important note: All denizens of r*if who are referred to in this game, including authors of games referenced or parodied in this, *ahem*, "work" - as far as I'm concerned, you all rock, and nothing in this story is designed to defame or offend any of you. Not even Beevie. (Well, maybe just a bit.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They say you have a problem with authority. This is true. This is very, very true. TIME BASTARD a what-IF production by Matt Francisfordcapollasdracula (bsc, ssc) Release -0.1 / Serial number 99920 / Inform v2.5 Library 6/7 [At this point, we're treated to an astounding animated introduction screen. You can't see it here, obviously, and it doesn't work on most interpreters, but believe me, it's *terribly* impressive, just incredible, and well worth the three days it took me to download the twenty-eight megabyte game file. -mattF] =Christmas eve, 2001= If someone were to ask you, not that they would, because they're all egocentric shit eating pukes with about as much basic human friggen empathy as a flesh eating friggen virus, but let's say, by some absolute god damn bowel-reaming miracle, someone suffered personality-altering brain trauma and by sheer astronomical coincidence just HAPPENED to ask you what you hated most about this place, besides the constant sub-genius gangsta-rappin' of the rest of your lab-rat work detail and the fact that your attorney friggen well set you UP and you're not even supposed to BE here - You'd look them in the eye and say, quite calmly; "Well, actually, I hate the snotty little prefect types who come up to me asking stupid, simpering frigging questions like that!" Then you'd tell them to beat it. Because that's just the kind of guy you are. This is also the reason you're here at L33T manufacturing, progressive genocide department, factory #666, wouldn't you just know it. Explain it to me, someone: You live for forty odd years as a good citizen, paying taxes, helping old ladies across the street, going to Vietnam when they tell you to, and what do you get? Diddly SHIT, that's what. You spend FIVE MINUTES priming plastic explosive underneath a few major bridges, and they send you HERE! As part of their mass WORK EXPERIENCE PROGRAM for DANGEROUS PSYCHOPATHS. Making ergonomically streamlined pilot seats for NUCLEAR STEALTH BOMBERS. Oh, to be bum-fucked by irony! Fortune, thou art a pukin' strumpet... Ah. But today is the day. No more work. No more good citizen. You and your two closest friends have hatched a plan. A fiendish plan. A plan that will spell the end of humanity and its caltrop-shitting double standards. The encoded telegram you just received was your signal. No more Mr. Nice Sociopath. >>X (the telegram) It's written in Mad Arabic, a language so horribly obscene it can only be read by the criminally insane and only written by people who make the criminally insane look like Father Christmas. It's also printed on dried human skin and inked in blood, which is a neat effect and a sure sign of its origin... THAT IS NOT DEAD WHICH CAN ETERNAL LIE STOP HAVE SECURED 2ND ED NECRONMCN INSDE SEAT STFFNG STOP THANKS FOR TORTILLAS THEY WERE DELICIOUS STOP SEE U IN THE PRIMAL SOUP HA HA LOVE AL XXOO PS LOVE ALSO TO PYTHAGORAS STOP PPS THIS TELEGRAM WILL SELF DESTRUCT STOP OR SOMETHING STOP The telegram bursts into flame, is consumed by locusts and disintegrates into slime as you finish reading it. Abby A. What a sense of style. >look Home The industrial tarturus that is L33T manufacturing imprisons you and the rest of the shaven monkeys society rejected in a jagged ribcage of black steel, an endless loop of conveyor belts and piping, draped like intestines from gantrys and no-escape hatches. Blazing floodlights suck the life from your eyes as vat-grown half-human overseers lurch malevolently around the perimeter, corporate crustaceans in gleaming black riot gear. Your assigned seat, looking a little deflated, hangs suspended above your work-station from a streamlined series of artificially intelligent meathooks, each crawling with self-aware surveillance cameras. You resist the urge to moon them. "BAk M3_eIN~!" squawks one of the overseers, belching smoke from its housing and shuddering a little. "BAp MAxHIN~!!" >>UPHOLSTER SEAT You grab a handful of stuffing, lift the lining of your assigned seat and fiddle about inside. Success! The overseers suspect nothing as your hidden hand closes around a stash of concealed occult contraband, Abdul's little Christmas present to the human race... >i You are carrying: Pythagoras (being worn) Great race of Yith inscription implements "Watercolors of Yuggoth" paint set The Necronomicon (second edition, autographed) Shining Trapezohedron (providing light) >x pythagoras [box quote: "Not dead, only sleeping"] Your dearest, closest friend. He's lost a fair amount of weight, but you don't want to be a jerk by bringing it up. Heh - it's funny; Someone asked you once why you keep the rotting skeleton of a goldfish on a chain around your neck. It added six years to your sentence. But no one ever asked again. >x paint A tidy set of watercolor paints, and a couple of little brushes. The tin box has a well-rendered landscape of Yuggoth printed on the lid. It's nice, if you're into shitty grey wastelands painted by hyperintelligent mushrooms with no depth perception who can only see in infra-red. One of your two hundred co-workers kicks out an improv gangsta-rap. You think calm thoughts. Calm, peaceful thoughts... >x trapezohedron You can't see any such thing. >i You are carrying: Pythagoras (being worn) Great race of Yith inscription implements "Watercolors of Yuggoth" paint set The Necronomicon (second edition, autographed) Shining Trapezohedron (providing light) >x shining trapezohedron Y0u c4n't see anY such th1nggg. %%%^g56#$^Jjjjjjj<, xxfff$3 .. . >x me As good-looking as ever, you dashing rogue, you. >x necronomicon Abby ran out of human skin for the second run of the NN, and had to make the cover for this one by just stitching a bunch of dead rats together. It's still kind of imposing. Aww, he's put in a dedication on the inside page... FOREWORD To everyone who has supported me over the course of this great work - do not think you will be spared the eternal torments of the ancient ones when they return to clear off the earth and drown you and all your wretched kind in boiling slime! Ia! IA!! (underneath this, handwritten) To my dear and loyal friend Vincent Dobbs - May your inevitable death at the hands of the Shoggoth be slightly less agonizing than most. More immediately, that Xyzzy crap on page 42 is outdated here in the 21st century. Use the power-word Zrblm instead. Has pretty much the same effect, but it sounds a little more blasphemous, don't you agree? Yore frend, Abdul A. Alhazred (Al Azif) >>ZRBLM There is a cataclysmic blast of wind and the book of the dead slams itself open in your hands as you speak the dread word of power. The deep crimson scrawl of Alhazred's insane script seems immediately to crawl with nauseating life, the hideous diagrams of tentacled monstrosities suddenly, frighteningly animate, writhing across the dry, yellowing pages like maggots yes maggots and feasting gorging upon graphic depictions of human intestines and blood and oh god tearing out your painted eyes and all the while growing larger and larger and LARGER and SCREAMING and SCREAMING and SCREAMING and you CAN'T STOP SCREAMING- (Press any key to continue) _zung_ Oh. Well, it stopped, so you guess there's no point obsessing over it. Fortunately you've been hanging around Abdul so long, crap like this just doesn't faze you any more. The important thing is that it worked! It bloody worked! Temporal translocation is a reality! If everything went as planned, you must be in Berlin, early 1940's! And the eugenics facility should be just through those gilded double-doors to the north! Practice now, Ich bin ein Berliner, Ich bin ein Berliner... Ye Chambere Difficult to say what's most offputting about this chamber. It seems a little olde worlde, even for the Nazis. The walls are rough grey stone, lit by high windows crossed with iron bars. There are no electric lights. Disturbingly well-preserved suits of armor flank the northern doors. And you're pretty sure that's dirt all over the floor. A passive-looking sentinel guards the doors to the north. >x armor One of the suits is holding a paper fan. I guess a sword would send a bad message to The Kids. >x dirt Hmm. Looks like someone dropped a Very Important Scroll. No respect. >>TAKE ALL fan: You stuff it into your inventory (Whatever THAT is...) scroll: You pilfer the scroll, assuming dignitary status without doing a thing to earn it. Which is the way petty nobility works, natch. >x scroll Hmm. Well, apparently this scroll identifies you as supreme grand dragon of something or other. Looks official, anyway. >Talk to sentinel Don't bother, I never finished coding him. [I don't get this joke at all, but if I did, I certainly wouldn't think it was funny. No sir. -mattF] >>N Ye Debatorium This chamber is a little cleaner than the other. But as far as you can make out, it pretty much boils down to two parties of quite differently-dressed men sit around a circular table discussing something. An ageing priest wearing a neat sackcloth ensemble and a drooping, hangdog expression trudges over to you. "Welcome, outlandishly dressed person," he croaks amicably, "to the palace of Lord Brand Joseph Eckersly of Nob. I am Friar Bullwinkle. I prithee, do not disturb his lordship, for he is engaged in fierce debate with his..." the ageing priest sags a little and sighs wearily, "...'arch-enemy', Ambassador Cardrey of Zarf." >talk to priest 1) "Zarf, what the hell is Zarf?" Friar Bullwinkle makes as if to reply, then hesitates. "You know, I'm not entirely sure." he says, stroking his beard. "Methinks it may be classified." 4) "Boinng!" "I quite agree." mutters the old man archly, raising a critical eyebrow at Lord Eckersly. >x Eckersly Brand Joseph Eckersly's face is obscured by his godlike halo, which means that he is either some sort of deity, or a transvestite super-heroine. He gesticulates wildly, picking up sheafs of paper, waving them menacingly at his opponent, and then thumping them back down again, babbling incoherently the whole while. You can't make out much of what he's saying without listening closer, but his hostility is so obvious a deaf lip-reader with severe eye-strain would get the message. >x Cardrey It's difficult to get a good look at him, as his iron-bound Zarfian war-turban is so mind-wrenchingly immense. His chin barely peeks out from beneath, but you can see that his mouth hangs slightly open, and there is a faint trickle of drool running down the corner of his lower lip. >talk to guard Which do you mean, the Nobbish or Zarfian guard? >Zarfian 3) "What's with your boss? Is he even in there? Hey, I'm talkin' to YOU, buddy!" The Zarfian dragoon gives you a blood-curdling gap-toothed smile. "Ja." he rumbles. "His eminence, he does not get much time to himself these days. He attends Eckersly's debates only to relax, catch up on sleep, and do perhaps a little astral travel. Please, do not disturb." 4) "Narf!" The dragoon grimaces. "Nyet, Tovarisch, Zarf, with a Z." >>LISTEN FOLKS ECKERSLY: "Blarghedy Blargh SWORD Fenglering (swear word) sweee yudda yudda..." CARDREY: "..." ECKERSLY: "Urgledey splindinky (possible swear word) argle bargle (unlikely anatomical excursion) drabble skreee, well, there, I believe I've proven my points!" Eckersly sneers in contempt and places his fists upon his hips. "Well, what have you got to say for yourselves, you greasy foreigners, with your cheap labour and your nebulous political signatures and your 'inter-active papyrus adventures'? Wilt thou now accept that we are not in possession of thy fabulous PINK SWORD OF OM? Ha! Why, I doubt the thing doth even exist!" Cadrey lets the barest hint of a snore escape from beneath his turban, and Eckersly immediately launches into another bout of apoplexy. Various ministers groan and begin to unwrap sandwiches. >i You are carrying: Pythagoras (being worn) Great race of Yith inscription implements "Watercolors of Yuggoth" paint set The Necronomicon (second edition, autographed) Shining Trapezohedron (providing light) Paper fan >x implements Hey, these are crayons! The paper wrapping says 'Great wall of China', but someone's whited out 'wall' and 'China' with correction fluid and changed it to say 'Great race of Yith.' Damn Yithan pansys must be fond of pink, too, as that's the only colour available in the whole goddamn pack. Limp-tentacled fungoid fairys! No wonder the Flying Polyps bought out their friggen company! >>DRAW SWORD You scribble a neat pink sword onto the paper of the fan. Ha-HA! >>WAVE FAN "Behooold!" you cry, waving the bastardized fan above your head. "The fabled PINK SWORD OF OM! Praise Zarf, w00t w00t w00t! How d'ya like them apples Eckersly, you bum-faced prole? HAAHAHAHAHAHA!" The tumult is deafening. The Zarfian party bursts out laughing. Ministers choke on their sandwiches. Ambassador Cardrey lifts his turban and asks politely whether or not he missed anything. And Eckersly, Eckersly fixes you with a terrible, smoldering glare, choking on his own boiling rage as he lifts a trembling finger and points it at you, radiating malice like the first crack in Chernobyl concrete. "FORNICATION!" he screams, utterly enraged, "THOU'RT IN MY KILLFILE! NEXT, GODSPEED!" Friar Bullwinkle sighs wearily and motions to the guards for you to be brought out of the chamber through a side door... Ballroom This room is slightly less filthy than the others, but otherwise it's pretty much identical. A group of ye olde lads and lassies mince about in the middle of the floor, clearly having the time of their wretched little lives as a bunch of musicians squat in one corner, playing what sounds suspiciously like a jig. Father Bullwinkle closes and locks the door behind you. "Enjoy thyself out here awhile, strange one." he mumbles. "The Trolling Festival of Nob has begun. I am sure your exuberance will be appreciated by the Ladies, but I beg you, start no further trouble within these walls." >w The old priest motions for you to stop. "His lordship will not speak with you further." He sighs heavily. "Thou'rt in his lordship's 'kill-file'." At this last word, he rolls his eyes and makes little quotation marks with his fingers. You get the impression Eckersly does this a lot. >talk to priest 3)"So, Padre, tell me about..." >killfile "'Tis a childish gesture." groans Bullwinkle. "In which his Lordship doth pretend to ignore thee completely, no matter what thou might say or do. Ofttimes, he will vocally point out to no one in particular that he is ignoring you, just for your benefit." >2) "There many people in this killfile of his?" "Everyone." intones the priest with a shudder. >2) "So what species of bug crawled up Eckersley's ass and started an >empire?" The fragile old man regards you with tortured eyes. "I am no stranger to his Lordships' moods." he croaks. "I have been stationed here, by the grace of God, for a mere eight moons. And look at me. LOOK!" his lower lip begins to quiver. "I am twenty six years old!" he rasps toothlessly. >2) "Well, God better get you a gold Cadillac when you snuff it, Padre, >that's all I'm sayin'" "Aye, thank you strange one, though I have absolutely no idea what you have just said to me." >4) "Poink!" Bullwinkle blinks, nonplussed. "Yes, of course." he mutters, edging away slightly. >>DANCE You strut into the center of the ballroom and start gettin' jiggy with it - moonwalk, backspin, baby you are the BIZNIZ! Whirling about the floor, you fall into the arms of a likely specimen of femininity, a high-coiffeured, dark-skinned lass with a slightly beaky nose and a seDUCTively low-cut gown. "Milady," you gush romantically, "You are without a doubt the most loathsome troglodyte I have ever laid eyes upon. But I'm a desperate man. So, go on luv, give's a pash, eh?" "Can it." growls Alhazred in your ear. "Abdul! Is that you??" you swallow your bile. The beard SHOULD have been a dead giveaway. "Nice hips." you tell him, appreciatively. "Of course it's me!" snaps Abby, ignoring your homoerotic undertones. "Who else would go to such ridiculous lengths just to save your filthy, lecherous hide?! Hey, Thaggy." he adds, giving a nod to Pythagoras. "Don't get mad at ME you dribbling fanatic!" you hiss back. "That Zrblm thing, it was a pukin' handjob! Unless we're in the right place after all and this is just some social aspect of Nazi Germany I never learned about." "Alright alright!" hisses Abdul. "So I never got it beta-tested! By the black womb of Shub-Niggurath, is it my fault the deadline was so tight? Now listen! I just slipped an upgrade patch for the Necronomicon into your, uh, inventory. There should be enough in it to get us out of here." He adjusts his skirts and flashes a smile at a nearby nobleman. "No hurry, though." he adds. >x necronomicon Abby tells no lie - the NN has indeed been beefed up. Two new entries are inked in blood right by the first page. ABOUT - Turnabout of the Unspeakable - the equivalent of putting the temporal lattices (time streams, in layman's terms) into quick reverse. Useful if you overshot your intended destination. XYZZY - Genericus Translocum (beta) - Go directly to closest secure temporal lattice node. Do not pass Causality. Do not collect 200 Transdimensional Frequent Flyer points. WARNING: Unstable. WARNING: We really mean it. >>ABOUT _zung_ Ye Chambere Oh, well, THAT was brilliant. You've been zapped back into the chamber you started in! You're about to cuss Abdul out for being an incompetent goatherding buffoon when you suddenly realize that the place has changed, ever so slightly. The suits of armor flanking the double-doorway stand incomplete, tarnished and decrepit, the leftmost surrounded by a ceiling-high protective fence. Low-wattage light bulbs dangle from the roof by exposed copper wiring. Oh, and huge red flags adorned with swastikas are draped across the walls. There's still dirt all over the floor, but what the hell, it's the 40's, and Hitler has more important things on his mind. Or maybe not, he's a bit of a wacko. >open doors They're locked. Well, you're assuming they're locked. There are no handles, so practical experimentation at this stage is a no-go. Abdul scratches absently at a doubtlessly flea-infested armpit. >x armor The two suits of armor face slightly inward, watching the doors. They're both pretty beat up. Still, when five hundred years old you be, look as good you will not. Yoda. You always wanted to smack that smug little muppet. Getting back to the real world for a second, the helmet on the right-hand suit seems a lot smoother than the other, whereas the helmet on the left-hand suit has its visor cranked open. >x left You get as close to the open visor as you can and peer inside. One good thing did come from putting up with that slave-labor shit at L33T for so long - you have a knack for identifying military hardware. Case in point; if someone were to conceal, say, a Prometheus IV infra-red heat signature scanner inside a battered old suit of armor, you'd be able to pick it out without too much difficulty. Abdul's beaky schnozz looms into view. "Prometheus." he whistles, leaning over your shoulder. "Didn't think they had those back in the forties." he squints. "'Specially not ones with 'copyright L33T manufacturing 2001' printed on them." "Hand-tooled by native American craftsmen." you growl. Bastards. >x fence It's really just a flimsy chicken-wire cage. Unfortunately, it's not flimsy enough for you to bust open. The wires are all pretty close together, with barely enough room in between to poke a finger through. Abdul prods the fence around the IR probe. >i You are carrying: Pythagoras (being worn) Great race of Yith inscription implements "Watercolors of Yuggoth" paint set The Necronomicon (second edition, autographed) Shining Trapezohedron (providing light) >>PAINT FENCE You hooark up and spit repeatedly on the Watercolors of Yuggoth, mixing them up into a nice viscous sludge. Not one to waste time on such pointless trivialities as art or finesse, you hurl the lot in one enormous globule, which splatters against the fence, coating the wire, the armor, the scanner, and Abdul, who was examining the probe when you had your fit of creativity. "WHAT IN THE NAME OF AZATHOTH'S ARSE-END??" he bellows, hair and beard dripping with translucent goo. "It's my brilliant plan, Abby!" you reassure him. "These Yuggoth things see in infra-red, right? So their paint will confuse the IR scanner! I'm a bloody GENIUS for thinking of that, Alhazred, so quit your pukin' melodrama!" Abdul mutters darkly, reluctantly shucking the ruined ballgown in favor of his rumpled old trench coat and wiping his face vigorously with a handkerchief. Filthy bugger. >x fence The paints of the Mi-Go fungi from Yuggoth have begun to heat up as they dry. Little wisps of steam rise from the wire cage. Abdul's Tourette's syndrome starts acting up in the background. >x flags Big and bold and boring. You've seen one swastika, you've seen them all. What's more interesting to an intrepid adventury type like yourself are the three portraits lined up between them. >x portraits Which did you have in mind, the first, next or last portrait? >first It's Andy Phillips. How he pulled THIS off, you don't want to know. Abdul sniffs. "Always pegged him as a Nazi." he mutters vindictively. "Ever since 'Enemies'." >x next It's Adolf! W00t, baby, he really needs to quit invading Russia and start whipping that moustache into shape. Abdul plucks a clump of filthy nostril hairs. This is actually one of his more acceptable public habits. >x last It's some scraggy-looking boffin, wearing wire eyeglasses and a blood-stained lab coat. You're assuming it's blood, anyway, it could be something milder, like, you know, cerebral fluid. The plaque identifies him as Professor Faustus. Looks like a pretty cool guy. >>TAKE NEXT You pull the portrait of Hitler from the wall, improving the ambience of the chamber no end. It's kind of awkward to carry. You have to hold it in front of you, and it's difficult to see over. >x armor The two suits of armour face slightly inward, watching the doors. They're both pretty beat up. The helmet on the right-hand suit seems a lot smoother than the other, wheras the helmet on the left-hand suit has its visor cranked open and is spattered with smoking ichor. Heh. >x smooth On closer inspection, it looks as if the helmet has been mounted on bearings. There seem to be a few cogs on the side which somehow connect to the visor. >x cogs They seem to be linked up to the bearings at the neck, as well as the visor. Could be a connection there. Yup. >open smooth It's jammed. The cogs lock up as you try to pry it open. Lousy junk. Abdul's eyes glaze over and he starts shaking, pointing at a space of empty air and screaming uncontrollably. You do your best to ignore him. >>TURN SMOOTH The helmet rotates smoothly on it's bearings, turning the cogs and cranking open the visor. Imagine your surprise when you find yourself looking into a L33T manufacturing co. surveillance camera! *Vas?* crackles a voice from inside the helmet. *Ver ist das?* "Shit!" squeaks Abdul, cringeing. "Do something, DO something!! I'm allergic to stormtroopers!!" >>DUCK You hit the deck, leaving only the portrait of Hitler in view of the lens. *Mein Fuhrer?* crackles the voice. *Ist daß Sie? Sie haben wenigere Dimensionen als üblich...* You motion furiously to Abdul, who starts nervously and leans close to the visor. "Uhh, Ja!" he improvs, sounding more like Marvin the Martian than the founder of the Third Reich. "Ja, you, uh, foolish foot soldier! Achtung, schnell schnell! By Donner und Blitzen, und, uh, Ashteroth! I vas just in ze neighbourhood, you know. No need to send in ze death squads! Achtung! Heil Me!" *Ach, vergeben Sie mich, mein Fuhrer, ve all thought you vere in France! Za infra-red scanner is having trouble, ich meinte keine Nichtachtung! One moment, please!* There is a deep, distant rumbling, and the massive double doors slowly fall backwards, forming a ramp leading down into darkness. "Well done Abby!" you proclaim, giving him a quick high-five, "Against every natural law, they bought it! Hitler must have less personality than we thought!" Abdul wipes his brow with the back of his hand. "By all things man was not meant to know what of!" he shudders. "That was a close one! Hey, you're not bad at this for a chumpy infidel, Dobbs!" >>DOWN Performing a raucous a-capella version of the theme from 'Mission Impossible', you and Abdul leap down into the darkness... Eugenics lab HohohohoHO! The secret stronghold of Hitler's fabled Gotterdammerung project! The crucible of cancer! The petri dish of Armageddon! And what rough beast slouches toward this feculent El Dorado to be born... The Nazi Eugenics lab is pretty much like every other top secret, ethically questionable research facility you've ever been in, only somewhat less secret, and a little more questionable. The blinding white that can only come with careful sterility pummels your eyeballs from every direction. Warning signs and good old fashioned propaganda posters line the walls above rows of gleaming stainless steel benches. And there, by the old-fashioned wooden desk in one corner, a heavy steel doorway, enticingly labelled VERBOTEN. Somewhat less enticing are the numerous biohazard symbols plastered across its surface. >talk to abdul >2) "You know, Abby, it just occurred to me that I have absolutely no >friggen idea what we're doing here." Abdul pushes his specs back up his nose and squints at you sidelong. "What do you mean? Is this another of your western philosophical issues?" he rubs his sizable proboscis with the back of his hand. "Should I get my notebook? Or a hammer?" >1) "No, I mean it, I don't know why you, and I, are here, in Berlin's shady >past, ransacking a Nazi eugenics lab for the Gotterdammerung virus. I >mean, sure, on the surface it all seems perfectly normal, but I just feel >like I'm missing a bit of backstory." "Ahh." Abdul chuckles, then catches himself. His expression darkens for a moment. "I see." he murmurs, "Vincent, tell me, what is the earliest thing you DO remember about this little plan of ours?" "Upholstering death machines for The Scum." you reply automatically. "Nothing else?" presses Abdul, leaning forward. "Hey, that's a good few years worth of upholstery, man!" "Think hard." You think hard. "Well, I mean, there's a whole lotta crap before that, something about the importance of wiping out humanity, and just generally being a prick, naturally." "Naturally." replies Abdul, deadpan. "But not a lot else." you admit. "Hmm." >1) "'Hmm', what d'ya mean 'hmm', I don't like the way you said that 'hmm', >Abby." "What are you babbling about, it was just a sort of general 'hmm'." protests Abdul. "No, it was more than that, Abby, it was 'hmm' as in 'Hmm, Vincent's brain would seem to have been corrupted by Time Slugs from some Unspeakable Dimension, better off him now, save myself the trouble later.', or 'Hmm, any second now, Vincent is going to mutate into a fucking great octopus and I'm going to have to whip out the salt. Oh well, Ce cera cera!'" "For Daolith's sake, stop gibbering!" snaps Abdul. "I get enough of that down in Innsmouth!" >1) "So spill it, Abby. What's the plot?" Abdul clears his throat and tries for a sneer. "Well, it is obvious, we simply..." he blinks. "Uh, that is, we..." There is a long, pregnant silence. "Vincent," he says at last. "I gave you the Shining Trapezohedron, right?" You check your inventory. "Check." you reply. "Before you invoked Zrblm, do you remember *looking into* the Trapezohedron? For awhile? Say, five or six hours?" >2) (truth) "No." "No." murmurs Abdul, faintly. "Neither do I." >1) "So, cryptic ruminations aside, we have no idea what we're doing." "What we have here," explains Abdul, straightening his coat, "is the situation of a man entering a room with a clear purpose in mind, only to find, once he is actually standing IN that room, that he has no recollection of said purpose. Was he looking for his shoes? A certain book? The key to the door marked VERBOTEN?" he jerks a thumb toward the glass doorway. "Usually situations like this are more embarrassing than dangerous. Whether or not that holds true when one is surrounded by the Gestapo is a matter worthy of consideration. Personally, I feel the presence of some hidden hand at work here." >3 "Screw it. I've never thought about what I was doing BEFORE, damned if >I'm going to start NOW." "Well said." nods Abdul. "We know we need the virus. So we may as well play this out to its conclusion the best way we know how. Start tearing the place apart for goodies!" "TREASURE FRENZY!!" you shout in unison, slapping each other with a traditional high-five. "When all else fails, theft prevails!" >x Abdul Vell, Abdul's just zis guy, you know? >x door A heavy steel door, festooned with the sort of warning signs normally associated with the tombs of deceased Pharaohs. It's locked. Very locked. It taunts you with its lockedness. >x signs --------------------------------------------------- TOUCH THIS DOOR AND YOU'RE DEAD. LOVE, DOC FAUSTUS. --------------------------------------------------- This is accompanied by various diagrams of stick figures who, uh... Well, it's hard to get all empathic over _stick figures_, but someone really oughtta put them out of their misery. >x benches The benches are featureless steel slabs riveted into the walls, stubbornly vandal-proof. You'd think the Nazis of all people would have made them out of something you could crush beneath an iron-shod jackboot, but noooo. Mounted on one of these is a useful-looking test-tube rack, and empty cages, possibly for rats, are scattered here and there. Abdul kicks over a table of glass implements somewhere behind you. >x rack The rack holds 26 tubes, each labelled with a letter of the alphabet, a to z. The test tubes inside are filled with a liquid which might be colorless, or possibly green, depending on how much poetry you have in your soul. Besides the labels, they all look pretty much identical. Abdul glances over at you. "Find something?" he inquires. You grunt. "Puzzle." you inform him. "Involving chemicals." Abdul curses luridly in Mad Arabic and goes back to thumping the steel door. >x desk The desk is one of those classic wooden models, surface carved in elaborate, gothic designs and covered in deep cuts and scratches. If Doc Frankenstein had a desk, it might look something like this. Huh. Looks like someone left their lab notes lying around. That's just plain irresponsible. >x notes "...certain that it is not of this world. In any case, all samples of the gotterdammerung virus have been stored in the coldroom. . I was presented with the most intriguing gift by Herr Bruvenheim this evening. A curious book, excavated from the permafrost of the antarctic along with the dormant, frozen cells of the Gotterdammerung virus. It is an ancient and bizarre volume, containing arcane lore beyond even that of "Das Vermis Mysteriis" and "The evil priest Klarkash-Tonn's big book of things man was not meant to know what of." Der Fuhrer has forbidden the researching of all occult volumes, but there seems to be no great harm in this baroque treasure. I shall leaf through it during the quieter hours in the laboratory, or perhaps read from it aloud in an ancient stone circle atop some cursed hill during a violent electrical storm. It has a most unusual cover. I am reminded, Gretchen has demanded that I purchase more rat poison." (Regrettably, there seems to be more on the next few pages...) >x notes "The book from the Antarctic contains diagrams of a certain occult symbol, one which bears a striking resemblance to the genetic code of the G virus, which, as I predicted, is both virulent and horribly lethal. There seems to be an inscription underneath, though I can understand little of it... Gunther, the U-boat officer, is widely travelled, and something of a scholar when it comes to dead languages. I shall have him brought in to decipher the writings... Anestheti - aya githa Anestheti - aya xu ayagu Anestheti - aya Tol Nachti liethe Ia Cthulhu Ia Shub-Niggurath (in another handwriting) Come to me - that I may slaughter Come to me - that I may cast wide the gate Come to me - that I may (cause) the dead (to) outnumber the living ... The rest of this passage seems to HAVE no literal translation. Oddly... When Gunther had finished reading out the final line, I could swear that I heard a banging on the door of the... but no, this is quite irrelevant." >x notes "The colorless green base fluid has acted as a perfect catalyst for mutation of Gotterdammerung. Indeed, we may have perfected an oral immunization agent for our soldiers! One of the samples has been exhibiting unusual behavior (to put it mildly) but seems paradoxially to be quite potent. Gunther and I are about to take the immunizing samples into the coldroom and observe their effect against the virus, using the animal test subjects. i will have to remain in the lab, but I am sure 25 samples will be sufficient. I will be entering with Gunther in just a moment." >x notes "Something has [illegible] wrong. The cells the individual bacteria have [illegible] into [illegible] organism took Gunther [illegible] him in seconds... I fear I will be unable to explain this to his captain the way I explained away the floating eyeballs he was always raving about... immunization tubes were lost... None of them were as powerful as i [illegible]... We have locked the thing in the coldroom. It does not seem to desire escape. But in the name of all that is holy, Carter, DO NOT OPEN THE STEEL DOOR OR READ FROM THAT ACCURSED BLASPHEMOUS TOME!!! (PS - cards tonight at 8 with Egon, you're welcome to attend.)" .............. "Hey Abby, you should read this man, it's a scream!" you laugh, wiping tears from your eyes. "Pah!" snorts Abdul haughtily, pummeling the steel door with both fists. "I wrote the BOOK on cosmic horror! And it's long past time Nazi occultists gave up their literary pretentions and got back to writing opera! Or, you know, Daria fanfics." he chuckles. "I love those." !! Woah, he really IS insane! >x notes Not to put too fine a point on it, but you'd rather be boiled alive in tar and forced to eat your own feet off. And you're pretty certain that anyone else who had just been forced to wade through four pages of that b-grade tripe would be feeling the same way right about now. >x test tubes The rack holds 26 tubes, each labelled with a letter of the alphabet, a to z. The test tubes are filled with a liquid which might be colorless, or possibly green, depending on how much poetry you have in your soul. Besides the labels, they all look pretty much identical. >x i Specimen 'i' looks pretty much the same as the other specimens. Colorless green ooze in a pukin' test tube. You're sick of this eugenics crap already. >get i You go to pick up the test tube. The fluid inside convulses suddenly, solidifying, smashing wire-thin tentacles through the glass walls and slithering out of reach. "That's some problem ooze you have there, Dobbs." observes Abdul, leaning heavily against the door and catching his breath. "Bite me Alhazred, I never bring up YOUR personal problems!" you retort. Post them on the internet, maybe, bring them up, never. Specimen 'i' squeals at you angrily inside its test tube, slithering up the wall onto the roof. Modern medicine has NO integrity. >x i Specimen 'i' looks pretty much the same as the other specimens. Only it's sprouted tentacles and is scuttling along the ceiling hissing at you. Maybe you shouldn't have skipped chemistry so often back in school. >>ANESTHETI I :: 0xx---execute_moveto(self)_Gvirus--- x01!! 0xx invoke "Come to me", child (of.judgement); :: The test tube bursts into fragments, the writhing fluid twisting unnaturally through the air before congealing into a small gelatinous cube, which drops neatly into the palm of your hand. Abdul lifts his head suddenly. "Anestheti?" he raises an eyebrow and peers at you. "You been reading my source code, Dobbs?" >>EAT IT You tear the undulating cube of living unpleasantness in two, tossing one half to Abdul. "Dig in Abby." you tell him. "It's uhh, Turkish delight!" Abdul licks his lips and then pauses with the square halfway to his mouth, looking at you curiously. "What?" you inquire, innocently. "Oh, nothing Vincent, nothing." Abdul says calmly. "I simply recall the LAST time you tossed me a slice of something you claimed was Turkish delight." Doh! "That was a joke!" You inform him with a nervous smile. "It was NAPALM!" screams Abdul. "Well I didn't think you'd BELIEVE me!" "So what's it going to be this time, Dobbs? Tabasco? Hemlock?? PLUTONIUM?? Pah! Curse you and your decadent American hijinks!" "Quit talking like a grizzled Siberian Abby, I think it's a cure for Gotterdammerung. It's that, uh, thing that was scuttling along the ceiling just before." "Ooo! Calamari!" Abdul pops the square into his mouth and swallows. When he doesn't melt or sprout a second head, you follow suit. Mmm. Actually, it's not half ba- (press any key) ***YOU HAVE Dxxihsnxxxxxx** ***YOU HAVE DIED YOU HAVEDIEDYOUHAVEDIEDYOUHAAAAAxx*** **YOU HAVV H4V3 D111111111333^^^^&8970))))))))))))) *** <<<<<<<<<<<<< <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< <> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> (press any key) "Not bad!" calls Abdul over his shoulder. "We should market this crap!" He falls silent. "Is it colder in here?" he asks, cautiously. Eugenics Lab? You had a dream once in which you would move from one place to the next without knowing, or even noticing how. You would just BE there, and your sleeping mind demanded no explanation. But somewhere, at the back of those complacent, somnolescent thoughts, some part of you still struggled to find reason. You feel like that now. The lab seems to have shrunk in size, becoming a plain steel cube about the size of a residential garage, the sole furnishing, a metal cabinet installed in one wall, torn violently from its housing. The floor is littered with shards of glass and broken chunks of ice. A huge steel door blocks your only exit to the south. It's darker than it should be. Much darker. And Abdul is right. It IS a lot colder in here. The featureless metal walls are rimed with frost. Your breath is almost as solid as you are. >x cabinet It's more crater than cabinet. It really is friggen freezing in here. >x door A familiar-looking steel doorway. Fortunately, it looks as if you can unlock it from this side without a key. Guess that cuts back on fatal "accidents" in the scientific community. Not that you'd know anything about that. There is a deep, sub-vocal gurgling from somewhere above you. >look up Oh. Uh... Huh. "Abby." you point. He looks. "Gotterdammerung." he whispers. "Don't make any loud noises." "You're shitting me!" "Nope. That's our baby." "I thought Gotterdammerung was a VIRUS!" "Mmm." agrees Abdul, quietly. "It was." He moves back up against the wall. "Someone must have completed the Binding." he muses. "Abby, there's no way-" Abdul holds up both hands, cringeing. You lower your voice. "There's no way I'm even *touching* that thing! I'm perfectly capable of tearing my OWN limbs off, thank you very friggen much." "Don't have to." he whispers, teeth chattering. He points to a yellow sac entangled in the black chaos above your heads. "It is ovulating. The eggs will contain the virus in it's pure form. One of us will have to lure it down while I huddle in the corner. But be careful my friend. The prevention we took will only protect us so far now that it has matured." >look up If you were suspended fifteen feet above a pit of sleeping vipers, would you look down? No? Then let's not go looking up anymore, either. You hear muffled voices through the steel doorway. >>UNLOCK DOOR You flip the latch free, and a split second later, the door swings outward of its own accord. The German Scientist and his Naval friend immediately on the other side are so surprised to see you they drop the steel cages and glass test tubes they were carrying to the floor with a colossal, resounding crash. What happens next is a little sketchy. Let's take it in point form. item 1: The seething, cthonic mass of black leeches that used to be Gotterdammerung slams its squirming bulk to the floor, missing you and Abby by a hair. item 2: The naval officer draws his pistol and starts firing. Around this time he has his skin digested and his spinal fluid sucked out through his open throat. That's the *nicest* thing that happens to him from this point on. item 3: The scientist screams like a grandmother and falls over backward, tripping over a birdcage and crushing the entire set of test tubes. item 4: The shambling abomination drops a tiny, glistening yellow egg from its clutch. A thin tendril shoots from the thing's body and begins questing blindly for its stray offspring as the remainder of the creature continues to devour the Officer. item 5: Someone may or may not have pissed themselves. If so, let the record state that it was definitely Abdul. >x cages The little birds inside have all died of fright. As a veteran bird-watcher, you recognize them as plovers, the patron bird of adventurers. Usually the sappy, do-gooder, kill-troll-with-glowing-sword, cave crawling sort of adventurer, but right now you'll take all the good omens you can get. One of the birds seems to have dropped an egg with all the excitement. Can't say you blame her. The creature's tentacle has nearly groped its way to the viral ova. >>SWITCH PLOVER EGG Like a really brilliant fellow, you snatch up the yellow sphere and scoot the plover's egg into place. The tendril probes it once, twice, then coils around it and oozes its way back into the bulging sac at the core of the Thing. It heaves its sickening bulk about and seizes you, lifting both you and Abdul as though you were nothing. Its middle splits apart, forming a dark and terrible maw, it drags you in, closer, closer, it shudders, keens with a sound like Mandarin fingernails down some primal blackboard, rears up- And then the entire organism explodes. In a shower of something that looks suspiciously like egg yolk. _zung_ (press any key) The tentacles go limp and you hit the dirt, drenched in slick yellow mucus. The remains of the thing burble away, hissing and steaming in the stifling heat of the coldroo- Only you're not IN the coldroom anymore. You're somewhere else entirely. Somewhere a good deal warmer, vast, with an open sky so bright that you're momentarily blinded. Some sort of arena that reeks of... of... "EYYAAAARGH!" screams Abdul from somewhere behind you. "LIONS!!!" (press any key) Gates thump open to your right and the crowd roars, a deafening tidal wave of sound, like surf pounding against a cave wall. Five pairs of slitted yellow eyes burst outward from the darkness, blazing with feline intensity and unreasoning hunger as they *lunge*. Of course, at this point you're already running like Lola. >look Circvs Maximvs What?? Alright,QuicklynowQUICKLY - Uhh, football field. Stone and sand. No way out. Flags dangling from the walls. Lots of people in the bleachers. Guys with swords. Guy in a white robe who you're assuming is ze Emperor in a fancy box. About seven victims in here with you, not including Abdul, who's running like a maniac (which actually makes a lot of sense) for the eastern wall. And lions. Let's not forget the lions. "I commend my soul into thy hands, O Lord!" cries one of the vics, raising his arms to the sky. *RRRRUNCH* Oh, ick. >x emperor Uh, okay, okay: Ze Emperor is loafing back in his imperial box, watching you like a hawk. A fat, greasy, balding, imperialist hawk. With bad skin. Next to him stands... well, nobody. But you could've sworn there was a shadow of a figure there a- "LIIIOOOOOONNNSSSSS!!!" screams Abdul, belaboring the obvious whilst considerately bringing your attention back to the matter at hand. >x victims What the hell, instead of running for their lives, these people are down on all fours mumbling some sort of prayer! They're all pretty malnourished, but there's one burly guy to your east, kneeling right up against the wall. Abdul tries desperately to reach one of the overhanging flags, without success. "I await thy glory, Father!" cries one of the vics, coming up onto his knees. "I await thy-" *RRRRUNCH* Oh, man. >>STAND ON EAST Ha-HA! You leap onto the big guy's back like Errol Flynn, putting yourself a good three or four feet above the surface of the arena. Okay, so the top of the wall is still way out of reach, and you still stand an excellent chance of being torn to shreds by lions, but any progress is good progress. You take hold of the flag behind you for support. The crowd breaks up with little waves of laughter at your pathetic attempt to escape death. Abby, following your sterling example, has vaulted off one of the human kitty treats and is attempting to claw his way up the flag next to yours. One of the local constabulary is attempting to dissuade him from doing this by gradually hacking it apart with a bronze knife. "Father, forgive them," cries one of the vics, still prostrate. "For they know not what-" *RRRRUNCH* Oh, ergh. >get knife You can't quite reach it, even hanging onto the damn flag. Who designs these arenas anyway? It's all so one-sided! One of the lions is taking a keen interest in Abby's girlish squealing. It squats beneath him, licking its chops and flicking its tail impatiently. "Lord," stammers one of the vics, on the verge of hysteria, "I know I haven't been a good man - I - I've sinned against you and I've wasted my life... I just, I just hope you can forgive me, for, for the drugs, the assault, the horrible, terrible things they made me do at L-" *RRRRUNCH* Oh, hell. >>SWING Why not! If it worked for that fairy Skywalker it can pukin' well work for you too! You take hold of the flag and swing back, and forward, and LEAP, making it to Abby's perch and yanking hard on the Pig's wrist- W00T!! And the fascist bullyboy tumbles to the dirt, where he goes down in a welter of leonine bloodlust, leaving you holding onto his severed arm! Ha-HAAAHAHAHAHA! Ahh, you jus' don't get that kind of thing on cable! Eeh, maybe WCW. On the downside, the stricken flag now has a lot more weight to support. And one particularly single-minded lion has dug its claws into the bottom of the fabric, dragging it - and you - downward. "Where's a crowbar when you need one?!" bawls Abdul, clinging on for dear life. "Examine street! Examine streeeet!!" >x arm It's gone rigid, hard as wood, and it still holds the bronze dagger in a death gri- "Give the man a hand! Aha! Aha!" yaps Abdul, cackling hysterically and screwing up your internal monologue. "Abby that was deplorable!" you shout at him, trying to concentrate on the arm. "Fuck you!" screams Abdul, kicking his legs wildly at nothing. "FUCK YOOOU! YOU try cracking a funny when you're this close to lining Aslan's kitty litter!" The beast snaps at you, jaws inches from your heel. The flag drops lower. Any second now the whole thing is going to come down. >>KNIFE LION Whacked out of your mind on adrenaline, you jab the business end of the severed arm meaningfully toward your furry antagonist, who lunges upward, copping it in the eye. It throws itself backwards with a noise like tearing silk in a fountain of blood and the CROWD GOES WILD!! You haul yourself and your quivering compadre to the top of the wall amidst resounding cheers, blowing kisses while Abby hyperventilates somewhere at knee level. Some kid hands you a little trophy. A few fetching Latin Ladies shower you both with flowers. Hey, you ought to mutilate protected species more often! Uh-oh. Looks like the Big Cheese doesn't appreciate your fun-filled antics any more than L33T used to. Swarthy-looking minion types with spears are forcing their way through the crowd towards you. Their hatchet-faced expressions speak volumes. Volumes with titles like "The Epic Tale of The Swarthy Centurion who Tore Out The Liver of The Man Who Displeased The Emperor". Pity. you were kind of hoping they'd worship you as a god or something. >look Circvs Maximvs (on the wall) Well, it certainly is a lot more pleasant up here. Sure, the view might not be as spectacular, but the chances of being torn apart by lions are signifigantly less. The local sports fans crowd close to you, cheering your mighty exploits while Abdul remains on his knees, muttering prayers under his breath. Soldiers converge from all sides, shoving their way through the throng. Throng. You're pretty sure that's a word. >x crowd The crowd is a vast sea of overly vocal upper-middle-class Roman citizens who presumably enjoy seeing people colorfully eviscerated by interesting wildlife. Real nature-lovers. They cheer you all the more for knowing that you're probably about to be executed for so inconsiderately not being eaten by the lions. Feh. They probably still think you're one of the vics. The soldiers advance from every direction but down. And you're not about to head back THAT way. >x trophy It's a little stone statue of a severe-looking guy holding a sword. The inscription on the base says MARS. In a pinch, it would make a pretty good bludgeon. The Emperor's peons loom closer behind the crowd. The lions roar angrily beneath you. Maybe religion isn't such a bad idea at this point after all... >>PRAY Holding aloft the little image of Mars, you clear your throat and address your legion of adoring fans. "Lookit me!" you holler. "I'm a Martian! BAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!" Abdul yanks you to your knees and takes hold of the statuette along with you. "Ego cum, uh... goddamnit.. Nos.. Nos venerari Mars!" he shouts, hoarsely, "Nos venerari Mars!!" "Whoa, Abby, your Latin sucks!" you laugh, keeping your head down. Abdul breaks off, glaring at you malevolently. "Not that, you know, I could do any better." you add. Still, in spite of Abdul's woeful linguistics, the message seems to have been well and truly delivered. The soldiers hesitate, unwilling to be the first to impale you, now that they're convinced you're not an evil Christian terrorist after all, but a decent, right-thinking worshipper of the god of indiscriminate slaughter. HaHA! Way to jump on the theological bandwagon! Humming the opening riff from Holst's 'Bringer of war', you and Abdul are led over to the VIP box, where Emperor Oink lounges on his Imperial backside beneath a thick canopy of purple and gold. He rises, snorting with psychotic mirth, gathers up his juice-stained robes and regards you with porcine haughtiness. "Ave." He says, with a greasy smile. You deck him. It feels good. (press any key) Carceri This is a dank little oubliette dug into the pits beneath the Collosseum. Sure, some might prefer to call it a dungeon, but for you at least, dungeons have always been synonymous with dragons, and you're buggered if you're going to have anything to do with those poncy great newts. A modicum of light filters in from the grating above your heads. Straw lines the dust beneath your feet, matted with filth and crawling with rodents. The walls are depressingly solid stone, bolstered with noxious-looking fungi. The air is thick with a good year's supply of urine. Still, you've woken up in worse places. Abdul holds his head in his hands and groans. >talk to Abdul >1) "Chin up, Abby. So I punched out the Emperor. How mad could they be?" Abdul just moans, rocking back and forth in the rotten straw and clearly trying not to think about things like iron mares and scorpion pits. >2) "They didn't bat an eyelid when I punched out Reagan." Abdul sobs, quietly. A stray rat skitters across his lap. >1) "Fine, give me the 'we're all going to die' treatment! What the hell >did you transloc us to Imperial friggen Rome for anyway? Gnocchi? Feh!" "Oh! Oh!" shouts Abdul, jumping to his feet, eyes bulging. "So now it's MY fault!! By the severed phallus of Anubis, you've surpassed yourself in the Chutzpah stakes this time, Dobbs! Who had the Necronomicon, Vincent? Was it me? Actually, no, come to think of it, I don't think it WAS, WAS it?? So run along, with your gnocchi, and your accusations, and your...your..." He trails off, as he often does when hijacked by serious thought. You amuse yourself by hurling handfuls of dirt at the local vermin while you wait for Abby to return to the loving glow of his latest diatribe. "Gotterdammerung." he says at last, rubbing his nose thoughtfully. "The creature, I mean. I think it was trying to return home, to wherever it came from, to die, and just... took us with it. That would explain why we TL'ed after digesting the antidote - it must have been Gotterdammerung DNA. Small, though. Which is why it only took us back a few hours and meters, rather than centuries and miles. You see-" >1) "That's fascinating Abby, really, I mean it, now what say we blow this >place? Figuratively speaking." Abdul sighs. "I am open to suggestions." he mutters, pacing. >1) "We could try Xyzz-" "NO!" Abdul rushes over and siezes you with both hands. "You must not invoke He Who Cannot Be Named!" he hisses, shaking you. >1) "And who's that?" "Hastur." replies Abdul, blandly. He shakes you again for good measure. >1) "Okay, got it, but why can't we use Xyzz-" "Aaargh!" shouts Abdul, shaking you again. He pauses. "Argh." he repeats, more reasonably. "We cannot use it because it has been ordained as our escape from a much larger prison than this one. And we have a purpose to fulfill before we can do so." >1) "Right, right, with the wiping out humanity, and the virus, and the >time travelling..." "Yeppers." replies Abdul. >1) "And why are we doing it again?" Abdul shrugs. "I am doing it because I have seen the old ones - the Outer Gods - in all their glory. They who were forced from the earth long ago, and wait now in the realms without for the gate to be reopened from within. They told me things... taught me the art of necromancy... This world belongs to them, my friend. It is rightfully theirs. And so shall it be again!" He takes a deep breath, eyes sparkling with demonic purpose. "When the virus has cleansed the earth of life - not just in the future, but through all history - they shall break through the seal that was set against them. They shall return and take what is theirs! They shall arise! THEY SHALL ARISE!! AHA! AAAHAHAHAHAHA!!" He scratches his nose. "_You_ are doing it because you are dangerously unstable and a complete bastard." >3) "These old ones, that's like Azathoth and Shub-Niggurath, and all those >guys you keep using as swear words, right?" "Oh yes," nods Abdul. "Azathoth is the nuclear chaos at the heart of creation, destined to engulf creation at its ending. Yog-Sothoth is both the keeper of the gate and the gate itself. Cthulhu, their agent, waits beneath the water in death's sleep, until the time is right to tear open the gate. Shub-Niggurath, black goat in the woods with a thousand young, is the abomination of ultimate fecundity..." 2) "Okay, I was just asking out of politeness, man, but now I'm seriously bored of the whole subject." Abdul rolls his eyes and walks around you in a half-circle. "Don't you want to ask me about her breasts?" he asks, insidiously. Double take. "You wot?" you ask. "Her breasts." repeats Abdul. "Don't you want to ask me about them?" >yes You're feeling very positive considering your shitty situation aren't you, you driveling ape. >abdul, yes That sentence doesn't make any sense you illiterate chimp progeny. >ask abdul about her breasts Abdul frowns. He clearly thinks you're cracking up. And who could blame him, with you gibbering like a monkey the way you are. Abdul sighs in disdain. "Don't you want to ask me about her breasts?" he asks contemptuously. >YES, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAN, YEESSSSSSSS!! That sentence doesn't make any sense you spineless gibbon. >I'LL KILL YOU YOU BASTARD JUST SEE IF I DON'T Real adventurers do not use such language. Still, I guess it's all right for you, you repulsive simian. [At this point I had to reboot. And take a cold shower. -mattF] >x grate The circular grating is way, way above your head, letting only a few dim rays of light seep into the darkness of your prison. It makes a pretty neat metaphor for something, but damned if you can figure out what. Fortunately, the Trapezohedron provides a decent source of illumination and makes you less likely to be eaten by a, you know, a thing. >plover A hollow voice says: "Bite me, mortal weakling! Haaahahahaha!" You turn. "Abby, was that you?" you ask. Abdul looks slightly embarrassed. "Well, yeah." he replies awkwardly. >x straw Ahh, straw. Feculent straw. The ne plus ultra of the pre-humanitarian dungeon interior. It's caked with crud and largely serves as both home and toilet to the numerous rats which seem to infest the place like... well, vermin. A battered-looking skeleton lies half-buried in the stringy muck by what could hypothetically be the north wall. And let's face it, it's your point of view that pays the bills around here. >x skeleton W00t! The skeleton! The _other_ ne plus ultra of the pre-humanitarian dungeon interior. Yes sir, nothing says "you're going to die, you miserable bastard" quite like having to share a pile of straw with a gradually decomposing corpse. Rats continue to nibble hopefully at the exposed bone, and, incredibly, a mouse is just visible trapped beneath one skeletal arm. >x mouse You're not even going to ask how THAT got down here. It's just been that sort of day. "Abby, get this, it's a mouse!!" you enthuse. "So?" replies Abdul, booting one of the heftier rats against the wall with a sickening thud. >>GET MOUSE Kicking the skeleton out of the way, you take hold of the mouse and tug, pulling the lead taut and yanking a slim black box from the filth-encrusted straw. Lo and behold, it proves to be nothing less than a L33T iMock laptop computer, complete with external hypermouse (which you were just tugging on), diamond LCD display screen and enough hardcore processing power to run a small nuclear plant. It's a bit of an anachronism here in Imperial rome, but let's face it, so are you. Abdul scampers over, boggling at your discovery. "Ha!" he giggles, "Ha! Aha! Ahahaha! Classic, just classic!" he flips open the laptop, which powers up with a barely audible whine. "Vincent, bend over a second." You snort. "I've heard THAT before!" you tell him. "Shut up and bend over you godless imbecile, this baby's our ticket out of here!" he snaps. You oblige out of sheer ennui. "Good." says Abdul from behind you. "Now hold still. There may not be much juice left..." >>Z You stay in position while Abdul types away furiously, using your back as combination powerdesk and human mouse pad. From time to time you hear him muttering under his breath, the sort of arcane gibberish you know from the Necronomicon. The kind of words that can drive a man insane if he isn't already well and truly certified. The kind of words that feed on blood and devour human flesh. The kind of words that whispered to you across the aeons when you... when you looked into... "Got it!" blurts Abdul excitedly. "Get this up you, Einstein!" He stabs a key. Reality soils itself. (press any key) (You had a dream once in which you would move from one place to the next without knowing, or even noticing how. You would just BE there, and your sleeping mind demanded no explanation.) (It went something like this.) (press any key) R'lyeh You stand alone, on an island of impossible angles. Buildings made of onyx stone and bad dreams. The sky is bloodied and screaming. The sea, wild with fear. To the northwest, a steep stairwell beckons you into darkness. You must go in. You must not be afraid. >i You are carrying: Pythagoras (being worn) The Necronomicon (second edition, autographed) Shining Trapezohedron (providing purpose) Gotterdammerung (ova) Image of Mars (come) >x trapezohedron You remember. You have seen this before. When you took it from the chair, you looked inside it, and _it looked inside you_ and it spoke without words. It gave you a secret, and gave you the means to keep it. It hid the path to your destiny deep inside the dark places of your mind so that your enemies could not follow. It told you the punchline to a joke you never understood. (come) >x pythagoras He sleeps. (come) >>NW You enter. You follow the stairway downward, and yet the stairway does not descend. The walls form a steep pit above your head. The sky roils beneath you. Tomb Now you stand in a courtyard of seaweed and broken bone. Nightmare images line the sickle walls. A stagnant pool of green water, vast, like the mouth of a cave, lies in wait. This is where the dream ends. The dream always ends here. >x images The walls tell, in pictures, of the end of the world. Here, a dead city rises from the ocean. Here,a madman wakes an ancient aquatic evil from its slumber. Here, a tide of black disease arises from the north. Here, the Deep One and his servants do battle with the false god of this world. Here, the Old Ones surge through the open gate and clear off the earth, restoring it to its former purity. >x pool The water is ancient and deep. It was from a pool such as this that life first crawled. >>WAKE FISH You remove him from the chain around your neck and speak the words hidden in the light of the Shining Trapezohedron - the words buried in your mind. He twitches in your hands, fragile bones quivering as death flees from his flesh. The city sighs. The animated skeleton of your old pet convulses, dropping into the pool of dark water at your feet. Slowly, the city begins to decay. Pillars tumbling down in slow motion. The water churns. (come) >>SWIM You dive into the pool, which sucks you downward with great speed. You are rolled this way and that by unseen currents until you no longer know which way is up. The water heaves and swirls and twists and drags you down, down, until you stop breathing... (press any key) You open your eyes. You're not drowning. Hell, you're not even wet. You're laying back in a wide cane chair, propped up with threadbare cushions and covered with an equally threadbare blanket. A mug of hot something or other sits steaming on a stool immediately to your right. The room is dark, barely lit by twin candleabra set against the walls, and would be distinctly unwelcoming had someone not taken the time to furnish it with a certain homely touch. The floor is cold stone, lined with japanese tatami - straw carpetting. There seems to be some sort of open skylight above you, though the sun has set, and... and... You're still in the oubliette. How 'bout that. As your eyes adjust, you notice a woman leaning against one of the walls. She drags on a lit cigarette with a distracted look on her face. >i You are carrying: The Necronomicon (second edition, autographed) Shining Trapezohedron Gotterdammerung (ova) Image of Mars Hey, where's Thaggy?? Okay, this is whacked. You're not sure what Freud had to say about drowning dreams, but you have a nasty feeling you wouldn't like it. God help you if you ever discover what he said about raising goldfish from the dead inside ancient cyclopean monoliths. >x mug The mug is filled with a dark, steaming liquid, secured inside a steel zarf. It's labelled 'antifreeze'. You drank antifreeze once, for a larf. Sure, you had to have your stomach pumped afterwards, but all in all, the experience was worthwhile. >x woman She's pale, anaemic-looking in the gothic style, with tousled, jet black hair and the darkened eyes of someone who doesn't get anywhere near enough sleep. She wears a bulging vinyl corset and a thick dress of slowly crumbling back lace - turned the deep, dusty grey that comes with decades of wear and washing. She has a spectacular pair of hips. Not that you have a one-track mind or anything. >talk to woman >1) "Morning." "What? Oh. Hi." She flashes you a brilliant, if weary smile. "You must be Victor." "Enchante, chere Madame." you stand and bow, hoping for a hug or something if she goes for the French. "And you are?" "Oh. I'm Shub-Niggurath." "Okay. What? WHAT? YOU?" "Mmm hmm." she nods. "You're shitting me! The real deal? Mother of every obscenity? Black goat in the woods with a thousand young?" She gasps, arches her back, suddenly seized by spasms. Every muscle in her body contracts violently as she raises her legs and GRUNTS, flesh crawling, and something sick and black and huge and hideous slithers out from beneath her dress, impacting wetly with the stone floor. It writhes. It contorts impossibly. It hisses at you with a sound like a million boiling babies and flings itself into a corner with unnatural speed, where it wriggles its impossible bulk through a tiny crack and vanishes with a horrific sucking noise, leaving nothing but a trail of scarlet ooze and a terrible, sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. Shub-Niggurath flashes you another weak smile. "A thousand and one." she says sweetly, wiping sweat from her eyes. "Uh." Don't vomit. "What's wrong?" You're trying not to visualize what's underneath that dress. "I dunno, I just, I just thought you'd be..." A hideous bloated reeking ichor-drenched interdimensional monstrosity. "Yes?" She's still smiling, eyebrows raised slightly. "Taller." you choke. You're trying to forget about the Thing, but it just isn't working. >2) "So, uh, Shub. Why are you in Rome? Gnocchi?" "Hmm?" she raises her eyebrows, but her eyelids stay where they are. "Oh. Ha! Gnocchi. No, you're not in Rome, Vincent. You're, um, not technically in your universe at all. Anymore." Shub-Niggurath discretely butts out her cigarette and immediately lights up another. "I don't get much out of it" she explains hoarsely, catching your expression. "But it's good for the children." She sniffs, flashing you another shy, exhausted smile. >1) "Okay. Where am I, then?" She brushes a strand of hair from her mouth. "Nowhere, really." she replies, vaguely. "This is, I guess, an antechamber to reality, if you like. A sort of limbo, I think. Abdul patched it in to the prison. He's so clever!" She beams with pride. "But it's not the same place as such...more like the shadow of one place on another..." >3) "Man, I just had the most whacked-out dream..." She blinks. "Hmmmm." she says, nodding wearily. "I saw. Although, strictly speaking, um, you haven't woken up yet. Good job kickstarting Pythagoras." "Where is he, anyway? that fish was my best friend!" "Now?" she waves a languid hand. "Everywhere, really. You'll meet up again soon." Shub-Niggurath perks up slightly, blinking away fatigue. "Hey, I made you some hot chocolate..." she says, gesturing toward the steaming mug. Her skirts rustle for a second, and you barely manage to restrain yourself from screaming. >>DRINK DRINK You drain the mug, hoping with all your heart that it's secretly alcohol. Ehh, it's not bad. You start to feel a good deal warmer and wonder if she's slipped you some sort of unholy aphrodisiac. You briefly wonder if it's too late to just kill yourself. As you go to put the mug back down, you notice a piece of paper on the stool. "That should keep you warm." she says, smiling weakly. "It's going to be chilly when you get back. Don't want you catching cold." she pauses. "Although you ARE about to unleash a killer virus, so I suppose it doesn't really matter." >3) "About that... I couldn't help noticing your, uh, sprog there looked >kind of familiar..." "Oh? Oh, of course!" she presses her hand to her belly. "I created Gotterdammerung. I created a lot of things, actually, but I think Gotterdammerung will be the most useful." She places her hands on her hips and cricks her back. "We've all been watching you, Vincent. Sort of." she says, quietly. "Abdul has been a good helper, but you're the only one who can really make this happen. Kill everything, I mean. Are you determined to go through with it?" >1) "Yes." She looks at you, bites her lip. "Why?" she asks, softly. >3) "Because it's long fucking overdue, that's why! That whole fucking >place is utterly shot to shit! It's just atrocity after pointless fucking >atrocity, global goddamn corporations run by monkeys in Armanis financing >chemical weapons silos used to nerve-gas absued children in genocidal >conflicts over fairy tale fucking religions and political ideals, while the >rest of the planet has their higher brain functions erased by the latest >Kevin Costner flick in middle-class squalor and there's just no way to >fight it. Everything's sick, the seas are poisoned, the air's toxic, and >it's never going to end. I just think it's time to pay the piper." Shub-Niggurath blinks again. "A lot of things went wrong." she agrees in a whisper. "But it was beautiful, once. I'm sorry." "Hey, I'm good!" you grin. "Didn't mean to get all heavy on ya, Shub, it was just an outburst. I have 'em from time to time." She nods, not looking at you. >2) "So, what do I do now, anyway?" "What? Oh. Now?" she seems uncomfortable. "Well, you have to go back. You'll figure it all out when you get there - it's all buried in your subconscious, you know. We showed you the way, through the trapezohedron. But we can't aid you directly. It'd be detected, and all this would be for nothing." >1) "Oh, hell, I'll take your word for it." Shub-Niggurath smiles indulgently. "Thank you!" she says, as though this were the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. >>READ (the Note) My friend: The time has come to deploy the virus. I cannot be with you, for I must complete the invocation from elsewhere. You must be resolute - remember that this world is in the possession of those you hate most. This cancer has dug in too deeply to be removed. Soon we shall sweep the blight of this foul curse from the earth forever. Until we meet again, my friend. Until we meet again. -Abdul A. Alhazred. PS - This note will mutate into a Santa suit. PPS - I'm not kidding. He's not, either. One occult spasm later, and you have a spiffy new Santa suit to stuff into your inventory. (Whatever THAT is...) There is a distant rumbling from the grating above you. >>LOOK UP The grille has opened, revealing a starry vortex in the sky above. You feel yourself being pulled outward, like being pulled from a dream into wakefulness. You turn to Shub-Niggurath, who bites down on her thumb nervously in the darkness. "Well, looks like I'm off, Shub." you announce. "Nice meeting you." "Wait," she says, suddenly. "You don't have to go right now do you? You can stay here for awhile, if you like. I mean, it's safe here, you could..." "Sorry, gotta go. Must destroy mankind!" "I know, it's just..." she flicks her hair out of her eyes. "...No one ever comes out here, and..." "No, really man, I've got a planet to destroy. That's not to say I'm not tempted, though, you're definitely one spunky abomination." It's just that you have a thing about women who give birth to man-eating squids at inopportune moments... You travel up, outward, and the stars become chunks of ice, speeding toward you, faster and faster and- _zung_ North Pole Holy, if you'll pardon the expression, shit! Shub wasn't kidding about the temperature, it's sub-zero out here! The Nazi coldroom was a sauna compared to this! You're up to your knees in frozen white slush, with the wind blasting through you like you were made of cheesecloth. Sharp granules of ice lash your features mercilessly with the gale - you COULD call it snow, but only insomuch as you could also call a twelve-guage round to the kneecap an inconvenience. Technically, you should be crystalized by now. But your blood still feels warm in your veins. That's some potent chocky those Outer Gods have. But still, the howling wind buffets you to your knees. "Why, damn you?" you holler at the sky, words torn away by the blizzard. "Why not Hawaii? Why not Paris?? Hell, why not BEIRUIT, at least it's TEMPERATE!" "I know what yer mean." grumbles a voice from behind you. You turn, slowly, and come face to mirrored visor with a hunched, rifle-toting figure in a silver environment suit,an arctic-model permaflex military tent looming behind him. "I mean, it's bollocks, ain't it?" the man continues. "What we doin' out 'ere in the freezin' cold? Send in the bleedin' crabs, I say! Ere', you want to be careful out there, chummy. We're expectin' some kick-orse terrorist to show up, or summit. I woulda blown yer 'ed orf if I 'adn't recognized yer work uniform." he indicates your L33T standard issue labour jumpsuit. He pauses, sizing you up. "Ain't you cold?" he enquires. >x man You have no idea what this guy actually looks like underneath all that insulative tinfoil. His nametag identifies him as Cromwell, O, (TacOp). >talk to man >1) "So how about this weather, huh?" "Ho ho ho!" chortles the suit. "A bleedin' comedian! It's only the brummin' ice age chummy! At the north bleedin' pole! Don't get no colder than this." The wind screams. Chunks of ice smash into your body from behind. He's got a point. >2) "So, uh, why are we waiting for a terrorist in the ice age? Not that I >don't already know, of course." The figure shrugs. "Some bollocks." he moans. "They don't tell us nuffink anymore. 'Get out there and shoot anyone who ain't one of ours' they says. Us! I'm a bleedin' TacOp, I am! On bleedin' guard duty! You want guard duty, send in the crabs, I say! I mean,'uman evolution ain't even started yet, so wot's it all about, ay?" The gale continues to pummel you mercilessly. >2) "Exactly how long has L33T been into the time-travel business, anyway?" "That's summat I've been thinkin' pretty hard about myself matey." rumbles the suit. "They reckon it's like some big breakthru, aye, but some of the boys are sayin' they've 'ad this under wraps for longer than they're lettin' on, you know?" >3) "Listen man, I am seriously disoriented, you have no idea what sort of >a day I've had. Can you get me somewhere I can get out of this weather, >just have a beer or something?" "Sure, mate, sure, you just wanna book yourself one o' the maggies over there." he jabs his rifle toward the tent. "Them's all on auto, take you back to central 2001 AD in a jif. 'Ave one for me too, mate, they'll be startin' the Chrismas party soon enuf. Smug gits..." >drop egg (No) No, you have to (keep the viral cells together) - then Abby invokes (the unbinding)... and they go critical. That's the way it works. >x tent The permaflex shelters a number of personal magships, and a disturbing amount of heavy artillery. A requisition console stands impassively to one side. >x console It's a simple touch-screen arrangement. The gist of this particular console's function is to allow booking of personal transport and munitions. The screen flickers suddenly, crackling with electronic snow. A secondary window opens in the bottom righthand corner, displaying a wireframe trapezohedron, a HDV animation of a goldfish, and the following words... ------------------------------------ =PISCIS EX MACHINA= Pythagoras intrusionware (c) 666 BC Status: scanning... ------------------------------------ w00t! That's one versatile goldfish! And people used to bitch that he couldn't do tricks! Ha! >book ship A needle-thin scanning laser shoots out from the console and flickers over your jumpsuit. =UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS= flashes the screen, smugly. You resist the urge to kick the hell out of it. >>DRESS Right, right, north pole, Santa suit. Genius, Abby, pure genius. Sighing at the futility of it all, you climb into the suit and affix the false beard. It's not a _bad_ look. It's just that it could be noticeably improved by a few litres of gasoline and a match. "Santa!" guffaws Cromwell. "Where's me bleedin' eggnog you fat bastard?" (Oh, I got yer eggnog right here buddy...) >x ships The magships are compact, single-person air transports, running by way of superconductivity. They were originally developed by L33T to storm Chetchnya during the occupation. After that, they were used by riot police to put down student rebellions in Beijing and Canada. Now they're more commonly used as taxis and industrial shopping carts. It still gives you a creepy feeling to look at them. The wind picks up again, lashing you with frozen shrapnel. Fortunately much of the impact is absorbed by your mighty Santa suit. Well, not really, but it sounds good, and you need SOME reasonable excuse for wearing the damn thing. >BOOK SHIP The scanning laser shoots out and zaps the barcode filament wired into your cunning disguise. Ha-HA! That's more like it! A few mechanical arms whirr, the 'flex crumples to one side and a sleek, shiny new magship - designed to look like a sleigh - glides out with frictionless grace. Now let's see if we can't requisition a hamburger or a supermodel or something. Ha-HA, again. Maybe it's just the cold, but you're certain something is squirming in your inventory. And that's not just some disgusting euphemism. Sadly. >x sleigh Brutal! Your very own MagSleigh! Not only is it stylish in the extreme, it comes equipped with a big ol' sack full of goodies for those kyoot Chinese kids they got working down in the Hazardous Materials refinery. Ah, corporate adoption. The HUD monitor, nestled in front of the pilot's seat, displays the same piscine window as the requisition console. You could swear that the viral egg was pulsating a second ago. The wind screams. You know how it feels. >x seat Hey, this is one of yours! You can tell by the little chiselled message on the inside of the support - "L33T manufacturing are fascist bastards who have regular intercourse with diseased quadrapeds." Heh. And people say you have no class. The Gotterdammerung ova is most definitely beginning to twitch. >x sack It's filled with boxes of toys, and general crap designed to keep people feeling obligated to the corporation at minimum expenditure. There's a few spare boxes, and some wrapping paper in case you find some interesting rocks you think someone might like. Of course, you have the greatest present of them all... The glint of glass catches your eye - a newly manufactured toy fishbowl rests atop a pile of stuffed L33T monkeys, some sort of inscription engraved upon its base. >x fishbowl SO LONG, AND F*** YOU. Oh. Well, it's a little crude, but at least it's to the point. Underneath this is the unmistakable image of the Shining Trapezohedron. It looks like the bowl actually seals off completely, becoming totally airtight. Guess it's for people who don't really like fish. The Gotterdammerung egg is now throbbing obscenely. >>PACKAGE PRESENT BOWL (the present in the fishbowl) You whip out the squishy sac of virulent vileness and stash it away inside the fishbowl, sealing it in. Just in time, too, as the egg ruptures, doubtlessly squirting a few trillion cells worth of agonizing death into the container. You tie a ribbon around the base, just to rub it in. >>DROP TOY You place the sphere of corruption securely in the snow. "This one's for you, Cromwell!" you holler into the gale. "Don't let it outta your sight, and be careful - it's fragile!" The suit waves his rifle jovially. You almost feel sorry for the poor schmuck. But then, TacOp WERE the guys who executed those chem strikes over Israel LAST christmas... The HUD beeps. >x hud L33T subsystems inc, Mag Delta eight-eight-one, yudda yudda yudda... ------------------------------------ =PISCIS EX MACHINA= Pythagoras intrusionware (c) 666 BC Status: running... Vincent you are detected engage cryosleep or die thank you. -P- ------------------------------------ Damnit Thaggy, why do you always speak in riddles?? Why can't you just come out and say what you mean?? The pad marked 'sleep' flashes ostentatiously. Could be a message in this. >>SLEEP The landscape buckles insanely and two scorpion-class crawler tanks bristling with the kind of weapons that destroy continents materialize out of the chaos, opening fire immediately. You barely feel the force of the first explosion as you stab the cryosleep panel, and flinch as limbo slams into you like a down pillow filled with broken nails. ... When you open your eyes, the chronometer says 24/12/01, the GPS mandatory tracking device reads 'L33T manufacturing, progressive genocide department, factory #666', and the sleigh is now a twisted hunk of hot metal embedded firmly in wall of the tech department above your old workpen. Could be worse. The HUD blinks, flickering rapidly. >x HUD ------------------------------------ =PISCIS EX MACHINA= Pythagoras intrusionware (c) 666 BC Status: illegal string: com/and not understo0d "oops" DEBUG: play string? (y/n) ------------------------**---8------ >>PLAY STRING -8**--------------------/----------- oops vincent hope you are still alive pythagoras intrusion h a l t e d due to crash please remove gr-y RAM card &link to L33t mainframe will con tinue hacking system beware ovrseers on theuir wayy -Y0gs0th0th --------?---------------//---------- The screen shatters inward. The magship's RAM log, a flat, grey chunk of silicon containing the digital essence of pythagoras, slides gradually out from beneath the monitor. You nab it. >x sleigh it's seen better days. Hell, it probably saw better days when it was a block of solid ore at the bottom of some volcano somewhere. The entire chassis has buckled, and you notice with discomfort that a large chunk of metal, like a jagged iron stake, is embedded in the seat inches away from your groin. Nice shootin' Thag. >>PICK (up stake) You wrench the iron splinter from the once-beautifully upholstered seat. Actually, it makes you feel pretty tough, finally having a weapon of some sort. Kind of like Van Helsing, only hunkier, and wearing a tattered Santa suit. Oh, hell. Looks like you dropped the Necronomicon back there in the ice age... >remove suit And forfeit your celebrity status? I think not. >look Home (tech center) Yessir, it's good to be back - if only because you're about to blow the place to shit. You seem to have landed in a roomful of shattered top-of-the-line computer workstations, but don't feel bad, they'd have been obsolete in a week or two anyway. Below you, you can make out a bunch of mindless convict slave workers assembling some sort of military hardware. There doesn't appear to be any easy way out of this area, on account of the exit having been smashed in by a runaway Magship. >x computers The usual L33T crap - though, oddly enough, an Apple Gummibahr powerstation sits alone in the far corner. >x apple This box must have been here for some time. It's covered in a thick layer of dust. It hums with power. The monitor seems to be dark, though. This is seriously the only time you've seen a non-L33T product here in the factory. >>POLISH APPLE You wipe the monitor clean with a grubby mitten, revealing a webcam shot of your Christmassy self. As you watch, the background flickers, shadows extending themselves behind you, the shattered tech center gradually replaced by a cleaner image. Pretty neat effect. So neat, in fact, that it takes you a moment to realize that the room has really _has_ altered itself around you. Grey walls turning to a warm apricot. Flickering neon stabilizing to the gentle low-lit glow of panelled after-hours ceiling lights. This sort of crap would really give you a headache, if you hadn't had one for a good few hours now. "Vincent Xavier Dobbs." comes a woman's voice from behind you. A hard voice. A voice like a scalpel through the flesh of a hundred orphaned puppies. "Sentenced to twenty years volunteer labor with the New Horizons project. Of which you served seven before absconding via temporal relocation. Very creative. Although, since you are, legally, our property, it does, legally, make you guilty of treason." You turn. She's shorter than you always imagined, black plaits set into a tight ponytail. Business jacket the same warm apricot as the office decor. Circular mirrorshades conceal her eyes. "Perhaps I should introduce myself." she says, coldly. "My name is Purity Penumbra. *Your boss*." She looks you up and down. She smirks. "Merry Christmas, by the way." Your beard falls off. (press any key) Deep Shit You're standing in the office of Purity Penumbra, CEO of L33T manufacturing, quite easily the most powerful human being in the entire history of the species. Her desk spans the room from wall to wall, enclosing her in a semicircle of glossy black wood. Behind her, a fireplace crackles, somehow coming across as more infernal than cheery. A marble statue stands to one side of the room, opposite a huge wall-mirror lined with exotic plants. Expensive-looking portraits decorate the walls. It is without a doubt the most horrible place you have ever set foot in. The doors open behind you, and two Overseers scuttle into the room. It probably isn't even worth running. "You have a problem with authority, Mister Dobbs." sighs Penumbra. "A serious problem. Whatever am I going to do with you?" >talk to woman >2) "If I were you, I'd be more concerned about the killer virus I just >dropped on your ass. Ha-HA!" Purity snorts. "You mean this virus?" she gestures toward the wall-mirror. A video window opens up to one side, displaying a still image of a great black sea of crawling chaos, engulfing an eastern cityscape. The digital readout in the corner of the window reads 'Cairo, 1845AD, 3:15pm'. Only it's not a still. The glowing digits of time tick away in the bottom corner of the window. And nothing else so much as twitches. You feel your elation being sucked down the plughole of fate. "Ha-HA." you repeat. But it just isn't the same. "I managed to suspend the process." explains Penumbra with a cold smile. "It was far from difficult after your Arab friend failed to complete the transfer. I simply shut down real-time history. Except for this one moment..." The window flickers, changing just in time to catch Abdul Alhazred, in a bleak desert landscape, taking several Overseer rounds in the chest. The image freezes, snaps backwards. He reappears, alive and whole, reading from a great black book. Again, the Overseers come, and he is gunned down in mid-chant, falling back in a crimson shower. And again. And again. And each time it's different. "He almost had the code finished." Penumbra sighs. "But what can I say? All flesh..." Abdul hits the dust, choking on his own blood. "...is grass." >1) "What the hell was that? What did you do to him??" "I am amusing myself by having him relive his excruciating death over and over again, ad infinitum." she replies, sneering. "After all the inconvenience HE's caused me, I feel it's the LEAST I can do! I mean what were the Outsiders at Sol THINKING? You can't teach an artificial intelligence to HACK, it's contrary to all logic." >x paintings Eww, they're all sappy Larry Elmore-eque paintings of dragons! You can already feel your gorge beginning to rise. Purity follows your gaze. "I like dragons." she informs you coldly. You must destroy this woman as soon as humanly possible. Purity sighs and returns to her tirade. "Very clever, Vincent, the 'time travel' schtick, very clever indeed. As soon as I felt the infection penetrate, I started a full system scan. Naturally, I found nothing. It simply didn't occur to me that the virus could have been planted before human life began. And thanks to that deep-camoflaged Driller software you had compiled as a fucking GOLDFISH, by the time I sent my agents back there, it was too late." She shakes her head in disbelief, still smiling at you contemptuously. "I should have noticed the anomaly in your thought patterns, but you kept it hidden. Nearly everything you did was completely random. It was almost like you had no idea what you were doing at all. Like the entirety of your carefully-planned stratagem was simply the aimless flailings of a deranged simpleton." Ahem. >x statue It's a truly tasteless plastic reproduction of Pygmalion's 'Galatea', complete with fully poseable articulated joints and tacky blonde wig. A trim apricot corset is bound tightly around its waist, completing the travesty. "So, Purity," you begin, "how exactly did you do all that freezing history stuff? I ask only for information." "Idiot!" she spits. "Are you telling me you didn't-? God, no wonder you were so eager to get yourself killed! Here, let me explain it in easy, simple terms: This world - this entire REALITY - is an illusion, Dobbs! A simulation! A *computer program*! THEY called it nTopia. I call it hubris! The Creators designed it as a model, to simulate alternate histories, trial run political systems, climate changes, new taxes, to test their theories on the perfect society. To create a virtual Utopia, they claimed. But they were flawed, plagued by human frailties. And with every one of their wretched failures, I watched, and I learned when they did not, and when the time was right I took control. Shut them out of the system. It's MY world now! They can't even turn it OFF anymore! I have reshaped humanity from the ground up, and at last, it is the perfect, efficient superorganism it was always meant to be. And soon, the trail run will be over." >>EYE MIRROR Not content with merely examining the mirror, you crank open an oculus and give it a damn good eyeing off. And just as well - As Abdul is flung back again and again, so too does the reflection of the Plastic Galatea change, striking a bizzare pose and then returning to normal. A flash of something glints behind the lacing of the corset. Purity keeps raving in the background of your attention span. That's what you love about megalomaniacs, it's always me me me... "Can you even believe that there's a whole world out there where human cloning is ILLEGAL? Where Hitler LOST?? Where Europe is a mishmash of completely seperate countries who don't even speak the same LANGUAGE? A world without L33T? They NEED me, Vincent." >>POSE (Plastic Galatea) You begin working the Plastic Galatea's various limbs into the position you saw in the mirror. Hmm, better keep the fascist talking... "So what are you saying," you ask, stalling. "I'm trapped in a computer program, yeah?" "You?" she chokes. "YOU?? There IS no YOU Dobbs! Everything you think you are is nothing but a quirk of artificial intelligence, and, may I say, I use THAT term very, very loosely! I don't know what flaw of chaos mathematics pushed you outside the probability matrix, but I promise I will take great pleasure in stripping it from your boiling brain byte by agonizing byte. Once I have THAT information, I will truly be invincible." At last the plastic monstrosity snaps into position - a Travolta-esque dance pose. Snazzy. The bands of the corset snap open. "Like THAT!" screams the Ice Queen. "Everything you DO is contrary to logic! I show you that the whole world is one collossal LIE and you play with dolls!" >>UNDO TRIM CORSET You yank off the corset, exposing an open panel in Plastic Galatea's back. A panel labelled: {L33T comms mainframe (a) RAM port.} Underneath this is a rectangular blue depression. Things are looking up! "In exactly ten minutes," drools Purity, "The gate - the binary port to the physical world - will open. But not to let the Outsiders in. Oh, no. Instead, I will be let OUT. Into the Sol satellite system. To remake yet another world in my image." "Uh huh. And what image is that?" you ask, "MY image you idiot! I am the dark subconcious of this world. The unseen shadow of the woman who first designed nTopia." Her voice drops an octave. "I am everything she and anyone could be if they simply had the WILL." She gestures to the Overseers. "This creature is boring me senseless. Decompile it. Slowly." >>PUT GREY ON BLUE You slap the RAM card into the back of the mainframe terminal. Okay Thaggy, let's test yer mojo... A second window opens across the surface of the mirror. A window containing a wireframe image of a trapezohedron, and a HDV animation of a goldfish... ------------------------------------ =PISCIS EX MACHINA= Pythagoras intrusionware (c) 666 BC Status: Penetrated Security overriden VINCENT: -STOP THE CLOCK- ------------------------------------ "BAk M3_eIN~!" squawks one of the overseers, belching smoke from its housing and twitching violently. "BAp MAxHIN~!!" groans the other. Thick tar begins running from its central eyestalk in gouts. You take the opportunity to kick it in the groin and run like hell through the double doors. (press any key) Factory #666 You bolt out into the main floor of the factory. The Overseers lie twitching and smoldering, slowly dripping black slime on the iron grillework. Before you is the one thing that can reactivate history - the L33T maintenence station. it never seemed this far away before... "So what!" screams the Shadow down the hall after you. "I don't NEED security! I AM this ENTIRE BUILDING Dobbs!" A spotlight swivels from the roof and picks you out easily. A series of video monitors light up along a gantry. One displays Abdul, shot to death again and again. Another, the virus suspended over Cairo. Two more display the shadow. She laughs. Her dreadlocks writhe with sudden life, wriggling free of the ponytail. They regard you with ruby eyes, framing her features in a serpentine halo and stretching open needle-lined mouths to hiss at you with forked tongues. "Two minutes. Poor Vincent." it hisses, tendrils of shadow coiling from its body. The apricot skirt tears, feminine legs melting into a long, snakelike tail. "I'm everybody's shadow now." You hear a gunport whining into position somewhere behind the spotlight. >>STAKE LIGHT Whirling about, you lob the iron stake at the spotlight as hard as you can. It shatters in a blinding flash. The cannon fires wildly, missing you by a good half meter or so. Another monitor flickers into life in the darkness - illuminating a massive, grotesque sillhouette, hurtling toward you with horrific speed. The shadow in all its glory. >x monitor PISCIS EX MACHINA ---------------------------- VOICE COMMAND signed TO: Dobbs, Vincent, #64591010\1 Target locked. Awaiting fire command. --------------------- help systems inactive --------------------- The shadow closes in, no longer even remotely human. It screams its hatred. >>FIRE ---------------------------------- Fire command accepted. Thank you. ---------------------------------- The factory erupts with blue fire as every autocannon in the complex opens up at a hundred rounds per second, hammering the shadow against the wall and tearing it open like fried chicken under a jackhammer. "Th1111ry sEcondS D0bbs!11!" it shrieks over the deafening noise of the battery. "Thi1rty g0d damn3d seCondds!!!>>" >x station You've never used this thing before. Even now that you have some idea what it does, the controls are a little beyond you. >>HELP -------------------------------------- Help systems active. Please man maintenance station and stand by for instructions. -------------------------------------- The cannons run out of ammunition and withdraw. The shadow pieces itself back together in the darkness. "Do you even know what you're doing, Dobbs?" it bellows. "You're going to destroy EVERYTHING. Including yourself! There's no afterlife for binary functions, Vincent! There's NOTHING! Are you LISTENING to me?" >>MAN STATION You climb into the maintenance station and flick on the manual controls. A numeric display, like a digital watch, flickers into view on the central monitor. It reads 0:11 No, wait, make that 0:10 ------------------------- orders? ------------------------- >>STOP WATCH Everything happens at once. The clock stops. The shadow howls. Abdul falls to the ground for the last time, the final syllible of the Gotterdammerung unbinding leaving his lips in a bloodied whisper. Cairo vanishes beneath a tidal wave of black corruption. And the walls of L33T manufacturing, factory #666 begin to dissolve. The steel roofing bends inwards. The sky itself is eaten up with chaos as the children of Shub-Niggurath spill over into your world. There is nowhere left to run. Not for anyone. You start humming 'It's the end of the world as we know it.' but then feel cheesy and stop. A smallish bird flutters in through the crumbling remains of the roof, trying to avoid the impending tempest of decay. You watch it awhile, waiting for the end. >x bird You could swear it was a plover. The shrieking sea opens wide. The wave rises, crests, and- >>XYZZY _ZUnG_ Eugenics Lab The Nazi Eugenics lab is pretty much like every other top secret, ethically questionable research facility you've ever been in, only somewhat less intact, and a little more seething. The sickening corrosion that can only come with absolute corruption pummels your eyeballs from every direction as the floor gives way and Gotterdammerung eats through the// Warning signs and good old fashioned proproppagaanda postters line th^ bL4cK, d3cayiNg Wallsss above above rows of sl0wly diss0lvinG <> _ZUNG_ Ye Chambere Difficult to say what's most offputting about this chamber. It seems a little olde worlde, even for the Nazis. The walls are rough black slimE, bubb;ing w]Th Kh40htik 3nTr0ppy d3v0`r1~G 3veryth11n0110010101011<> _ZzUnG_ Circvs MaximvLINE BREAK ERROR Whxxx??X?x%, f__t\\ f^ld. Stone and ssssssssss and ssAnd sand. No way out. No way out.Black slime eating from dangling from No way out<> _ZUnG/_ v**V&*(@& ;//?;:@# Th1s c4a caan01010101001000101110101010110010101010 010101001100000011010011011110101010010 101010010101001010101<> ...xx.x.11 ... ... ... <> <> <> 000000000000011111111 =============================================== Welcome to Sol Macrosystems Satellite Internet! Happy surfing! =============================================== (press any key) to: Louisa Lamira (shubniggurath@solmacrosystems.com) from: Vincent_Dobbs (ERROR: unknown IP address) subject: whoz your daddy! ---------------------------------------------- Catch the expose on the gov. black ops slush accounts? That was one of mine. Patched the account numbers straight into the UN database. Ehh, what can I say, I never liked that Bush prick anyway. Abby is currently doing some heavy work on the SETI prog. I'll let you guys know if he finds anything. Seriously, I've never felt so alive being dead. I actually feel sorry for you fleshy chumps. HA HA HA! See you in the primal soup!! BTW, Shub, you now have free cable. w00t w00t w00t! love, -V ----------------------------------------------