Universal Remote [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Here's an interesting scene: the dreamers of Manhattan are on a pirate ship. Or perhaps they're standing in a busy ER, wearing scrubs and holding a scalpel they may or may not know how to use. Or perhaps they've found themselves in the middle of a world cup championship game, or an old-fashioned highway robbery, or an interstellar dogfight, or a dramatic, 'unscripted' showdown between arguably attractive people they've never seen before in their lives.

Whatever the situation, rest assured: it probably won't last long.

Maybe the Rift is bored. That might explain why the dream keeps changing, as if someone were idly flicking through the channels and switching up the genre. The poor dreamers are just along for the ride, the only constant amidst a shifting array of scenery, clothing, and overall mood. Perhaps, if things are sufficiently interesting, the dream might settle a little to see how things play out. But given the Rift's definition of 'interesting,' that might not be a good thing for whoever is providing the entertainment.

[OOC: the usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome, regardless of whether they're in the game or not. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. Dreamers' clothes may change to reflect whatever scene they're in, but their memories and personalities will remain intact... though the overall mood of the setting might influence their mood, as well. Feel free to throw NPCs into whatever scene you find yourself in, with bonus points added if said characters treat the dreamers as if they're established parts of the 'canon.']

Comments

[grabme]

"Right," he gabbles, nodding frantically. "Right, right right right - okay, right, slowing down, and we'll - we'll work this out reasonably, shall we? Yes. Yes, absolutely, yes. I'm Wheatley," he says, changing tack and speaking with deliberate slowness, as if he were addressing someone hard of hearing. Maybe she's just like that good old lady with the portal device, bit brain-damaged, though she's already speaking to him, which is, as he'd see it, a significant step up. "And I'm confused. Haven't stolen anything, not really, and I'm - oh, what're you going to do with that?"

His careful veneer of calm immediately dissipates when his eyes light upon the baton and he jumps again, colliding painfully with the sharp corner of the desk.

[shynotstupid]

She has to resist the urge to give him a smack, jumping around as he is. But she keeps her temper, despite the strangeness of all of this.

"Wheatley. I'm not going to hurt you so long as you don't give me reason to. Now stop bouncing. Do you know where we are?"

[grabme]

Stop bouncing. He's not bouncing. He's not even panicking! He's perfectly calm. Just look at him - the veritable portrait of calm, right here! He goes rigid almost indignantly, eyeing the woman warily.

"Of course I do!" he says, altogether far too decisively for someone who knows nothing of the sort. "It's a, um, a human - a whole human thing, you're human, you should know, shouldn't you? It's one of those human things, one of your old buildings, isn't it? Not a very nice one," he remarks offhandedly as he steps delicately over the avalanche of papers his collision with the desk has left scattered over the floor. "Not a fan of this, um, this, this interior, um, decorating."

[shynotstupid]

He keeps saying human like he isn't one. Is he a god then? Or perhaps another kind of immortal? Perhaps she should untie him, in that case. She can't actually remember him committing a crime, so it wouldn't be a crime to let him go, right? She reaches out to take his arm so she can do just that.

"It isn't one of my buildings. I've never seen the like of it. And what are these clothes? They feel... strange."

[grabme]

"No? No. That's weird. That's - bit weird, yeah. Ah, sorry, what?" He watches her suspiciously as she takes hold of his arm, uncertain as to what she might be planning to do with it.

"Never really got the whole point of them, clothes," says Wheatley helpfully, indicating his own semi-professional wear with a tilt of his chin. "Seemed a bit superfluous, didn't they? Never needed them as a core, no sir, no clothes for this member of upper management. It's just this whole extra step, isn't it, seems a right pain."

He's hard-pressed to find anything objectionable about the clothes of his captor, nothing really noteworthy there except the fact that she's now got some where she formerly didn't.

"Sorry, do I know you?" he asks, peering at her a bit closer. "Don't think so. Haven't seen you around, have I?"

[shynotstupid]

"No, you don't know me. I'm Guardswoman Rebakah Cooper."

He's definitely either some unearthly creature or a total crack-knob, one or the other. Since he hasn't hurt anyone (and again, as far as she can remember, hasn't actually stolen anything) she starts pulling at the handcuffs. But she's never seen shackles like these before, and they don't seem to come any looser.

"What in the name of Chaos-?"

There's a keyhole. She knows what to do with a keyhole. She reaches for the lockpicks in her belt and finds instead a ring of keys. She flips through them with one hand until she finds one that looks like it might go in the handcuffs.

It takes five tries.

[grabme]

What's she doing back there, fiddling with the old handcuffs? He's still getting used to this whole 'two arms and two legs' business, but if she's human then, well, she's had her whole life to get used to it! She just seems superbly uncoordinated for a human, that's all he's saying.

"Guardswoman." He pulls the word out, stretching it along his tongue. "Sounds right important, that. Sorry, would like to emphasize - completely innocent, here, haven't done a thing wrong in my life, not one, a right model citizen in all respects, and let's just get that right out of the way at the onset. Say, now, you wouldn't have happened to have been zapped through a spacetime Rift in recent memory, now, would you?"

[shynotstupid]

She stares at him like he's crazy. He probably is. The courage she finds for guard work is leaving her, now this is turning into something of a social venture. She shakes the thought out of her mind and turns her attention back to the problem posed by the setting.

"Is that local talk for something?" Her eyes fall on a man sitting at what looks to be a front desk.

"Are you in charge here, sir?" He looks up at her, startled.

"What? No, I just work the desk. What?"

as;dlfkjas;lk i'm so sorry about wheatley

[grabme]

Local. Would it be? He'd certainly think so, hardly a bit of universal jargon, pardon the pun.

With the handcuffs gone, he wiggles his fingers delightedly and looks at them with absolute joy, as if just coming to terms with the wonderful, spectacular simplicity in having fingers that work and are no longer tied 'round behind his back where he can't use them - which is, of course, exactly what he's coming to terms with.

"Hang on, now, let me go and handle this," he mutters to the Guardswoman in what seems to him to be something of an expertly secretive tone and is in reality nothing of the sort. He puffs up and strides to the reception man, acting for all the world like how he'd envision someone in charge would act, and plants one hand on the desk as he leans forward confidentially.

"What you doing there? Reception? Working the good old desk, hm? Right fantastic at that, aren't you - " he hesitates and his eyes light on the small nametag pinned to the front of the man's uniform, "Walter. Walter, good name, right proper, that. Listen here, Walter, I'll tell you what: my friend and I - she's a bit lost, yeah? Bit out of arms, so to speak. Was just wondering - if it's not too much trouble, mind - if you had something along the lines of a, umm, any sort of report on this whole Rift business. Wouldn't happen to have something that lying about, would you?"

Walter looks at him blankly.

"What?"

never apologize for wheatley

[shynotstupid]

"Pardon, Master Wheatley, but what in the name of all the gods are you doing?" He certainly wasn't getting any answers. In fact, he mostly seemed to be getting a lot of attention.

Quite suddenly the room is bustling with activity, officers rushing out the front door, mostly. Walter looks up and around at the crowd.

"Officer, shouldn't you be going with them?"

"Officer? I'm no officer."

[grabme]

"Master," he repeats, torn between alarm and delight, practically preening at the epithet. "You're too kind, really."

The hope of hearing any further compliments dispersed in his direction promptly dissipates when a stream of heavily armed officers come pouring out and around him in a dark blue spill for the door.

"She's rather confused, I'm afraid," he informs Walter apologetically. "She's a guardswoman, see, and seems more or less in the habit of arresting the wrong person but - she's trying her best, so, you know, benefit of the doubt and all that. Say, you wouldn't happen to have a map or anything of the sort? Not that I, aha, need, need anything of the sort, all for her, really, she's just a tad, just a tad lost is all, you know."

Walter looks at Wheatley oddly. "Sir," he says slowly, inquisitively, "you are in a police precinct."