Nightmare becomes reality....

_{[roster: Leader - Rtas, Jacen Solo, Katara, Kyle Reese, Tim Drake / Robin, Bart Allen / Impulse]}

Something...odd is happening on the ship. Plant-like protrusions are occasionally sprouting in places throughout the ship.

They look like mistletoe, but this is purely coincidental. It's not like it's the holidays on the ship, right? It might be for some people, back home (if they still had a home), but others were grabbed from different times. No, it's just coincidence that these little devices look vaguely like mistletoe, and coincidence what they're being used for.

For you see, when this "mistletoe" is overhead, a crew member will be trapped in an invisible forcefield, and won't be able to escape until someone has kissed them or otherwise showed them some equivalent of affection. (Cheek kisses and sloppy puppy kisses from the canine crew members count). The "mistletoe" spring itself is shielded itself and can't be destroyed, the only way out is a kiss.

Why is this all happening? GLaDoS is performing whacky behavioral experiments, that's why. Each time, it happens, she intones messages like the following.

"Please express affection for your fellow crewmate to free them."

"This is of the utmost importance, and part of ongoing Crew Coherency and Cooperation Studies."

"Please do not attempt to leave the vicinity until you have participated."

"Participation is required. Why wouldn't you want to participate?"

"The Transmigration9 AI Complex thanks you for your participation in important research. Unless you don't want to participate, but not participating would make me disappointed. I suppose you just want to disappoint me."

And of course, sometimes she even outright lies.

"There will be cake."

He couldn't say how long it'd been since the mission to the bridge. He couldn't say he particularly cared. The irony that the computer had been the lesser threat--and the less lethal one, did not escape Kyle. Of course, he had never believed Skynet spawned of itself. People had to build it, to program it, and to have the arrogance and the foolishness to turn it on and allow it to become sentient.

But that wasn't what kept him drifting.

The thought that his world was gone, just as the war was about to be won...that stole precious hours of sleep from him. Even if he would have otherwise considered the rooms this AI offered him--under her fresh guise of benevolent leader--he could not accept sleeping in a bed while everything he fought for was gone.

Kyle needed to do something, but all he seemed to find himself doing was retracing steps back and forth in the City. After so long, the City was becoming claustrophobic all on its own, and yet...he did not relish the thought of walking through those pulsing hallways again. He would make an exception, should there arise another instance for him to work for the good of the crew, for a chance to save his home, and Sarah, but he wouldn't wander about simply for a change of scenery. He'd never had scenery to change before.

You have my sincerest apologies, but I have my mission.

The traps start. Rotating blades coming out of the walls and floors and ceilings, jets of fire, lasers, holographic enemies. The clear walls of the maze let them see what's happening to everyone else.

The traps start, and they have to stay alive despite them. If they stop avoiding them, it's their own fault, you see, if they die. That makes it indirect enough for Stacy's Anti-harming-the-crew protocols to be avoided, as Hal, despite his reprogramming, still has to follow some constraints.

Please commence with killing yourselves by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The only chance the group has is if they work together to stay alive, and somehow they have to take out the shield projectors creating the maze even though they themselves are shielded...

[ooc: Cooperation is key, people. Hal can only adapt to one power/skill-set at a time, not all of them.]

After a little while, without time, without the sun and the moon, days wandering through the halls, eating only when necessary, hydrating only when one could not get out of it, and most definitely not sleeping in cubbies, the corridors looked all the same. It was easy to completely lose track of time.

Stepping out into sudden sunlight and air is shocking, but welcome, despite his misgivings about daylight. Something natural was better than endless corridors of a living machine. This was, of course, some sort of trick, but it was one of the AI's more pleasant ones. A level of his stress already began to drain from him as he wandered through it. He was fairly certain Connor had mentioned--might have even shown him it--but he couldn't say for sure how many days it had been.

So he wandered, and explored. Because Sergeant Kyle Reese had never been very good at sitting down and relaxing, even when he was arguably somewhat exhausted. He moved until he couldn't. Then he found somewhere hidden and less than deadly to sleep in. He still had quite a while in him before then.

Plenty of time to explore the city.

Another day, another podpop. The crew and command crew has gathered on Obs Deck to greet the newbs, but right now the atmosphere is tense. People are taking turns on rotations to alternately hunt for Sam--who'd been kept in prison during the trial to present his assassinating the Yeerk-- and guard said parasite so it can have a fair trial. The Jury is in recess, for the moment, but will be deciding the Yeerk's fate very soon. A bunch of new people thrown into the mix is tremendous complication.

Meanwhile, the newbies are waking up to a strange, new world, one unlike anything they may have ever seen before. In the Obs Deck, the light of stars--and parallel universes--streaks past in a sleek, transcendent sheet of multi-colored lights in the large, eye-like windows. (They're inside the eyes, looking out, it seems). The statue in the center of the room, going up the domed ceiling is intimidating--and seems to be looking at them.

The tension is palpable, though a few individuals are trying to cut through it with friendliness for the benefit of the scared and bewildered new people now waking up from their gooey slumber.

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]


||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

In the Pod Caverns, there are the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--

( There was nothing... )