TD006

[ateratmods]

Test Drive 006

WELCOME TO ATERAT

Here is our Fifth Test Drive Meme! There are a lot of areas of the city to explore, so please have a look around! In case you need a little help getting started, I've included a few prompts below, or feel free to start your own! Exploration and player initiative are the names of the game here!

Helpful Links to Get Started

Arrival & General Information | Setting & Bestiary | Locales & Businesses | Residences & Housing Info | Rules & FAQ (ask questions here!)

I. Crash Into Me

Not exactly, but close enough. You have just arrived and received a strange satchel from a tiny, strange little man and are left more or less to your own devices (more information on what to expect upon arrival can be found here)! Follow directions to the north and check out the housing, or maybe have a look around the Historium and try to get some information from that giant glowing ball, see what you can waste your meager starter coin on in the Market District, or maybe just meet the neighbors.

II. What Goes Bump in the Night

It looks like Aterat proper has a spirit problem. Maybe you're seeing specters, hearing disembodied voices, your windows rattle when there's no breeze outside. Maybe there are cold spots in your place of business (or your apartment, which is so much worse). Either way, you're 100% convinced you're haunted. Hopefully, someone else believes you, or maybe you're used to feeling crazy.

III. When the Carnival Came to Town?

Take a look at the prompts from our latest event and go to town (or the carnival).

IV. Try the Network

The Tell-Phone allows for text, video, and audio transmissions to everyone else who has one. Give it a whirl!

V. Wildcard

The above prompts are all options, and there's much more to the setting than what they provide. Do your best (or your worst)!

Navigation

Comments

I

[doubled_speed]

Someone running in the streets, shouting about deliveries? Well of course that had Tommy's attention. And, given he's not out doing deliveries himself, he's got some time.

It takes nothing to catch up with the running person, and soon he's running beside them, but backwards.

"Hey, you okay? Running pretty fast through some crowded areas there."

[rbc_ae3803]

"I'm sorry!" It was so, so close to a wail. She held on to her satchel as tightly as she could, mostly because it was what she had. "I've really got to get to work! There are no red blood cells here except me and that means none of the oxygen or nutrients are being delivered! I need to find the lungs and I promise I'll get to work as fast as I can!"

Notably, though, she wasn't breathless despite the utter anxiety in her face. There was fear, yes, but also determination. Even if she was the only red blood cell, she was going to do her job or die trying.

...At this rate, though, she knew she was probably going to die trying. There was one question worth asking, though:

"What happened here that all the red blood cells are gone, though?!"

[doubled_speed]

Um what?

"They're in our bodies, dude. Blood is in bodies. So are the lungs. All the organs. Are you okay? Did you hit your head or something?"

Concussion? Maybe he should take the guy to a healer.

[rbc_ae3803]

This cell, whoever they were, didn't really have a clue. Where had they come from that they didn't know about lungs and blood and-- Was he even a cell? Was he a pathogen, maybe?

But even they knew about the lungs. Especially if he was a streptococcus - but he didn't have scary tentacles or anything.

She slowed down to look at him, brows drawn, strictly unbelieving. "How... How do you not know how these places work?" she asked, blinking. "I mean, are you... Are you trying to trick me or something? That cancer cell really did manage to get one over White Blood Cell and NK Cell and Killer T, but we all learned from that."

[doubled_speed]

Tommy slowed down too. Dude don't do that to him, he'll leave you in the dust.

"I did take high school biology. I was sorta shit at it, but we covered a bit of physiology before the school exploded. And dude, you sound like you think you're in a body. Seriously, did you hit your head? I'm more and more on the 'you have a concussion and your brain is swelling' shit."

[rbc_ae3803]

He really didn't know.

"--Okay. Okay, let's. Try this again." She motioned to herself with one white-gloved hand. "I'm a red blood cell. My job is to deliver oxygen and nutrients around the body, and sometimes help the platelets with coagulation, but I really don't like it when that happens. Still, it's part of my job."

That said, she then pointed at him with that same hand. "What kind of cell are you?"

And, as a sub-question, which she wasn't going to actually ask, did she need to be afraid and running the other way. That was also important.

[doubled_speed]

"Yeah, I heard you before," Tommy answered, rolling his eyes. "And I'm telling you, I'm not a cell. I'm a human being. Humans are made up of cells. Lungs?"

He taps his chest.

"They're in here. Blood? Runs through my bodies. My blood carries oxygen and all that shit to my muscles and my organs and probably other shit like my skin. Wait, is skin an organ? Fuck I don't remember. Doesn't matter. I'm not a cell, but I'm made up of probably millions of them. Billions? Who fucking knows. David would have known, but he's not here."

[rbc_ae3803]

He was a human being. She knew she was a human cell. And that... That made her wonder. It was automatic, how she answered, "Thirty-seven trillion, roughly," and then caught herself to qualify, "Cells. I mean cells. And that's not counting how many bacteria are in the gut--

"Am I your red blood cell?"

Two and two were finally being put together, but the answer, as yet, was still in the '3+' range.

[doubled_speed]

What?

"I doubt it, here, look."

Tommy considers and then bites the side of his thumb, tearing the cuticle just enough for blood to well up.

"See, here it is. My blood. Some of it."

[rbc_ae3803]

He--

He--

What?!

Red Blood Cell looked at him in absolute horror. "Why would you do that? Don't you know how terrifying that is?! All they were trying to do is their jobs and now they've been sucked out into this world and their friends are never going to see them again!"

She reached over, grabbing for his hand, almost wailing as she did - "Hurry, little platelets! I'm out here cheering you on! It's big sister Red Blood Cell!"

[doubled_speed]

What the actual fuck? Tommy snatches his hand back.

"Seriously, touching other people without permission isn't cool.'

[rbc_ae3803]

"Neither is hurting yourself and forcing those blood cells out!" she answered, but she didn't grab for him again, instead she stared at him with a conflict of emotions that she couldn't even name.

At first, it had been neat, figuring out that this was a human (really, they were pretty much like every other cell, it seemed like), but then, to see--

"Do--

"Do you not even think of us?"

[doubled_speed]

"My body my rules," Tommy countered, rolling his eyes.

But clearly he's got something different going on here.

"You think you're a blood cell?"

[rbc_ae3803]

She took a step back from him, her confusion settling more toward hurt and bitter disappointment. "I am a blood cell. And I'm glad I'm not yours."

Because it meant that her student, and White Blood Cell, and the little platelets - and Killer T, for all he was scary sometimes - hadn't just leaked out of a thoughtless human.

[doubled_speed]

"If you're a blood cell, then you're not from my world's version of them," Tommy said with a shrug. "Cells don't have minds and intelligence. That's not how it works where I'm from."

[rbc_ae3803]

"And how do you know? You've never talked to one before." Red Blood Cell crossed her arms. "Right now, neutrophils are being dispatched to the front line of that wound to protect you from all of the bacteria that you let in. They think it was an accident. They're risking their lives to help you. And you're not even thinking about them."

But now she had to wonder. Did her world - her body, where she delivered oxygen, even if capillaries were a pain - think of them? They were so small. She knew that. But...

But... did any human think about them, working inside them all day and all night, day after day, to keep them alive?

[doubled_speed]

Seriously?

"Because people study the body. And can see cells under microscopes. They don't have legs. Or arms. Or heads."

Geez, this kid is insane. And this was just a mess. Don't be like that.

[rbc_ae3803]

"...Well, I hate to tell you this, but you're obviously wrong." She looked at him with one brow raised, head tilted. "Because I'm a red blood cell. Arms, legs, head, and all."

She paused.

"And more than that, you're being a jerk."

[doubled_speed]

Seriously? Tommy sighs.

"I'm saying they don't in my world. Which this isn't. And it's not your world either. Geez, how do I even get you to believe something obvious? Do I have to haul a chocobo over here?

[rbc_ae3803]

"Your world would have to work the same as my world. Red Blood Cells do the same thing everywhere - we just got some new ones only a little while ago, and they do the same things we do, and they came from a different world." And that was evidence.

...That was how that worked, right? Surely. She thought. No, honestly, she was probably wrong. That was...

That was kind of her track record.

[doubled_speed]

This is bad evidence.

"Sounds like a blood transfusion. So that's not a different world. That's a plastic bag."