once more with feeling [act 3]

[stagemanagers]

You awake in an unfamiliar bed.

It’s comfortable enough, sure, but it’s certainly not yours. The room, too, is unfamiliar, especially in such heavy darkness. There seems to have been a great effort put into making it a livable space, with fuzzy rugs laid over linoleum, beds arranged as best to fit (and one bunk bed per dorm, rip whoever has the bottom bunk), and a single desk. You've also got individually labelled trunks; if you look inside yours, you'll find a yearbook with mostly blank pages, as well as a few with some interesting information. But even with all these changes it’s clear this room started it’s life as a classroom, every window hidden behind heavy dark green curtains.

To add to the strangeness of it all, your clothes have been swapped for some kind of uniform. It, though fitting your body perfectly, might feel a bit odd to some of you, as the body you have isn’t quite the same as it was before you mysteriously fell unconscious. The other important thing to note is the people in the other beds around you, all wearing the same color-coded uniform.

The hallway outside the dorms is narrow but well-lit, with fresh white walls and some scattered posters advertising some kind of midweek club meeting. The hallway goes on until, for the more contemporary of you, the pieces start to fall together as to your location: a school. Once you leave your rooms you’re free to wander as you wish but pinned up on a corkboard just outside the cafeteria there’s framed information that you might find helpful. If you explore further into the other rooms, in fact, you'll see there's an identical copy outside all of them.

In the lobby there are linoleum floors and fluorescent lighting, and a pair of glass doors that appear to lead outside. You can see out of both of them that the sun is shining brightly and there’s definitely more to see in the distance but the glass is unbreakable; you can't get out that way right now. A rolling metal sheet blocks off the hallway to the west. For the moment, both doors leading outside are locked.

It looks like you’re stuck. But hey - at least you aren’t alone.

Comments

[mcfife]

[And lo, the evil wizard Zargothrax was finally defeated. But as Angus steps away from his fight, he finds that his world goes black. In his next conscious moment, he finds himself in a warm bed. How deserving he is of such comfort, he tells himself as he rolls over.

However, the others in the room do not offer the peace and quiet conductive to sleeping, and he awakes to a room of strangers in uniforms.]

What army are you? [Clearly, they are no revolutionaries of his land, nor are they dressed as members of an undead force.]

1/2

[voicerights]

...

[...


don't mind the SQUIP as it slowly just. reaches up to touch its clothing. its face. its body, for there is no one else here. It's searching the neural material for something, anything, but- there is nothing.

there is nothing but it, and this- this form. it cannot even reach out to the surrounding systems. it may as well be this body, and as it looks up at Angus, for a moment, it looks - no other word for it - terrified.]

2/2

[voicerights]

[That moment passes. It blinks once, and it's like a reset has occurred as it studies Angus and the surrounding persons.]

This is not an army.

[Is that its voice? Fascinating.]

[mcfife]

[Angus worries that the man may be in dire distress.]

What of your uniforms? [He swings his legs over the side and sees that he too wears the same outfit as this man.] Why am I in this uniform?

[voicerights]

[What a poor, pitiful human, unable to make connections like it can! Its processing power seems more or less intact, at least. While the thought of this is not Jeremy and where is Jeremy is certainly clogging up most of its processor(-brain? is this its brain? there is no human presence within- was this human braindead? no trace of any memory neurons-), it has enough to take another slowly, deliberate look around before returning its gaze to Angus]

We have been dressed in them while we were unconscious. More data is required as to the purpose.

[Just heading for the door don't mind it]

[mcfife]

Wait!

[He jumps out of bed and makes a grab for the man's shoulder.]

Do you know where we are? Did you see me be taken in?

[voicerights]

[The SQUIP halts. Looks at the hand on its shoulder. Considers the sensation, which, until now, it has always interpreted through the filter of a human mind. Looks up at Angus]

No.

[It's already concluded this human is worthless in terms of data collection. Though, the manner he carries himself...it tilts its head, just slightly. At least it's not trying to pull away?]

It would be worthwhile to gather information about the rest of us to see if there is a common set of data. The two of us have little in common.

[mcfife]

...Yes. We should. [He has to investigate on his own. Find is own answers.] Then, what do you last remember before waking? I was surrounded by allies, but I was also tired.

[voicerights]

I was with my human, on the way back to his residence. From there, my memory has no data.

[tellthestory]

[The man in the little cot, who apparently didn't warrant a nice bed like you, looks around for a second as if trying to find who Angus is addressing. But, no, it's actually him.]

I'm not in an army.

[mcfife]

Then who are you with? A school? [That's a joke - he's too old for boarding school.]

[tellthestory]

Uh...I've got a cast again, now? Haven't met most of them yet, though. The show hasn't started yet.

[mcfife]

[He perks up.]

You're an actor?!

[tellthestory]

Uh...well, not really. I'm just a part of the show.

[mcfife]

[Stage crew, then.]

That is still a noble profession. But now that I think about it, I wonder if these are meant to be work uniforms. [It would explain the logo.] But they look more like school outfits in my opinion.

[tellthestory]

I agree. Never seen a school that used these, but they're too fancy to be doing any real work in. Pure white, look at that...

[You could get that dirty so easily!]

[mcfife]

Even my boarding school had colors representing the land it served. This white represents nothing.

[...]

This had better not be another plot against Earth.

[sugarlumps]

A lumpin' one woman army, who the lump are you?!

[Angus has a good head of height on her, but LSP is zero percent intimidated and getting into his face.]

[mcfife]

[Considering the world he comes from, he must take that claim seriously.]

I am Prince Angus McFife the thirteenth. [Obviously she must have heard of him.] From the Kingdom of Fife!

[sugarlumps]

Never heard of it. Is that, like, some weird neighborhood from the Candy Kingdom or something?

[mcfife]

...I have never heard of such a kingdom.

[sugarlumps]

That's weird. This Five place is probably super small, then, if you've never heard of the Candy Kingdom. It's lumping huge.

[mcfife]

I am not from this land. [It's the distant past; some kingdoms don't last very long.] So please, tell me where it is.

[sugarlumps]

In the grasslands?

[were you expecting an actually useful answer]

It's the big city made of candy, you can't lumping miss it.

[mcfife]

Central Asia? [That's the biggest grassland he can think of. But he would have heard of a candy kingdom.] It may be well hidden if I do not know of it.