TEST DRIVE MEME, APRIL 2017.

[officialnotice]

TEST DRIVE MEME

There was an accident. That's basically the only thing you know for certain. Maybe a car wreck - metal and broken glass everywhere, and the sirens and the screaming. Or maybe there was an explosion. Maybe your bike hit a rock and you careened uncontrollably off a mountain path. You can't can't quite make out the details, not who was at fault or why. Try as you might, the chaos is all you can remember.

It's also the last thing you remember from before you wake up here.

When you open your eyes, the accident is gone. Instead, you're in a hospital bed – the nursing staff greets you with a cheerful smile.

Welcome to Wayward Pines, they tell you. You'll make a full recovery here.

option one

WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES

The hospital staff had seemed very friendly, but ultimately unhelpful when it came to answering your questions, insisting you shouldn't worry about such things, and that it was smarter to just rest until you'd fully recovered.

That was some time ago. You've since managed to leave the hospital – either via escape, or simply by waiting patiently and filling out paperwork until they finally agreed to release you. Now you've found yourself in the small but hearty town of Wayward Pines, Idaho. It's a charming little place, and the people there are all friendly enough, more than willing to greet you on the street, or give you directions if you need them.

Unless you're asking for directions out of town, of course.

Some will simply smile and give you a hearty pat on the shoulder and ask why you'd ever want to do a thing like that? Others will get quiet for a moment, and direct you to the nearest sign posted near the doorway of every building.

Don't bother taking the road, either. Whether you walk or get your hands on a vehicle, you won't get anywhere. The road simply takes you away from town for a short while before looping around and bringing you right back in.

There's no use questioning things, and it seems pretty useless to try to leave. So really, why not stay a while? Everyone's convinced that you'll find something to love in Wayward Pines.

(For the purposes of this test drive, you're welcome to handwave the existence of basically any local business or activity.)

option two

INTO THE WOODS

You've just heard a scream from the woods.

I mean, it could've been an animal. There's bound to be some kind of wildlife amongst the trees, right? But then again, it did sound awfully... human.

Though all of the locals nearby conceal a flinch at the sound, they'll assure you it's nothing, if you ask them. Why, you're probably just hearing things! (But with an anxious undertone of stop asking questions.) If you're curious, though, and brave enough to go see, they won't make any move to stop you from going into the wooded area surrounding the town.

The trees are tall, and their branches are thick enough to block out a significant amount of sunlight from breaking through the canopy, leaving the forest floor a little dimmer and cooler than the streets of town.

Whatever the source of the scream was, you won't be able to find it out here. An experienced hunter might notice some signs of a struggle, and a few faint boot prints, but they don't really seem to lead anywhere in particular.

What you will find, if you walk far enough, is a fence. A big one - at least 30 feet tall, made of metal and concrete. It goes on quite a ways in either direction as well; follow the wall far enough, and you'll see that it connects with the steep, sheer cliffs that surround the rest of Wayward Pines, effectively boxing the town in.

In actuality, you'll probably feel it before you see it. A full 500 yards from the wall, when it's hardly a shadowy smudge through the trees, you start to feel a little bit tired, a little bit weak. Trouble is, the closer you get, the weaker you feel - like the wall itself is sapping the strength out of you, and the closer you get, the worse it feels. Any powers you may have had grow weaker in kind as you make your way to the fence, but even ordinary humans will find their strength sapping away. By the time you're close enough to read the signs and to feel the crackle of electricity radiating from the thick wires criss-crossing the wall's metal surface, you're too weak to stand.

Do you crawl closer still and risk electrocution, or do you crawl away and assess the situation once you're far enough from the fence to be able to stand?

option three

PTA BAKE SALE

It's that time of year again. The time when everyone digs into their wallet, ignores their diet, and spends a little time supporting the local school bake fair. You know, for the good of the children. And it doesn't hurt that Linda's Blondie recipe is honestly to die for. The school PTA has pulled out all the stops this year in the hopes of encouraging a good community turn out, posters advertising the sale plastering every street corner and stuffed into every mailbox for a solid week leading up to the event, and today is finally the day.

There's at least two dozen different tables set up with all manner of delectable treats, even one or two offering vegan alternatives for those inclined, not to mention a few others catering to some of the townspeople's more... unique palates.

Maybe you've got your own table set up with your wares, or maybe you were simply lured to the park today by the appetizing scents wafting through the air. Either way it seems like the whole town has come out to show their support today and why wouldn't they? Children are our future, aren't they? Or maybe it's just Linda's Blondie recipe.

Yeah, that's probably it.

option four

ON THE NETWORK

Though it's not as high-tech as you might be used to (or hell, maybe you're ren faire and it's centuries beyond anything you've seen), but Wayward Pines does in fact have a network to accommodate its citizens.

Go ahead, post a network post! Just note that the network currently has two basic functions. The first is audio-only and can be accessed from the telephones in each character's home. If an audio-based medium doesn't suit your needs (or aesthetics), be sure to take advantage of the Wayward Pines Message Board from your brand new laptop for the chance to communicate with your fellow townspeople in a text-based format instead!

( a few notes )

Welcome to our third test drive here in The Pines! Just one important thing to note:

Upon arrival in Wayward Pines, characters find themselves struggling to remember entirely who they were or where they came from. Memories return progressively over the next two weeks. You're welcome to play with this mechanic in any of these prompts, but it's definitely not mandatory! For more details on this temporary memory loss, see our FAQ.

Comments

[realists]

(He will not figure out what to do with them because she is keeping them all. Look at all the tiny meat and cheeses and little chocolates. She is not giving these up unless he fights her.)

She lets him lead her to the table, shoving the pile of baskets underneath to keep them safe and hidden, but she doesn't sit down, too idly restless to settle into the chair. Instead she drags a hand through her hair before she folds her arms across her chest.

"What is your job? Easy-Bake Oven cupcake maker?" That was slightly more judgy than intended and her mouth slants down in a slight frown but she doesn't apologize because she has the emotional range of a turnip.

[ouzel]

Well, now they're being shoved under the table, and Cassian will have to figure out how to smuggle them away. That's great.

He watches her restlessness from the corner of his eye (someone else has come up for tea and a cupcake or three) and then she says that and, look. His headache. It's returned with a vengeance.

"I'm a manager at a tea shop called Go Ask Alice, so you're about halfway there. It's very civilian, not at all like before." And if his tone is anything to go by it's driving him a little insane. This whole place, really, is driving him a little insane.

"Try the red velvet I think you'll like it."

[realists]

Ugh, now she feels bad for her snide comment, fidgeting as he helps the customer. Once they're gone, she shifts a bit closer, if only to help herself to some tea, holding the cup carefully between her hands.

"Mmm, sounds like you love it." She can see right through him, even with the jumble of false memories tumbling around in her head not giving her the appropriate context for why she knows he is slowing going mad. She reaches out with one surprisingly warm hand, thanks to the tea, and squeezes his forearm gently. Solidarity or something, comfort she doesn't really know how to give.

[ouzel]

Cassian opens his mouth at the touch, closes it, debates saying nothing and then goes: to hell with it. He spent an entire lifetime being shut off and lying about everything and besides, he knows that she didn't really mean it. Obviously. Because now she's reaching out and trying. So he gives her an awkward half smile, more honest than most expressions, and sighs.

"It's weird, actually. My boss is this bizarre eccentric with anxiety issues and my coworker can turn into a raven. And there's family. Then people keep getting hurt, and forgetting things, and I hate not knowing what's really going on."

A child approaches this time, and Cassian slips into the Wayward Pines persona again, like wearing a mask.

[realists]

Jyn watches him put on his spy face and her gut twists for some distant reason she can't articulate. The child is all that stops her from questioning him immediately -- people don't turn into birds, Andor, don't be absurd. She waits until he has wandered off with his pink frosted cupcakes for himself and his sister before she reaches out again.

This time to move that red velvet cupcake away from the for sale ones.

"What do you mean family? How's that weird? Everyone's got one, that's sort of how the biology of humans works. Birds and the bees and all that." Granted, she is an only child turned orphan so she doesn't have much by way of family herself, but the way he put it in with all the rest makes her curious.

[ouzel]

His lips quirk at the moving cupcake. Look, he baked it himself. He can hold onto a sense of pride that people enjoy his baking, bizarre situation be damned.

Still, her question reminds him that even though she does remember him she doesn't remember everything. He wonders what order things will come back to her in, how long it will take. If she'll hate him all over again.

"Not everyone gets to keep theirs, though. Or remember their names, or what they looked like." He raises his eyebrows. "Besides, it's a unique sort of responsibility, having family here."

[realists]

"Isn't it a unique responsibility having family anywhere?" she offers patiently, eyebrows lifting as if to say don't be dramatic. She likes to think she knows Cassian well enough because they're friends... from work. Work she doesn't currently recall. She shakes her head, brushing it off dismissively.

"Don't mind me, there was a... some sort of accident, I guess, I don't remember. Hit my head, now my brain's gone all wonky." Pushing her hair back, she reveals one of the scrapes on her forehead covered by her bangs. "Everything is sort of fuzzy, sorry."

Which is upsetting for her personally because she is used to being clever and quick and resourceful and now she's forgotten what a petting zoo is and couldn't find her apartment and all her milk is expired so she's had to use lemon in her tea because she didn't have honey either. She decides, at least, that they are definitely friends because she wouldn't have explained that to anyone else at all otherwise.

[ouzel]

"It must be," Cassian concedes. "I suppose I'm just not used to it."

He wishes he could just explain, that he could help her separate the real from the fake. But Cassian is going to have to be patient, in that regard, and the last thing he wants is to push her. To make things more difficult or make her resent him somehow.

"It's okay. It... happens. It happened to me. Things will come back, and.” He shrugs. “It might not be better, exactly, but I’ll be here. If that helps. If you need anything.”

He should probably stop talking, now, as it is; instead he’s frowning at the scar on her forehead and convincing himself not to reach out and smooth at it. His fingers twitch and he swallows, looking away.

[realists]

"Don't worry, I've not forgotten that I've been orphaned twice over." That dry delivery may imply Jyn might have prefered forgetting that small factoid. No one loves knowing they've been abandoned A Lot. She sips her tea, fidgeting in discomfort because, even though she brought it up, she tries not to dwell on her fabulously rubbish life of loss and loneliness.

She decides to force Cassian into a subject change. "What's red velvet anyway?"

[ouzel]

"Lo siento," Cassian murmurs, because he doubts that Jyn really wants to hear his apologies or will appreciate them later, but...the sentiment is there. He is sorry. And now things are quiet and awkward, so he lets out a breath through his nose and tries to regain equilibrium.

Then again, Jyn has been nothing but a catalyst the entire time he's known her, so maybe he should give up the ghost on that one.

The topic change is welcome, honestly. "In essence, it's a chocolate cake. Before Dutch processing -" and he makes a gesture here, implying that it's nonsense and important only to the cover, not to reality or alternatively that he doesn't want to go into the details of Dutch processing of a commodity from South America, it's complicated - "you could add vinegar and buttermilk and it would turn the batter red. Now you have to use food coloring, or beetroot dye. The latter is what's in these. So: butter, cocoa, flour, buttermilk, beetroot."

[realists]

She shakes her head at the condolences -- it's not like he killed her parents -- but doesn't brush them away. She knows he understands.

She does, however, have something to say about red velvet. "I'm not eatin' anything with beet root in it." She sounds offended by the idea of it. Beets are for babies, all pureed and disgusting, because adults have too much self-respect to feed themselves that garbage. And Jyn is grossed out by healthy food.

[ouzel]

"Are you..." Yes. Yes, she's serious. Cassian closes his eyes in a brief moment where he wonders what it says about him, that he missed this incredibly antagonistic person who is vetoing perfectly good (and free!) cupcakes over beetroot.

"It's not healthy, first of all, and I know because I put the sugar and the butter in there. It's just for color, I swear." Come on, don't do this to him! "I will pay you to try it."

[realists]

"You'll pay me?" She looks at him over the rim of her tea, sipping it carefully with raised eyebrows, somewhat pleased by the distraction of another paying guest that she nods toward.

When the transaction is finished, the little girl scampers off with her cupcake, carefully holding the coffee until she can pass it off to her dad with a proud smile. It makes Jyn's stomach turn over missing her own father, but she ignores it in favor of more tea.

"You don't need to pay me to eat it, Captain." She's just going to keep being difficult about it.

[ouzel]

While Cassian is able to easily assume the role of cupcake, tea, and coffee proprietor as soon as Jyn points out the child waiting, there's not much he can do about the blush that spread up the back of his neck and to the tips of his ears.

Then she calls him Captain and his eyes cut over towards her sharply.

Somewhere, Chirrut is laughing at him. He can practically hear it.

"Well." Is there any salvaging his point, now? Probably not. "There's also cinnamon and spice." A beat. "I don't know how you feel about spices."

[realists]

Ignoring his suggestions, Jyn selects one with pink frosting, the same one the little boy bought earlier. She sets her tea down to peel back some of the paper, but instead of taking a bite, she swipes off some of the icing to pop in her mouth.

"I'm a worlds travel, Cassian. World traveler." That's weird, why did she make it plural? "I feel good about spices."

[ouzel]

That one? Is pink lemonade - a little tart and a lot sweet. She's eating one, though (frosting first or not) and Cassian can relax a little. He'll have to figure out what to make for dinner, he realizes. Pasta, maybe? Something substantial.

He's not sure what he's going to do when evening comes and Jyn will want to be in her own space (probably) but he knows it's going to be an issue. In his own head, at the very least.

He'll worry about it then. "Well, good to know. Wouldn't want to assume anything." Tiny, tiny smile!

[realists]

Jyn decides suddenly that she likes the taste of pink lemonade, scooping another dollop of frosting in her mouth with her finger. Eventually she will get to the cake itself, but for now: sugar.

If he tells her this is also colored with beet root she will shove it in his face.

"Why do you want to know what kind of food I like?"

[ouzel]

"Because you don't cook." He's...fairly certain of that fact. Jyn Erso didn't have the most stable home life, after her mother's death, and she was too young to properly learn.

He stops himself from saying that she'd probably live off microwavable foods if left to her own devices. "And I do, so."

[realists]

She would 100% live off microwaved food if she even believed this place had microwaves. She can make cereal, she could survive off cereal and raw fruit and veg. Well. Maybe not the veg.

Okay, probably not the veg.

"I can work an oven." She just chooses not to, that's it. This is a choice.

[ouzel]

"That's not what I said?" Oh look, more people who want cupcakes, two teas, one coffee. They aren't complaining about beet root in their red velvet cake. Cassian gives them their food, takes their money, thanks them.

"I'm certain you could work an oven. More certain you could rig it to blow, if need be." A glance. "Need does not be, at the moment, for the record."

[realists]

They don't know there is beet root in their cupcakes!!

"I wasn't going to blow up an oven for fun," she protests with a wrinkle of her nose. But she did immediately start thinking about it, so Cassian obviously nailed that right on the head. She is predictably in her impulsivity. It's oddly comforting that he knows her that well. They worked together though, before... Her head pounds just trying to think about it but all she can remember is a glistening green light and sand and ocean spray on her cheeks and the whiteness.

Which is surprisingly unhelpful.

"But you can invite me over for dinner if you're that concerned about my lack of cooking." She pops another dollop of frosting in her mouth.

[ouzel]

And based on Jyn's reaction to that bit of information, they will never find out!

Cassian's eyebrows go up as if to say but you were thinking about it because he does know her. He knows her, and she can read him like a book, and it would be terrifying back home but they're here where it's comforting instead.

He'll worry about what it all means later (of course). For now he can relish the comfort. Somewhat.

"Alright then. Jyn Erso, I formally invite you to dinner. Tonight and any other; a standing invitation." He hopes she doesn't expect him to put it on embossed paper, or something.

[realists]

What's this? Has Cassian pulled a smile from the perpetually surly expression of Jyn Erso? He certainly has. It's a small smile, disguised almost immediately by the bite of cupcake she finally takes, but it's definitely there.

She takes the time it takes to chew in order to coax it away. "I accept your formal invitation."

[ouzel]

"Thanks." He doesn't exactly duck his head but it's a near thing; anyway, there's another small family to serve and Cassian goes back into pleasant mode, but he's still smiling and it's...less fake, somehow.

Not that strangers could tell, but. Jyn could.

[realists]

She can tell, feeling a little warmer seeing more of his spy face melt away. (That's a weird phrase, spy face, she wonders idly where she got it from...) She prefers the real Cassian to any persona. Finally she sits down, tucking one leg underneath her, unconsciously settled in a way that would make bursting up from the chair easier, even as she basically inhales the remainder of the cupcake.

Her head hurts, like every time she follows a thread of a memory some where a drum sounds to slam gates closed before she can reach it.

"Does lo siento--" Oh god that accent is so bad that somewhere the Dos Equis man had a heart attack. "Does that mean I'm sorry?" She has assumed so based on tone and the context of their conversation but kriff if she knee what it actually meant. She knows she and Cassian aren't exactly from the same place considering his accent sounds like warm tea and hers is garbage.