App for Singularity

[thecarisboring]

Player Information ;
Your Nickname: Mandolin
OOC Journal: mandolin
Under 18? No
Email: mandichaos at gmail dot com
AIM: shinytomato
Plurk: littlebulldozer
Characters Played at Singularity: Betty Ross (MCU)

Character Information ;
Name: Rosalie "Ro" Rowen
Name of Canon: The Zeta Project (DC Animated Universe)
Canon/AU/Other Game CR: Other Game CR: campfuckudie
Reference: The Zeta Project on Wikipedia; TZP on the DCAU Wiki; Ro on the DCAU Wiki; The Zeta Project at World's Finest; Ro at World's Finest; Timeline of the DCAU at DCAUResource
(Note: Sources contradict the spelling of Ro's last name. I'm sticking with "Rowen" because that's what all the official sources I found used when she was first apped in December 2008.)
Canon Point: From canon, she was taken to Camp Fuck U Die after the events of the Season 2 episode "On the Wire" (meeting her biological brother), and then was stuck in camp for about fourteen months (December 2008 through late February 2010, game time).

Setting:

I. Canon Setting: The Zeta Project

The Zeta Project is part of the larger DC Animated Universe, and while it's fairly set apart from the rest of the verse in tone and focus, you can't discuss it without trying to sum up the DCAU.

First, consider Earth as we know it. Most of the countries and borders and political situations are the same as our Earth, with a couple additional countries added - mostly so the writers don't have to worry about offending real-world countries or races. Throw in aliens, superheroes, other metahumans, supervillains, Amazons and Greek gods, shadowy government agencies devoted to dealing with metahuman threats, stuff it all in a blender and hit Puree.

Then fast-forward 50 years into the future and shove the aliens, supervillains, Greek gods and superheroes (except for Batman) to the side, throw in elements of The Fugitive and a ton of robots and some flying cars, and you're closer to where The Zeta Project sits in its loosely-connected corner of the DC Animated universe.

The basic premise of The Zeta Project is this: Infiltration Unit Zeta, a "synthoid" - a robot that can take on a human appearance via his built-in holographic emitter - built by the government, was tasked to investigate a terrorist organization and eliminate a certain target. Upon discovering his target was completely innocent, Zeta abandoned the mission, refusing to kill at all for fear that he might kill an innocent. The government, thinking he'd been reprogrammed, pursued him. While evading government agents, Zeta met and befriended Rosalie Rowen, a runaway orphan who decided to tag along and help him find the evidence to prove once and for all that he is not dangerous.

Timeline-wise, the series is a spinoff of the Batman Beyond season two episode "Zeta," and its first season takes place during the second and third season of Batman Beyond. So, like Batman Beyond, the series is set in the future of the DCAU, in the mid-2050s. (One episode of TZP dates it in the early 2040s, but that contradicts all other timeline evidence.)

But aside from that tenuous connection - two crossover episodes, and a guest shot by some Batman Beyond villains - the series has a much different focus and tone than the show that spawned it.

Costumed villains and heroes are extremely rare in the course of the series. Batman is the only real costumed hero who makes an appearance - Zeta and Ro disguise themselves as a couple of fictional superheroes to blend in at a fan convention in one episode, but that's about it. In fact, Zeta and Ro only encounter metahumans once in the entire series when they run afoul of a group of metahumans working for the "Brain Trust." Every other threat they've encountered has come from normal humans, the NSA, science/technology gone haywire, or a combination (see: the bounty hunter with cyborg implants). Even the one time they visited Gotham, the terrorist who tricked Zeta was still himself a normal human.

Of course, Gotham is only one brief stop on a long road trip. Zeta and Ro are constantly on the run throughout the series, journeying all over the United States with the NSA in pursuit, trying to find Zeta's creator and the proof that Zeta is not a danger to others. The world outside Gotham City is not as dark and gritty, but it's no less dangerous.

One of the reasons is the National Security Agency, which has jurisdiction over Zeta's capture. A specific unit of agents, led by Agent James Bennet, has been tasked primarily with capturing him and are constantly in pursuit. Bennet is obsessed with capturing Zeta to the exclusion of everything else - the only time he makes an exception is when his own son's life is at stake and he has to work with Zeta to save him. He refuses to consider the possibility that Zeta may indeed be acting on his own, disobeys direct orders from his superiors when pursuing Zeta and becomes more and more extreme as the series goes on. One of his subordinates resigns midway through the series on account of his extreme behavior.

The NSA has reason to be concerned, though, mainly because of Brother's Day, the terrorist group that Zeta was ordered to infiltrate and who Bennett believes re-programmed Zeta in the first place. They are an extreme anti-technology group who want to prevent technology from taking over and will resort to serious acts of destruction to do so - including trying to destroy the government's most top-secret synthoid lab, the Gnosis, and not caring in the slightest how many civilians are killed in the process.

The goal of Brother's Day seems extreme, but it's easy to see how one could be concerned about the increasing role of robotics and technology in everyday life. Technology is ubiquitous in this future; robots and synthoids commonplace enough that Ro doesn't have much trouble accepting Zeta as self-aware when she first meets him. Synthoids have been banned for personal use since the 2040s, although the government still uses some - like Zeta - as Infiltration Units. Adbots that follow people around are a common nuisance, and science museums already display plenty of outdated models of robots. Zeta is still highly advanced and unique among his kind due to his emotional depth and the "conscience" secretly installed by his creator, but everyday robots are advanced enough to at least mimic a personality.

Holographic technology is advanced enough that some amateur theater productions make use of it, although not so much that it's available in most handheld devices. Two-dimensional "vid games" are almost unheard of. Most vehicles hover and need to be filled up at a recharge station. Almost everything's electronic, including currency; no cash changes hands, you have to have some kind of electronic credit instead. Most people have handheld devices that you can scan in credits to be redeemed later. In fact, if you are caught in the Hub (the central transit nexus for the entire country) with no credits, you can be detained by security because having no creds means you're up to no good. Zeta has a built-in cred card that can generate an unlimited number of credits, which was originally added to make it easy for him to get around as an Infiltration Unit. Unfortunately for the NSA (and fortunately for Ro and Zeta) the card itself cannot be easily tracked.

The Net is easily accessible no matter where you are; public phones are video phones, some vehicles and a lot of mass transit have easy Internet access built-in, and as Ro puts it, there's a Ground Wire (essentially a cyber cafe) in every town. It's rare to find a system that's not connected; that's only done for security reasons or for system maintenance. Mass media is divided into vid news and text news, the former being the more prestigious than the latter - but it's all electronic. This makes it easier for Zeta to track down information on his creator, but conversely makes it easier for the NSA to track them with all the networked video surveillance systems and news media. It's part of the reason that in spite of his personality and his initial selfish behavior, their greatest ally is a 12-year-old genius hacker - Bucky can usually get into any system to warn the duo, even hack into the video system of the hoverbike Ro is riding to get a message out to her.

To sum it all up: Earth with superheroes and villains 50 years in the future, but ignoring most heroes and villains except for Batman (because come on, it's Batman), plus lots and lots of technology and "The Fugitive" with robots.

II. CRAU Setting: Camp Fuck U Die

(Please note: The setting history is from the perspective of February 2010, when the player dropped the game. Subsequent game events have revealed new details about the history of camp, but since Ro was not there for them I am not incorporating them into the setting discussion.)

And all of a sudden, Ro found herself trapped in an interdimensional zombie summer camp.

Yes, it's about as insane as it sounds.

Camp Fuck U Die, for all intents and purposes, has the general appearance of an American summer camp in the middle of a Louisiana swamp with all the trappings: a mess hall, girls' cabins, boys' cabins, a pool, a shooting range, even its own hospital. Of course, there are a few extras like the volcano, the Caves of Despair, some underground labs, a couple of hotels, the various zombies, purple gorillas, robot cows, telepathic toucans, and an amorous tentacle monster in the lake named Marcy. The grounds have grown and expanded thanks to the efforts of the people from various points in space and time who have been brought there and forced to somehow make their stay bearable. Because as much as the inhabitants may want to, leaving is not an option.

That's because the camp is surrounded by a barrier that not even a Norse god can shatter, and the location seems to exist entirely out of time and space. Campers and counselors who are allowed to leave will return home to find no time has passed at all, even if they've been there a year. Many don't even remember their time at camp. Some will be sent home for a day in Camp's reckoning, but for them it will be months before they return. No one, not even the counselors, has any control over when they can come and go - although some of the counselors are technically hired, they usually have no idea what they're getting themselves into.

This completely ridiculous place is the responsibility of a woman referred to as "the Director." Miss Elizabeth Sayre has locked down the camp with impossibly powerful magic and trapped the inhabitants with the apparent goal of seeking the killer of her fiance, Mr. Stephan Debussey. There are a couple problems with said goal: first, many of the inhabitants were not even born at the time of Mr. Debussey's murder and have never crossed paths with him. Second, it appears that Stephan Debussey is in fact alive and well and pops into camp from time to time, completely unknown to the Director (well, as far as the inhabitants of Camp know).

Simply telling the Director the truth isn't an option since she herself rarely makes an appearance in camp. Her brother once made announcements over the Loudspeaker, but the first time he showed up in person he fell to his apparent death aiding camp during an earth-splitting crisis that involved a shadowy figure abducting residents for experiments in the underground labs. He reappeared once again during Halloween to save Stephan from actual death, but then both of them seemingly disappeared. The identity of his replacement, the Noobspeaker, remains unknown. For the most part, Miss Sayre is content to run Camp from the shadows, seemingly allowing the insanity to run unchecked.

This is not to say that the inhabitants can get away with anything they like. Camp itself seems to magically enforce certain rules. The first, inherent in the name of the camp, is a ban on sexual intercourse. Those who try are promptly transformed into small animals and remain that way for a short while. Another is death, which is not permanent for the inhabitants of Camp; if killed, a person is either "reset" to their last save point courtesy of the moogles around Camp - without remembering anything past that save point - or resurrected somehow. Attempting to circumvent the barrier by any means will usually result in some sort of random transformation or affliction. Counselors who fail to do their jobs will... probably continue to do so until they feel like it. The rules of Camp, like everything else, don't make much sense.

Even if campers and counselors behave, they are still not safe from Camp's whims. Random transformations happen to people for no apparent reason. There's the mistletoe that appears both in July and December that forces people to kiss. Every Tuesday, anything made in the Mess Hall turns into the inedible (unless you are a cannibal) "Tuesday soup." In October, even the comedic wildlife can be dangerous, and every so often something threatens the population of Camp - like, in one instance where people were being forced to participate in a Cry Wolf "kill game" in their dreams. Also, that shadowy figure who split the earth in two and was kidnapping residents for experiments? He's still running around somewhere.

Basically, Camp Fuck U Die is the most nonsensical interdimensional prison ever, and the only way not to go insane is to just roll with the punches. And avoid the Mess Hall on Tuesdays.

III. Brief Summary of Ro's CFUD history

(More details on CR and how it affected her is included in the AU justification below, this is just an overall rundown of her time in Camp and what she did. It's separated out from the setting description for readability and to avoid tense switching.)

Ro wound up in Camp all alone, with no idea where Zeta was; he'd been in Camp for a few months, and was holed up in an abandoned cabin recharging. With some help, Ro found out where he was and crashed there until Zeta finished recharging. He was overjoyed to find her there, and she was relieved when he finally did wake up. She wasn't so happy about being stuck in Camp, but hey, at least they were together.

Once Ro was reunited with Zeta and they got set up with a proper room at the hotel - which, for some reason, accepted Zeta's unlimited cred card - Ro settled in as best she could. She spent a lot of time covering for Zeta when dealing with the more suspicious residents of Camp and chatting up the friends Zeta had already made, especially Zima, an android "persocom" who was a big help with teaching Zeta how to understand humans. (And who gave Ro a little bit of hope for Zeta, because Zima was a lot less clueless.) She spent her time dodging the weirdness in camp and sympathizing with several other residents about having to bail out overly heroic trouble-magnet friends, and at one point was actually useful in helping some campers get out of a literal "idiot hole." She was de-aged to six years old for about a month, which she spent being adorable, being loud, and getting into moderate trouble. (Moderate by camp standards.)

Being stuck in one place might have made her go stir-crazy after being on the run for so long, but dealing with the daily weirdness of Camp kept her from getting bored. Although she could have done without some of Camp's traditions, like Naked Day, a day she is still trying to block out of her memory. But all in all, she was able to deal with the weirdness. Mostly.

And then, one fateful Valentine's Day, Zeta confessed he was in love with her and completely turned Ro's world upside down.

Personality:

If you looked up "trust issues" in the dictionary, Ro's picture would be right next to it. Seriously.

Split up from her brother and placed into the foster system at an early age, Ro developed abandonment issues pretty quickly. The fact that she forgot that she even had a brother might indicate their separation was traumatic and she may very well have blocked it out. Ro ran away from the earliest foster home she could remember at the age of eight, convinced that the family thought she was worthless and driven off by her foster sister Tiffy's cruelty. She wound up in a girls' home, and when she tried to stick up for some of the girls that were bullied, they paid her back by pretending she didn't exist. When she joined up with a gang and drew the line when they wanted her to participate in a robbery, the gang leader tried to kill her. For most of her life, as far as Ro is concerned, people have always taken advantage of her and stabbed her in the back. Some of it is due to Ro's bad decisions, of course, but it was also a bit of a vicious cycle - the more cruelty she encountered, the more she tended to push people away, and the more she distanced herself the more people tended to react to her poorly.

She befriended Zeta so easily because he was a robot - unlike most human beings, he wouldn't have an ulterior motive. His generosity towards her and his perk of an unlimited cred card didn't hurt, and he made a hell of a first impression on her when he basically stepped in to save her and got shot as a consequence.

First impressions really matter to Ro - both good and bad. The girl doesn't just hold grudges, she spot-welds them in place. She refused to believe it when she returned to her old foster family and her foster sister Tiffy was genuinely kind to her; Ro was positive she was about to be stabbed in the back until Tiffy stood up for her and Zeta. And despite the number of times Bucky Buenaventura helped save them - even going out of his way to track down Ro's long-lost brother - Ro is still reluctant to save him when the NSA gets their hands on him, because she remembers how he tried to use Zeta as his personal science project. (That, and the kid annoys the heck out of her.) It takes her a while to get around an initial first impression.

As far as most people know, Ro is all about self-reliance and looking and acting tough. Half of what comes out of her mouth is sarcasm, her constant defense mechanism for just about anything. She'll even snap at Zeta when he does something especially clueless. When she was little, her grandfather called her the "little bulldozer" for good reason - she would plow through anything to get what she wanted. And that hasn't really changed - if she really wants it, she'll go after something with a vengeance. She did take advantage of Zeta initially. She also resorted to petty theft to get an in with the gang who picked her up - but she drew the line when she realized someone was going to get hurt. She won't go along with something she doesn't believe in, and if she has to go it alone, she figures she'll be fine. She'll do whatever it takes to survive.

But most of her self-reliant tough girl act is just that: an act.

Sure, Ro is totally capable of taking care of herself. This is the girl who managed to sneak into an NSA installation, after all. But she only acts like she doesn't need other people because she's afraid of getting hurt again. For years, it seemed to her as though everyone who was supposed to take care of her hurt her. Her parents left her. Her grandparents died (not their fault, but still) and Casey was taken away. The Morgans thought she was a disappointment. Her social worker dumped her into a badly-managed girls' home. The caretakers at the girls' home ignored the bullying and punished her for standing up against it. Slam, the gang leader who helped her get away from the girls' home, tried to kill her simply for wanting to stay out of a bank holdup. So she just put up tons and tons of defensive emotional walls and shut everyone out who could hurt her - opening up to people just allowed her to be hurt.

And then she met Zeta - or "Zee" as she called him - who was kind and generous and ridiculously honest and nicer than anyone she could remember, and who had zero ulterior motives. He didn't take advantage of her, he genuinely wanted to help, and he was sweet and naive and safe. It knocked her for a loop, and she was willing to take a risk and help him out - despite reminding herself she was completely insane for doing it. Zeta also needed her to show him how to blend in and try to understand humans, and Ro was definitely up to the task. Her relationship with him brought out Ro's desire to take care of other people; she never really got the chance before because the few times she tried it ended badly. She slid into the "big sister" role with surprising ease, and even when she was harsh on Zeta she only yelled because she was worried. She knew one slip-up in the wrong place at the wrong time could result in Zeta being reprogrammed or worse.

For all her bluster about only looking out for herself, Ro is constantly drawn to help out others who can't look out for themselves. Zeta was the first to reciprocate in years, and he got her to open up a little, and as much as she facepalms at his overzealous heroic tendencies - since they usually get him in trouble - she admires him for his selflessness and it rubs off on her too. While she was motivated by getting away from the crazy Brain Trust, she befriended the two kids they also kidnapped easily and encouraged them to use their gifts to fight back against their captors. She's fond of kids, although she won't admit it.

She does continue to hold people at arm's length throughout the series, though, primarily because of the constant threat of the NSA capturing them and destroying her best friend. Getting close to people brings with it the risk of them finding out about Zeta and calling it in - most people who find out immediately blow the whistle on them. Also, her tendency to fixate on first impressions makes it harder for her to connect with people whose attitudes rub her the wrong way.

Ro makes occasional exceptions, though, primarily when it comes to family. She has very specific ideas about family and what it should be. Her relationship with Zeta is the epitome of that ideal - you look out for them and they always look out for you. She considers him family for much of the series and when she finally found her brother Casey, she opened up to him much more quickly than anyone else they encountered - because he was family, and by definition family shouldn't betray one another. Having very few memories of a stable family, she craves that stability and trust. She just hasn't encountered it very often in her life.

Bottom line: She may seem like a brat, but if Ro considers you a friend and trusts you, she will always have your back. Even if having your back means preventing you from doing something completely stupid.

Abilities, Weaknesses, and Power Limitation Suggestions:
Abilities:
- Moderate fighting ability. She can and will pack a punch and is handy with a shovel or any blunt object, but is not going to be able to hold her own against a skilled fighter. She's taken Agent West down easily, but he's made of epic fail.
- More athletic than the average 16-year-old by necessity; she's demonstrated some gymnastic abilities in the course of escaping NSA agents, and is strong enough to hang on to the roof of a moving laundry truck
- Decent at pickpocketing. Not so much that someone expecting it or an actual thief would be fooled. She hasn't done it in a while.
- Can drive most cycles and cars from her era like a lunatic and has outmaneuvered the NSA on multiple occasions.
- Not a hacker but can figure out most tech. The wearable won't be hard for her to figure out.

Weaknesses:
- Normal human, as fragile as the next one. No power limitations necessary.
- No real firearms experience. (Being shot at does not count.)
- Fails at staying in the car; will sometimes rush out into danger to help those she cares about
- Tendency to overdo the snark and rudeness and sometimes fails at endearing herself to people

Inventory:
- The clothes on her back: jeans, sneakers, blue sweater, black leather jacket. Dressed for winter, at least.

Appearance: Here and here. She's Caucasian, about 5' 3", deceptively skinny (she can pack a punch), short blonde hair and blue eyes.
Age: 16 as of season 2 of The Zeta Project

OC/AU Justification ;
If AU, How is Your Version Different From Canon, and How Will That Come Across?

A year trapped in Camp Fuck U Die has affected Ro's general outlook. For one thing, her weirdness tolerance was already pretty high in canon, but her experiences in camp have caused it to skyrocket exponentially. Daily interaction with Camp's nonhuman residents, including firsthand experiences with Camp curses and events (like Naked Day) and spending a day trapped doing a PSA with a talking rat who wanted to be a chef has made her less likely to freak out at the strange and bizarre. She might be a little taken aback by some of the crazier things, but robots who turn into vehicles? Crazy talking cats? Flying lawnmowers? De-aging? Dragons criticizing her sneezing technique? Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. And if Ro was open-minded about robots as people before, she's even more so now that she's had a chance to befriend intelligent robots and androids other than Zeta.

It's also started to wear away at her severe trust issues. Being dropped into Camp alone, with no Zeta in sight and a whole bunch of other people in the same predicament, forced Ro to actually get help from other people and open up a little. One of the first people she met in Camp helped her find Zeta with no strings attached - Edward had allowed Zeta to stay in his old cabin, where he was recharging. To Ro's surprise, Edward knew that Zeta wasn't human (robots weren't a concept he was familiar with) and had no problem at all with keeping his confidence. In her experience, it usually took something earth-shattering (like Zeta having to save people's lives while risking capture) for people to trust Zeta and to prove themselves trustworthy. Having somebody do that right off the bat was a real surprise, and while Camp also had its share of suspicious individuals, there were just as many residents who were fine with the fact Zeta was a robot and kept his secret without a lot of questions. Initially weirded out by this, Ro came to accept the possibility that not everyone was going to try to take advantage of them, although she was still cautious - old habits die hard. She'll be more likely to open up to people and more likely to accept help, although she'll still drag her feet a bit.

One very character-specific, but still important change occurred on Valentine's Day when Zeta admitted that he wanted more than a platonic relationship with Ro.

This revelation completely caught Ro off-guard. She hadn't even considered the notion that Zeta would want a romantic relationship, and worse, in the months leading up to his confession she had no inkling that he'd been developing those feelings. Obviously, she didn't take it too well.

It wasn't simply a matter of not returning his feelings, but that she'd never noticed he was developing them, had never considered he'd want more than friendship, and Ro was totally unprepared for it. Her irritation that he'd sat on this big secret for months without talking to her or giving her a clue was partly directed inward at herself for not picking up on it. Instead of broaching the idea, maybe asking it as one of his thousand hypothetical questions about being human, he didn't say a word to her and confided to some of the other sentient robots he knew in Camp instead. Zeta, her dearest friend who shared with her even the most embarrassing questions, didn't feel he could even broach the topic of romantic relationships in general with her. It made her wonder what she'd done to push him away and if she was really taking him for granted.

All of this doesn't even take the inter-species issues into account. Part of the reason Ro initially latched onto Zeta was that he was a robot - he wasn't prone to most of the manipulative crap most human beings pulled, in her experience. He was safe, and while her attachment to him is based on far more than that, the idea that he was safe because he was a robot remained. Ro refuses to think about the idea of robot sex as evidenced when Camp brought it up in an embarrassingly public way, and she's not even ready to consider all the implications of that. She's already emotionally damaged and really isn't ready for a sexual relationship, period. She sees Zeta as a person just like any other, but in a completely asexual way.

This is important because it also shook up her conceptions of family. Ro considers family relationships to be separate from romantic relationships, and better than that; her few canon romantic relationships have been pretty shallow trainwrecks. Until that moment, Zeta was basically the epitome of what Ro considers family at its best, and her knee-jerk response was that he was ruining it by bringing romance into the equation. (Her brain hadn't gotten to the inter-species issues yet.) Not only did that confession clue her in to the possibility that Zeta was in love with her, but it also planted the idea that maybe her definition of "family" needed a little expanding. If even Zeta broke out of that definition, maybe that was a sign that she needed to revise her ideas of family and romantic relationships in general. Maybe.

In-game, this will be fresh in her mind when she winds up in Singularity since she's being brought in a few days after Zeta's big revelation and hasn't had the chance to talk to him about it. So she's going to be more perceptive than usual with regards to romance - not actively seeking it out, mind you, but actually paying attention to it. Normally, Ro doesn't really focus on romantic relationships and will usually dismiss others' displays of affection or just ignore them. Now she'll be a little more conscious of it despite trying to avoid anything to do with romance. She won't be actively looking for a romantic relationship, not without being able to talk to Zeta, but she'll give a damn about other people's relationship issues for a change. It will also make things a bit awkward if Zeta is brought onto the station.

Also, she'll be a lot more friendly to the robotic populace of the station - well, the ones who aren't creepy or judgmental, anyway.

Note: During her time at Camp, Zeta accidentally spoiled Virgil Hawkins' secret ID and Batman's first name.

I have Roy's permission to allow her to remember that Batman's real name is Terry. However, in case someone apps Static/Virgil, she won't remember his secret identity until/unless Virgil's player permits it. She'll remember all her CR with Virgil and with Static, just not that Static and Virgil are the same person.

If OC, Did You Run Your Character Through a Mary-Sue Litmus Test?
And What Did You Score?

Samples ;
Log Sample:

One second, Ro was tromping through the wet grass on the way to the Mess Hall, wondering what she was going to do and if they had any edible food.

And then the world shifted and she was falling through freezing cold air, tumbling end over end. She barely got her legs under her in time to land on an old hatch door, which promptly started sliding down at the impact. Ro shrieked and grabbed onto the door handle as she found herself sliding down a pile of scrap metal, the door skidding and bouncing like the world's worst sled. The rusty handle snapped as she neared the bottom and she was thrown off, tumbling to a stop at the base of the junk pile, covering her head with her arms to protect it.

She lay there for a second, scowling at the welcome message advising her to watch your step. "Thanks for the warning!" she hollered, stumbling to her feet. "Would've been nice to know before I almost broke my neck!"

Not waiting for a reply, she brushed herself off, checking herself over for injuries. Well, nothing seemed broken, unless she was in shock and then she'd find out when it wore off. But even if she was in shock and didn't hurt, she wouldn't be able to stand on a broken leg, right? "Least I didn't land on my head," she muttered, looking around at the piles and piles of junk.

This was weird even by her greatly-lowered standards. Was this some new Camp thing? It couldn't be home. Why would she be sent home to the world's biggest junkyard? She only half-listened to the voice prattle on about random debris as she started picking her way between the piles of junk, cautiously side-stepping some wickedly sharp bits of jagged metal. Something clanged overhead, and she barely had time to jump back before a file cabinet crashed into the space where she'd been standing. Ro yelped and backed up into something else that seemed to be poking her in the back.

Like fingers poking her in the back.

Slowly, she turned around, half expecting to see someone there, but it was just more spare parts. Ro let out a breath - but then she saw the fingers. Five metal fingers, attached to a metal hand, attached to a painfully familiar wrist. "Zee!"

She grabbed the hand, ignoring how limp it was, and started tugging on it, trying to work it free. After a moment, she could see the place in the wrists where Zee's saws were, then the forearm with the laser torch panel, then the darker joint and the rest of the arm was starting to come out. If she pulled hard enough, maybe she could dislodge him. Maybe he'd had to recharge again and got buried under all that stuff. She could feel the arm starting to come loose.

Suddenly, the tension was gone and Ro stumbled back holding only a lifeless metal arm. A mass of wires protruded like tendrils where the shoulder joint should be. There was no shoulder joint left, no torso, no Zee. Just part of an arm. Not even a whole arm. She dropped it with a shriek, clapping her hands over her mouth to stifle the sound.

No. No, no, no, no, no. It couldn't be. It was impossible. She'd seen Zee recover from being cut in half. She couldn't have just gotten out of Camp only to find him in pieces. Not after what had happened. Not without having a chance to talk to him.

She stood there for a second or two, forcing herself to breathe and to think. The idea of Zee being gone, literally hacked to pieces, made her feel sick, but she had to think rationally for a second. Why would she find any of him in a junkyard? Where were Bennet and his goons? They'd confiscate every piece, every nut and bolt! And if it wasn't Bennet, why would anybody leave pieces of him behind? Even those loser hackers who tried to put him through their chop shop wouldn't have thrown him away. He was an Infiltration Unit, even in pieces he was valuable.

Okay, now she felt really sick thinking about it.

Ro swallowed and took a deep breath to steady herself. No. It couldn't possibly be Zee. There was no way he'd get taken out so easily. She couldn't believe that. She couldn't give up on him, even if he was an idiot. Besides, now that she looked at it, the arm was the wrong color. It was too dark, a gunmetal gray as opposed to Zee's shiny polished steel. (Or whatever alloy he was made of. He'd tried to explain it once and her brain had shut down in self-defense.) Which begged the question: Where was he?

"Zee?" she yelled, her voice echoing off the twisted metal all around her. "Hey! Anyone out there?"

Predictably, there was no reply. Ro straightened up and started making her way towards the exit, making a point not to look too closely at the piles of scrap metal, for fear of seeing metal limbs and parts of what might be her best friend.

Time to stop freaking out and start doing something. She wasn't going to break down. If she was going to get any answers, she wasn't going to get them by sitting here and letting file cabinets fall on her. Acting like a scared little girl wasn't going to help right now. She could deal with this.

She did stop and pick up a length of pipe along the way, though. Just in case this was another stupid Camp thing and there were zombies waiting in the wings.

Hey, you never knew.

Network Sample:

[Prompt audio. Have a snarky teenage girl, Sacrosanct. Ro has little trouble figuring out the wearable. She's in Kurzweil at a quiet time, and hasn't seen another soul yet. When in doubt, broadcast.]

Oh, come on. This isn't funny. First camp, now another weird and creepy place? Thanks a lot. The tech's pretty schway, and the lack of zombies and swamps is a plus, but still. One interdimensional kidnapping was way more than enough.

[She sighs.] So I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that catching a lift home's not an option, huh. I wouldn't be so lucky. Anyway. As much fun as cryptic canned welcome messages are, they're not exactly helpful. What's the deal here?

Is there anybody out there? Anybody I know? Zee? Casey?

[Long pause, then with EXTREME RELUCTANCE:] Bucky? ...Nah, scratch that, he better not be here.

[An even longer pause as she deliberates whether or not to add more, and her next words are a bit softer.] Seriously. Zee, if you're out there, speak up. I know I said I needed some alone time, but I didn't mean this alone. We really need to talk.