fandomtownies | The Holoscene, Tuesday

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The Holoscene, Tuesday

Talking to Prompto yesterday had reminded Mae that she hadn't been out to visit her weird abandoned holographic arcade in awhile. It also got her thinking about how a weird, abandoned, holographic arcade could maybe be improved with a little judicious application of teenage ingenuity. And the internet.

"Okay okay okay," she said, flapping her hand at the disembodied computer voice. "I know, I get it, you're like super advanced and can understand seventy billion languages thanks to being hooked into Google Translate or whatever."

"Every holosuite is equipped with a universal translator," the computer said. It didn't have any inflection, but Mae decided it was faintly insulted anyway. "Regional accents do not affect holosuite programming."

"Yeah yeah," Mae said. "But it's so much funnier if you can't understand. Like, say I was all 'this bridge isn't right, I want something from the rust belt, not a zombie apocalypse!' Then you could go 'opening program: Zombie Apocalypse'."

"There are 3,756,842 programs available tagged 'zombie apocalypse'."

"See?" Mae beamed. "Now you're getting it!"

"You have specified parameter: 'not a zombie apocalypse'. 3,756,842 program options have been filtered out."

". . . You are not getting it at all."

[open!]

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Feat. Mae trying to dumb down a 25th century computer!

Trevor ~~existed still, honest~~ was a bit at a loss for what to do this week with nothing else to fill the time. Which was probably why he showed up in town.

"What the hell is this place?"

Yes, explain holograms to him, Mae.

Did Trevor want to hear it was made of ghosts? Because that was likely to be how Mae explained it.

"It's the greatest arcade ever."

Assuming she ever actually explained anything at all.

That was the most plausible answer for him! He was weird like that. Also that time travel shit.

"Right," he said slowly, looking around the place. "And an arcade is...?"

Say ghosts.

"Oh my god," Mae said. Trevor. You poor, poor boy. "You don't know what arcades are." She shook her head. "It's games! Arcades are places where you go and can play games about beating up monsters and driving race cars and eating ghosts!"

. . . Well. At least the word 'ghosts' was in that explanation.

"I can do two of those things outside of here," Trevor replied. Even though he super couldn't drive a car. But it was a thing he knew about. So that counted. "You can't eat ghosts."

He thought.

"Unless you're another ghost. Why do I even need to say this?"

"In an arcade you can!!!" No one should ever learn anything about anything from Mae Borowski. "Computer, give us a ghost-eating program!"

"Further parameters needed," the computer said.

"You're a little bitch, computer."

Trevor snickered into his hand like the great, loving roommate he was. "Yeah, I can see it."

Mae shook her fist at Trevor, then looked back up at . . . the ceiling. Stupid disembodied computer, couldn't even glare at it properly, grumble grumble.

"Computer, do you have any cyberpunk programs?"

"There are 635,748 programs tagged 'cyberpunk' in the database."

"Any of those feature ghosts?"

"36,876 programs are tagged 'cyberpunk' and 'ghosts'."

"Play one of those."

The room around them shifted, turning into a dank, damp city street.

It was a dark and stormy night, Trevor. In the future.

[I have no particular story line or setting in mind here other than "cyberpunk ghosts". So mod details at will!]

[cyberpunk ghosts yesssss]

Trevor was only really familiar with the ghost part of that, so the totally 80's anime aesthetic was lost on him. Which was a shame considering his genre and original canon.

"How do we play this?" he asked, squinting into the distance at the shitty neon lights and sound of totally ghostly motorcycles echoing down the alleyways.

"I have no idea!" Mae said cheerfully. She looked up and admired the neon-lit zeppelin hovering overhead. "It's going to be awesome!"

"If something in here hits me in the balls, I'm never forgiving you," Trevor informed her, also enthralled with that zeppelin. It was all sorts of magical without the impending doom!

"Pffft," Mae said. "There's all sorts of safety locks on this thing. You get to hit them in the balls, they don't get to hit you!"

She was not at all sure that was how the safeties worked.

Now that she said that, it was going to gain sentience and try to murder them. Damn it, Mae!

"...that sounds okay." He was totally warming up to this whole thing.

Those ghostly motorcycle engines were getting closer.

"Computer," Mae called. "Baseball bat!"

And lo, she held one. It was electric blue, and probably "cyber" in some other ways as well. Mostly, it was for hitting shit with.

"Um. Computer," Trevor echoed in a halting voice. "...that too?"

The computer did one of those error noises and then, "Unrecognized command."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Computer," Mae said, totally helpfully and not at all smug. "Another baseball bat!"

A second bat formed in her free hand and she offered it to Trevor.

Trevor sighed, grabbing it from her hand. "Not very clever, is it?"

"Yeah. It's a little . . . special. I mean, it was abandoned for who knows how long before I came and claimed it."

"You just claimed it?" Honestly, he sounded a little impressed.

"Well sure. No one else had."

"Not bad," he replied, testing the weight of the bat. Which, honestly, shouldn't have weight, but there they were. "Think there are other places like this?"

"There's the gym-thing they have up at the school," Mae said. "But other than that, I haven't seen any." Mae hopped up on a trashcan and used it as a launch pad to get up high enough to swing at one of the street lights. The lamp shattered into sparkling pieces, almost in slow motion. Mae cheered. "This place is like, Fandom's best kept secret."

Mostly because Mae was too lazy to advertise.

Well, the other people might be dicks. Best to not let them know.

Trevor snorted, giving the bat a twirl before smashing it into the window of a nearby, dingy warehouse looking building. "I'm seeing the appeal."

Yes, because the whole purpose was smashing shit.

To be fair, that was 90% what Mae used it for. "Right? It's also great when it gets all weird and gross out."

The other 10% was band practice and star gazing.

The motorcycles rounded the corner ahead of them. "Here they cooooooooooome!" Mae shrieked and bounded onto the trashcan again.

Come and get it, ghost riders!

Luckily none of them had flaming skulls for heads. But they did have some Daft Punk style helmets that were pretty cool if utterly lost on Trevor.

"Remember what I said about getting hit in the balls," Trevor said, pointing his bat at her as he shifted his stance to be in the right position to knock one of riders off their bikes the moment they got close enough.

"I think at this point if that happens it's your own damn fault," Mae said cheerfully.

And leaped at one of the riders, bat swinging with far more enthusiasm than skill or aim.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"We need to work on your battle-cries," Trevor informed her, hauling off to hit the next one in the chest.

"Why?" Mae asked. She hit the ground on the other side with a grunt, then popped back to her feet and started bouncing around swinging again. "Who cares what I'm yelling if I'm also hitting?"

"That's fair," he granted her, kicking one where they hit the ground. "It just sounds a little berserker."

Which wasn't inaccurate for her fighting style, was it?

"Awesome," Mae said. She smashed the headlight on one of the downed ghost bikes just for the hell of it. "BERSERKER!!!!!!"

"Yeah," he drawled, waiting with the bat slung over his shoulder as the bikers circled around for another pass. "We've got this figured out."

Choose your own adventure!

Because Alexa/neural net learning style programming is JUST what a holosuite needs.

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The Holoscene, Tuesday

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OOC