goneawayworld | Mission Log 001

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Mission Log 001

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.

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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.

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.

"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.

Edited 2020-06-22 12:46 (UTC)

"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.

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.

Edited 2020-06-22 14:46 (UTC)

"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.

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?"

"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.

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!"

Edited 2020-06-23 03:00 (UTC)

"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.

It is not what he wants to hear right now. Not at all.

"What are we going to do, Buzz?!" Woody cries, shaking Buzz violently by the shoulders.

Then and starts gasping for breath, hyperventilating, breathing out words rapidfire in between little huffs.

"Do you think they're going to throw us into actual fights? What if we're gone so long Bonnie just forgets about us? Or grows up? What if we never find a way home and we're just stuck here forever doing all the dangerous stuff they want until we're blown up?"

His eyes widen and he plops to a seat on the bottom shelf of a nearby coffee table.

"Or worse, what if we don't die and just get damaged? What if we get so damaged Bonnie would notice and not want to take us back? All it'll take is one rip or tear or burn that can't be patched easily and she might be done with me," he says, clapping a plastic hand against his chest. "What if we get so damaged no kid would want us anymore? Like Sid's toys?"

He holds a hand to his chest, grasping at nothing, as if trying to rip away something invisible to make room for more air. Then he draws his knees up and buries his face in them, hyperventilating into them, as if trying to block out his new reality to try to calm down.

They are both used to this, though Woody typically isn't the one doing it. Usually it's Jessie who's panicking and the two of them try to reassure her.

Oh, darn. Buzz accepts the shaking. He deserved that.

Every concern Woody's raising is valid, but it's also a set of concerns to be dived into by people who have choices in the matter, and Buzz's morning at least has made it very clear that Jorgmun would like reduce their capability to make choices without blinking an eye.

He's already past worrying about toy concerns. He has a meter for detecting threats to life and health and a functional weapon. He has already recognized the withdrawal of his choice to be put in a survival situation or not.

In a way, it's not that hard to accept because he accepted it when he learned he wasn't a person. Toys don't have a choice about being thrown out, mutilated, or lost. Neither do mindless drones in a corporate war.

But he's treading some limnal spaces between all of those things right now. And there's one thing helping him stay calm.

Buzz sits down beside Woody, putting a plastic arm around Woody's shoulder, drawing him in close for a side hug. He keeps his arm there as Woody panics. "All right cowboy, breathe. Get it out."

He gives Woody a moment, sorting through his vital information.

"We have absolutely fallen into the clutches of vile and certain evil."

Chalk another one up for things he thought he'd never say outside of playtime. It's not remotely fun in real life.

"Our best chance to get out of it in one piece is to take advantage of the fact that we can speak up for ourselves."

He's already leaned hard into that - so much harder than Woody ever did with Sid - but Woody accepts change so poorly. And Woody doesn't have a lingering memory of what it must be like to have always believed oneself autonomous.

"The corporate cogs don't accept that we deserve to be fully informed and free willed, but we already have at least one ally in the crew, and from the sound of it, we'll get more. We're going to have to break the rules." He lets Woody deal with that a moment, keeping his arm around his buddy. "I know you're not gonna like it but accepting it now will make it easier in the long run."

Edited 2020-06-23 06:49 (UTC)

The hug is grounding. As Buzz talks, Woody stops burying his head in his knees, is able to gradually slow his breathing. He even leans his head lightly against his shoulder. Donk.

Woody tends to be the one that takes charge the most, is the toy with a plan, but Buzz is always good at stepping in and doing it the times Woody needs him to, when he can't. Like when he needed to be rescued at the airport. When he'd been stuffed in that green box he thought he'd never see his friends or Andy ever again. But he'd been wrong. The lid snapped open and he'd seen his best friend's face in the gap, the baggage machinery whirring behind him.

Woody needs him to do that again now and he does. Buzz maybe never was a real space ranger, but he has the mentality, the skills, the ability to adapt. Most of the time he manages to be unflappable, even when things are bad. The one time he'd been well and truly flapped, all it'd taken was a single pep talk for him to get back on his feet.

Even at the dump, as they'd faced down their possible end, while Woody had been scrabbling futilely, desperately still trying to get to safety, it was Buzz that had the calm and quiet dignity, reaching out to Jessie, giving the others permission to comfort each other by doing it. He'd reached out his hand to Woody, too, steadying him and comforting at what seemed like the end.

He needs that calm right now. Woody's not being himself at his most composed and competent, he's being himself at his most scared and lost. And he knows it. But he doesn't know how to extricate himself from it.

"Buzz, I don't know if I can do that. Sid was one thing, most kids don't treat their toys that badly. Something needed to be done to save you and stop him from torturing his toys. But that was a one time thing. It's not the same as just...talking to them. Day in, day out. How are we even supposed to relate to them? It's not like how they think is always easy to understand. It's not like the way we think is going to be easy for them to understand."

This is the big difference between Buzz, formerly-known-as-human, and other toys. Humans are enigmatic, confusing, unpredictable, and even frighteningly capricious to someone who never thought they were also one.

"Take your time. They're not all that different from us. Some are sadistic, some are ignorant, and some are on our side."

Can they really say any different about the range of toys they know?

"The biggest difference . . ." the thing he truly had to get over . . . "is they all feel they should get to decide what happens to them."

Casting autonomy to the wind is a basic of being a toy, but even in this case, they can't accept it.

"See? You're already getting into it. They've decided we're tools, not toys, and we're going to have to think a little more like people to stay toys."

Even if . . . he is already vested in being a space ranger. Even if he understands this world - and its children - are in genuine peril

"They . . . didn't really make it clear how much this world is in real trouble, though, when they were torturing us, did they?"

Brainy impressed it upon him. This world - potentially others - and absolutely every child in it is definitely in peril. A world in peril is a good place for a toy who truly wants to help to have a real laser.

Woody doesn't have universe-end-defying hero ethos baked into his lore, the way Buzz does, but he's still as invested as Buzz is in a world where children are safe to play without fear.

"I don't know exactly how we can fit in to it, but out there, there are kids in danger who don't feel safe to play. For whatever reason, they've decided we can play a part in making it safe for them again. It means breaking rules and being uncomfortable, but if anything's worth it -"

What could be more worth it?

Everything Buzz is saying is right. He doesn't really like that it's right, it'd be easier to just stick his head in the sand, but he knows he is. Or at least that he should try to talk to people enough to see if Buzz is right or wrong about the humans.

But what really gets him is mention of the kids. The weight of that needs some time to sink in but rather than being intimidating, Buzz is right that the sentiment helps.

"I've also gotten a peek at a few of the people trapped here with us. They're not little kids, but a few are still awfully young."

It's another consideration in all this.

"We'll have to get away from Jorgmund eventually, but - but in the meantime, I guess if there are kids that need help..."

A pause. Woody's fingers splay out against his cheek as he mulls everything over.

"...Do you really think it's that bad out there? That some of them don't get any playtime at all?"

In answer, Buzz flips open his armplate to the space where his fancy decals used to be.

Theres now a fancy fully functioning communication device within.

"Playback recording 002," Buzz says, and a conversation between him and Brainy issues from the speaker. In it, Brainy's describing the desolation of the Go-Away War, the nightmare superimposition of Stuff on tbe landscape, the narrow extent of the Livable Zone, the death toll.

There's no reading between the lines needed to understand this is not a child-safe world.

"Uncomfortable or not," Buzz adds, quietly, as he shuts his armplate on the recording, "I think we have a job to do."

Woody sat the listening to the entire thing almost uncomprehending. The scale was beyond imagination. He can't even wrap his head around it. He hopes the toys in this world aren't alive because he can't imagine how they feel - how many lost their owners?

How many children lost parents? Siblings? Friends?

"I can't - I can't even wrap my head around it."

His chest would ache if there was anything in it but fluff, just at the thought of it.

He still needs to take a moment to sort out his thoughts.

"You're right," he finally says, raising his chin a little. "I don't know what difference we can make, but if there's a chance we can make any at all, we need to try. And that means doing things that are uncomfortable if we've got to."

"It's not going to be easy," Buzz agrees.

Just speaking to big people directly made him experience anxiety he didn't know he had.

He waits a while, sitting with the scope of it, before adding - "And there's something else." When he's sure he has Woody's direct attention again, he says, "Our captors think I'm reset to be loyal to them now. I can't let them find out I'm not." He pauses. "We're going to have to come up with a reason to still talk when I'm supposed to be their Space Ranger who's never met you."

NOT talking to Woody in these circumstances is not an option, but they have to be smart about how they do it.

Woody rubs his chin, but it takes him only a few seconds of thought to figure out an angle. Because he's very good at seeing the angles, hence coming up with an entire prison break plan in the space of minutes.

"Got it!" He snaps his fingers. "I'm putting up with the space ranger thing and sticking close because you're my best friend and I want to keep an eye on you. Fortunately, I'm an infinitely patient and gracious individual -" He places a hand delicately against his chest, raising up his chin like someone putting on airs "- who can forgive you for being that annoying because I was desensitized to it the first time you were that annoying."

He pokes Buzz's shoulder.

"And you, Buzz Lightyear, fearless space ranger, creme de la creme of Star Command -" He leans towards Buzz purposefully layering in one more description because best friends give you guff, that's what they do "- hero of the people, are pretending to be my friend because you think I'm a spy for Emperor Zurg."

Two seconds and he's already got an easy-to-maintain dynamic to go with, that doesn't bank on them acting like they're not friends or forcing them to act out overwrought drama. Woody just has to act exasperated and Buzz just needs to act hammy. Well within their reach, especially Woody acting exasperated.

"Since you're acting fake friendly and I'm so, so patiently put upon, that means I can even publicly talk about you in a friendly way without giving up the game, as long as I occasionally roll my eyes at you." He deadpans, "Which will be a challenge, but I think I can manage it. And you can publicly talk about me in a friendly way as long as you pretend we just met recently and tell Jorgmund you're trying to catch me in my dastardly, duplicitous ways."

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Mission Log 001

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