Andromeda Awakening - The Final Cut
by Marco Innocenti (2011)
Genres: Science Fiction

The most important discovery in history. And then, the whole world goes crumbling down. Armed with but a computer and an expired railway ticket, how can one expect to save the day when the doomsday clock has begun ticking...?

action: %
response: Morning comes, in Monarch. An eerie light permeates the room.

It's been a hard night...

A bed, a table, a bathroom. This is all that's left of your colleague, Professor Re's. Some dust, an eerie atmosphere and just a memory.
action: You examine the dust
response: Light fills in from the blinded windows. Dust flies in the sunrays like snow in a torment.
action: You look at memory
response: You can't see any such thing.

Certainly, though, you can smell it and listen to it.
action: Smell memory
response: Along with Andy, has gone his scent. All that remains is the noisy pout-pourri of the exotic food he'd like to eat, along with the odor of root beer and soda.
action: You listen to the memory
response: Silence is all that's left of Andy, and it's much more than anything else. He was so mouthy, sometimes. Hell, he was mouthy every damn minute, never closing that babbling gape, always inquiring about something, always trying to inspire faith in the others. Faith in science, that is. And faith in humanity as a worthy bunch.

You hardly squeeze a smile. You will miss that gape. You will miss his faith.
action: About yourself
response: Getting fat. Getting old. Getting bald.
action: You check your inventory
response: You're carrying an expired railway ticket, a magnetic card and an E-Pad.
action: You examine the ticket
response: A regular monthly railway ticket. The expiration date printed on it bears the yesterday's date.
action: You look at the card
response: A plastic card, with a black stripe on its back. On the front it bears a picture of you and your generalities.
action: You look at the picture
response: It is you, some time ago.
action: You examine Ethe -Pad
response: A black slab, ten-by-twenty centimeters. A surface, the one you would refer to as "the bottom", is made out of vibertron alloy. The "top" side is a psychoglass vibertron that you can use to gather information. The E-Pad is indeed the ultimate resource for any kind of question: you can consult it about almost anything (that you have previously uploaded into it, of course). Think to it as some kind of Guide to the galaxy.
action: You examine the bed
response: That's where you've had your final sleep. The blankets are a mess, even if you lied over them. A troublesome sleep, indeed.
action: You examine the top
response: It is a psychoglass you would use to gather information simply by touching it.
action: You touch the top
response: It took seven minutes to upload all your records on the Pad. It would take several millennia just to browse through half of it. It's better if you try and consult it about something.
action: You take the blankets
response: You sincerely hope the night just passed is the last you'll have to mess with this particular bed.
action: You examine table
response: This is where Andy passed his sleepless nights, always studying something new, always focusing on pushing humanity forward.

You can't but mourn at the loss this old world has suffered from his departure.

On the table, you glance a folder with some files inside.
action: You consult Ethe -Pad about Andy
response: You wave your hand on the vibertron, mentally igniting its interior device. A blink of an eye later, the screen vibrates with a faint purple light.

User 5,834 of this device, bearing no significant difference
between all the other 5,833 before and the one after.
action: You consult e-pad about yourself
response: You are user 5,835 of this device, bearing no significant
difference between all the other 5,834.
action: You examine the folder
response: As you drop your eyes on the cerulean cover of the folder, your own writing jumps out almost new, as if someone else has inscribed on it the words: "Reports to the Council".
action: You read the folder
response: You know these files by heart: A report on the state of the crust substrates, and about the discoveries you've made there.

Strolling through the pages, you fall deep into a sense of vertigo. The whole world starts spinning.
Can you do it? Will you be able to go on with the plan, now that Andy has gone? Now that he's been--
A single tear runs through your left cheek, substantial, heavy. When it dives from your skin you almost feel its burden leaving. A second later -- or maybe a millennia -- it hits the ground with a sounding boom.

You can barely form his visage into your head, and he's been dead for just ten hours. The impression printed in your forehead is that of a pale face, no more anguish, no more tears. And that terrible wound, a hole ripped in his chest like a mole's burrow. That's how it looks when a bullet bangs out of you, taking skin, flesh and bones in a bloody firework. They shot him. In the back, and he wasn't even fleeing. The coroner said he may just have been walking unaware.

Another tear jumps into the void. Another boom.

They were looking for these, the Reports.

One reason more to go and show the committee. One reason more to cry the truth out loud.
action: You take the folder
response: Taken.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go west].
action: You examine bathroom
response: A sink and a toilet, stocked in the far corner of the room.
action: Go west
response: You leave the tiny room.

On the door's sill, you pause and send one last glance to Andy's apartment. A new rush of tears threatens an escape and you barely suffocate it.

Andy, you promise. I will do it. I will do it for both of
us. Whatever it is they are trying to hide -- whoever they are -- I will find out. And the whole of Monarch will know. This I vow.

And, although you can't quite imagine it just now, no words will ever be truer than those.

A foggy light comes from the grates on the top half of the stairwell. You are standing just mere feet from Andy's house entrance, above the first step going down.
action: Research monarch
response: Sixth planet in the trinary system, the biggest in size. Base of
the human activity in the Andromeda galaxy, is Capital World and headquarters of the ASA Council of the Thirteen. Age: 1.2bill. Size: magnitude 7.2 in Resson's scale.
action: Research council
response: The government-above-the-government of the ASA Republican Worlds.
Made up of thirteen members, it is the source of the ASA codex and of the 237 Bounds.

You really think it's time to run to the Campus. You sight the exit, down from here.
action: You look at grates
response: Yes, you rather had a regular window, but this is what comes with peripheral, low-cost buildings.
action: You go downward
response: The faint lights get fainter here. A sturdy door opens on the Avenues, to the north. A flight of stairs moves up to the front door of Andy's Apartment.
action: You go to the north
response: You leave the satisfying safety of the house with but a sigh. The massive vibertron door opens with no sound, and with no sound closes after you.

The vivid pink of the Monarch sky paints an eternal dawn and washes the street and the buildings in a somewhat romantic nuance. The door to Andy's condominium lies south of here, reflecting the three suns like a gigantic kaleidoscope. The Avenue runs out of sight in every direction, finding outlets in a handful of other busy streets. The one you need runs east, towards the train station.

All these people, you think, watching the passers-by as they
crowd the streets in their random duties. If only they knew,
they'd scamper around like mad rats, biting at each other and feasting on the corpses.
You hold more tightly to your Report files.

The major sun -- Korhos -- seems to point its malevolent, cold finger at you.
action: You look at korhos
response: The fiery halo around the biggest of the suns of Monarch sends spires of red spreading across space.
action: Go east
response: Here the street forks in two different branches, one disappearing southeast into the train station, the other going on to the east. To the west lies Andy's house. The dark underground tunnel that leaves the street to the first underground floor, where your train is probably waiting, sends shivers down your spine.

There. The big underground empire. The place where all human fears gather.

You pick up the Report files again, and look at their cover.

What's the meaning of all this? What did you find down there that grips around your throat like a deathly lace every time you think about it? Is it the discovery itself, or maybe the fact that Andy was killed to prevent its disclosure? You never imagined being a nerd of a scientist would have given you so much anguish.

You put back your burden and look up to the station's entrance. All will come in place, you hopefully consider. All will come in place.
action: You go southeast
response: The cyanotic, vibrating light of the station stands as a formal counterweight to the usual pink of the open air. People from all the country crowd the hall, piling up like chickens in stocks. The loud whistle of the incoming and departing trains dopplers through the place and drills into your ears. The rails cut the earth in two, further south, while a more breathable atmosphere breaks in through the entrance, northwest from here.

A steel gate stands between you and the trains. A ticket obliterator blinks silently at its side.

On the west wall is a ticket vending machine.
action: You look at the obliterator
response: A tall figure, all in vibertron alloy, which is obviously there to read and authenticate tickets. A red laser scans the air inside a slot in its base.
action: You examine the vending
response: Cyanotic, like the rest of the enviroinment. It accommodates a magnetic card reader and a pocket for ticket delivery.
action: You put the ticket in the slot
response: (the expired railway ticket in the obliterator)
The obliterator blinks tiredly. A red exclamation mark appears on its glossy surface. You remove the ticket.

With the corner of an eye, you catch a glimpse of yellow, shining among the people.
action: You examine the yellow
response: Ladies and gents from all around the trinary system crowd the tunnels of the South Fork station. They seem resolute and sturdy, each intent in finding the way into a new day.

Among the rest of the unaware mob, you scout a single man, busy reading the railway map pinned to the wall.
action: You put the card in the card reader
response: (the magnetic card in the magnetic card reader)
You push the card into the reader. A second later, a red exclamation mark starts blinking on the vending machine and an unsympathetic, metallic voice informs all the people present that your "credit is exhausted".
You try and take the card back, but the machine swallows it whole.

And at this point, it just feels like it's too much.

You fall on your knees, like an empty jute sack. The head dives between the shoulders, an empty face towards the ground beneath the legs. And the tears you so hardly tried to keep inside the dam begin rolling.

There is just no exit, you realize, and a sense of doom
overcomes you.
There is no exit, no place to run to, no escape. The weight of the world is upon you and you can do nothing about it. Andy has been killed and he was the one with the wit and the strength to try and do something. In cases like this, he would have been the one to stroke your hair and spread hope. He would have been the one who said "Hey, man. Just relax. I'll be doing this."

You sense the star-shattering future as too much for you to handle and give in, like a child who's been told his parents have just died.

Then, something happens.

A hand is dropped on your shoulder. An unfamiliar voice breathes in your ear, and all of a sudden you feel awake.
You turn and face a man, one you never met before, and his understanding eyes. It's just a hand, still it feels like an invigorating shock.

"It will be ok, man", he says. "Just relax".

A second later, you are on your feet, your eyes following the stranger as he passes through the gates and into the railways.
action: You examine man
response: You recognize the funny man as coming from the near Bom-Fong Satellite facility: his darker skin tone and his thin eyes betray his provenance. He wears a yellow coat that runs down to his feet. On his shoulders, he's carrying a purple backpack, the sort of which you usually see worn by the students at the University.

From a pocket of the backpack you see poking a freshly printed ticket.
action: You take the ticket
response: (the new railway ticket)
There's no way of getting it without startling its owner. You are not that used to stealing to be subtle enough. Maybe you'd need a diversion.
action: You examine the map
response: A map depicting the maze of rails connecting all the various stations in Monarch. With but a glance you find your route to the University.
action: You describe your surroundings
response: The cyanotic, vibrating light of the station stands as a formal counterweight to the usual pink of the open air. People from all the country crowd the hall, piling up like chickens in stocks. The loud whistle of the incoming and departing trains dopplers through the place and drills into your ears. The rails cut the earth in two, further south, while a more breathable atmosphere breaks in through the entrance, northwest from here.

A man wearing a funny yellow coat is reading the railways map, puzzled.

A steel gate stands between you and the trains. A ticket obliterator blinks silently at its side.

On the west wall is a ticket vending machine.
action: Examine backpack
response: A purple backpack, the sort of which you usually see worn by the students at the University.

From a pocket of the backpack you see poking a freshly printed ticket.
action: You examine the gate
response: A maze of sturdy steel bars, which runs from the floor to the ceiling. It looks very dense.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go northwest and south, beyond the steel
gate].
action: You go to the south
response: The gate stands closed between you and the rails.
action: Research university
response: User 5,835 is chief researcher at the Radiations and Microwave
Survey in the Monarch State University. The University is located in Brouguoise.
action: You talk to the man
response: "Need help?"

The man turns to see you, a bit startled. "Uhm," he says, pointing at the map, "I'm just looking for the next stop in this... erm... maze."
action: You talk to the man
response: "I know, it's always a nightmare the first time you try and read one of those. Let me help."

A fresh smile of relief paints his face, as the man moves a step to the left to let you check the map. In the movement, unseen, the ticket that was hanging from the open pocket of his backpack flies over the edge, landing a mere step from your right foot. You notice it but avoid dropping your sight to the ground.
action: Step on ticket
response: (the new railway ticket)
Ok, you are finally persuaded. He won't need this as much
as I -- or the whole of Monarch -- do.

Subtly, you hide the fallen ticket under your foot, hoping to go unnoticed. And it works. The man follows your instructions on the map up to the last letter:

"There, you know," you say, pointing at the map in the place where Cardinal Park would be. "There is the station you might look at for your departure, sir. South Fork is only southbound, and you have to go north.

"It's just a couple of kilometers," you grin, depicting in your mind the Park, the farthest place in all Monarch to a railway.

With a sigh, the man thanks you and heads out of the station. You grab the ticket and pitch the old, useless one.
action: You put the ticket in the slot
response: (the new railway ticket in the obliterator)
The obliterator blinks vigorously. A green exclamation mark appears on its glossy surface. The gate reacts with but a faint buzz. You remove the ticket.
action: You go south
response: You pass through the gate which admits you, silently opening around you.

You are standing by the bay of the railways, where trains arrive and depart. The light gets dimmer, here, but it is still strong enough to let you see the nearest surroundings. It then fades away in the intricate maze of the other platforms. A series of gates opens north into the main hall of South Fork Station. Through the bars you can see hundreds of people passing by, like ants in a sand castle.

A deep sense of claustrophobia gets to your nerves as you stare at the long tunnels winding everywhere from this place. The intricate maze carves so deep and so far that now it could easily count more surface than on the open air...

It digs so deep that you are quite certain it opened entrances -- or outages -- to things you'd better have seen left undisturbed. The Report files in your hands, the ones you are going to explain to your colleagues at the University, vibrate as if animate, trying to catch your attention.

Your train is not here, yet. This could be a chance to study them again.
action: You look at the files
response: "Reports to the Council".
action: You read the files
response: You open the files at random. Your eye is quickly caught by one of the first reports:

(...)The volcanic crust separating what was once the glacial layer from the lower halls cannot possibly be thick enough to hold those energies at bay. Nor can it be trusted to keep a region larger than one third of Monarch's surface area hidden from whatever may be resting down there. In my humble opinion, the chances that former colonizations could have gotten in there before the glacial age (trapped? self-defending?) are quite high, especially now that we have discovered the Alpha Radiation.

In the end, we know nothing about Monarch before the first
settlements from the outer galaxies came into Andromeda more than one thousand years ago. Technology back then was not sufficient to dig as far as we have recently. The glacial layer was only partially melted and covered by the constructs. I suggest further investigation before we start -- as we should -- to probe the source of the
radiation.(...)

The thought of something ancient sleeping under your very feet is more than your mortal brain can handle.

Eventually, your train arrives.

The doors open silently and you enter its bright intestines with but a second thought, powerfully relieved by leaving the dark recesses of the underground rails.

The wagon is enlightened by several fluorescent lamps, spanning along all its roof. The yellow, vibrating light paints each surface with the colors of death and decay. The train moves swiftly on its rails.

A man sitting beside you is reading his newspaper.
action: You examine the lamps
response: Tubes of light, inside tubes of glass.
action: You research Alpha Radiation
response: (Inserted by user 5,835 -- not present in general database)

Radiation which pulsates from a specific point under Monarch's capital. Discovered on 25th/3rd/9,855. Generator or source: unkn. Z-position: unkn. Magnitude: feeble, but growing. ---- Warning: same kind of the Event residues. ----.
action: You look at the man
response: He must be your age, a small man that looks like the average white collar worker from somewhere in the government. He's holding his newspaper like it was the only thing valuable in the world.

You realize with surprise it is the same man who had the nice words at the vending machine, earlier.

An unforeseen tremor shakes the train. You grab a handle before falling. The man beside you grips his seat.

"Woha!" he laughs. "That was something."

You notice small bits of the tunnel walls crumbling as you pass them by.
action: You look at the newspaper
response: The part you can see is about the weather and a few of other unimportant things.
action: You read it
response: The part you can see is about the weather and a few of other unimportant things.

A second, much stronger quake shakes the train. You are bounced once to the back, where you hit the doors with a faint sound, then forward. This time you go swimming through the air like some sort of flying fish.

But it is not over.

Another shock rocks the train to its core, sending it off the rails. Cracks like razor wounds open the car one by one, ripping it apart like a tube of crumpling paper. The windows shatter with a fierce boom! that grinds into your ears like a thousand needles. The
next second, you are smashed against the end of the wagon, your head trying its resilience against solid steel.

The last thing you see, before your eyes are closed forever, is the man who was reading his newspaper beside you being engulfed by a dark abyss that has opened under your feet -- and below the collapsing train --  like the maw of an ancient creature.
action: You examine man
response: He's trapped. There is no way of pulling him out of the wreckage. Blood is pouring violently from a wound in his chest, where an iron crank has opened a new way in.

The train rattles and screams, slowly slipping further into the abyss where it is being inexorably pulled.
action: You talk to the man
response: "You will be fine," you say. "Soon enough help will come. I will stay here till then."

You look out of the shattered glass of the train windows, hiding your sore eyes to the man you lied to with your last words.

Another rattle and the wagon is pulled further into oblivion.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go nowhere].

The shrieking sound of metal against metal fills your ears as the last part of the train sinks. Another meter. One more shake and all will fall inside the open chasm.
action: You go south
response: "Don't leave me," cries the trapped man. "Please!"

One final, sinister noise shakes the wagon. Before you can understand what's happening, the weight of the rest of the train causes it all to fall into the enormous crack that opens below.

You have just enough time to jump through the wide crack before it all disappears into darkness, landing to safety on a hard ledge.

In the end, you fail to turn your eyes from those -- praying, pleading -- of the man trapped in the wreckage, his last goodbye a terrorized wailing into the unknown. You gaze into the blackness, speechless. The same words cycle into your forehead like a grinding echo: It will
be ok. Just relax. It will be ok.
Ledge
You are on a hard ledge, over a kilometers-deep chasm opening directly in front of you. There are no visible ways out, except for a trail cut in stone to the northwest. Now that the train has disappeared into oblivion, you realize there is no light, anywhere, apart from the orange glow coming up from the deep, like a disaster movie scenography. The faint green light from the screen of your E-Pad catches details for only a few meters around.

What comes to your mind next sends a blow to your stomach.

The Fatimah Initiative, you think in horror. No lights
means no energy.

And no energy means the tides.
action: Research fatimah initiative
response: Monarch to counterweight the one caused by the approaching of the orbiting star Fatimah. Every ten days, all non-emergency power sources on the planet are redirected to the Initiative. The Initiative was the Second Bound by the Interstellar Agreement and was signed by all the thirteen members of the Council.

If the Fatimah initiative is stopped, for any reason, the whole planet would be submerged in water. This must be avoided at any cost.
action: Research tides
response: Monarch to counterweight the one caused by the approaching of the orbiting star Fatimah. Every ten days, all non-emergency power sources on the planet are redirected to the Initiative. The Initiative was the Second Bound by the Interstellar Agreement and was signed by all the thirteen members of the Council.
action: Research bounds
response: The sum of the 237 rules by which the ASA Republican Worlds work.
They are divided into seven sections, each made up by at least 20 so-called "initiatives". Only the first two Bounds contain just one Initiative each. Those were written in the Ancient Days before the reforming of the Republic.
action: You research ancient Days
response: The third age spanned between 3,000 and 8,140 (YotG). The first
two centuries after its end are called "the Ancient Days", as opposed to the modern ones, lasting up to now.
action: Research first bound
response: This unit was not allowed to download resources on the matter.
Sorry.
action: Research asa
response: Andromeda Solar-spatial Agreement.

It is the set of rules which binds the interstellar space of the Andromeda Galaxy. The whole library is held in the Monarch Manuscript, under the Humanitas Mementos, closed from light and cryogenized at the Terracentral station in Phelios. It can be fully accessed from any ASA reports in the nearest Police station, Government hall or University. Excerpts can be found under the topic "excerpts" in this device.
action: Research excerpts
response: The E-Pad prints at least 763 pages before stopping its listing of the "excerpts". You think it's best to study them another time. Like never, maybe.
action: Research phelios
response: The small asteroid-satellite orbiting Monarch VII, Phelios, is
home to the Terracentral fortress, where the Quintessential Library and the Humanitas mementos are stored.
action: Go northwest
response: With much effort, you manage to pull yourself over the ledge.

These are the remains of the tunnel which would have taken you to the University if the quake hadn't swallowed its walls. Cascades of dirty water wash the sides of the black pit, flowing towards the giant crack. The fiery curtains of orange smoke that originate a few meters from you are the only light source for a span that goes on for kilometers. A thick web of twisted rails cuts its way across the darkness to the southwest. A small gap in the hulking walls of the tunnel leads north towards the unknown. Then it's only concrete and stone and a shattered world tangling together in every direction.

What is the magnitude of this disaster? you ask yourself,
while trying to put together the pieces of the splintering ground around you. What could have caused such a devastating
earthquake?

In the darkness of Monarch's deepest recesses, only the thickest silence stands as an answer. The rest is black.
action: You examine the rails
response: The rails can be walked on, although with a certain care.
action: You go north
response: The earth shattering event has done much more damage here than in the near tunnel. A gigantic river of molten rocks and magma slowly cuts its way in a wide crack running before your eyes. You stand uncomfortably over a small stony step which looks like a building's cornice and serves as the only walkway at the side of the underground cliff, off to the east and west. Pieces of building sink into the ground and pop out from the ceiling of the enormous cave, like steel crosses in an abandoned cemetery. In the middle of the crack, to the north, bathing in magma, rests the crippled half of one of the Construct pillars, the remaining structure lost.

A thin rain of small debris drops constantly from the crumbling sky. You look upon the decay of the human last resort and close your eyes in fear and torment.

There it goes, you sink into sorrow. We are late. We
always have been late.

You feel the weight of your E-Pad and remember downloading something about the Constructs in it.
action: Research constructs
response: The foundations of Monarch's Republican World. Digging deep into
the earth where the glacial layer has been molten, pillars of steel and concrete serve as supports for the above cities. In fact, the Monarch nation is but a floating continent built by the first colonies above the icy layer. Nowadays, a mere 10 percent of that layer is still solid, the rest being transformed into vast oceans covering more than half the world.
action: You examine the pillar
response: About fifteen meters wide, the pillar must have been torn in two by the quake. The lower part still sinks into the ground, inside and below the flowing magma, its alloy slowly surrendering to the heat. In a few hours it will be consumed. Something shines on the oblique surface of the pillar, in the spot where its has been cut in half.
action: You go north
response: It is a jump of twenty meters. There is no way to reach the pillar without falling into the fiery pit.
action: You examine the shine
response: You can't quite discern it from here. It is a metallic pole of sorts.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go south, east and west].
action: You go east
response: If it wasn't so dramatic, the view from here would be breathtaking. The immense magma river flows below effortlessly, although slow and patiently. The whole cave is lit by its fiery belly. From here you can see the broken pillar rising from the flames like a finger pointing the sky -- a sky made of crumbling rocks and metal -- and the stony walls surrounding the sight like the steps of a giant arena. Below, the thin cornice cuts a distinct line on the side of it, losing itself in the distance inside a small passage to the west. The piece of quartz you are standing on has resisted the quake's onslaught and is now holding itself onto the rock like a cat on a tree trunk. Something like steps rise from here to an alcove, up above and near the ceiling. A faint cyanotic light pulsates inside it. You can reach it to the northwest.
action: You go to the north-west
response: A grim mouth dug into the span's wall starts here and crawls inside the earth, disappearing after a twist to the south. A bright blue light pulsates there, faint. In front of you, the molten span is still visible, although the curve of the collapsing ceiling covers your sight. The cliff then dives deep into the roaring lava, debris dropping from its edge now and then. You can reach the quartz outcropping walking -- carefully -- southeast.

A lesser tremor splinters the cliff, sending pieces into the fiery pit below.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go south and southeast].

A small chunk of rock falls into the magma from the edge of the cliff.
action: Research Hyerotrope
response: The moving motor of the Tidal Initiative.

Discovered during the Ancient Era, its meaning or purpose is yet unknown. Apart from a huge power surge (all in the geo-gravitational spectrum), a Hyerotrope seems utterly inactive. Its "breathing" has been hypothesized as a remnant of a former energy outbreak, the likes and size of which are not computable. Although "dead" in many ways, it was soon discovered that its gravitational pull could be altered by igniting it with an immense plasma shock. Thus far, the seventeen Hyerotropes discovered have been used to counterweight Fatimah during the tidal outbreaks.
action: Research tidal initiative
response: Monarch to counterweight the one caused by the approaching of the orbiting star Fatimah. Every ten days, all non-emergency power sources on the planet are redirected to the Initiative. The Initiative was the Second Bound by the Interstellar Agreement and was signed by all the thirteen members of the Council.
action: You examine the carvings
response: They are one centimeter wide (and you could bet all you have it is exactly one centimeter) and one deep. Inside it, an
unsubstantial essence flows like a river of light. Although twisty and maze-like, they all wrap up at the base of the dome, some of them continuing over its round surface.
action: You examine the door
response: There is no way of telling how this "door" can be opened.. On it, four small dots draw a perfect line, in its center.

The dots look like tiny holes in the center of the "door", one above the other in a linear sequence. Light pulsates inside four of them.
action: You look at the dots
response: The dots look like tiny holes in the center of the "door", one above the other in a linear sequence. Light pulsates inside four of them.
action: Examine dome
response: The dome is made of a substance that looks solid, but it is actually pulsating like an human belly. It reflects almost no light, apart from the thick web of luminescent cracks that cover its ancient skin.
action: You touch the dot
response: They are cold.
action: Inventory
response: You're carrying a new railway ticket, some Report files and an E-Pad.
action: You go to the north
response: A stronger tremor opens a crack near the edge of the cliff.
action: You go southeast
response: You approach the cliff's edge, ready to get back to the quartz platform, when a sudden tremor stops you on your feet.
And it's a rather fortunate event, as your step ends up just a centimeter from a sinister crack opening on the cliff itself.

A second later, a more intense shock cuts the crack open and a large section of the cliff face goes crumbling down right in front of you. You had taken another half step you would have fallen into the fiery pits below.

You hold yourself to the cave walls, panting loudly, waiting for the affright to vanish.

A stronger tremor opens a crack near the edge of the cliff.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go south and southeast].

A lesser tremor splinters the cliff, sending pieces into the fiery pit below.
action: Go north
response: You walk over the crumbled wall, finding your way to the Construct pillar. The heat is almost unbearable.

The broken pillar seems sturdy enough to resist the flowing magma for a long time. Were it not for the quake, it could have survived in the molten rocks for ages. The alloy is sturdy and elastic at the same time, its interiors glittering like a salt mine. At its center, a hollow section opens into a net of tangled steel bars that worked as a skeleton for the whole structure. Wires of every kind run deep inside, like a circulatory system. You can't tell what kind of machinations were designed for the Construct and what served what inside here.

From the center of the pillar, where it has been torn in two by the disaster, a steel bar pops out, loose from the others of its own family. It looks like you can pull it out without much effort.

You start fainting from the excessive heat. Your eyes are sore and you can barely breathe.
action: You take the bar
response: You pull the steel bar out of the tangle in which it rests.

Everything around you is becoming red and black, like in a sort of twisted nightmare. The intense heat is killing you.
action: Go south
response: A gigantic river of molten rocks and magma slowly cuts its way in a wide crack running before your eyes. You stand uncomfortably over a small stony step which looks like a building's cornice and serves as the only walkway at the side of the underground cliff, off to the east and west. Pieces of building sink into the ground and pop out from the ceiling of the enormous cave, like steel crosses in an abandoned cemetery. In the middle of the crack, to the north, bathing in magma, rests the crippled half of one of the Construct pillars, the remaining structure lost.

A bridge of sedimentary stone has fallen from above, and now rests in a scarce equilibrium above the fiery canyon between here and the pillar's broken surface.
action: Examine bar
response: One meter and a half long, three centimeters wide. Enough to break a man's skull with just one hit.
action: You go to the north
response: You walk over the crumbled wall, finding your way to the Construct pillar. The heat is almost unbearable.

The broken pillar seems sturdy enough to resist the flowing magma for a long time. Were it not for the quake, it could have survived in the molten rocks for ages. The alloy is sturdy and elastic at the same time, its interiors glittering like a salt mine. At its center, a hollow section opens into a net of tangled steel bars that worked as a skeleton for the whole structure. Wires of every kind run deep inside, like a circulatory system.

The fumes coming from the lava under the pillar are so hot you can feel your skin burn. You must get out of here before you catch fire.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go south].

Everything around you is becoming red and black, like in a sort of twisted nightmare. The intense heat is killing you.
action: You go west
response: The walk over the tiny ledge is painstaking. After several minutes, you leave it for the first opening, a tight crack in the wall, large enough to let a man pass through.

The wide room is lit only by the fiery pits opening east beyond the crack in the wall. The rest is immersed in darkness. All you can discern are piles and piles of boxes and stuff put together who knows when and for who knows what. Glimmering in the reflections of your E-Pad's green light, you discover a lonely hut, made from plastic wreckage and held together by iron wires, its door sprung open to the north. The warehouse goes on to the northwest, beyond more piles of stock.

A huge switch hides behind some dust in the west wall.
action: You examine the switch
response: It is encrusted with rust, grinning like a sardonic smile made in steel and plastics.
action: You look at the boxes
response: Piles and piles of once useful objects, now reduced to rubbish. The plastic cans make them unopenable and unmovable. A pity.
action: You go to the north
response: Darkness gets thicker in here. Shelves line up along the interior, but they are all empty. An old wire dangles from the ceiling with no lamp on it. The only exit is south, to the warehouse.

A blade of light comes from the back of the hut, to the north, where it penetrates a cut in the plastic casing.
action: Examine cut
response: The plastic has been damaged -- by the quake? --  and lets some light come in from beyond the hut's shoulders.
action: You look at the wire
response: It comes from a pre-plasmatron era. Better leave it alone.
action: You pry cut with the bar
response: You push the steel bar inside the crack and press all you weight against it. After a while, the cut gives and a new, human-sized scar now smiles in the north wall.
action: Go north
response: Pale walls run east-west in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof. A crack breaks the southern wall like a black scar.

What kind of place is this, you mutter, looking around
puzzled. A subway service area?

You remember having read something about this kind of structure. One of your fellow teachers once called it an "underground settlement".
action: You research underground settlement
response: During the era when the Constructs were built, a large underground vault, known as the "settlement", was used for R&D and to store artifacts and knowledge found while digging through the icy crust and the upper layers. Aseptic walls run relentlessly for kilometers, along with a vast number of laboratories and facilities. These places are a sort of gigantic city-under-the-city, where the researchers and the workers spent their time together in a closed environment. Due to the extremely long times before resurfacing, many were captivated in the settlements for months until their duty schedule expired. The seclusion proved too much for the inhabitants of the settlements, who started showing signs of paranoia and of claustrophobia. After only three years since the first humans entered the vault, a fierce riot took the pale halls, leaving more than three hundred civilians dead. The settlements were closed and all the work was handed over to automated machines and robots.

still visitable: the Museum of the Vaults, near the Central Station. There, visitors can witness the "magic" of the white corridors lighting system, some of the remaining labs (only a handful are still functioning -- even if for mere demonstrational purposes) and the thrilling experience of the disappearing walls.
action: You research disappearing walls
response: One of the best shows in the Museum of the Vaults.

Properly stimulated (via an input device or by remote control),
what looks like a regular settlement wall blinks and disappears, working as a door for hidden or particularly dangerous rooms.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go south, east and west].
action: Go east
response: Pale walls run west from here in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof.

A darker spot seems to mark the north wall, almost in the exact center.
action: You look at the spot
response: A darker spot marks a rectangular area. It looks like once it hosted... a painting, maybe?
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go west].
action: Go west
response: Pale walls run east-west in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof. A crack breaks the southern wall like a black scar.
action: You go west
response: Pale walls run east from here in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof.

Whatever this is, it looks like a cul-de-sac.

A darker spot seems to mark the west wall, almost in the exact center.
action: You look at roof
response: The plastic of the ceiling is glowing unnaturally. It doesn't look like light shines from behind but rather from the very
surface.
action: You touch the bottom
response: It is cut from a single piece of vibertron alloy. It is unopenable and unbreakable.
action: You go east
response: Pale walls run east-west in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof. A crack breaks the southern wall like a black scar.
action: Go south
response: Darkness gets thicker in here. Shelves line up along the interior, but they are all empty. An old wire dangles from the ceiling with no lamp on it. The only exit is south, to the warehouse.

Where the light came in from a small cut in the wall, a wide crack opens, revealing an escape route to the north.
action: You go to the south
response: The wide room is lit only by the fiery pits opening east beyond the crack in the wall. The rest is immersed in darkness. All you can discern are piles and piles of boxes and stuff put together who knows when and for who knows what. Glimmering in the reflections of your E-Pad's green light, a lonely hut, made from plastic wreckage and held together by iron wires, its door sprung open to the north. The warehouse goes on to the northwest, beyond more piles of stock.

A huge switch hides behind some dust in the west wall.
action: You pull the switch
response: As you lower the switch, a burst of energy breaks loose, exploding in a loud pop! Fuses, wires and the very handle of the switch
are now melted together. Apart from this, there's no evident outcome. You can only guess lights have been turned off somewhere.
action: Go north
response: Pale walls run east-west in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof. A crack breaks the southern wall like a black scar.

A faint crumbling sound breaks the silence of the place, somewhere.
action: Go east
response: Pale walls run west from here in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof.

A darker spot seems to mark the north wall, almost in the exact center.
action: Go west
response: Pale walls run east-west in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof. A crack breaks the southern wall like a black scar.
action: You take the wire
response: That's hardly portable.
action: You go to the south
response: The wide room is lit only by the fiery pits opening east beyond the crack in the wall. The rest is immersed in darkness. All you can discern are piles and piles of boxes and stuff put together who knows when and for who knows what. Glimmering in the reflections of your E-Pad's green light, a lonely hut, made from plastic wreckage and held together by iron wires, its door sprung open to the north. The warehouse goes on to the northwest, beyond more piles of stock.

A huge switch hides behind some dust in the west wall.
action: You pull the wire
response: It is fixed in place.
action: You go to the northwest
response: The stocks are too tight together to let you pass. Some make a climbing route to the ceiling, which unfortunately ends there with no hope for trespassing.
action: You examine the shelves
response: Dust covers the shelves, a witness of decay.
action: You go to the south
response: The wide room is lit only by the fiery pits opening east beyond the crack in the wall. The rest is immersed in darkness. All you can discern are piles and piles of boxes and stuff put together who knows when and for who knows what. Glimmering in the reflections of your E-Pad's green light, a lonely hut, made from plastic wreckage and held together by iron wires, its door sprung open to the north. The warehouse goes on to the northwest, beyond more piles of stock.

A huge switch hides behind some dust in the west wall.
action: Inventory
response: You're carrying a steel bar, a new railway ticket, some Report files and an E-Pad.
action: You hit switch with the bar
response: It would probably ruin both the steel bar and the power switch.
action: You go east
response: The immense magma river flows below effortlessly, although slow and patiently. The whole cave is lit by its fiery belly. From here you can see the broken pillar rising from the flames like a finger pointing the sky -- a sky made of crumbling rocks and metal -- and the stony walls surrounding the sight like the steps of a giant arena. Below, the thin cornice cuts a distinct line on the side of it, losing itself in the distance inside a small passage to the west. The piece of quartz you are standing on has resisted the quake's onslaught and is now holding itself onto the rock like a cat on a tree trunk. Something like steps rise from here to an alcove, up above and near the ceiling. A faint cyanotic light pulsates inside it. You can reach it to the northwest.

A large chunk of rock from the cave mouth, up above, has fallen into the molten span and now looks like a bridge of sorts between it and the Construct pillar.
action: Go northwest
response: A grim mouth dug into the span's wall starts here and crawls inside the earth, disappearing after a twist to the south. A bright blue light pulsates there, faint. In front of you, the molten span is still visible, although the curve of the collapsing ceiling covers your sight. The cliff then dives deep into the roaring lava, debris dropping from its edge now and then. You can reach the quartz outcropping walking -- carefully -- southeast.

A small chunk of rock falls into the magma from the edge of the cliff.
action: You go north
response: A grim mouth dug into the span's wall starts here and crawls inside the earth, disappearing after a twist to the south. A bright blue light pulsates there, faint. In front of you, the molten span is still visible, although the curve of the collapsing ceiling covers your sight. The cliff then dives deep into the roaring lava, debris dropping from its edge now and then. You can reach the quartz outcropping walking -- carefully -- southeast.

A stronger tremor opens a crack near the edge of the cliff.
action: You go south
response: Cascades of dirty water wash the sides of the black pit, flowing towards the giant crack. The fiery curtains of orange smoke that originate a few meters from you are the only light source for a span that goes on for kilometers. A thick web of twisted rails cuts its way across the darkness to the southwest. A small gap in the hulking walls of the tunnel leads north towards the lake of magma. Then it's only concrete and stone and a shattered world tangling together in every direction.
action: You go to the south-west
response: Moving very carefully, you manage to put one step in front of the other, above the deep, until you get to...

The chasm is under you. Its teeth close on the rails like the mouth of an all-devouring creature. You balance above nothing, an acrobat clinging to his own life, the only reasonable exit awaiting to the northeast.

A broken wagon is dangling from the last of the rails, to the west. Light buzzes inside.

A gust of smoke fills your nostrils, leaving you stunned.
action: You look at the wagon
response: The wagon clings to the last straw of rails. It has been ripped in half by the quake deflagration and now looks like the decaying body of a dead pet. Sparks light its interiors.
action: Go west
response: One step at a time. Very, very carefully.

The crumpled floor rests inclined by forty degrees, making it very hard to stay on foot. You hold on to a bench, its metal handles your last resort against a fall. Light buzzes inside broken fluorescent lamps and sparks ignite the emptiness with futile effort. You are overwhelmed by... the gravity of the situation.

There is no sign of life. All is fallen. Dead.

A glimpse of light reflects on something, hidden under the last bench before the chasm.
action: You look under the bench
response: Something is holding itself over the chasm, above the last metal rung.

The crumpled floor rests inclined by forty degrees, making it very hard to stay on foot. You hold on to a bench, its metal handles your last resort against a fall. Light buzzes inside broken fluorescent lamps and sparks ignite the emptiness with futile effort. You are overwhelmed by... the gravity of the situation.

A black metal box pops out from under the last bench before the chasm.
action: Examine box
response: You see nothing special about the black box.

A howling comes from the chasm, like a human crying.
action: You take it
response: You pull yourself to your stretching limit, a hand grasping for the box under the bench. As you catch it, debris -- and a square meter of the wagon's floor -- fall into the void with a noise like the one of nails on a blackboard.

They disappear down under never hitting the bottom.
action: You open the box
response: You open the black box, revealing an Elektron and a metal weight.
action: You examine Elektron
response: A glossy side, a sticky side and no power. On the lower part of the sticky side, a slot is open, revealing nothing.
action: You go to the east
response: The chasm is under you. Its teeth close on the rails like the mouth of an all-devouring creature. You balance above nothing, an acrobat clinging to his own life, the only reasonable exit awaiting to the northeast.

A broken wagon is dangling from the last of the rails, to the west. Light buzzes inside.

A howling comes from the chasm, like a human crying.
action: Research elektron
response: A portable interface. It connects to a receiving surface and works
as an input device for commands and other tasks. Upon connection, it analyses the target and gives out: a) a fast signature recap; and b) the default commands to be executed (when provided). It usually needs a resonating crystal as a power stabilizer.
action: You look at the weight
response: A kilogram. Almost perfect.
action: You go to the northeast
response: Cascades of dirty water wash the sides of the black pit, flowing towards the giant crack. The fiery curtains of orange smoke that originate a few meters from you are the only light source for a span that goes on for kilometers. A thick web of twisted rails cuts its way across the darkness to the southwest. A small gap in the hulking walls of the tunnel leads north towards the lake of magma. Then it's only concrete and stone and a shattered world tangling together in every direction.

A howling comes from the chasm, like a human crying.
action: Go north
response: A gigantic river of molten rocks and magma slowly cuts its way in a wide crack running before your eyes. You stand uncomfortably over a small stony step which looks like a building's cornice and serves as the only walkway at the side of the underground cliff, off to the east and west. Pieces of building sink into the ground and pop out from the ceiling of the enormous cave, like steel crosses in an abandoned cemetery. In the middle of the crack, to the north, bathing in magma, rests the crippled half of one of the Construct pillars, the remaining structure lost.

A bridge of sedimentary stone has fallen from above, and now rests in a scarce equilibrium above the fiery canyon between here and the pillar's broken surface.
action: You examine the quartz
response: It shines and reflects the molten span below. Here and there, small chunks popped off of the cracked crystal.

A perfect splinter rests upon the others, waiting to be picked up.
action: You take the splinter
response: Taken.
action: You put the splinter in Elektron
response: The quartz perfectly fits the slot on the back of the Elektron. The display comes to life, showing some text.
action: You read Elektron
response: It reads: No source. Expected link missing. Check status and connection.
action: You go north
response: Pale walls run east-west in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof. A crack breaks the southern wall like a black scar.

The light from the ceiling vibrates randomly, then it calms down.
action: Go east
response: Pale walls run west from here in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof.

A darker spot seems to mark the north wall, almost in the exact center.
action: You put Elektron on the spot
response: You link the Elektron to the north wall. The display on the device blinks twice: Some text appears on it.

It reads: Gamma section port found. Tap display to open.
action: You tap the display
response: The Elektron blinks twice, then the whole north wall blinks too. It shines in a brilliant purple and seconds later it disappears, folding into itself. A gap now opens where the wall stood.

You take the Elektron and put it back among your belongings.
action: Go north
response: You go into the gap.

Darkness falls. The faint, sterile light coming from the opening to the south is devoured by the walls of this twisted tunnel, a cut in the earth running diagonal and scattered in every direction. You can find no exits: the E-Pad is not enough to shed a light on this obscure womb.
action: Go south
response: Pale walls run west from here in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof.

A gap opens where the north wall once stood.
action: Go west
response: Pale walls run east from here in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof.

A darker spot seems to mark the west wall, almost in the exact center.
action: You put Elektron on the spot
response: You link the Elektron to the west wall. The display on the device blinks twice: Some text appears on it.

It reads: Alpha section port found. Tap display to open.
action: You tap the display
response: The Elektron blinks twice, then the whole west wall blinks too. It shines in a brilliant purple and seconds later it disappears, folding into itself. A gap now opens where the wall stood.

You take the Elektron and put it back among your belongings.
action: Go west
response: You go into the gap.

The gap in the eastern wall opens into a narrow room. Light vibrates and sends shimmering glances all over the place. The floor seems to be made from plain, levigated rock. The walls are of the same plastic material of the near corridor. To the west, a metal door bears the sign "storeroom" while, to the north, stands a more relieving vibertron portal.

Light? You mutter to yourself. Where's the source? Maybe
there is power, somewhere, after all.

A power strong enough to activate the Tidal Initiative, maybe?
action: You look at the portal
response: An automatic door. This means a power source must be near.
action: You go west
response: (first opening the storeroom door)

Whatever power source lightens the near corridors, its is nowhere to be found in here. The blank closet in which you stand, a bare two-by-two meters with no furniture except for a decaying plastic shelf in a corner, is covered in old and cracked tiles, the likes of which you only remember having seen either in hospitals or in public toilets. The acrid smell that fills the room points toward the latter.

On the plastic shelf is a wax soap.
action: You examine the soap
response: A remarkably old wax soap, one of the kind momma used to wash clothes when you were but a child. A sort of relic these days.
action: You examine the tiles
response: Old and cracked tiles, the likes of which you only remember having seen either in hospitals or in public toilets.
action: You go to the east
response: Light vibrates and sends shimmering glances all over the place. The floor seems to be made from plain, levigated rock. The walls are of the same plastic material of the near corridor. To the west, a metal door bears the sign "storeroom" while, to the north, stands a more relieving vibertron portal.

A distant dripping sound echoes somewhere.
action: Go north
response: You walk past the vibertron door, which silently opens around you.

When the heavy door hides in the surrounding walls, the buzzing lights of the corridor drop down to a mere spark. Whatever the power source is, its is obviously not enough to feed both the lights and the door.

The door opens into another disaster scenario. Chunks of rock have emerged from the broken floor, piercing through the roof. From there, massive blocks of concrete and steel hang, remnants of the city above.

The quake has indeed been tremendous and you wonder how much of the surface is still standing.

A tunnel cuts its way into the earth to the north, beyond reach.

An ice spike the size of a bus has been thrusted into the room from below. It shines, the light coming from a source underneath it, and it is illuminating the area. The color and shape of the chunk betray the ice as very, very old, the likes of which you studied from the Monarch's glacial era.

Above the spike, near the roof, sparkles fall down from a broken piece of machinery.
action: You examine the spike
response: Its surface is rough and cracked. Shards of light glow everywhere. It looks sturdy enough to sustain your weight.
action: Climb spike
response: You climb up the spike, finding enough grip to reach the roof.

Cold Pyramid (on the ice spike)
Chunks of rock have emerged from the broken floor, piercing through the roof. From there, massive blocks of concrete and steel hang, remnants of the city above.

A tunnel cuts its way into the earth to the north, beyond reach.

Near the roof, sparkles fall down from a broken piece of machinery.
action: You examine the machinery
response: It seems the quake has exploded in here, sending all upwards, toward the surface. The machinery (the likes of which you've never seen before) has been pushed into the ceiling by a shattering force.

Now that you are near, you can carefully analyze it. It is a sort of metal cylinder, levigated beyond perfection by unknown forces. On it, four dots identical to the ones on the door of the Hyerotrope blink faintly. The exposed edge of the cylinder is a tangle of tiny cuts, each twisted into the other in an unique pattern. A smooth, plain surface is visible just a few centimeters near the dots.
action: You put Elektron on the surface
response: You link the Elektron to the machinery. The display on the device blinks twice: Some text appears on it.

It reads: Radio wave emissions. Geo-gravitational pull. Very low response. Tap display to activate.
action: You read Elektron
response: It reads: Radio wave emissions. Geo-gravitational pull. Very low response. Tap display to activate.
action: You take the cylinder
response: It is firmly stuck in the stone.
action: You look at cylinder
response: It seems the quake has exploded in here, sending all upwards, toward the surface. The machinery (the likes of which you've never seen before) has been pushed into the ceiling by a shattering force.

The Elektron is connected to the machinery.

Now that you are near, you can carefully analyze it. It is a sort of metal cylinder, levigated beyond perfection by unknown forces. On it, four dots identical to the ones on the door of the Hyerotrope blink faintly. The exposed edge of the cylinder is a tangle of tiny cuts, each twisted into the other in an unique pattern. A smooth, plain surface is visible just a few centimeters near the dots.
action: You examine Elektron
response: A glossy side, a sticky side and some text on the display. On the lower part of the sticky side, a slot welcomes a heart-shaped quartz, now pulsating with life.
action: You check your inventory
response: You're carrying a wax soap, a black box, a steel bar, a new railway ticket, some Report files and an E-Pad.
action: You look in the box
response: In the black box are an Elektron and a metal weight.
action: You look at the weight
response: A kilogram. Almost perfect.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go south].
action: Go outside
response: Before leaving, you remove the Elektron from the machinery.

You get off the ice spike.

Chunks of rock have emerged from the broken floor, piercing through the roof. From there, massive blocks of concrete and steel hang, remnants of the city above.

A tunnel cuts its way into the earth to the north, beyond reach.

An ice spike the size of a bus has been thrusted into the room from below. It shines, the light coming from a source underneath it, and it is illuminating the area. The color and shape of the chunk betray the ice as very, very old, the likes of which you studied from the Monarch's glacial era.

Above the spike, near the roof, sparkles fall down from a broken piece of machinery.
action: Go north
response: The massive ice spike is in the way.
action: You look at the machinery
response: It seems the quake has exploded in here, sending all upwards, toward the surface. The machinery (the likes of which you've never seen before, although it is hard to tell from here) has been pushed into the ceiling by a shattering force.
action: You examine Elektron
response: A glossy side, a sticky side and some text on the display. On the lower part of the sticky side, a slot welcomes a heart-shaped quartz, now pulsating with life.
action: You read the text
response: It reads: No source. Expected link missing. Check status and connection.
action: Yes
response: cheapglulxe quit with exit status: 0
action: %
response: Morning comes, in Monarch. An eerie light permeates the room.

It's been a hard night...

A bed, a table, a bathroom. This is all that's left of your colleague, Professor Re's. Some dust, an eerie atmosphere and just a memory.
action: You go east
response: Pale walls run east from here in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof.

A gap opens where the west wall once stood.
action: You go east
response: Pale walls run east-west in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof. A crack breaks the southern wall like a black scar.
action: You put Elektron on the door
response: You link the Elektron to the door of the dome. The display on the device blinks twice: Some text appears on it.

It reads: Geo-gravitational pull. Alert. Peaks at 13.6x10^12 gamma epsilon. Reading off scale. Process terminated.

Wow. There must be a power source of gigantic proportions in there.
action: You open the door
response: There is no evident way of doing that. There must be a trick of sorts to open the door. If it is a door, of course.
action: Research elektron
response: A portable interface. It connects to a receiving surface and works
as an input device for commands and other tasks. Upon connection, it analyses the target and gives out: a) a fast signature recap; and b) the default commands to be executed (when provided). It usually needs a resonating crystal as a power stabilizer.
action: Light soap
response: This dangerous act would achieve little.
action: You eat the soap
response: That's plainly inedible.
action: You go to the north
response: Before leaving, you remove the Elektron from the door of the dome.

A grim mouth dug into the span's wall starts here and crawls inside the earth, disappearing after a twist to the south. A bright blue light pulsates there, faint. In front of you, the molten span is still visible, although the curve of the collapsing ceiling covers your sight. The cliff then dives deep into the roaring lava, debris dropping from its edge now and then. You can reach the quartz outcropping walking -- carefully -- southeast.

A small chunk of rock falls into the magma from the edge of the cliff.
action: You put Elektron on the wall
response: The surface of Walls_dark is not good for that.
action: You go to the north
response: By touching the walls, you discover an exit on the north wall.

Again, disaster struck.

The walls of what once was a sort of laboratory are but piles of debris and distorted laminas. The only passage large enough for your shoulders is west, through broken rocks. To the south, darkness marks the way to the corridors.

The only surviving piece of equipment, amidst the crumbled universe that is now this old planet, is a glass cabinet which batteries still power. A fluorescent light shines on its pale interior.
action: You look at the cabinet
response: Inside the cabinet you can see a disc that someone labeled "Alpha" and a disc labeled "Beta".
action: You examine Alpha
response: It has two plain surfaces. One is smooth and polished. The other is marked by an astonishing number of protruding lines, like a maze of sorts.
action: You open the cabinet
response: You open the surviving glass cabinet.
action: You take the batteries
response: You can't tell where they are. And you don't really need them, after all.
action: You go west
response: Another lab, where light is just a thick, yellow smoke at nose-height. All seems in place: the cabinets, the tables, the displays. Even a terminal, which sits on the northeast corner of the room, seems real enough to push the thought it could actually be functional. But: there's something more, something you couldn't have honestly anticipated.

Something like a talon has cut this room in two. Its three meter long, shiny carapace is dripping with horror and malevolence. In from the west wall, it has crushed everything and splintered stone and metal together with no effort. You cannot fathom what -- or who -- it must belong to.

The nail seems nerveless.
action: You look at the nail
response: It looks metallic, although you are certain it must be a
beast's nail. It is still as a statue, but you are convinced
life still runs through it.
action: You touch it
response: It is cold as ice. Still, you know warm blood must run in
there.
action: Research dragon
response: You discover nothing of interest in the E-Pad.

The light from the ceiling vibrates randomly, then it calms down.
action: You examine terminal
response: A keyboard and a screen. It sits silently, seemingly turned off.
action: You turn on the terminal
response: The screen comes to life. What comes up appears to be a diagram of sorts.
action: You examine the screen
response: (the old terminal)
The screen shows a diagram, indicating what seems to be a comparison between energy spectrums, a kind of measurement you and Andy have been doing a lot, lately. Infact, it takes you but a second to recognize the waveforms and the patterns depicted.

On the left, a vivid pink line indicates the remnants of the Event onslaught, that waveform that still can be picked up well beyond the Omega waves array. On the right, a similar (but much stronger) curve, printed in light blue, almost replicates the first one. There are no labels under the diagrams, still it's beyond any doubt the latter is what you and Andy called the Alpha Radiation.

Ironically, the two lines look like the output of a... quake measurement device.

The Event, you murmur. As a conditioned reflex, you find
yourself holding tight to the E-Pad.
action: Research event
response: "The Event" a.k.a. "Event Primeval" or "the Crunch".

During the Third Age, around year 7,892 of the Galaxy, the Event begun, spanning over 300 years as calculated from Korhos revolutionary times. At first just a mere brilliance in the night sky, as luminescent as any supernova effect, it was described as soon "enlarging and becoming more and more intense". Records from the era recount how something, inside the neighboring galaxy, grew so big that it actually devoured 90 percent of the stars in it. In time, the brilliance became less invasive, returning darkness to the night. In the end, on the third day of the fourth month of the year 8,140, the Event exploded, obliterating the sky on the southern hemisphere of Monarch. The lesser sun of the trinary system KFS, Fatimah, was actually involved in the deflagration. It was dislocated enough to enter the Korhos gravitational orbit, thus becoming its bigger satellite. The Event also wiped almost all life on the Andromeda galaxy: just the more technologically advanced inhabitants of the Monarch Republic survived the onslaught, by hiding underground and in the Mechanosatellites.
action: Research mechanosatellites
response: Structures orbiting Monarch at a very long range. Build as solid
space stations, they were meant to be used as bunkers against the Event onslaught. Upon serving their purpose, they have been since left abandoned.

A distant dripping sound echoes somewhere.
action: You research Alpha Radiation
response: (Inserted by user 5,835 -- not present in general database)

Radiation which pulsates from a specific point under Monarch's capital. Discovered on 25th/3rd/9,855. Generator or source: unkn. Z-position: unkn. Magnitude: feeble, but growing. ---- Warning: same kind of the Event residues. ----.
action: Look around
response: Another lab, where light is just a thick, yellow smoke at nose-height. All seems in place: the cabinets, the tables, the displays. Even a terminal, which sits on the northeast corner of the room, seems real enough to push the thought it could actually be functional. But: there's something more.

Something like a talon has cut this room in two. Its three meter long, shiny carapace is dripping with horror and malevolence. In from the west wall, it has crushed everything and splintered stone and metal together with no effort. You cannot fathom what -- or who -- it must belong to.

The nail seems nerveless.
action: Exits
response: [From here you can go east].
action: You take the nail
response: That's fixed in place.

A distant dripping sound echoes somewhere.
action: Go east
response: The walls of what once was a sort of laboratory are but piles of debris and distorted laminas. The only passage large enough for your shoulders is west, through broken rocks. To the south, darkness marks the way to the corridors.

The only surviving piece of equipment, amidst the crumbled universe that is now this old planet, is a glass cabinet which batteries still power. A fluorescent light shines on its pale interior.
action: Go south
response: Darkness falls. The faint, sterile light coming from the opening to the south is devoured by the walls of this twisted tunnel, a cut in the earth running diagonal and scattered in every direction. The only exit you found is north, to the laboratory.
action: Go west
response: Pale walls run east-west in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof. A crack breaks the southern wall like a black scar.

A distant dripping sound echoes somewhere.
action: You pull switch
response: That's already off.
action: Go west
response: Pale walls run east from here in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof.

A gap opens where the west wall once stood.

The light from the ceiling vibrates randomly, then it calms down.
action: You go to the west
response: You go into the gap.

Light vibrates and sends shimmering glances all over the place. The floor seems to be made from plain, levigated rock. The walls are of the same plastic material of the near corridor. To the west, a metal door bears the sign "storeroom" while, to the north, stands a more relieving vibertron portal.
action: Go north
response: You walk past the vibertron door, which silently opens around you.

Chunks of rock have emerged from the broken floor, piercing through the roof. From there, massive blocks of concrete and steel hang, remnants of the city above.

A tunnel cuts its way into the earth to the north, beyond reach.

An ice spike the size of a bus has been thrusted into the room from below. It shines, the light coming from a source underneath it, and it is illuminating the area. The color and shape of the chunk betray the ice as very, very old, the likes of which you studied from the Monarch's glacial era.

Above the spike, near the roof, sparkles fall down from a broken piece of machinery.
action: Climb spike
response: You climb up the spike, finding enough grip to reach the roof.

Cold Pyramid (on the ice spike)
Chunks of rock have emerged from the broken floor, piercing through the roof. From there, massive blocks of concrete and steel hang, remnants of the city above.

A tunnel cuts its way into the earth to the north, beyond reach.

Near the roof, sparkles fall down from a broken piece of machinery.
action: You look at the cylinder
response: It seems the quake has exploded in here, sending all upwards, toward the surface. The machinery (the likes of which you've never seen before) has been pushed into the ceiling by a shattering force.

Now that you are near, you can carefully analyze it. It is a sort of metal cylinder, levigated beyond perfection by unknown forces. On it, four dots identical to the ones on the door of the Hyerotrope blink faintly. The exposed edge of the cylinder is a tangle of tiny cuts, each twisted into the other in an unique pattern. A smooth, plain surface is visible just a few centimeters near the dots.
action: You examine Alpha
response: It has two plain surfaces. One is smooth and polished. The other is marked by an astonishing number of protruding lines, like a maze of sorts.
action: You put Alpha on the cylinder
response: You try the disc labeled "Alpha", but it doesn't fit the machinery base. The lines and cuts don't match.
action: You put the Beta on the cylinder
response: You try the disk "Beta" on the machinery. It fits perfectly, the lines protruding from it matching the cuts on the base. The four dots blink twice, then start strobing and dancing to the rhythm of some unheard music.

It is so much fun.

Then, it all comes crumbling down. The very earth trembles and drops to pieces. A wave comes rushing inside from the south, devastating the walls and the whole surroundings like a tsunami of stone. The ceiling holds, but the ice spike on which you stand is swallowed by the ground, that closes on it like curtains of doom.

When the event comes to an end, the machinery has disappeared, lost somewhere, and you get up, bruised but uncannily unharmed.

What has just happened? you ask yourself, while removing dust
from your clothes.

Chunks of rock have emerged from the broken floor, piercing through the roof. From there, massive blocks of concrete and steel hang, remnants of the city above.

A tunnel cuts its way into the earth to the north.
action: Inventory
response: You're carrying a disc labeled "Alpha", a wax soap, a black box, a steel bar, a new railway ticket, some Report files and an E-Pad.
action: You go north
response: Crystal walls surround you, in every direction. To the south, they open to a more comfortable rock cave while, on the opposite direction, they separate in two different paths, to the northwest and east respectively.
action: Go northwest
response: The dark interiors of this hall, washed in a pale greenish dye, remind you of a hospital. A few corridors exit the chamber to the east, north and south, all marked by a red sign respectively to "the Wastes", "the Cells" and "the Pentagon". A tunnel exits to the southeast.

Another spark ignites your brain as you recall having read something, once, about a zone called the "Quarantine", where convicts of the underground settlements -- and something far more valuable -- were held... uhm, hostages.

A seclusion area, you think. A place where things were
hidden.
action: Research quarantine
response: The reclusion area of the Underground Settlements. Different zones were used for storing artifacts found during excavations, storing unvaluable waste and garbage, and jailing those that were held responsible for acts of mischief during their duty.

A non-conventional belief, by the way, is that the Quarantine was
used to recess "guests" not too fond of keeping secrets and -- as the very name indicates -- to avoid unknown viruses from exiting the underground environment.

Ouch, you express loudly. Viruses? And to think that I
forgot my medkit at home.
action: Research wastes
response: A part of the Quarantine area, in the Settlements, was used as a
waste facility. In there ended up all the garbage and the disposable utilities.

A faint crumbling sound breaks the silence of the place, somewhere.
action: Go east
response: A room as large as your condo opens before you. A set of metal stairs descends into what seems to be the largest waste basket you've ever seen. Walls are shiny in slime and other unpleasant sewages, reflecting the stale light that comes from bioluminescent lamps clinging to the ceiling. The overall sensation is that of a green pudding, bubbling inside a green basin, bathing in a green atmosphere.
action: You look at the pudding
response: Everything that was rejected in the Settlements has been piled here. This is a sort of trash compactor, now luckily inert. Bathing in this sink is every kind of thing, much of it almost completely putrefied.
action: Go down
response: You climb down the ladder, every step uncomfortably sinking into ancient garbage and the thick smell of human decay.

You are neck deep into a mass of old-decayed garbage. The only exit is up, via a metal ladder. The rest is a green horizon of smelly headaches.
action: You search the garbage
response: You rake the garbage, holding your breath -- and not
figuratively. In the end, you come up with something unexpected.

You are neck deep into a mass of old-decayed garbage. The only exit is up, via a metal ladder. The rest is a green horizon of smelly headaches.

A glass case swims over the garbage. Something is floating inside it.
action: You look at the case
response: In the glass case is a perfect machine.
action: You examine the machine
response: A sort of metal cylinder, levigated beyond perfection by unknown forces. On it, four dots identical to the ones on the door of the Hyerotrope blink faintly. The bottom edge of the cylinder is a tangle of tiny cuts, each twisted into the other in an unique pattern. A smooth, plain surface is visible just a few centimeters near the dots.
action: Open case
response: There are no obvious openings. It looks like a cage. Whatever that thing inside is is meant to stay there.
action: You hit the case with the bar
response: The glass case resists the blow. It has obviously been designed to keep the cylinder trapped inside at any cost. You need to find something even more adamant to break it.
action: You go west
response: The dark interiors of this hall, washed in a pale greenish dye, remind you of a hospital. A few corridors exit the chamber to the east, north and south, all marked by a red sign respectively to "the Wastes", "the Cells" and "the Pentagon". A tunnel exits to the southeast.
action: You go north
response: The polished look of this area shouldn't betray its soul. A wing of containment rooms, each used for a specific purpose, as stated by the signs appended to each of the doors in the corridor. Many are storerooms for quarantined specimens, chambers armored against radiation, explosions and other unpredictable events. But the rest, lined in rows of hundreds, are just detention cells for human convicts. Among the many, two are open, west of here and further north.

You think about the madness that once must have inhabited this hall. A place where seclusion was the worst enemy, above danger, a scarce economy and not many escape routes. A full population of no-hopers, whom life on the surface was forbidden or set apart and that, eventually, was driven insane by its own lifestyle.

The ASA, in the end, proved above all the rest that "the end justifies the means" is just another hollow statement, built up by politicians to lay their plans with no opposition.
action: Go west
response: A wall, covered in monitors. A table, unfurnished except for some lined square buttons in the middle and a lonely terminal, sitting on a corner. This is a sightseeing tour over the detention center.
action: You examine terminal
response: A tap display and a vibertron surface. It is on, maybe self-powered.
action: You tap the display
response: (the functioning terminal)
There are three blank spaces and a virtual numeric keyboard on the terminal. Maybe you have to enter a code on it.
action: You examine the buttons
response: Strangely, two of the buttons are lit. One bears the word "screens", the other: "shock".

The light from the ceiling vibrates randomly, then it calms down.
action: Examine monitor
response: One of the monitors is lit. It shows the blank interiors of a stale cell.
action: Go east
response: The polished look of this area shouldn't betray its soul. A wing of containment rooms, each used for a specific purpose, as stated by the signs appended to each of the doors in the corridor. Many are storerooms for quarantined specimens, chambers armored against radiation, explosions and other unpredictable events. But the rest, lined in rows of hundreds, are just detention cells for human convicts. Among the many, two are open, west of here and further north.
action: You go north
response: You walk in the only open cell to the north and gasp.

This is what hell must be.

The walls of the tiny cell -- a mere two-by-two meters cubicle -- have all been painted and writings cover most of the surface. Someone, the inmate, has scratched every square centimeter of the concrete, leaving parts of himself among the apocalyptic messages and drawings.

It is indeed a work that took time, and a relentless resolution. Or a madness without boundaries.

And was the madness that took him to the confinement, you
wonder, looking at the scars that mark the soul of this very room,
or was it the other way around?

The humming that fills this nightmare, as a moaning of a living being, stands as an answer, when all that is sane has left the building.

A cylinder rests on the ground of the cell, on the opposite side of a hole dug into the wall where it must have been trapped before the explosion.

A round hole marks the wall where the cylinder once stood trapped.
action: You look at the wall
response: The writings have been scratched in blood. Nails and finger parts are still clinging to the raped wall.

I found the way    There is a way
Itch itch itch
Help me
Apocalypse comes from down under
They all speak in riddles    They all speak to me     I can hear
them

Then, the single writing that catches your attention:

The FIRST initiative. Their testament. I have seen it. This is all going to end. Use the bounds use their number.

The first initiative. The one secreted so many years ago.

And that sentence: "Apocalypse comes from down under". Could it be talking about the Alpha Radiation?
action: Research first initiative
response: This unit was not allowed to download resources on the matter.
Sorry.
action: You look at the cylinder
response: (the perfect cylinder)
A sort of metal cylinder, levigated beyond perfection by unknown forces. On it, four dots identical to the ones on the door of the Hyerotrope blink faintly. The bottom edge of the cylinder is a tangle of tiny cuts, each twisted into the other in an unique pattern. A smooth, plain surface is visible just a few centimeters near the dots.
action: You look in the hole
response: All you see is part of the next cell. Blank as a politician's speech.
action: Inventory
response: You're carrying a glass case, a disc labeled "Alpha", a wax soap, a black box, a steel bar, a new railway ticket, some Report files and an E-Pad.
action: You put Alpha on the cylinder
response: (the perfect cylinder)
You try the disk "Alpha" on the perfect cylinder. It fits perfectly, the lines protruding from it matching the cuts on the base. The four dots blink twice, then start strobing and dancing to the rhythm of some unheard music. The perfect machine flees from your hands and start levitating in front of you. Then, shrieking like a wraith, it flies away, jumping into the very ground and digging itself an escape.
action: Look around
response: The walls of the tiny cell -- a mere two-by-two meters cubicle -- have all been painted and writings cover most of the surface. Someone, the inmate, has scratched every square centimeter of the concrete, leaving parts of himself among the apocalyptic messages and drawings.

A round hole marks the wall where the cylinder once stood trapped.
action: You enter the hole
response: It's ten centimeters wide.
action: You go south
response: A five-sided room, which the earthquake has just barely scratched. Five exits run from here, each marked with a letter, except for the one which stands blank on the north wall. To the northeast, a capital "A" hangs over a grate, which seems stuck to the walls, unopenable. Southeast, "B" rests over what remains of a tunnel that has caved in, some of the rocks fallen inside the room. Northwest and southwest, respectively, "C" and "D" sign two metal doors.

A distant dripping sound echoes somewhere.
action: You look at the grate
response: Iron bars, the old style. Rust cover its surface. Beyond the grate only darkness and a dripping sound.
action: You examine the C
response: Its massive vibertron structure is inert in this powerless environment.
action: Examine B
response: You see nothing unexpected in that direction.

You can't see any such thing.
action: You examine the d door
response: This door is different. It is not made from vibertron, but all in solid steel. Its surface is marked by a yellow scar -- a logo of sorts -- depicting a triangle with rays all around it. The words "CAUTION: DANGER ZONE" are the only other detail. A knob rests on the right side of the door.
action: You go to the northeast
response: (first opening the barred gate)
(first unlocking the barred gate)
You lack a key that fits the barred gate.

The earth shakes a little, maybe adjusting itself.
action: Go northwest
response: (first opening northwest door)
(first unlocking northwest door)
You lack a key that fits northwest door.
action: Go southwest
response: (first opening southwest door)

It is now proven that the train derailed over the scientific area of the Settlements. This is yet another lab. The walls are made of the same old white plastic as the rest of the corridors that crowd the place. As opposite to the rest of the environment, this large room seems unscarred. The yellow floor is dotted by tracks in black-striped adhesives, drawing lines around the structure that rests in the center of the chamber. There is not much by the way of furniture, except for a single, foreign machine.

A cube, three meters wide, sleeps in the very center of the room. A strong, tight bundle of wires moves from its bottom towards the eastern wall, where it disappears in a plug. Two bays are open on the machine's top. Something that looks like a laser cannon points at the right bay.

A faint crumbling sound breaks the silence of the place, somewhere.
action: You examine the machine
response: (the cubic device)
A cube, three meters wide, sleeps in the very center of the room. A strong, tight bundle of wires moves from its bottom towards the eastern wall, where it disappears in a plug. Two bays are open on the machine's top. Something that looks like a laser cannon points at the right bay.
action: You examine the plug
response: You are certain the wires are the power source for the machinery.
action: You examine the bays
response: Which do you mean, the left bay or the right bay?
action: You examine the left bay
response: The left bay is empty.
action: You examine the right bay
response: The right bay is empty.
action: You look at the cannon
response: It looks like a plasma gun or a laser rifle. It is warm, indicating that it is functional. On the back of the gun is a red button, marked "FIRE".
action: Go northeast
response: A five-sided room, which the earthquake has just barely scratched. Five exits run from here, each marked with a letter, except for the one which stands blank on the north wall. To the northeast, a capital "A" hangs over a grate, which seems stuck to the walls, unopenable. Southeast, "B" rests over what remains of a tunnel that has caved in, some of the rocks fallen inside the room. Northwest and southwest, respectively, "C" and "D" sign two metal doors.
action: Go east
response: Another lab. This time, the walls have resisted the quake onslaught and just a few cracks depict their skin. A couple of chairs are poised against a big screening window, beyond which you can barely see. A thick layer of dust and smoke has painted it black. You can see the quartz tunnel to the west.

A faint crumbling sound breaks the silence of the place, somewhere.
action: You look at the window
response: Although very dirty, the window can be seen through, due to the strong light on the other side. The room seems empty. Only a parallelepipedon stands in its center, and you can discern nothing else.
action: You examine the chairs
response: Two chairs, rusted and broken. They must have been left here a long time ago.

A small, dusty object sits on one of the chairs.

Another lab. This time, the walls have resisted the quake onslaught and just a few cracks depict their skin. A couple of chairs are poised against a big screening window, beyond which you can barely see. A thick layer of dust and smoke has painted it black. You can see the quartz tunnel to the west.

You can see a disc labeled "Gamma" here.
action: You take Gamma
response: Taken.
action: Go east
response: Another lab. This time, the walls have resisted the quake onslaught and just a few cracks depict their skin. A couple of chairs are poised against a big screening window, beyond which you can barely see. A thick layer of dust and smoke has painted it black. You can see the quartz tunnel to the west.
action: You open window
response: You can't find a way of opening it. It has been designed to stay in place.
action: You go south
response: Chunks of rock have emerged from the broken floor, piercing through the roof. From there, massive blocks of concrete and steel hang, remnants of the city above.

A tunnel cuts its way into the earth to the north.
action: Go south
response: Light vibrates and sends shimmering glances all over the place. The floor seems to be made from plain, levigated rock. The walls are of the same plastic material of the near corridor. To the west, a metal door bears the sign "storeroom" while, to the north, stands a more relieving vibertron portal.

A faint crumbling sound breaks the silence of the place, somewhere.
action: You go east
response: Pale walls run east from here in this blank passage. No doors or windows open in the underground, but light fills the corridor, blown in through the roof.

A gap opens where the west wall once stood.
action: You go to the north
response: You go into the gap.

Darkness falls. The faint, sterile light coming from the opening to the south is devoured by the walls of this twisted tunnel, a cut in the earth running diagonal and scattered in every direction. The only exit you found is north, to the laboratory.
action: Go west
response: Another lab, where light is just a thick, yellow smoke at nose-height. All seems in place: the cabinets, the tables, the displays. Even a terminal, which sits on the northeast corner of the room, seems real enough to push the thought it could actually be functional. But: there's something more.

Something like a talon has cut this room in two. Its three meter long, shiny carapace is dripping with horror and malevolence. In from the west wall, it has crushed everything and splintered stone and metal together with no effort. You cannot fathom what -- or who -- it must belong to.

The nail seems nerveless.

A faint crumbling sound breaks the silence of the place, somewhere.
action: You throw the case at the nail
response: Not even an alien gigantic nail could open that glass case. It is not sharp enough.
action: You look at the case
response: In the glass case is a perfect machine.
action: You take the nail
response: That's fixed in place.
action: You hit the nail with the bar
response: With the risk of waking it up? Never.
action: You look at what you're carrying with you
response: You're carrying a disc labeled "Gamma", a glass case, a wax soap, a black box, a steel bar, a new railway ticket, some Report files and an E-Pad.
action: You put soap on the case
response: Putting things on the glass case would achieve nothing.

The light from the ceiling vibrates randomly, then it calms down.

> I

You're carrying a disc labeled "Gamma", a glass case, a wax soap, a black box, a steel bar, a new railway ticket, some Report files and an E-Pad.
action: You take the splinter
response: You carefully remove the quartz from the Elektron.
action: You cut the case
response: Cutting that up would achieve little.

A faint crumbling sound breaks the silence of the place, somewhere.
action: Go north
response: You walk past the vibertron door, which silently opens around you.

Chunks of rock have emerged from the broken floor, piercing through the roof. From there, massive blocks of concrete and steel hang, remnants of the city above.

A tunnel cuts its way into the earth to the north.
action: Go southwest
response: This is yet another lab. The walls are made of the same old white plastic as the rest of the corridors that crowd the place. As opposite to the rest of the environment, this large room seems unscarred. The yellow floor is dotted by tracks in black-striped adhesives, drawing lines around the structure that rests in the center of the chamber. There is not much by the way of furniture, except for a single, foreign machine.

A cube, three meters wide, sleeps in the very center of the room. A strong, tight bundle of wires moves from its bottom towards the eastern wall, where it disappears in a plug. Two bays are open on the machine's top. Something that looks like a laser cannon points at the right bay.
action: You put the soap in the right bay
response: You put the wax soap into the right bay.
action: You take the soap
response: Taken.

The earth shakes a little, maybe adjusting itself.
action: You put the soap in the left bay
response: You put the wax soap into the left bay.
action: You put the weight in the right bay
response: (first taking the metal weight)

You put the metal weight into the right bay.
action: You examine the weight
response: A kilogram. Almost perfect. A replica of the wax soap has been laser-cut onto it.
action: Go northeast
response: A five-sided room, which the earthquake has just barely scratched. Five exits run from here, each marked with a letter, except for the one which stands blank on the north wall. To the northeast, a capital "A" hangs over a grate, which seems stuck to the walls, unopenable. Southeast, "B" rests over what remains of a tunnel that has caved in, some of the rocks fallen inside the room. Northwest and southwest, respectively, "C" and "D" sign two metal doors.

The earth shakes a little, maybe adjusting itself.
action: You look at the grate
response: Iron bars, the old style. Rust cover its surface. Beyond the grate only darkness and a dripping sound.
action: You look at the c door
response: Its massive vibertron structure is inert in this powerless environment.
action: You look at a the door
response: (southwest door)
This door is different. It is not made from vibertron, but all in solid steel. Its surface is marked by a yellow scar -- a logo of sorts -- depicting a triangle with rays all around it. The words "CAUTION: DANGER ZONE" are the only other detail. A knob rests on the right side of the door.
action: You examine the knob
response: This door is different. It is not made from vibertron, but all in solid steel. Its surface is marked by a yellow scar -- a logo of sorts -- depicting a triangle with rays all around it. The words "CAUTION: DANGER ZONE" are the only other detail. A knob rests on the right side of the door.
action: You look at the ne
response: You see nothing unexpected in that direction.

The light from the ceiling vibrates randomly, then it calms down.
action: You look at the splinter
response: (first opening the barred gate)
(first unlocking the barred gate)
You lack a key that fits the barred gate.

It is vaguely heart shaped. Its crystal resonates to the colors of the surroundings, shifting from pink to blue through all the spectrum.
action: You put Elektron on the knob
response: The surface of southwest door is not good for that.

The earth shakes a little, maybe adjusting itself.
action: You hit the gate with the bar
response: It would probably ruin both the steel bar and the barred gate.
action: You go north
response: The polished look of this area shouldn't betray its soul. A wing of containment rooms, each used for a specific purpose, as stated by the signs appended to each of the doors in the corridor. Many are storerooms for quarantined specimens, chambers armored against radiation, explosions and other unpredictable events. But the rest, lined in rows of hundreds, are just detention cells for human convicts. Among the many, two are open, west of here and further north.

A distant dripping sound echoes somewhere.
action: Go west
response: A wall, covered in monitors. A table, unfurnished except for some lined square buttons in the middle and a lonely terminal, sitting on a corner. This is a sightseeing tour over the detention center.
action: You put the case in the hole
response: Now, this is freudian.
action: You go to the west
response: The dark interiors of this hall, washed in a pale greenish dye, remind you of a hospital. A few corridors exit the chamber to the east, north and south, all marked by a red sign respectively to "the Wastes", "the Cells" and "the Pentagon". A tunnel exits to the southeast.

The earth shakes a little, maybe adjusting itself.
action: You look at the door
response: There is no way of telling how this "door" can be opened.. On it, four small dots draw a perfect line, in its center.

The dots look like tiny holes in the center of the "door", one above the other in a linear sequence. Light pulsates inside two of them.
action: You examine the dots
response: The dots look like tiny holes in the center of the "door", one above the other in a linear sequence. Light pulsates inside two of them.
action: You check your inventory
response: You're carrying a wax soap, a disc labeled "Gamma", a glass case, a black box, a steel bar, a new railway ticket, some Report files and an E-Pad.
action: You go to wagon
response: Moving very carefully, you manage to put one step in front of the other, above the deep, until you get to...

One step at a time. Very, very carefully.

You go north to the cave mouth, southeast to the hollow grounds, west to the molten span, south to the rails' end, southwest to the last steel overlook and west to the broken wagon.

The crumpled floor rests inclined by forty degrees, making it very hard to stay on foot. You hold on to a bench, its metal handles your last resort against a fall. Light buzzes inside broken fluorescent lamps and sparks ignite the emptiness with futile effort. You are overwhelmed by... the gravity of the situation.
action: You examine the bench
response: Sparks crackle under the seat, in the safety of the alcove.

The flames burst in a minor explosion, sending sparks all around the place.
action: You look at the bench
response: Sparks crackle under the seat, in the safety of the alcove.
action: You jump
response: I'd be more polite with gravity, while balancing over a kilometer long chasm.
action: You leave
response: The chasm is under you. Its teeth close on the rails like the mouth of an all-devouring creature. You balance above nothing, an acrobat clinging to his own life, the only reasonable exit awaiting to the northeast.

A broken wagon is dangling from the last of the rails, to the west. Light buzzes inside.

The flames burst in a minor explosion, sending sparks all around the place.
action: You look down
response: You see nothing unexpected in that direction.

The flames burst in a minor explosion, sending sparks all around the place.
action: You go to Cells
response: You go into the gap.

You walk past the vibertron door, which silently opens around you.

You go northeast to the rails' end, north to the molten span, west to the abandoned warehouse, north to the inside the hut, north again to the featureless corridor, west to the featureless corridor, west again to the blinking room, north to the cold pyramid, north again to the quartz tunnel, northwest to Quarantine and north to the cells.

The polished look of this area shouldn't betray its soul. A wing of containment rooms, each used for a specific purpose, as stated by the signs appended to each of the doors in the corridor. Many are storerooms for quarantined specimens, chambers armored against radiation, explosions and other unpredictable events. But the rest, lined in rows of hundreds, are just detention cells for human convicts. Among the many, two are open, west of here and further north.
action: You examine the wall
response: The writings have been scratched in blood. Nails and finger parts are still clinging to the raped wall.

I found the way    There is a way
Itch itch itch
Help me
Apocalypse comes from down under
They all speak in riddles    They all speak to me     I can hear
them

Then, the single writing that catches your attention:

The FIRST initiative. Their testament. I have seen it. This is all going to end. Use the bounds use their number.
action: Research bounds
response: The sum of the 237 rules by which the ASA Republican Worlds work.
They are divided into seven sections, each made up by at least 20 so-called "initiatives". Only the first two Bounds contain just one Initiative each. Those were written in the Ancient Days before the reforming of the Republic.
action: Go south
response: The polished look of this area shouldn't betray its soul. A wing of containment rooms, each used for a specific purpose, as stated by the signs appended to each of the doors in the corridor. Many are storerooms for quarantined specimens, chambers armored against radiation, explosions and other unpredictable events. But the rest, lined in rows of hundreds, are just detention cells for human convicts. Among the many, two are open, west of here and further north.

The light from the ceiling vibrates randomly, then it calms down.
action: Go west
response: A wall, covered in monitors. A table, unfurnished except for some lined square buttons in the middle and a lonely terminal, sitting on a corner. This is a sightseeing tour over the detention center.
action: You examine terminal
response: A tap display and a vibertron surface. It is on, maybe self-powered.
action: You examine the display
response: (the functioning terminal)
A tap display and a vibertron surface. It is on, maybe self-powered.
action: You tap the display
response: (the functioning terminal)
There are three blank spaces and a virtual numeric keyboard on the terminal. Maybe you have to enter a code on it.
action: You enter 237 on the terminal
response: You type the number into terminal, and the screen wakes up. What follows sends frigid whiplashes through your spine.

Initiative One (or First initiative)

All reunited, the Council of the Thirteen pledges eternal secrecy
upon this Initiative, which will not be traded, in any part, at any cost.

The icy mantle under Monarch (System KFS - Andromeda galaxy) has
been pierced. What the first human probes have found can only be described as the remnants of a former civilization, the mortal spoils of which can be trusted as ultimately lost. A series of globular machines lays in a pattern (called the Hyeromatrix), hidden under the very mantle of the earth. All forty-four of those machines (called the Hyerotropes) are dormant but still present a form of "living" electromagnetic and geo-gravitational power. Beyond this, an unknown energy array seems to be pulsing inside them, out of the usual spectrum. Whatever the structures are, there is indeed no way of stating that they aren't alien in nature.

Moreso, the radiance emitted by one of the bigger spheres is very similar to the fast decaying fingerprints of the Event residue. This MUST be noted as extremely important.

As the coded memories recount, the Event Primeval was a star-shattering event that devoured entirely our neighbor galaxy. An energy pattern so similar could mean the Event can be replicated -- or even controlled and slaved to one's benefit.

before the Event happened. We now have time to study and understand how the Event started, to avoid this New Heaven being destroyed by forces as of now uncontrollable. For this reason, a containment cage will be closed around the forty-four Hyerotropes and investigative labs will be built under the Monarch's crust.

By order of the Council of the Thirteen, the cage will be named "Construct" and the labs "the Settlements". For obvious secrecy reasons, the real motives behind the two buildings will be concealed from the population.
Monarch Bastion Satellite, 12/05/8199.
(signed by the thirteen members of the Council)

You stand, shocked.

So this is why they killed Andy. This is the secret they were
trying to keep.
This time, tears are held back by a forceful rage, contaminating you like an alien virus.

Then, something more sinister comes into stage.

The Hyerotrope can replicate the Event. The whole of Andromeda
would be...
action: You throw the case
response: As the case hits the ground it shatters to pieces. The crystals made their job.
action: You take all
response: perfect machine: Taken.
Elektron: Taken.
action: You check what you're carrying
response: You're carrying an Elektron, a perfect machine, a wax soap, a disc labeled "Gamma", a black box, a steel bar, a new railway ticket, some Report files and an E-Pad.
action: You put Gamma on the cylinder
response: You try the disk "Gamma" on the perfect machine. It fits perfectly, the lines protruding from it matching the cuts on the base. The four dots blink twice, then start strobing and dancing to the rhythm of some unheard music. The perfect machine flees from your hands and start levitating in front of you. Then, shrieking like a wraith, it flies away, jumping into the very ground and digging itself an escape. A fierce quake shakes the room like a cocktail mixer. Something must have occurred somewhere.
action: You go to the nail
response: You go into the gap.

You go south to the cold pyramid, south again to the blinking room, east to the featureless corridor, east again to the featureless corridor, east again to the featureless corridor, north to the dark recess, north again to the dark lab and west to the nail.

Another lab, where light is just a thick, yellow smoke at nose-height. All seems in place: the cabinets, the tables, the displays. Even a terminal, which sits on the northeast corner of the room, seems real enough to push the thought it could actually be functional.

Where the enormous talon once stood, now is a black gap, opening on the west wall.
action: Go west
response: You dare enter the black gap. Slowly proceeding, you find a way into another section of the settlements.

You find yourself in an empty room, except for a large parallelepipedon standing in its center. The walls are dusty and black, the floor is mere concrete, coarse and unattended. A large mirror dresses the west wall, almost completely. Its presence betrays this room as an inspection laboratory, where dangerous things could be tested in a relative safe place. The mirror is probably a one way window for scientists to look through towards the outcome of their effort.

What is this, you mutter to yourself. What was examined
here?

The Elektron beeps twice in your hands.

The thing that you thought was an alien, enormous talon, now pops in from the north wall, showing itself for what it is: a wheel. It was part of a big machine, now it is torn in two and useless.

Big idiot. Things are getting onto your nerves, isn't it?

You breathe slowly and regain your calm after a few moments.
action: You examine the parallelepiped
response: It is simply a large piece of metal, closed onto something that protrudes from its top. Maybe a detention machine for things to be examined.
action: You put Elektron on the parallelepiped
response: You link the Elektron to the parallelepipedon. The display on the device blinks twice: Some text appears on it.

It reads: Alpha radiation discovered. Alert. Alpha radiation discovered. Alert. Do not activate. Do not activate.

Alpha radiation... we must be near the source. We must be near the cave.
action: You tap the display
response: A shock rumbles through your arms, as you are crossed by a huge power surge. You keep the balance by chance.

The earth shakes a little, maybe adjusting itself.
action: You examine the parallelepiped
response: It is simply a large piece of metal, closed onto something that protrudes from its top. Maybe a detention machine for things to be examined.

The Elektron is connected to the parallelepipedon.
action: Look around
response: You find yourself in an empty room, except for a large parallelepipedon standing in its center. The walls are dusty and black, the floor is mere concrete, coarse and unattended. A large mirror dresses the west wall, almost completely.

A round object protrudes from the parallelepipedon's top, a sort of circular maze. It is the last part of something bigger, evidently stuck inside the cage.

The thing that you thought was an alien, enormous talon, now pops in from the north wall, showing itself for what it is: a wheel. It was part of a big machine, now it is torn in two and useless.

The Elektron blinks faintly, connected to the parallelepipedon.
action: You look at the maze
response: A sort of metal cylinder, half stuck in the caging parallelepipedon, levigated beyond perfection by unknown forces. The exposed edge of the circular object is a tangle of tiny cuts, each twisted into the other in an unique pattern.
action: You take the cylinder
response: It is stuck into the parallelepipedon.
action: You put the soap on the cylinder
response: You press the wax soap onto the circular maze. One of the sides is now a perfect (reversed) replica of the circular maze itself.

The light from the ceiling vibrates randomly, then it calms down.
action: You take the soap
response: You already have that.
action: You examine the soap
response: A remarkably old wax soap, one of the kind momma used to wash clothes when you were but a child. It now bears the impression of a circular maze.
action: You go to Pentagon
response: Before leaving, you remove the Elektron from the parallelepipedon.

You go into the gap.

You walk past the vibertron door, which silently opens around you.

You go east to the nail, east again to the dark lab, south to the dark recess, south again to the featureless corridor, west to the featureless corridor, west again to the featureless corridor, west again to the blinking room, north to the cold pyramid, north again to the quartz tunnel, northwest to Quarantine and south to the pentagon.

A five-sided room, which the earthquake has just barely scratched. Five exits run from here, each marked with a letter, except for the one which stands blank on the north wall. To the northeast, a capital "A" hangs over a grate, which seems stuck to the walls, unopenable. Southeast, "B" rests over what remains of a tunnel that has caved in, some of the rocks fallen inside the room. Northwest and southwest, respectively, "C" and "D" sign two metal doors.
action: Go southwest
response: This is yet another lab. The walls are made of the same old white plastic as the rest of the corridors that crowd the place. As opposite to the rest of the environment, this large room seems unscarred. The yellow floor is dotted by tracks in black-striped adhesives, drawing lines around the structure that rests in the center of the chamber. There is not much by the way of furniture, except for a single, foreign machine.

A cube, three meters wide, sleeps in the very center of the room. A strong, tight bundle of wires moves from its bottom towards the eastern wall, where it disappears in a plug. Two bays are open on the machine's top. Something that looks like a laser cannon points at the right bay.
action: You put the soap in the left bay
response: You put the wax soap (replicating a circular maze) into the left bay.
action: You examine the right bay
response: In the right bay is a metal weight (cut to resemble a wax soap (replicating a circular maze)).

The light from the ceiling vibrates randomly, then it calms down.
action: You examine the weight
response: A kilogram. Almost perfect. A replica of the circular maze has been laser-cut onto it.
action: You go to the windowed habitat
response: You go into the gap.

You find a way into another section of the settlements.

You go northeast to the pentagon, north to Quarantine, southeast to the quartz tunnel, south to the cold pyramid, south again to the blinking room, east to the featureless corridor, east again to the featureless corridor, east again to the featureless corridor, north to the dark recess, north again to the dark lab, west to the nail and west again to the windowed habitat.

You find yourself in an empty room, except for a large parallelepipedon standing in its center. The walls are dusty and black, the floor is mere concrete, coarse and unattended. A large mirror dresses the west wall, almost completely.

A round object protrudes from the parallelepipedon's top, a sort of circular maze. It is the last part of something bigger, evidently stuck inside the cage.

The thing that you thought was an alien, enormous talon, now pops in from the north wall, showing itself for what it is: a wheel. It was part of a big machine, now it is torn in two and useless.
action: You put the weight on cylinder
response: You try your mockup of an eventual disc on the circular maze. It fits perfectly, the lines protruding from it matching the cuts on the base. Lights from inside the parallelepipedon flash then start strobing and dancing to the rhythm of some unheard music.

All of a sudden, the very room starts trembling, as if another fierce quake was shaking it around. The mirror vibrates but resists the shock, while the parallelepipedon and the strange object trapped inside it both sink in the ground, forever lost. The concrete shatters and closes over the hole like a worm's mouth.

The jolt sends you flying again. The walls begin crumbling down, in a rehearsal of Doomsday. Something very big must have happened somewhere.
action: You look at dots
response: The dots look like tiny holes in the center of the "door", one above the other in a linear sequence. All the dots are currently off.
action: You touch the door
response: You push the frame. Now it vibrates with a greater charge. It trembles a bit and then, smoothly and silently, slides and opens a real door on the side of the dome. As you release your hands, it closes back with no sound. You are confident it will let you in, now.
action: You enter the dome
response: The door of the Hyerotrope opens and lets you in, finally.

Upon entering, the Elektron bursts in flames, a power shock running through it like a technological virus. You have to drop it and witness how it is ultimately consumed. At the same time, the E-Pad in your hand sends its final beep.

A perfect sphere, cut in two by a substance that looks like glass and stands as a floor for an eventual passenger: This is what the Hyerotrope is. At the center of the stage, a cube rests like a sort of solitary chair. There is no visible way out and, although you are quite certain of where the door once was, it now has disappeared.

The tides. They have come.

You were not fast enough, and you realize it as splinters of the world surrounding you start floating in the air and all of a sudden cracks start opening everywhere. Without the Fatimah Initiative rolling, the whole of Monarch will be flooded by the rising oceans.
action: You examine cube
response: A faint light glows inside the cube. Something makes you believe it's a sort of... uhm, pedestal.
action: You check your inventory
response: You're carrying a dead E-Pad, a black box, a steel bar, a new railway ticket and some Report files.
action: You sit on the cube
response: When the world around finally falls, you take your time just to climb the glowing cube, and see what happens. Seconds later, the last fierce earthquake devours the world in a single gulp. A light so dense it can barely be endured fills the Hyerotrope and the dome starts breathing as if it was alive.

Then, you are caught by the sensation of being pulled downwards, like a drunk man in an elevator...
Report to the Council about the discoveries around the Alpha
Radiation

What we have here may be, thus far, the most important discovery
in human recent history, if not on a bigger scale. Upon scanning the recently exposed areas underneath the University basement (after the last minor quakes that interested the area) our team found a new kind of radiation -- from now on called "Alpha Radiation" (AR) -- springing from a single spot under the second and third layers of crust. That means beyond the icy layer, too.
This radiation, the kind of which has never been measured before,
has been fast growing in the last few weeks, reaching a point where it cannot be further ignored by the scientific committee. The latest of our discoveries stated without any shadow of a doubt that something enormous is at stake.
It was Dr. Re's that first linked the strange spectrum to the
residual fingerprint of the Event energy burst, that "background noise" that still plagues the Andromeda dark matter gravitational pull, with the one relative to the AR. As noted by the scientific crew, the Event residue is what is forcing the galaxy to shrink, due to its connection with potentials yet unknown which raise the mass of the galaxy itself to the point where the universe's eternal expansion is stopped and reversed. Now it looks like a similar energy is growing under our city, less than three kilometers below the surface.
What we suggest is a deep scan -- and maybe a human driven probe
-- in the interested area in order to find out what's happening down there. The volcanic crust separating what was once the glacial layer from the lower halls cannot possibly be thick enough to hold those energies at bay. Nor can it be trusted to keep a region larger than one third of Monarch's surface hidden from whatever it is that rests down there. In my humble opinion, the chances that former colonizations could have gotten in there before the glacial age (trapped? self-defending?) are quite high, especially now that we have discovered the Alpha-radiation.

In the end, we know nothing about Monarch before the first
settlements from the outer galaxies came into Andromeda more than one thousand years ago. Technology back then was not sufficient to dig as far as we have recently, and the glacial layer was only partially melted and covered by the constructs. I suggest further investigation before we start -- as we should -- to probe the source of the radiation. The evidence of structures unknown to the humans is too much to ignore.
An example could be the existence of the Hyerotropes. These were
more than once hinted at as some sort of alien machinery used for unknown purposes.
A Hyerotrope -- or Gravitational Sphere -- is, indeed, an unknown artifact. We can only suppose they landed on Monarch before the glacial layer was made, as the seventeen specimens found all were under the icy layer or half protruding from it. The magnetic spectrum they emit is actually almost purely geo-gravitational, with small sparks of radio waves, and this suggests they were a sort of "anchor" for something bigger which needed to stop by the surface.
Ultimate considerations about the Hyerotropes cannot be made, as no-one has yet succeeded in truly activating them. Whatever the power source which keeps the Spheres "alive", it must still be there, and this is confirmed by the scattered energy ghosts that flow around their perfect structures.

And then there is the Alpha Radiation.

weeks. We can only suppose it was -NOT- there before Dr. Re's
and his scientific crew discovered it. And we can hope it is
nothing to worry about.
Still, hoping is not all we have to do.

contact with the AR, what we think about its relation to the Hyerotropes, and a full analysis of its spectrum and wavelength.

-- The Monarch University Scientific Staff, Dr. Mastiff, Dr.
Re's
The Hyerotrope stops. A door opens and you get out, breathing hard.

The place is damp. You lift your eyes and what you see is -- again -- breathtaking.

You stand in the middle of a winding canyon, high several hundreds of meters and long as much. Luminescent cracks open on the walls, lighting up the place with a spectral voice. The ground seems to be polished as if human-made. The ravine goes on forever to the south and north of here.

As you exit the Hyerotrope, the door closes behind you. Seconds later, the sphere starts glowing and begins flying upwards, until it disappears from where it came.

You watch it speechlessly.
action: You examine the cracks
response: They are very similar to the thin cuts you saw crawling around the Hyerotrope. This time, though, the seem more coincidental.
action: Go north
response: You travel the canyon for half an hour, until you come to...

The ravine ends here. A giant gate, bulky in its iron hinges, towers in front of you. Cranks and gears seem to operate it, from above the twelve meters tall columns at its sides. The canyon lurks away to the south.

A metal ladder on the left of the gate climbs towards a cabin clinging steadily to the canyon's walls.
action: You go up
response: You try and climb the ladder, not afraid of the missing rung. The second and third creak sinisterly as you try and reach for them. You need too much leverage to reach for the fourth peg.
action: You look at the ladder
response: Not the comfortable ladder you found in that waste basket. Here, rungs are divided by a gap of fifty centimeters. The very first rung is lost, a hole carving the left leg.
action: You put the bar in the ladder
response: You try the bar, but it is too thick to fit. You need something smaller but equally strong.
action: You go south
response: You stand in the middle of a winding canyon, high several hundreds of meters and long as much. Luminescent cracks open on the walls, lighting up the place with a spectral voice. The ground seems to be polished as if human-made. The ravine goes on forever to the south and north of here.
action: Go south
response: The canyon abruptly comes to an end. Although the unending ravine crawls deeper to the south, something is blocking your steps.

When you recognize it, you fall to your knees.

The train on which you begun your journey is here, fallen like an evil adumbration. Among it, several other wagons and a whole section of the upper city. They must have traveled a long way: part of the disaster is still clinging to the canyon's walls, ornaments of despair burning in flames and fumes. Wreckages mix with concrete, concrete mixes with the rests of the human race.

A waterfall comes splashing down from a ledge a hundred meters above you. It must be the first result of the tides devouring what's above.
action: You examine the train
response: You are certain: This is the train you took in your futile trip to the now sunk University Campus. The laths are so distorted it would look like a crumpled ball of paper... if it was not for the black, charred human parts littering its intestines.
action: You enter the train
response: That is no longer viable as a vehicle. It's just a mess of contorted laminas.
action: Search train
response: You know what you are looking for: something sturdy enough to sustain your weight and thin enough to fit the hole in that ladder.

You rummage through the debris and the human rests until you find what you seek: a piece of a train's bench.
action: You take the bench
response: You already have that.
action: You look at the bench
response: A sturdy, metallic pole, once part of a bench from the train.
action: You examine the waterfall
response: The oceans are devouring Monarch. Soon, a lot of water will come down, flooding this place.
action: Go north
response: You travel the canyon for half an hour, until you come to...

The ravine ends here. A giant gate, bulky in its iron hinges, towers in front of you. Cranks and gears operate it, from above the twelve meters tall columns at its sides. The canyon lurks away to the south.

A metal ladder on the left of the gate climbs towards a cabin clinging steadily to the canyon's walls.
action: You put bench in the ladder
response: The new 'rung' perfectly fits. You stick it in a side of the ladder and force it into the other, and now it serves as a perfect anchorage.
action: You go up
response: With the new rung in place, you find anchorage to climb inside the cabin.

Dust is the main inhabitant, here, as one would have foreseen. It covers the wooden desk and the big windows on the north wall, the broken chair that now rests like a sleeping cat on the far corner of the cabin, and the ancient computing devices dropped dead on the table.

The metal ladder descends to the south side of the gate.

An old, battered diary rests on a corner of the wooden desk, its cover bloated by time and water. It looks miraculously intact.
action: You read the diary
response: Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
It is not the best job in the universe, but still... I have seen worse. Marko has seen worse. They sent him to the digging facility. You know what they say about those goddam machines. They
radiate. They give you the Big C. I know better than going
into there, that place. They call it the center of the earth.
No wonder it's the dampest place of all. Feels like sleepin in a b***hole.

> Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
action: Go north
response: Third month, day eleven
> Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
More of the military, today. I think I've opened the dam at least seventy times. I've seen the tanks and the cannons they bring in there. Can't tell for sure, but bet they are trying to open one of those balls of metal. It's been a rumble all day. A bit tired. The computers are off and I don't really like it here. It's getting boring by the day.

Third month, day eleven
> Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
action: You go north
response: Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
> Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
Another day opening and closing and opening and closing. One of them was the general. That Hickk'errs, guy. I've seen his eyes. Those are blank eyes. He looks at you, but he's not really looking, you know? It's like his mind is always somewhere else. I've heard them talk, this morning. He and the professor. They said something about
the beacon. They knew I was listenin but didn't care. They
think I'm outta their league, that I dunno nothing. But I
know what they talkin about. The beacon is the thing that
drove us here, from our galaxy. We built it, sent it in space and followed. I know what they talking about.

Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
> Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
action: Go north
response: Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
> Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
General said this morning a new set of experiments were going to be launched. They said no civilians would stay here, no matter what. I'm a civilian, too, in some way. I mean, I have the tags and all of that, but I'm not in charge of the weapons. So they think about me as some kind of white collar. They are going to do something dangerous down there. In the b***hole. They are gonna fire things at the metal balls. I'd like I was a civilian, for real. They are not lettin me go. They want me here to operate the dam. In case something goes wrong. If something goes wrong I wanna be in the other side of the universe, that's for sure. Did I mention this is NOT the best job out there?

Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
> Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
action: Go north
response: Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
> Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
The world didn't end. I'm still here, opening and closing. Yesterday, tho, something occurred. There was a flash an then all the walls begun rumblin. It was not only the walls, but everything. The ceiling cracked and -- I swear -- a chunk of ice large like a tank
came crushing down. It killed seven people. None I knew, fortunately. They were all so much in panic I thought the world was really gonna end. But then it all got normal and everything got back to quiet. No sign of the general, today. Guess he has to smell those things. He's never here when something occurs.

I forgot to say something. During the tremors (it was not a quake, more of the ground adjusting, I've heard some say), something odd happened. The computers went suddenly on, just for ten seconds or so. The were all broken, you know. No signal for two months. But then they wake up and there's this white light. And all things begun moving towards that hole in the big chamber, the one just before the center of the earth. It looked like they were PULLED there by some sort of ghost.

Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
> Fifth month, day seven
Sixth month, day eighteen
action: Go north
response: Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
> Sixth month, day eighteen
It is over. I'm not sure I'm unhappy about it. They will send me back to that satellite but, what the hell, better than here, even my aunt's. The last days were horrible. More died on walls crumbling and the earth cracked once, spilling lava and rocks everywhere. I heard Marko is dead, too. They don't let anyone beyond the dam and I can't tell for sure, but I heard some say he got devoured by one of those spheres. "It has eaten him alive", they said. Poor Marko. I can't wait for the gathering. I wanna go home. Even if it takes me another three years like in the first trip.

Third month, day eleven
Third month, day twenty-three
Third month, day twenty-four
Fifth month, day two
Fifth month, day seven
> Sixth month, day eighteen
action: You look at desk
response: A slab of wood, fastened to the wall, with no legs. It is surmounted by a console, rust biting at it with no pity. On the table are some computers and several light bulbs, now broken and useless.
action: You examine the chair
response: It lays by your feet, a wasted amount of metal and a stiff cushion.
action: You examine computer
response: Dust is more than a soft layer on these. It just has become
part of the old computers, like the shell for a nut. The
screens have been broken -- one from the inside, the other punched in -- and there is no sign of a keyboard or a touch screen. The wires have been removed by force, and now just a knotted bunch of cords hangs loose and useless.
action: You examine the console
response: A set of rusted buttons and some light bulbs, blown or fused. The main object on the console is a plastic lever. You can only suppose it was used to open the big gate, downstairs.
action: You pull the lever
response: You maneuver the lever, but it doesn't budge. So, you decide to try harder. As a result, the lever breaks and the longer part ends in your hand, now useless.

Won by discouragement, you yell a heartily yaaugh! and throw
the lever at the windows in front of you. The windows themselves, battered by the cold winds of time, give with less effort and crash, opening a new outlet on the north side of the cabin.
action: You go north
response: You pass through the newly opened window, careful not to cut your hands with the smashed glass, then descend to the floor with a leap.

A river cuts this massive chamber in two. On the other side, its filled with stocks of any kind and size. On this one, it looks like a showcase of ancient war machinery, all lined up and packed for the show. A human-sized cave mouth exits to the north. Around it, all sorts of maze-like channels cut the earth and dive deep into the soil and walls.

The broken lever you threw at the window is here, on the ground.
action: You examine the river
response: It is a bubbling river. It comes from a crack in the north
wall and dives into the earth a few meters below the gate walls. The bed must fish deep enough to be scalded by the molten layer.
action: You examine the machinery
response: This is military equipment. Tanks, cannons and so forth, all packed up and lined like a showcase in a very odd underground mall.

On one of the packings you notice a resume of sorts. A single typed page, torn on one side, which title reads: "Essay on the Beacon, closing notes". You pick it up.
action: You read the resume
response: The results of the tests on the Hyerotropes are still fuzzy.

In the end, at least, we understood how could our 'beacon' reach
so far in such a relatively short time. Almost two millions parsecs in less than 400 years. That would mean traveling at least 6,250 times faster than light and, although certain velocities have been hypothesized, nothing we ever witnessed reached them.

The Hyeromatrix works as an attractor. The energy spectrum of the whole matrix (as opposite to the single sphere's) is capable of bending the structure of the Higgs Bosom's pattern, articulating a fierce vacuum-like tunnel which can pull, evidently, from a very long distance. The Hyeromatrix must have sensed the 'beacon' and decided to make it its own.

The single Hyerotropes have proven themselves 'thinking machines',
if that is what we want to call them, or even living beings.
Their scattered pattern in the underground of this cold planet is not coincidental and, contrarily, the matrix has the purpose to actually enhance the spheres' abilities and reach. They breathe, as a living being, and as a living being the pollute the atmosphere when doing so: The ethereal substance they grow is toxic to the surroundings as noted by research Omega-33.
Ultimately, their presence indicates a superior meaning to the
whole universe, one which we never thought of -- at least scientifically -- up to now. We can suppose the Hyerotropes being a species on their own, breaking the walls of human research on the matter quite abruptly. Or we can hypothesize an even more powerful entity at work, somewhere, to operate those things. In both cases, there is much about the evolution of the stars we can gather from the discovery.

--Prof. G.D., Monarch Research Facility.

Addendum// The Hyerotropes emit a very subtle but very strong
energy. It is something we almost overlooked, as it is so far out of the usual spectrum that it is invisible if not searched for purposefully. The energy has become radiating with more intensity in the last few days. It seems a single beam has been directed towards the very center of our galaxy. We decided to keep studying the Hyerotropes, in the hope of finding answers about the recent Multiple Supernovae Effect registered in [...] --- the page is torn here,
the rest of the text missing.
action: You examine the stocks
response: Too far to distinguish. They look like scientific machines. No more to be known.
action: Cross river
response: There must be a better way to die, right? One less painful.
action: Go north
response: You are in the cave. This is the ancient alcove and you are the first one to enter its vaults in a millennia. The cave opens in every direction. To the north, a higher ceiling welcomes two apparently abandoned objects.
action: You look at the objects
response: A metallic form, barely discernible from this distance, and another Hyerotrope. Although you are quite far, you judge it to be at least two times bigger than the one you traveled into.
action: Go north
response: The Hyerotrope is giving off light, a dense orange glow, and -- yes-- it is bigger than the one you used as an elevator. At least five times bigger. Four big dots flare on it, all lined together like soldiers in formation. The whole cave, although gigantic, is lit by its energy.

A strange object sits alongside the Hyerotrope, its rusty casing decaying and rotten.
action: You look at the object
response: Whatever it is, it must be alien in nature. You can't understand its form -- an octagonal prism surmounted by broken steel poles -- but surely recognize the solar panels that once must have powered it. A set of metallic legs holds it standing.

A metal sign was planted by someone near its base.
action: You look at the things
response: The belly of the beast is open. A rectangular thing, the likes of which you are very familiar with, sits almost unscarred by the remnants of a tight bird's nest of wires and circuitry. A golden plate, inscribed with drawings that finally have a meaning, marks another metallic slab.

The Hyerotrope starts moving.

You are flooded again by the sensation of being pushed around, this time upwards. As you levitate, the surrounding stars slowly fade, until they are substituted by the reality of it all.

And you see the end of History for what it is. The lands devoured by the quakes and the tides. Whole cities swallowed by the fierce strength of Fatimah's gravitational pull. The rest of the human race devoured. All while you are suspended mid air above the mayhem in the Hyerotrope's womb.
After a while, another, smaller sphere starts climbing the sky, stopping at your height. And then a second, and a third. And in minutes they are dozens, levitating and rotating around the biggest one, which you inhabit.
They begin wandering the cosmos, and your sphere does the same, slowly but relentlessly. As you leave the planet, a strong, white light begins pouring from the Hyerotropes and, finally, you understand.

That's it, you mourn. History repeats herself.

We came from another galaxy, this you know. We came here a millennia ago following one of our probes, looking for what the ASA First Council called "a New Heaven". We came here and barely survived a cosmic event that annihilated an entire galaxy and decimated life in those neighboring it.

What was that Event and why did it occur no one will ever know. No one but you. You still lack the motivation but indeed have found out what it's like to be at the cyclone's eye. What can clear a galaxy off the screen.

The Hyerotropes. The plagues God sent upon the sinful mortals to
begin the end. And we thought we could be able to control them.

As if one could control the Apocalypse.

You get close to the rectangular player which fell off the ancient stellar beacon that now rests below you and straighten it, finding a perfect balance in the imploding universe. While everything that is is swallowed by the final, white fire, you admire that drawing -- a man and a woman, one alongside the other like twins in a child's sketch -- and the hope it was infused with.
Then, you activate the recording.

Andromeda finally awakens, in its swan-song, while the first notes from the Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major start playing
for the last time.
action: BEACON
response: The 'beacon' is a probe an old race sent into the void to gather information about the universe. This is the only part in the game which is not fictional. If you are comfortable with space-related trivia, you may have recognized it: The golden laser disc, the male and female sketched drawings, the mathematically-perfect song from Bach. It is Voyager II. Our beacon in the sky.

Yes, if you didn't get it, that's the sordid truth: Humanity in Andromeda came from our galaxy. It was our beloved Milky Way which was wiped off the radar by the Event. We are the Ancestors. Or, well... we WERE.

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT, UNDO the last command, know about the true nature of the BEACON, find what's WRONG with the technical stuff or read some AFTERWORDS from the author?
action: Wrong
response: This game was not intended as a maniacally perfect scientific resource for space travel. That said, the author put so much effort in trying to make everything realistic. Apart from the obvious things that couldn't be (i.e. a train falling for a kilometer doesn't only crumple: it disintegrates) there is one which stood hidden until much too late.

The 'beacon' has been pulled through space by the Hyerotropes. They made it fly at 6k times light-speed. If that's so... what about the humans? How could the First Colonists reach Andromeda WITHOUT such power and knowledge?

Well, they couldn't.

Given there is no Earth date in the game, one could argue that the voyage took a really huge amount of time and that the Colony indeed reached through space around -- what do you think? 10.000 a.D.? 100.000? Well, nope: Andromeda is 2.5 MILLIONS lightyears from Earth. At the speeds we can reach nowadays, the trip would have lasted around 90 BILLIONS years.

The one solution can be the use of a wormhole, a rip in the fabrics of reality that creates a passage to distant places... but we all know that would have been a deus ex machina. That's why it is not mentioned ingame.

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT, UNDO the last command, know about the true nature of the BEACON, find what's WRONG with the technical stuff or read some AFTERWORDS from the author?
action: Afterwords
response: I was in my car, early summer of 2011, driving my wife to our mountain resort, when I started teasing her with some scientific trivia about the galaxy of Andromeda. Kid was in the backseat, already dozed off, the sun did shine and the birds were singing. I begun flapping my never-stopping mouth about distances, dimensions, the sheer number of stars involved, when she begun yawning. I got the message and shut up.

But didn't shut up on the inside.

That is how my first IF story had birth. I run to the house, turned on my Macbook Air (freshly acquired, and just a week before the release of the new one, ouch) and begun coding again, never fully realizing I was going to complete the task, for the first time ever.

I've first played and then tried to write IF in the mid-Eighties. I was nearly a teen, the world was splendid and everything quite worked for the best. The amount of time I could devote to my hobbies was impressive. The Hobbit was always running and I was
struggling a lot trying to understand english and what to do with that singing bastard Thorin the dwarf. More that a quarter of century has passed, and I'm still here, messing with trolls and an english parser. Meanwhile, almost ten -- or twenty, who can tell? -- adventure games have danced on my screen waiting to be designed and coded. I never got much beyond the few introductory rooms.
The occasion came when I stumbled upon the IFComp. Edition
2011 was about to open and I had a game halfway to being finished that could maybe, and just maybe, fit in. All I had to do was deciding how the world of Monarch was going to be saved and how I could code that damn soap-over-metal puzzle.

Summer passed by in a whoosh, and by the end of September the game was ready.

Or so I thought.

Coding a kind of game which is by far the most similar thing to a novel that could exist in a language that is not one's own is a rather terrific experience. Although I'm quite fluent in English and have classes listening to me from all around the globe -- I'm a graphic designer and expert on editorial design, which I teach in what you'd call a Master School for Gifted Youngsters -- I soon discovered that the river which spans between the speech and the writing is a very wide and turbulent one. Fortunately, my first proofreaders did an awesome job in putting straight my bulky texts (yeah: if you'd seen Andromeda before their intervention, you'd think this one
was, like, Hemingway).
So, I entered the Comp. For one and a half months, I've been in awe. I don't think I was exactly aware of what I've stepped into.
I'm willing to believe that, if I'd known, I'd rather go around naked downtown than publish a game in so a renowned competition.

And that was nice, 'cause I had the opportunity, otherwise precluded, to step into a new, fascinating world. I had an audience. I had critics. I had a chance.

I wanted to be a writer all my life. Since when ten years old, I filled notebooks with short tales and novels-wannabe. I actually did write a novel, one that is trying to find a place in the horrible italian fiction maelstrom, but I never had someone other than my wife or friends read anything that's mine. Now it seems, looking at the number in the online transcript of the first release of this game, more than 600 people have tried my game. On IFDB (at the time this is being written), Andromeda averages on 3 stars, with the
German scene gifting me with 4.
I don't really know how this second release will fare, out there. What I know is that one of my strongest desires, the one I keep asking the sky to make real whenever I see a falling star, has become solid truth. And that's more than what one would sell his soul to hell for, believe me.

Now, only time will tell if I can be a writer or have to stick with graphics. But if I die tomorrow, at least I won't go away saying "nobody has ever read my work". Thank you all who participated. This was a blast.

--Marco Innocenti, Firenze (Italy), January 8, 2012.

Would you like to RESTART, RESTORE a saved game, QUIT, UNDO the last command, know about the true nature of the BEACON, find what's WRONG with the technical stuff or read some AFTERWORDS from the author?