minute, but since he doesn't know Jorgmund had forced Buzz's hand or had him brainwashed, he's a little annoyed.

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

"Well you're gonna have to forgive me, I was busy being brainwashed until everything but the jetpack was installed."

It's easy not to get annoyed back at Woody when he has an airtight excuse.

"Did they do anything worse to you than use the shock collar?" He asks, back to being concerned, grabbing Woodys shoulders to check for ripped seams, evidence of mangling - "How was your interrogation?"

Things he sure hoped he'd never say outside of playtime.

[rootinest]

Okay, Woody feels bad for getting annoyed now.

"Oh Buzz, that's awful. How did you get it fixed?" He's also looking Buzz over, making sure he's not missing any parts or damaged. "Don't worry about me. I'm fine, other than the - the whatever they did that lets them do the shocky thing. They went in through my back seam and then sewed it back up again. I'm not damaged anywhere."

He'd been terrified when they'd pinned him down and cut into him, but he'd been sewn up properly when he came to.

"Though I still don't know what they could even put in there that could do that. How can they even hurt us like that?"

That's all he says regarding his interrogation, enough to imply there was one, and that it'd hurt.

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

"It's a nanochain."

Buzz gets to feel smart and science fictiony announcing that and then getting to explain everything Brainy explained to him, about noospheric field interference. The science is too advanced for him to fully understand, but somehow easy for him, with his sci-fi genre, to remember.

"My new friend Brainy explained it all after he finished installing my jetpack." Buzz puffs himself up with real excessive pride. "He's a superhero. I have a jetpack built by a superhero. AND he disabled that - that switch that puts me back in the stratosphere."

They can never use it again. No one can ever turn him against his friends again. No one can ever make him have to remember that he's not a real person twice.

For all that this day started out with terror and torture, it's taken an unbelievably good turn. For Buzz, at least.

"But our captors don't know it doesn't work," he cautions Woody. "They intended to trick me into working for them, and as far as they know, I still do. I have to pretend to be absolutely delusional wherever the corporate agents can see." He thinks about all the contingencies this could result in, and forsees a lot that are likely to be awkward and unpleasant. "Sorry in advance."

If the torture wasn't enough to convince both of them that Jorgmund was entirely evil, deliberately putting a weapon in the posession of someone whose perception of reality they deliberately disabled has also convinced Buzz that they're dangerously unsafe.

[rootinest]

Woody drags a hand down his face.

"I don't even know what that means." A nanochain. What even is that? "But I'm glad someone broke that terrible switch."

A beat.

"Wait, you talked to a human?"

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

"I . . . don't think he's a human."

Which is a nice way to dodge admitting that they both talked to at least two (vestigial) humans today.

[rootinest]

Woody just slaps both hands against his face, as if trying to hide from the world.

"Oooh, I hate this place."

Making it so they talk to, what, aliens? Humans and aliens?

"Buzz, what are we gonna do?" he says, his voice muffle by his hands. "We can't just...go around talking to big people! What do these Jorgmund people even think we are? Do they want us to try to be soldiers? We're not even army men, Buzz!"

[toinfinity_andbeyond]

"Oh they don't expect me to try. If they expected anything less than actual armed service they might have left me with my sanity intact before they installed a real laser."

It occurs to Buzz a little too late that this fact is, maybe, not what Woody needs or wants to hear just then. Its unfortunate. He's still a little hyped up on real laser.