Network | Video

[burnyoudown]

Hey.

[There was a skinny eighteen-year-old, pale, dark-haired, with white-rimmed sunglasses obscuring half of his face. It didn't matter that he was currently indoors; he wore those sunglasses everywhere.]

Alright, so, I've been here a little while. Felt it was time to reach out since we're all stuck here.

I'm assuming no one knows any way to get home. Am I right?

[He waved a hand dismissively; he didn't really care right now about being stuck here.]

Forget about that. What do you all do for fun around here when you're not rebuilding or whatever? It doesn't look like this place is built for street racing, so that kind of ruins option number one for me. Is there at least alcohol here?

Seems like I'm going to need some new hobby ideas.

[He moved to turn the video off but remembered one last thing.]

Oh, before I forget, the name's Kavinsky.

Comments

Video

[doubled_speed]

Dude, I'm on my way over to the other city to explore or whatever, but yeah, it's lamentable that there's no good racing here. Not that cars are all that impressive. They're so boringly slow.

If you need to drink, there's a bar called The Deep high in the residential tower down south. You look young, so some of the older folks are gonna get fussy about it. Which is fucking stupid. Don't drink yourself to death, okay?

[Then there's a sigh, Tommy running his fingers through his hair.]

Ain't no getting home.

[burnyoudown]

[Oh right, the other city. Kavinsky would get there himself...eventually...maybe. He'd barely gotten a good look at the city he was currently in.]

In what world are cars slow?

[Because in his experience, the adrenaline from racing was a powerful high.]

I'm used to people getting fussy about it. Also how the hell did I miss an entire bar.

[He guessed that was what happened when he spent a good chunk of his time here dreaming instead of exploring.]

Thanks for the information.

[doubled_speed]

All worlds, of course. They're only cars.

[The background around Tommy suddenly changed from the green house to the train station, where he's sitting down, waiting for the train.]

It's not labeled as a bar on the ground level. Head south east, tall building. Head in and then up. Keep going until you find the place. It's nice. Most of it made here. Try the red-berry juice. I think it's supposed to be potent.

[burnyoudown]

What do you race then?

[What other options were there? He blinked and he swore that he missed something. The guy hadn't been at the train station before, had he?]

No wonder I didn't find it if there's no sign.

[But he knew a lot about places that didn't have signs. Back home, at least. Here everything was new and confusing.]

Also that better be potent, with an unassuming name like that.

[doubled_speed]

[Tommy has to laugh. What does he race?]

Me. I race. Cars can't touch me.

ANd the name isn't unassuming. We just don't have a name for the fruit. They're red, they're fruit, they're alcoholic.

[burnyoudown]

[Kavinsky eyed him for a moment. His interest was piqued, but he wasn't about to admit that.]

I'm gonna need some proof with that.

And that's fair. Should come up with some kind of fancy name for it though, to entice people more.

[doubled_speed]

[Tommy frowned. Don't doubt him.]

I don't think I need to prove myself to you. But you'll see it in time.

Nah, Red fruit sounds better.

[burnyoudown]

[He shrugged.]

You don't need to, it's just a pretty big claim is all.

Does it though?

[Did it really?]

[doubled_speed]

It's really a small claim here. I only go fast and make things explode.

And it does.

[burnyoudown]

Hope you're not fast all the time.

[But, speaking of making things explode-]

What kind of things need to be exploded around here?

video;

[kyley_b]

[Kavinsky looks cool. Kyle... does not look cool.]

Dude, there's like, a whole bar.

[burnyoudown]

Is there? Where's it at? This place is like a fucking maze still.

[He kept getting lost when he went to explore, but he'd only been here a few days, that was understandable.]

[kyley_b]

Yeah, it's in uhhh... Orange 13 on the map, I think. The big tower.

Don't worry, you'll get used to it.

[burnyoudown]

[That was a lot more specific than he'd been expecting, honestly.]

Cool, thanks.

And yeah, I figured, just- [He gestured vaguely.] I hate getting lost.

[He'd rather know a place like the back of his hand.]

How long have you been here?

[How long was he looking at being stuck here, besides potentially 'forever'?]

[kyley_b]

No problem.

Oh, jeez. Not long. I think four months or so? There's people who've been here for like, over a year.

[burnyoudown]

[He could comment that four months was still a pretty long time, but that really was kind of nothing compared to people being here for over a year.]

Has everyone made a lot of progress in that time or is everything kind of- [He made a gesture with his hand.] -stagnant?

[kyley_b]

Oh, tons! Like the power is on, we've got a greenhouse and some farm animals, and houses. It's pretty good now.

[burnyoudown]

That's not bad.

[He was glad he'd arrived now that there was power instead of before.]

Are they alien farm animals?

[Personally, he was imagining some kind of alien cow.]

[kyley_b]

Yeah! Glownies. Kinda like sheep, kinda like ponies, and they glow. And somebody has an alien cow thing.

video;

[demjiin]

[ Not gonna lie, this guy sounds just like most of the teenagers that are in Kaz's gang back home, The Dregs. ]

You would be right about the first assumption. Fun tends to get pushed aside in favor of not dying in the second question, and it depends on what sort of alcohol you're looking for in the third.

[ The voice sounds like Kaz gargles with whiskey and ground glass every morning; like a grizzled old man speaking from a teenager's mouth. ]

[burnyoudown]

Great.

Is worrying about dying a legitimate concern around here?

[He'd been told a little about the local, uh, wildlife, but he wasn't too worried about things, in general.]

And I'm not too picky about alcohol so long as it gets me drunk.

[demjiin]

[ Kaz shrugged. ]

Stick around for a while and you'll find out. Storms that can do a hell of a lot more than rain, spiders the size of horses, or that one time everything was an order of magnitude weirder and all our memories got scrambled on believing what was real for a month.

[ There's more to all of it, but Kaz isn't going into it right now. ]

Well, I've been told there's some sort of red fruit that grows around Temba which turned out to be alcoholic. I'm not trusting to anything here, so I stick with the whiskey at Caydes place.

[burnyoudown]

Doesn't sound like I have a choice but to stick around. Also, good thing I'm not an arachnophobe.

[But arachnophobe or not, a spider that large sounded pretty damn dangerous. He wasn't a complete fool.

He hardly knew what subject to comment on first, aside from spiders, though.]

An entire month? How bad was the memory fuckery?

[Just in case, you know, it ever happened again.]

I'll try anything at least once. What's the worst that can happen?

[demjiin]

At first? The memory fuckery had people believing they were families when they weren't even from the same world, that they all had jobs they were successful in, or that everyone suddenly sprouting superpowers was commonplace.

[ In short, the memory scramble was trying to make it so everyone was happy. But Kaz lets out a quiet chuckle that had nothing to do with humor on the next answer. ]

That's not a smart question to ask around here. The worst usually doesn't have much to do with death but has everything to do with whatever you can imagine being worse than death. Maybe it will warp your mind so that you forget who you are when you finish drinking it. Or maybe have you hitting on everything you see, even the rocks.

[ Kaz shrugs again. ]

Who can say.

[burnyoudown]

[He'd been imagining a whole lot worse than that. Hearing that the memory fuckery skewed towards making people happy was almost a relief.]

Do people usually sprout superpowers around here?

[He could imagine quite a few things worse than death, and none of them were things he wanted to experience.]

I'll keep that in mind.

[But he was still going to drink the local alcohol. Maybe not until he witnessed someone else safely drink it, but still.]